Ludwig Harvard’s Bradley Bernstein was elected Fellow of the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research. Each year, the AACR nominates a handful of researchers and vets them through a rigorous, peer-reviewed process that ensures only those who have made profound and lasting contributions to cancer research and related fields are ultimately elected to its Academy. Brad and his colleagues pioneered the mapping and functional analysis of the epigenome, the full spectrum of chemical modifications made to DNA and its histone protein packaging—collectively known as chromatin—that regulate the expression of the genome. His studies over the past couple of decades have illuminated on a large scale how epigenetic modifications inform chromatin structure, maintain the pluripotent potential of stem cells, orchestrate embryonic development and, when disordered, alter gene expression to drive cancer. One of 33 researchers elected to the AACR Academy’s class of 2025, Brad was recognized by the Academy for his “seminal contributions to cancer epigenetics, including the discovery of bivalent chromatin domains that regulate developmental gene activation and the role of IDH mutations in disrupting chromosomal topology, resulting in the establishment of new mechanisms by which to characterize tumors and optimize therapeutic strategies.”
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