Barbara Burtness

Academic History

Barbara Burtness, MD, is a Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, Chief Translational Research Officer and Associate Cancer Center Director for Translational Research at the Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, CT. She serves as Co-Leader of the Developmental Therapeutics Program, Division Chief for Head and Neck/Sarcoma Oncology, and Director of the Yale Head and Neck Specialized Program of Research Excellence in New Haven, CT.

Prof. Burtness gained her MD from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY, and completed her internship and residence at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT. She Later completed her fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY. Prof. Burtness chairs the ECOG-ACRIN Cooperative Group Head and Neck Cancer Therapeutics Committee as well as the ECOG-ACRIN Task Force for the Advancement of Women.

Speaking on head and neck cancer

Prof. Burtness is an internationally recognized researcher in head and neck cancer. She also leads the national and international trials of targeted therapy in head and neck cancer. Her research team study synthetic lethal therapeutic strategies in head and neck cancer as well as the targeting of aurora kinase A to overcome adaptive resistance to EGFR inhibition. Prof. Burtness has previously demonstrated that the loss of PTEN is a biomarker for resistance to EGFR inhibition in head and neck cancer.