Michael F. Berger, PhD

Michael F. Berger, PhD

Molecular Geneticist

Areas of Expertise

My Specialties

  • Cancer genomics
  • Computational biology
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Dr. Berger's Office Information
Languages: English
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Get to Know Me

I am Co-Director of the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology and Chief of the Clinical Computational Diagnostics Service in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. I have expertise in cancer genetics, computational biology, and high-throughput DNA sequencing technology. My research is focused on developing and applying methods to characterize the genetic makeup of individual cancers. Knowledge of patient-specific genetic mutations can be used to predict outcomes and inform treatment options, ultimately enabling more personalized cancer medicine.

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With recent innovations in DNA sequencing technology, one can cheaply and quickly capture the relevant genomic information in an individual patient’s tumor. In collaboration with oncologists, pathologists, and other translational researchers, I am leveraging the extensive institutional collection of annotated tumor specimens spanning all cancer subtypes to identify novel, clinically useful biomarkers that may correlate with outcomes or predict responses to novel therapeutic agents. My group helped to lead the development and implementation of two clinical DNA sequencing tests, MSK-IMPACT® and MSK-ACCESS®, for use in clinical trials and real-time patient management. Altogether, these activities aim to improve clinical practice by empowering oncologists to make treatment decisions informed by the molecular composition of their patients’ tumors.

What I Do at MSK

I'm a molecular geneticist at MSK. A molecular geneticist has special training in studying genes to research and diagnose diseases and disorders.

  • Chief, Clinical Computational Diagnostics Service, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
  • Co-Director, Marie-Josée & Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology
  • Elizabeth and Felix Rohatyn Chair for Junior Faculty
Areas of Expertise

My Specialties

  • Cancer genomics
  • Computational biology
Education & Honors

Education

  • PhD, Harvard University

Fellowships

  • The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Insurance Information

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Contact and Location

Dr. Berger sees patients at one location.

Office Phone
Location
New York, NY
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
1275 York Avenue New York NY 10065
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Colleagues

Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering work as teams, with specialists from all different areas. This allows us to consider all your needs together, and to give you the best possible care.

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Memorial Sloan Kettering's doctors and scientists are constantly developing new treatments for cancer. MSK is typically running hundreds of clinical trials at a given time.

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Research and Publications

View Dr. Berger's Lab

Genetic Ancestry Correlates with Somatic Differences in a Real-World Clinical Cancer Sequencing Cohort. Arora K, Tran TN, Kemel Y, Mehine M, Liu YL, Nandakumar S, Smith SA, Brannon AR, Ostrovnaya I, Stopsack KH, Razavi P, Safonov A, Rizvi HA, Hellmann MD, Vijai J, Reynolds TC, Fagin JA, Carrot-Zhang J, Offit K, Solit DB, Ladanyi M, Schultz N, Zehir A, Brown CL, Stadler ZK, Chakravarty D, Bandlamudi C, Berger MF. Cancer Discov. 2022 Nov 2;12(11):2552-2565. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-22-0312. PMID: 36048199; PMCID: PMC9633436.

The context-specific role of germline pathogenicity in tumorigenesis. Srinivasan P, Bandlamudi C, Jonsson P, Kemel Y, Chavan SS, Richards AL, Penson AV, Bielski CM, Fong C, Syed A, Jayakumaran G, Prasad M, Hwee J, Sumer SO, de Bruijn I, Li X, Gao J, Schultz N, Cambria R, Galle J, Mukherjee S, Vijai J, Cadoo KA, Carlo MI, Walsh MF, Mandelker D, Ceyhan-Birsoy O, Shia J, Zehir A, Ladanyi M, Hyman DM, Zhang L, Offit K, Robson ME, Solit DB, Stadler ZK, Berger MF, Taylor BS. Nat Genet. 2021 Nov;53(11):1577-1585. doi: 10.1038/s41588-021-00949-1. Epub 2021 Nov 5. PMID: 34741162; PMCID: PMC8957388.

Tumour lineage shapes BRCA-mediated phenotypes. Jonsson P, Bandlamudi C, Cheng ML, Srinivasan P, Chavan SS, Friedman ND, Rosen EY, Richards AL, Bouvier N, Selcuklu SD, Bielski CM, Abida W, Mandelker D, Birsoy O, Zhang L, Zehir A, Donoghue MTA, Baselga J, Offit K, Scher HI, O’Reilly EM, Stadler ZK, Schultz N, Socci ND, Viale A, Ladanyi M, Robson ME, Hyman DM, Berger MF, Solit DB, Taylor BS. Nature. 2019 Jul;571(7766):576-579. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1382-1. Epub 2019 Jul 10. Erratum in: Nature. 2019 Dec 11;: PMID: 31292550; PMCID: PMC7048239.

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Development of Genome-Derived Tumor Type Prediction to Inform Clinical Cancer Care. Penson A, Camacho N, Zheng Y, Varghese AM, Al-Ahmadie H, Razavi P, Chandarlapaty S, Vallejo CE, Vakiani E, Gilewski T, Rosenberg JE, Shady M, Tsui DWY, Reales DN, Abeshouse A, Syed A, Zehir A, Schultz N, Ladanyi M, Solit DB, Klimstra DS, Hyman DM, Taylor BS, Berger MF. JAMA Oncol. 2020 Jan 1;6(1):84-91. doi: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.3985. PMID: 31725847; PMCID: PMC6865333.

