Assistant Director, MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine

Leny (short for Vasilena) is originally from Bulgaria and received her BA in Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology from Connecticut College. She obtained her PhD from Weill Cornell University and conducted her thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. Johanna Joyce at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where she focused on the role of a family of proteases in pancreatic cancer. After graduating, Leny was awarded a Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellowship and pursued her passion for cancer research in Tyler Jacks’s lab. Her post-doctoral work was on the contribution of the extracellular matrix to lung adenocarcinoma development and progression. She has more than 10 years of cancer biology research experience and a proven track record of collaboration, both within the same lab and beyond.