Cristian Tomasetti, Ph.D.

ctomasetti@coh.org
626-256-4673
Cristian Tomasetti, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Cancer Prevention and Early Detection
Research Area
Cancer Prevention and Early Detection
Cancer Etiology and Evolution
Artificial Intelligence
Other Languages Spoken
Italian
Appointments
Director, Center for Cancer Prevention and Early Detection
Professor and Director, Division of Mathematics for Cancer Evolution and Early Detection, Department of Computational & Quantitative Medicine
Research Teams
Computational and Quantitative Medicine

Cristian Tomasetti, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Cancer Prevention and Early Detection at City of Hope, director of the Division of Mathematics for Cancer Evolution and Early Detection in the Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine at Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, and professor and director of the Division of Integrated Cancer Genomics at Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

Dr. Tomasetti is recognized internationally for his paradigm-shift contributions to the current understanding of cancer etiology and tumor evolution. By combining mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, and machine learning with experimental, epidemiological and DNA sequencing data, he has provided the first quantitative evidence for the significant role in cancer causation played by the normal, e.g., endogenous, accumulation of somatic mutations in the cells of the human body. As an applied mathematician, he currently leads the effort to develop novel blood tests and classification artificial intelligence algorithms for the early detection of cancer and monitoring of cancer patients.

Before joining City of Hope and TGen, he was an associate professor of Oncology and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University with appointments in the Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, in both the Department of Oncology (Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center) and the Department of Biostatistics (Bloomberg School of Public Health). Dr. Tomasetti holds a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park (December 2010). After his Ph.D., he was a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (January 2011 through June 2013), after which he became a faculty member at Hopkins (assistant professor, July 2013 through December 2017).

Location
Education & Experience
Degrees

  • 2010, Ph.D., Applied Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

  • 2008, M.A., Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

  • 2004, M.S., Financial Economics, Cal Poly University, Pomona, California

  • 2000, B.S., Financial Economics, Laurea in Economia e Commercio, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy

Fellowship

  • 2011-2013, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health and Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

Professional Experience

  • 2022-present, Director, Center for Cancer Prevention and Early Detection, City of Hope, Duarte, CA

  • 2022-present, Director, Division of Mathematics for Cancer Evolution and Early Detection, Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, Duarte, California

  • 2022-present, Professor and Director, Division of Integrated Cancer Genomics, Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, Arizona

  • 2018-2021, Associate Professor, Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine & Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland

  • 2013-2017, Assistant Professor, Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine & Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland

Awards & Memberships
Awards

  • 2020-2022, 2014–2019, Excellence in Teaching, Graduate Probability Theory, Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD

  • 2018, “Premio Santi Ilario e Taziano Citta di Gorizia" Award, Comune di Gorizia, Gorizia, Italy

  • 2017-2019, Translational Research Project Award (Johns Hopkins University), Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund

     

Memberships

  • 2016-present, American Association for Cancer Research

  • 2013-present, American Statistical Association

  • 2010-present, Society for Mathematical Biology 

Publications

  • Pénisson S, Lambert A, Tomasetti C. Evaluating cancer etiology and risk with a mathematical model of tumor evolution. Nat Commun 2022, 13:7224.

  • Tie J, Cohen JD, Lahouel K, Lo SN, Wang Y, Kosmider S, Wong R, Shapiro J, Lee M, Harris S, Khattak A, Burge M, Harris M, Lynam J, Nott L, Day F, Hayes T, McLachlan SA, Lee B, Ptak J, Silliman N, Dobbyn L, Popoli M, Hruban R, Lennon AM, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Tomasetti C, Gibbs P. Circulating Tumor DNA Analysis Guiding Adjuvant Therapy in Stage II Colon Cancer. N Engl J Med 2022, 386:2261-2272.

  • Lipscomb J, Horton S, Kuo A, Tomasetti C. Evaluating the Impact of Multi-Cancer Early Detection Testing on Health and Economic Outcomes: Toward a Decision Modeling Strategy. Cancer 2021, in press.

