Course Teaching Team

2024 Instructors and TAs

Stan Finkelstein, MD (course co-director) is a Senior Research Scientist in MIT's Institute for Data, Systems and Society in the Schwarzman College of Computing and Associate Professor of Medicine at HMS and founding director of the MD/MBA joint degree program with Harvard Business School. His research focuses on the business-government interface, medical technology, cost-effectiveness and third-party reimbursement.

Peter Sorger, PhD (course co-director) is a Professor in the Dept. of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and founding Head of the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science. He was previously on the MIT faculty as professor of Biology and Biological Engineering. Sorger's research focuses on mammalian signal transduction, cancer and its treatment.

Carlo Duffy (TA) is a PhD candidate at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems and Society. His research uses observational data and health policy insights to understand Medicare providers. Carlo is advised by Drs. Stan Finkelstein and Roy Welsch.

Dan Freeman (TA) is a PhD student in Biology & Biomedical Sciences at HMS. His research focus on multimodal applications in digital pathology. Dan is advised by Dr. Peter Sorger. He is also a founder of terraFlow, a startup biotechnology company that provides AI-powered methods for analyzing flow cytometry data.

Guest Instructors

Joshua Apgar, PhD, a former MIT graduate student, was Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Applied Biomath, a startup company in Concord MA that is now part of Certara.

Birgit Schoeberl, PhD, a former MIT postdoc, is Global Head of Modeling and Simulation and PK Sciences at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) in Cambridge MA.

Ariel Stern, PhD was formerly at Harvard Business School and is now the Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute in the University of Potsdam Germany.

Elliott Antman, MD is a Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA and a a Senior Investigator in the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) Study Group.

Charles Cooney, PhD is a Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at MIT and a founder of PPDD.

GK Raju, PhD is Executive Director of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Initiatives at the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation.

George Demetri, MD is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Past Instructors

Mike Rosenblatt, MD is Cheif Medical Officer (CMO) of Flagship Pioneering in Cambridge MA; he was previously CMO of Merck, Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, and a Professor at Harvard Medical School.

Brian Alexander, MD, MPH is Chief Medical Officer of Foundation Medicine in Cambridge MA; he is an Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

John Young, PhD, is the Global Head Infectious Diseases and Vice President at Roche.

Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD is the William Bosworth Castle Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at BIDMC

Sumit Khedekar is a Managing Director at Credit Suisse Securities and expert in biotech financing.

Nicole LeBoeuf, MD, MPH is Clinical Director of the Center for Cutaneous Oncology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Course Founders

PPDD was established three decades ago by course founding directors: Thomas J. Allen, Charles L. Cooney, G. K. Raju, Anthony Sinskey all of whom are still active as MIT Faculty. It has been taught continuously