SC Connecticut News

Katerina Politi, a professor of pathology who co-leads the Cancer Signaling Networks Research Program at the Yale Cancer Center, has been appointed the Joseph A. and Lucille K. Madri Professor of Pathology. This appointment is for a term of 10 years, renewable by the dean of the Yale School of Medicine (YSM).

Politi’s research focuses on lung cancer, particularly understanding mechanisms of tumorigenesis and studying sensitivity and resistance to targeted therapies and immunotherapies. She has extensive expertise in lung adenocarcinomas with mutations in the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) gene. Additionally, she serves as scientific director of the Center for Thoracic Cancers.

Politi earned her biological sciences degree from the University of Pavia, Italy, and received her Ph.D. with distinction in genetics and development from Columbia University in 2003. She remained at Columbia as a postdoctoral research scientist before moving to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as a research fellow focusing on lung cancer.

In 2010, Politi joined Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology as an assistant professor, receiving a secondary appointment in 2011 in the Department of Medicine. She was promoted to associate professor in 2016 and to full professor in 2023.

Her work leverages her expertise on drug resistance to understand and overcome both targeted therapy and immunotherapy resistance. While these therapies extend patients' lives, they rarely result in cures; thus, new insights into tumorigenesis mechanisms and drug resistance are crucial. Emerging research areas in her laboratory include identifying new therapeutic vulnerabilities in lung cancers and uncovering links between resistance, cancer cell plasticity, tumor microenvironment, and tumor heterogeneity.