Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) is proud to announce that Chief of the Melanoma Service Michael Postow, MD, Medical Oncologist Nitya Raj, MD, and Assistant Attending Triparna Sen, PhD, are included in the 40 Under 40 in Cancer Class of 2020 list. The awards initiative identifies and recognizes the contributions being made across the field of cancer by rising stars and emerging leaders under the age of 40 years. The award is sponsored by the Lynx Group, Upstream Partners, Swim Across America, and The National Community Oncology Dispensing Association, Inc. (NCODA).
Michael Postow, MD
Dr. Postow was recently was appointed as MSK’s newest Chief of the Melanoma Service in the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology. As Chief, he oversees the ongoing strategic goals of the Melanoma Service to expand the clinical and research programs and activities in melanoma. His research on melanoma led to the development of the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo®) and ipilimumab (Yervoy®), a treatment combination that was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2015 and was subsequently selected by the American Society of Clinical Oncology as a major scientific advance in melanoma care.
Nitya Raj, MD
Dr. Raj is a medical oncologist who treats patients with neuroendocrine tumors, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and other gastrointestinal cancers. Her research primarily focuses on identifying new therapies for people with neuroendocrine cancers, a rare group of tumors that often begin in the body’s digestive organs. She also studies ways to improve our understanding of how neuroendocrine tumors change at the genetic level, both over time and as a result of different treatments.
Triparna Sen, PhD
Dr. Sen is an assistant attending in MSK’s Thoracic Oncology Service. She has a broad background in translational oncology research, with specific training in small cell lung cancer (SCLC), DNA damage response, immuno-oncology, and drug development. She identified that DNA damage response proteins were viable therapeutic targets for SCLC treatment and was first to demonstrate that targeting DNA damage response pathway promotes antitumor immunity through activation of innate immune signaling in SCLC. The long-term goal of her research is to translate new mechanism-driven insights of cancer biology and immuno-oncology into bringing novel therapies to the clinic for lung cancer patients. She is also co-director of The Charles Rudin Lab and currently oversees the research program, including the patient-derived xenograft library with over 300 lung cancer models.