  • Afsari B, Kuo A, Zhang Y, Li L, Lahouel K, Danilova L, Favorov A, Rosenquist T, Grollman AP, Kinzler KW, Cope L, Vogelstein B, Tomasetti C. Supervised mutational signatures for obesity and other tissue-specific etiological factors in cancer. eLife 2021, 10: e61082.
  • Cohen JD, Douville C, Dudley J, Mog B, Popoli M, Ptak J, Dobbyn L, Silliman N, Schaefer J, Tie J, Gibbs P, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B. Detection of low-frequency DNA variants by targeted sequencing of the Watson and Crick strands. Nature Biotechnology 2021, DOI: 10.1038/s41587-021-00900-z.
  • Tie J, Wang Y, Cohen J, Li L, Hong W, Christie M, Wong HL, Kosmider S, Wong R, Thomson B, Choi J, Fox A, Field K, Burge M, Shannon J, Kotasek D, Tebbutt NC, Karapetis C, Underhill C, Haydon A, Schaeffer J, Ptak J, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Gibbs P. Circulating tumor DNA dynamics and recurrence risk in patients undergoing curative intent resection of colorectal cancer liver metastases: a prospective cohort study. Special Issue on Early detection and Minimal Residual Disease. PLoS Medicine 2021, 18(5): e1003620.
  • Akshintala V, Weiland CJS, Bhullar F, Kamal A, Kanthasamy K, Kuo A, Tomasetti C, Gurakar M, Drenth JPH, Yadav D, Elmunzer BJ, Reddy DN, Goenka MK, Kochhar R, Kalloo AN, Khashab MA, van Geenen EJM, Singh VK. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, intravenous fluids, pancreatic stents, or their combinations for the prevention of post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology 2021, 6(9): 733-742.
  • Tie J, Cohen JD, Lo S, Wang Y, Li L, Christie M, Lee M, Wong R, Kosmider S, Skinner I, Wong HL, Lee B, Burge ME, Yip D, Karapetis CS, Price TJ, Tebbutt NC, Haydon AM, Ptak J, Schaeffer MJ, Silliman N, Dobbyn L, Popoli M, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Gibbs P. Prognostic Significance of Post-Surgery Circulating Tumor DNA in Non-Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Individual Patient Pooled Analysis of Three Cohort Studies. Int J Cancer 2020, DOI: 10.1002/ijc.33312.
  • Lennon AM, Buchanan AH, Kinde I, Warren A, Honushefsky A, Cohain AT, Ledbetter DH, Sanfilippo F, Sheridan K, Rosica D, Adonizio CS, Hwang HJ, Lahouel K, Cohen JD, Douville C, Patel AA, Hagmann LN, Rolston DD, Malani N, Zhou S, Bettegowda C, Diehl DL, Urban B, Still CD, Kann L, Woods JI, Salvati ZM, Vadakara J, Leeming R, Bhattacharya P, Walter C, Parker A, Lengauer C, Klein A, Tomasetti C, Fishman EK, Hruban RH, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Papadopoulos N. Feasibility of blood testing combined with PET-CT to screen for cancer and guide intervention. Science 2020, 369(6499), eabb9601.
  • Douville C, Cohen JD, Ptak J, Popoli M, Schaefer J, Silliman N, Dobbyn L, Schoen RE, Tie J, Gibbs P, Goggins M, Wolfgang CL, Wang T-L, Shih I-M, Karchin R, Lennon AM, Hruban RH, Tomasetti C, Bettegowda C, Kinzler KW, Papadopoulos N, Vogelstein B. Assessing aneuploidy with repetitive element sequencing. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2020, 117(9): 4858-4863.
  • Lahouel K, Younes L, Danilova L, Giardiello FM, Hruban RH, Groopman J, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Geman D, Tomasetti C. Revisiting the tumorigenesis timeline with a data-driven generative model. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2020, 117(2): 857-864.
  • Tomasetti C, Poling J, Roberts NJ, London Jr. NR, Pittman ME, Haffner MC, Rizzo A, Baras A, Karim B, Kim A, Heaphy CM, Meeker AK, Hruban RH, Iacobuzio-Donahue CA,  Vogelstein B. Cell division rates decrease with age, providing a potential explanation for the age-dependent deceleration in cancer incidence. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2019, 116(41): 20482-20488.
  • Tie J, Cohen J, Wang Y, Li L, Christie M, Simons K, Lee M, Wong R, Kosmider S, Ananda S, McKendrick J, Lee B, Cho JH, Faragher I, Jones I, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler K, Vogelstein B, Gibbs P. Circulating tumor DNA analyses as markers of recurrence risk and benefit of adjuvant therapy for stage III colon cancer. JAMA Oncology 2019, DOI: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.3616.
