Lauren Byers, MD

Lauren Averett Byers, M.D., M.S., is an Associate Professor in the department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at MD Anderson and additionally serves on the faculty of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Princeton University in New Jersey and a medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine.  As a medical student, she was selected for the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute/National Institutes of Health Research Scholars Program prior to pursing internal medicine residency training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.  In 2006, she returned to her home state of Texas for oncology fellowship training at MD Anderson Cancer Center.  As a physician-scientist, Dr. Byers’ research focuses on studying the proteomics and molecular profiles of lung cancer to identify new drug targets and biomarkers to personalize therapy for her patients.  This work has led directly to the identification of new drug targets such as DNA damage response (DDR) genes (e.g., PARP1 and Chk1) for small cell lung cancer and the receptor tyrosine kinase AXL for non-small cell lung cancers. Many of these research findings have been translated into the clinic, with Dr. Byers leading several clinical trials of highly promising, novel targeted therapies for lung cancer patients. Dr. Byers is a member of the NCI Small Cell Lung Cancer Consortium and serves on the NCI Thoracic Malignancy Steering Committee.   

Editorial Board
Terms of Appointment: April 2018 - April 2020;  May 2020 - April 2022