Tracking tumour evolution in glioma through liquid biopsies of cerebrospinal fluid. Miller AM, Shah RH, Pentsova EI, Pourmaleki M, Briggs S, Distefano N, Zheng Y, Skakodub A, Mehta SA, Campos C, Hsieh WY, Selcuklu SD, Ling L, Meng F, Jing X, Samoila A, Bale TA, Tsui DWY, Grommes C, Viale A, Souweidane MM, Tabar V, Brennan CW, Reiner AS, Rosenblum M, Panageas KS, DeAngelis LM, Young RJ, Berger MF, Mellinghoff IK. Nature. 2019 Jan;565(7741):654-658. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-0882-3. Epub 2019 Jan 23. PMID: 30675060; PMCID: PMC6457907.

Widespread Selection for Oncogenic Mutant Allele Imbalance in Cancer. Bielski CM, Donoghue MTA, Gadiya M, Hanrahan AJ, Won HH, Chang MT, Jonsson P, Penson AV, Gorelick A, Harris C, Schram AM, Syed A, Zehir A, Chapman PB, Hyman DM, Solit DB, Shannon K, Chandarlapaty S, Berger MF, Taylor BS. Cancer Cell. 2018 Nov 12;34(5):852-862.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2018.10.003. Epub 2018 Nov 1. PMID: 30393068; PMCID: PMC6234065.

Therapy-Related Clonal Hematopoiesis in Patients with Non-hematologic Cancers Is Common and Associated with Adverse Clinical Outcomes. Coombs CC, Zehir A, Devlin SM, Kishtagari A, Syed A, Jonsson P, Hyman DM, Solit DB, Robson ME, Baselga J, Arcila ME, Ladanyi M, Tallman MS, Levine RL, Berger MF. Cell Stem Cell. 2017 Sep 7;21(3):374-382.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2017.07.010. Epub 2017 Aug 10. PMID: 28803919; PMCID: PMC5591073.

Mutational landscape of metastatic cancer revealed from prospective clinical sequencing of 10,000 patients. Zehir A, Benayed R, Shah RH, Syed A, Middha S, Kim HR, Srinivasan P, Gao J, Chakravarty D, Devlin SM, Hellmann MD, Barron DA, Schram AM, Hameed M, Dogan S, Ross DS, Hechtman JF, DeLair DF, Yao J, Mandelker DL, Cheng DT, Chandramohan R, Mohanty AS, Ptashkin RN, Jayakumaran G, Prasad M, Syed MH, Rema AB, Liu ZY, Nafa K, Borsu L, Sadowska J, Casanova J, Bacares R, Kiecka IJ, Razumova A, Son JB, Stewart L, Baldi T, Mullaney KA, Al-Ahmadie H, Vakiani E, Abeshouse AA, Penson AV, Jonsson P, Camacho N, Chang MT, Won HH, Gross BE, Kundra R, Heins ZJ, Chen HW, Phillips S, Zhang H, Wang J, Ochoa A, Wills J, Eubank M, Thomas SB, Gardos SM, Reales DN, Galle J, Durany R, Cambria R, Abida W, Cercek A, Feldman DR, Gounder MM, Hakimi AA, Harding JJ, Iyer G, Janjigian YY, Jordan EJ, Kelly CM, Lowery MA, Morris LGT, Omuro AM, Raj N, Razavi P, Shoushtari AN, Shukla N, Soumerai TE, Varghese AM, Yaeger R, Coleman J, Bochner B, Riely GJ, Saltz LB, Scher HI, Sabbatini PJ, Robson ME, Klimstra DS, Taylor BS, Baselga J, Schultz N, Hyman DM, Arcila ME, Solit DB, Ladanyi M, Berger MF. Nat Med. 2017 Jun;23(6):703-713. doi: 10.1038/nm.4333. Epub 2017 May 8. Erratum in: Nat Med. 2017 Aug 4;23 (8):1004. PMID: 28481359; PMCID: PMC5461196.

Evaluating Cancer of the Central Nervous System Through Next-Generation Sequencing of Cerebrospinal Fluid. Pentsova EI, Shah RH, Tang J, Boire A, You D, Briggs S, Omuro A, Lin X, Fleisher M, Grommes C, Panageas KS, Meng F, Selcuklu SD, Ogilvie S, Distefano N, Shagabayeva L, Rosenblum M, DeAngelis LM, Viale A, Mellinghoff IK, Berger MF. J Clin Oncol. 2016 Jul 10;34(20):2404-15. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2016.66.6487. Epub 2016 May 9. Erratum in: J Clin Oncol. 2017 Jun 10;35(17):1972. PMID: 27161972; PMCID: PMC4981784.

Publications on PubMed

Visit PubMed for a full listing of Dr. Berger’s journal articles. Pubmed is an online index of research papers and other articles from the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

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Disclosures

Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.

MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.

Michael F. Berger discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

  • AstraZeneca
    Professional Services and Activities
  • JCO Precision Oncology
    Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
  • Journal of Molecular Diagnostics
    Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
  • Paige.AI, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • SOPHiA GENETICS S.A.
    Intellectual Property Rights; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)

If you’re a patient at MSK and would like more information about your doctor’s external relationships, please talk with your doctor.

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2023 through disclosure submission in spring 2024). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].


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