Massachusetts General Hospital

Biography

Assistant Professor of Pathology
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Rivera is a board certified pathologist who directs a research laboratory at the MGH Department of Pathology and the MGH Cancer Center. He also serves as attending physician in the clinical molecular diagnostics laboratory at MGH. Dr. Rivera received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in 1996 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 2001. He completed his Anatomic Pathology residency at Brigham and Wome?s Hospital and a fellowship in Molecular Diagnostics at the Harvard Combined Program. During his postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Rivera identified the tumor suppressor gene WTX which is implicated in both tumor formation and stem cell biology. His research currently focuses on the connections between cancer and normal developmental processes and on the use of genomic technologies to identify pathways that are active in tumors and that may serve as therapeutic targets.

Updated 4/2/13

Research

Our laboratory uses genomic technologies to identify and characterize pathways implicated in pediatric solid tumors and sarcomas. Read more about the Rivera Lab.

Publications

Selected Publications:

Rivera MN, Kim WJ, Wells J, Stone A, Burger A, Coffman EJ, Zhang J, Haber DA (2009). The tumor suppressor WTX shuttles to the nucleus and modulates WT1 activity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U S A, 106(20):8338-43.

Rivera MN, Kim WJ, Wells J, Driscoll DR, Brannigan BW, Han M, Kim JC, Feinberg AP, Gerald WL, Vargas SO, Chin L, Iafrate AJ, Bell DW, Haber DA (2007). An X chromosome gene, WTX, is commonly inactivated in Wilms tumor. Science, 315: 642-5.

Rivera MN, Haber DA (2005) Wilms tumor: connecting tumorigenesis and organ development in the kidney. Nature Reviews Cancer, 5(9):699-712.

Iafrate AJ, Feuk L, Rivera MN, Listewnik ML, Donahoe PK, Qi Y, Scherer SW, Lee C (2004). Detection of large-scale variation in the human genome. Nature Genetics, 36(9):949-51.

MGH pathologist receives HHMI grant

MGH Hotline 07.24.09 Eleven physician-scientists from seven institutions nationwide have been selected recipients of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Early Career Physician-Scientist Awards. Miguel Rivera, MD, of the MGH Pathology Service, is among the talented group selected for this grant. Awardees receive a total of $375,000 over five years to advance their research.

Hyundai donates $250,000 to MGHfC

For the third consecutive year, Hyundai Hope on Wheels presented MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) with a $250,000 check to support pediatric cancer research.

Study finds epigenetic similarities between Wilms tumor cells and normal kidney stem cells

A detailed analysis of the epigenetics – factors controlling when and where genes are expressed – of Wilms tumor reveals striking similarities to stem cells normally found in fetal kidneys. These findings by MGH Cancer Center researchers reveal new cellular pathways critical for Wilms tumor development that may apply to other pediatric cancers.