Lori J. Wirth

Lori J. Wirth, MD is Director of the Head and Neck Oncology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is one of the world's leading experts in advanced thyroid cancer, with particular expertise in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC), anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC), and the clinical development of RET-targeted therapies. Her translational and clinical work has helped define the molecular underpinnings of thyroid cancer subtypes and translated these insights into regulatory approvals. Dr. Wirth was a key investigator in the LIBRETTO-001 and ARROW trials that led to the FDA approvals of selpercatinib and pralsetinib respectively for RET-mutant MTC and RET-fusion–positive differentiated thyroid cancer. She has also contributed pivotal work to the clinical development of vandetanib and cabozantinib for hereditary and sporadic MTC. Her research program spans biomarker-directed trial design, tumor genomics, and novel combination strategies for thyroid cancers that are refractory to standard kinase inhibitors. Beyond thyroid cancer, Dr. Wirth leads MGH's head and neck oncology program and conducts investigations in squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. She has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications and serves on NCCN, ESMO, and American Thyroid Association guideline panels for thyroid malignancies.