About Me
I am a professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. I also hold the Klotz Chair in Cancer Research and am a member of the Translational Therapeutics Program at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).
In addition, I am director of Proton Therapy Center, a 55,000-square-foot facility that opened in December 2023 within The James Outpatient Care in Ohio State’s Carmenton innovation district. The Proton Therapy Center, the first of its kind in central Ohio, is a collaboration between the OSUCCC – James and Nationwide Children’s Hospital to serve both adult and pediatric patients.
Proton therapy uses positively charged particles instead of X-rays to precisely target and destroy cancer cells while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. My colleagues at Ohio State and Nationwide Children’s Hospital worked for more than a decade with industry partners Siemens Healthineers and Varian Medical Systems to conceive, engineer and develop a proton therapy technology called the MR Probeam 360 proton platform, for which Siemens-Varian and I acquired FDA 510K clearance in July 2023.
Ohio State has the only operational MR Probeam 360 proton technology in the world and will be the only such center in North America for the foreseeable future. Further, Ohio State will be the only MR Probeam 360 center with FLASH capabilities. FLASH is a next-generation radiation technology that is up to 10,000-fold more potent than conventional radiation and holds the potential for eradicating tumors with minimal or no collateral damage to surrounding normal tissue at specific inflection points.
The fixed beam room of the Proton Therapy Center is targeted for completion by summer 2024 and will house FLASH capabilities. As FLASH is not yet FDA-approved, I will lead a team to develop FLASH in the preclinical, veterinary and clinical spaces, respectively, over the coming decade or two. A pioneer and thought leader in FLASH radiotherapy, I serve on the Steering Committee of the Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group (PT-COG), which is the largest and most established society in the world relating to particle therapy, and also on the International Scientific Advisory Board of FRPT, the largest and most established society relating to FLASH.
Besides my pioneering work in proton therapy and FLASH, I have focused my research on identifying novel resistance mechanisms to conventional radiation and systemic therapies, and on finding molecular mechanisms of treatment resistance to help more patients respond favorably to therapy.
Under my leadership with the National Cancer Institute-supported Radiation Therapy and Oncology Group Brain Tumor/NRG Translational Research Subcommittee and Brain Tumor Committee, my team’s studies have defined the standard of care for patients with central nervous system tumors.
We also were among the first to report that the dysregulation of PI3K/AKT signaling is associated with radiation resistance in glioblastoma, an aggressive and deadly brain tumor. In addition, my team was the first to identify that dysregulation of PI3K signaling is significantly associated with adverse clinical outcomes in glioblastoma patients. These findings led to some of the first clinical studies to combine radiotherapy with kinase inhibitors targeting this pathway. In addition, my team and I have developed over two dozen putative radiosensitizers that are moving through the pipeline from preclinical to clinical application.
I have published more than 200 articles in leading scientific and medical journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Journal of the American Medical Association, Cancer Cell and Journal of Clinical Oncology. I also have delivered numerous distinguished lectureships in the United States, Asia and Europe on cutting-edge therapies for cancer patients, and I have received more than two dozen national and international awards for outstanding clinical care and landmark research accomplishments.
I earned my MD at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, served my internship in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and completed my residency in radiation oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard’s teaching hospital), where I was on the faculty for 15 years before being recruited to Ohio State in 2009.
I also held positions as director of the Brian D. Silber Endowed Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program. While at Harvard, I played a role in helping Mass General launch the world’s first hospital-based proton therapy center.
Highlights
- Named to the Castle Connolly list of “America's Top Doctors”; "America's Top Doctors for Cancer"; "Regional Top Doctors”
- Best Doctor in America, 2017
Education and Training
Education History
Medical School
University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA
8/26/1991 - 5/21/1995
Internship
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
6/1/1995 - 6/30/1996
Residency
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
7/1/1996 - 6/30/1999
Residency
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
7/1/1999 - 6/30/2000
Board Certification
American Board of Radiology/Radiation Oncology
11/6/2000
Academic Information
My Department
Radiation Oncology
My Division
Radiation Oncology
Consulting and Related Relationships
At The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, we support a faculty member’s research and consulting in collaboration with medical device, research and/or drug companies because a faculty member’s expertise can guide important advancements in the practice of medicine and improve patient care. In order to provide effective management of these relationships, the University requires annual disclosures from all faculty members with external interests related to their University responsibilities.
As of 09/30/2022, Dr. Chakravarti has reported relationships with the companies or entities listed below. If you have questions about the relationships listed below, please ask the faculty member. If you have questions about how these relationships are monitored by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, please contact our Compliance Office.
- National Cancer Institute
- FLASH International Advisory Board
- Radiation Therapy Oncology Group Foundation