  • Tomasetti C. Mutated clones are the new normal. Science 2019, 364(6444): 938-939.
  • Springer S, Masica DL, Dal Molin M, Douville C, Thoburn C, Afsari B, Li L, Cohen J, Thompson E, Allen PJ, Klimstra DS, Schattner MA, Schmidt CM, Yip-Schneider M, Simpson R, Fernandez-Del Castillo C, Mino-Kenudson M, Brugge W, Brand RE, Singhi AD, Scarpa A, Lawlor R, Salvia R, Zamboni G, Hong S-M, Hwang DW, Jang J-Y, Kwon W, Swan N, Geoghegan J, Falconi M, Crippa S, Doglioni C, Paulino J, Schulick R, Edil BH, Park W, Yachida S, Hijioka S, van Hooft J, He J, Weiss MJ, Burkhart R, Makary M, Canto MI, Goggins MG, Anine Ptak J, Dobbyn L, Schaefer J, Sillman N, Popoli M, Klein A, Tomasetti C, Karchin R, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Wolfgang CL, Hruban RH, Lennon AM. A multi-modality test to guide the management of patients with a pancreatic cyst. Sci Transl Med 2019, 11(501): eaav4772.
  • Lee B, Lipton L, Cohen J, Tie J, Ammar Javed A, Li L, Goldstein D, Burge M, Cooray P, Nagrial A, Tebbutt N, Thomson B, Nikfarjam M, Harris M, Haydon A, Lawrence B, Tai D, Lennon AM, Wolfgang C, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Gibbs P. Circulating tumor DNA as a potential marker of adjuvant chemotherapy benefit following surgery for localized pancreatic cancer. Ann Oncol 2019, DOI: 10.1093/annonc/mdz200.
  • Wang Y, Li L, Cohen J, Kinde I, Ptak J, Popoli M, Schaefer J, Silliman N, Dobbyn L, Tie J, Gibbs P, Tomasetti C, Kinzler KW, Papadopoulos N, Vogelstein B, Olsson L. Prognostic potential of circulating tumor DNA measurement in postoperative surveillance of non-metastatic colorectal cancer. JAMA Oncology 2019, 5(8): 1118-1123.
  • Wu R-C, Wang P, Lin S-F, Zhang M, Song Q, Chu T, Wang BG, Kurman RJ, Vang R, Kinzler K, Tomasetti C, Jiao Y, Shih I-M, Wang T-L. Genomic landscape and evolutionary trajectories of ovarian cancer precursor lesions. J Pathol 2019, 248(1): 41-50.
  • Eich M-L, Pena M, Springer S, Taheri D, Tregnago A, Salles D, Bezerra S, Cunha I, Fujita K, Ertoy D, Bivalacqua T, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler K, Vogelstein B, Netto G. Incidence and distribution of UroSEEK gene panel in a multi-institutional cohort of bladder urothelial carcinoma. Modern Pathology 2019, DOI: 10.1038/s41379-019-0276-y.
  • Wong R, Tie J, Lee M, Cohen JD, Wang Y, Li L, Ma S, Christie M, Kosmider S, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler K, Vogelstein B, Gibbs P. The potential role of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the further investigation of colorectal cancer patients with non-specific findings on standard investigations. Int J Cancer 2019, DOI: 10.1002/ijc.32117.
  • Song M, Vogelstein B, Giovannucci EL, Willett WC, Tomasetti C. Cancer prevention: Molecular and epidemiological consensus. Science 2018, 361(6409): 1317-1318.
  • Wang Y, Li L, Douville C, Cohen JD, Yen T-T, Kinde I, Sundfelt K, Kjær SK, Hruban RH, Shih I-M, Wang T-L, Kurman RJ, Springer S, Ptak J, Popoli M, Schaefer J, Silliman N, Dobbyn L, Tanner EJ, Angarita A, Lycke M, Jochumsen K, Afsari B, Danilova L, Levine DA, Jardon K, Zeng X, Arseneau J, Fu L, Diaz LA, Karchin R, Tomasetti C, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Fader AN, Gilbert L, Papadopoulos N. Evaluation of liquid from the Papanicolaou test and other liquid biopsies for the detection of endometrial and ovarian cancers. Sci Transl Med 2018, 10(433): eaap8793.
  • Springer SU, Chen C-H, Pena MCR, Li L, Douville C, Wang Y, Cohen JD, Taheri D, Silliman N, Schaefer J, Ptak J, Dobbyn L, Popoli M, Kinde I, Afsari B, Tregnago AC, Bezerra SM, VandenBussche C, Fujita K, Ertoy D, Cunha IW, Yu L, Bivalacqua TJ, Grollman AP, Diaz LA, Karchin R, Danilova L, Huang C-Y, Shun C-T, Turesky RJ, Yun BH, Rosenquist TA, Pu Y-S, Hruban RH, Tomasetti C, Papadopoulos N, Kinzler KW, Vogelstein B, Dickman KG, Netto GJ. Noninvasive detection of urothelial cancer through the analysis of driver gene mutations and aneuploidy. eLife 2018, 7: e32143.