Sara Buhrlage, PhD, is an Associate Professor holding joint appointments in the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute department of Cancer Biology and the Harvard Medical School department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. She is also core faculty in Dana-Farber’s Chemical Biology Program and active in graduate education across multiple programs. Dr. Buhrlage is a thought leader in harnessing deubiquitinases (DUBs) as emergent drug targets; her lab has pioneered new approaches for interrogating DUB function, uncovering new insights into the chemical tractability of DUBs, and mapping the therapeutic potential of DUBs in human disease. Dr. Buhrlage has successfully led multiple collaborative projects, bringing together domain experts across labs and institutes with a common goal of advancing understanding of DUBs and their potential as disease targets. Her significant collaborative work with Entact co-founder Dr. Jarrod Marto in the field of DUBs has spanned more than five years, numerous publications and patents, and culminated in the recent launch of the Dana-Farber Center for Emergent Drug Targets.

Prior to joining Dana-Farber as a faculty member in 2015, Dr. Buhrlage directed Dana-Farber’s medicinal chemistry core laboratory. Dr. Buhrlage earned a Doctor of Philosophy in organic chemistry from the University of Michigan under Professor Anna Mapp and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Broad Institute. In these roles, she studied many therapeutic target classes and modalities. Her publications and patent portfolio number near 100 and showcase her conviction in the ability of multi-disciplinary research to elucidate novel pathways of clinical importance.