Bruce Johnson, MD

Dr. Bruce Johnson is the Chief Clinical Research Officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Leader of the Lung Cancer Program for the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. He is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Institute Physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Johnson served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Board of Directors from 2008 to 2011, received their Cancer Foundation’s Translational Research Professorship in 2008, and was selected as an ASCO Fellow in 2012. Dr. Johnson was elected ASCO President for the 2017-2018 term, and served as Immediate Past President in 2018-2019.

Dr. Johnson has published over two hundred and forty research articles on a variety of topics, including the molecular basis of lung cancers and the development of targeted therapies for patients with specific genomic alterations in lung cancer. He is one of the investigators who discovered epidermal growth factor receptor mutations which have enhanced the treatment of lung cancer around the world. He also led the studies that led to the approval of dabrafenib plus trametinib for BRAF mutant non-small cell lung cancer. His research is devoted to testing novel therapeutic agents for their efficacy against lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies.

Dr. Johnson completed his Medical Oncology training at the National Cancer Institute, where he served as an NCI faculty member from 1985 to 1998 and head of their Lung Cancer Biology section for six years. He came to Dana-Farber in 1998 to head the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology. Dr. Johnson received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, his medical degree from the University of Minnesota, and trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago.