Founder and CSO, Genomate Health, Cambridge, MA
Research professor, University of Istvan Szechenyi, Gyor, HU
Adjunct professor, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), IL
Dr. Istvan Petak has dedicated 30 years to researching how to identify appropriate targeted therapies for cancer patients based on their molecular profiles. His journey began in pediatric oncology and the molecular pharmacology of targeted therapies at Semmelweis University and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital from 1995 to 2003. In 2003, Dr. Petak became one of the team leaders in conducting the first documented prospective treatment of a patient with EGFR mutant lung cancer, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
He and his team pioneered next-generation sequencing (NGS) in precision oncology in 2008. In 2010, he was invited to review the integration of molecular diagnostics into drug discovery in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. After examining over 10,000 cases discussed at his molecular tumor board, the team led by Dr. Petak developed a computational model to match targeted therapies at the tumor level, which was published in NPJ Precision Oncology in 2021. In 2022, Dr. Petak and his team founded Genomate to advance this computational method.
