Edward Chu, MD, MMS, To Lead Cancer Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System

Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System today announced that Edward Chu, MD, MMS, has been named director of the National Cancer Institute-designated Albert Einstein Cancer Center; vice president for cancer medicine at Montefiore Medicine; professor of medicine and of molecular pharmacology; and will hold the Carol and Roger Einiger Professorship of Cancer Medicine at Einstein. In these roles, Dr. Chu will unite Einstein and Montefiore’s cancer programs into a fully integrated research and clinical enterprise. The appointment will be effective October 1, 2020.

“Dr. Chu has exceeded all our expectations for filling this critically important position,” said Gordon F. Tomaselli, MD, the Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean at Einstein. “Not only has he demonstrated excellence in clinical care, research, and drug development, but he is also a committed mentor, dedicated to training the next generation of physician-scientists who are so important to advancing the field of cancer research and treatment. We are pleased he will be bringing his unique set of skills to the Bronx and to our community.”

Dr. Chu currently serves as the deputy director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center (HCC), co-leader of the HCC Cancer Therapeutics Program, director of the HCC Phase I Program, as well as the associate director of the University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute and chief of the division of hematology-oncology.

In addition to his leadership positions, Dr. Chu is a NIH-funded basic, translational, and clinical investigator, and clinical oncologist, with a long history of developing and leading phase I and phase II clinical trials, particularly for colorectal cancer and other gastroenterology cancers. With his expertise in cancer pharmacology and drug development, he has been active in designing and developing novel agents and treatment approaches. His research has also focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying drug resistance. Additionally, he has studied Chinese herbal medicine and its integration with standard care with the goal of improving outcomes and reducing the toxic side effects of chemotherapy.

“We are honored to have a physician of Dr. Chu’s caliber joining us,” said Philip O. Ozuah, MD, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Montefiore Medicine, which is comprised of Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “His extraordinary talents as a clinician, researcher, and teacher make him the ideal candidate to lead our clinical cancer program.”

The Albert Einstein Cancer Center (AECC) was one of the first three academic cancer research centers to receive an NCI designation, which it has held continuously since 1972. Under more than two decades of leadership by I. David Goldman, MD, researchers have made fundamental discoveries revealing why cancers form, grow, and spread. The center’s clinical scientists are developing novel approaches to cancer diagnostics and treatment, and its epidemiologists are making major contributions to the understanding of viral and environmental causes of cancer and how to prevent it.

AECC works with the Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care (MECCC) to conduct hundreds of clinical trials a year. Together, they provide access to the most advanced treatments available for residents of the Bronx and Hudson Valley. Approximately 80% of its clinical trial participants are racial or ethnic minorities, and it is one of only 14 minority/underserved clinical sites designated by the NCI Community Research Program. MECCC has been named a high-performing center in both adult and pediatric cancer by U.S. News & World Report, reflecting its commitment to delivering advanced patient-centered, multidisciplinary care.

“I am honored and humbled to have been appointed director of the Albert Einstein Cancer Center and vice president for cancer medicine at Montefiore Medicine, and I would like to thank Drs. Tomaselli and Ozuah for having the confidence in appointing me to these critically important leadership positions,” said Dr. Chu. “I am also deeply honored to follow in the footsteps of my good friend Dr. David Goldman, who has been a tremendous leader for AECC for such a long period of time. From its founding, AECC has been well-recognized for its outstanding achievements in basic science, which continues to this day, and has played an instrumental role in offering cutting-edge, novel clinical trials to the largest minority population served by any NCI-designated cancer center in this country. I am excited to work closely with all of the AECC investigators and the leaders of the College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System to tightly integrate cancer-focused research with clinical care that focuses on the entire spectrum of early detection, screening, prevention, and treatment.”

Dr. Chu is a native New Englander, having grown up in New Haven, CT and Providence, RI. He received his undergraduate, masters, and medical degrees from the Brown University Program in Liberal Medical Education and stayed on at Brown University to do his internal medicine residency, training at Roger Williams General Hospital. He completed his medical oncology fellowship at the NCI in Bethesda, MD, where he was subsequently appointed a member of the senior staff and then a tenured senior clinical investigator in the NCI Medicine Branch and NCI-Navy Medical Oncology Branch. In 1996, he was recruited to the Yale University School of Medicine, where he first served as director of the VA Connecticut Cancer Center and co-leader of the Yale Cancer Center (YCC) Developmental Therapeutics Research Program. In 2004, he was appointed chief of medical oncology and YCC associate director of clinical and translational research and was subsequently named YCC’s deputy director in 2007. In 2010, he was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Chu has received numerous academic honors, has authored more than 200 research papers, book chapters, commentaries and editorials, and holds a patent on a novel siRNA therapeutic molecule. He serves as editor-in-chief of Clinical Colorectal Cancer and Oncology Research and has served on the editorial board for 12 peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, Oncology, and Journal of Chemotherapy. He is the editor of the Physicians’ Cancer Chemotherapy Drug Manual, which is an up-to-date reference, now in its 20th edition, of all of the cancer drugs and commonly used drug regimens for the treatment of all major cancers.

He has been a member of numerous national and international committees, including his current role on AACR’s Exhibits Committee, Educational Committee, and Scientific Program Committee; the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology Oncology Scientific Committee; and current chair of the Global Consortium for Chinese Herbal Medicine’s Clinical Research Committee. He also is a current member of the NCI Investigative Drug Steering Committee, the NCI Experimental Therapeutics (NeXT) Committee, and the NCI Subcommittee on Institutional Training and Education in the Division of Extramural Activities. He previously served as chair of the NCI Experimental Therapeutics I study section and was the former chair of NCI Subcommittee A, which reviews NCI-designated cancer centers. Dr. Chu has served on more than 12 advisory committees for NCI-designated centers around the country, including his role as chair of the University of Arizona Cancer Center external advisory board.