Natalie Y. R. Agar, Ph.D.

Nathalie AgarNathalie Y.R. Agar, Ph.D. is the founding Director of the Surgical Molecular Imaging Laboratory (SMIL) in the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Agar’s multidisciplinary training includes a B.Sc. in Biochemistry, Ph.D. in Chemistry, and postdoctoral fellowships in Neurosurgery at McGill University, and BWH/HMS. Her research aims to implement comprehensive molecular diagnoses through improved biochemical classification, enabling surgeons and oncologists to tailor treatment from the time of surgery. Her laboratory focuses on the study of targeted therapeutics for brain cancer from pre-clinical animal models to clinical trials’ samples, considering their ability to access the central nervous system. Toward this end, her group uses a range of imaging and analytical technologies such as 3D MALDI FTICR mass spectrometry imaging, LESA mass spectrometry, stimulated Raman scattering, bright field and fluorescence microscopy, and specialized data and image analyses.