Leadership and Core Faculty

Dr. Mike Hurwitz is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology). For over 20 years, he has specialized in treating patients with cancers of the genitourinary tract (kidney, bladder, prostate and testicular cancers) and, more recently, in using immune cell-based therapies to treat a large range of solid tumor cancers. His main research efforts are to expand the availability of trials of cell-based therapies to patients with solid tumors.

David Braun, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and a member of the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology (CMCO) at Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Braun cares for patients with kidney cancers. He received his PhD in Computational Biology from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science at New York University and his medical degree from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He completed his residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he received the Dunn Medical Intern Award and served as Chief Medical Resident before completing fellowship training in adult oncology through the Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare program where he was appointed the Emil Frei Fellow and the John R. Svenson Fellow. Dr. Braun joined Yale from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where he was an Instructor in Medicine with clinical and scientific interest in understanding and improving immune therapies for kidney cancer. He has a longstanding interest in integrating experimental and computational approaches to biomedical research and is currently studying mechanisms of response and resistance to immune therapy in kidney cancer, with the goal of developing novel therapies. He continues this work as part of the CMCO, which fosters and mentors physician-scientists as they advance their laboratory-based research programs to bridge fundamental cancer biology with clinical investigation for the translation of basic discoveries into better treatments or diagnosis.

Dr. Sarah Goldberg is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the section of Medical Oncology at the Yale School of Medicine. As a thoracic oncologist she cares for patients with cancers of the chest including lung cancer, mesothelioma and thymoma. She is the Division Chief of Thoracic Oncology, the Co-Director for the Center for Thoracic Cancers, and the Associate Program Director for the Medical Oncology-Hematology Fellowship Program at Yale. She received her medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine and completed a Masters in Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. She conducts clinical and translational research on lung cancer with a focus on investigating biomarkers and novel treatment strategies in non-small cell lung cancer. Her specific research interests include EGFR mutation positive lung cancer, immunotherapeutics for lung cancer, and brain metastases. Learn more about Dr. Sarah Goldberg>>

Dr. Roy Herbst is internationally recognized as one of the foremost leaders in the development of targeted and immune-based therapies for the treatment of lung cancer. His pioneering clinical studies investigating epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeted agents in lung and head and neck cancers brought forth a new era in precision medicine and oncology. His translational research spurred the evolution of adaptive clinical trial design toward increasingly more personalized therapeutic approaches, and he was among the first to champion the use of targeted therapies during the earliest stages of disease. His groundbreaking studies have identified critical biomarkers of sensitivity and resistance to immunotherapy, helping to inform treatment decision-making. His work throughout the past three decades has significantly advanced the standard of care for patients with lung cancer, greatly enhancing survival and quality of life beyond what was previously thought to be possible. After earning B.S. and M.S. degrees from Yale University, Dr. Herbst earned his M.D. at Cornell University Medical College and his Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology at The Rockefeller University in New York City, New York. His postgraduate training included an internship and residency in Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. His clinical fellowships in Medicine Oncology and Hematology were completed at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, respectively. Subsequently, Dr. Herbst completed an M.S. degree in Clinical Translational Research at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to his appointment at Yale, Dr. Herbst was the Barnhart Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Section of Thoracic Medical Oncology in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He also served as Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology and Co-Director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program. Dr. Herbst traversed to the forefront of personalized medicine and immunotherapy early in his career, identifying key biomarkers and bringing novel targeted and immune-based treatments to patients by serving as principal investigator (PI) for seminal clinical trials testing these agents in advanced-stage lung cancers. This work led to the approval of several important targeted therapies (such as gefitinib, erlotinib, cetuximab, bevacizumab, and axitinib), that revolutionized the field and quickly became the standard of care. This research laid the groundwork for more recent paradigm-shifting studies led by Dr. Herbst investigating targeted agents in earlier stages of disease. One such study, the ADAURA trial, demonstrated the dramatic effect of the third generation EGFR-inhibitor osimertinib as an adjuvant therapy in early-stage resected non-small cell lung cancer, the results of which were published twice in the New England Journal of Medicine, and led to worldwide drug approval and expanded access for patients. He and his colleagues at Yale were also among the first to describe the PD-1/PD-L1 adaptive immune response in early phase trials and to offer clinical trials of the PD-L1 inhibitors atezolizumab and pembrolizumab to lung cancer patients. Dr. Herbst’s leadership in this arena has been formally recognized by his selection to deliver plenary presentations at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meetings in 2020 and 2023. Dr. Herbst’s work on umbrella trials, master protocols, and pragmatic trials has further galvanized the field of targeted therapy and cancer drug approvals by the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Nationally, he works closely with public-private partnerships to develop large master protocol clinical studies. He was co-leader of the Biomarker-integrated Approaches of Targeted Therapy for Lung Cancer Elimination-1 (BATTLE-1) and subsequent BATTLE-2 clinical trial programs and was the founding PI of the Lung Master Protocol (Lung-MAP), a position he held for ten years. The Lung-MAP protocol utilizes patient biomarkers to choose treatments that are most likely to provide benefit. He testified on this before the US House of Representatives 21st Century Cures Committee and has helped solidify master protocols as the preferred clinical trial design by the FDA. He is currently the Chair Emeritus and Senior Advisor for the Lung-MAP trial through SWOG. Extending on the success of the Lung-MAP initiative, Dr. Herbst was instrumental in the design and implementation of the Pragmatica-Lung Cancer trial, modernizing and simplifying inclusion criteria to expand access to life-saving treatments to those patients who need it most, often from underserved and rural areas. As a testament to the efficiency of such a trial design, it has accrued 800 patients nationwide in just one year. Dr. Herbst is a highly respected clinician­ scientist who has been a champion of translational medicine for decades, recently authoring a high-profile review of the 20-year progress in lung cancer for the journal Nature that is widely cited. He has authored or co-authored more than 500 publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, abstracts, and book chapters. His work has appeared in many prominent journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Work published in Nature was awarded the 2015 Herbert Pardes Clinical Research Excellence Award by the Clinical Research Forum. His abstracts have been presented at the annual meetings of ASCO, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC), and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, to name a few. In 2015, and again in 2020 and 2025, Dr. Herbst’s team at Yale was awarded a Lung Cancer SPORE (P50 grant) by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which has identified new immunotherapies and mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to EGFR targeted therapies. In 2017, he successfully helped establish and led the Yale-AstraZeneca Alliance, a strategic partnership that leverages the strengths of academia and industry working together to generate breakthroughs in cancer treatment and care. His work has also been funded by ASCO, AACR, the US Department of Defense, and by an AACR/Stand Up to Cancer Dream Team grant. Dr. Herbst is a Fellow of ASCO and a member of AACR, where he serves as Chair of the AACR Science Policy and Government Affairs Committee. He has been a major proponent of efforts to promote tobacco control and regulation (including e-cigarettes), authoring multiple policy statements and leading frequent Capitol Hill briefings. He has served on both the IASLC and AACR Board of Directors. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and an elected member of the Association of American Physicians. He has served over ten years in non-consecutive terms as a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s (NAM’s) Cancer Policy Forum, now on his second term, for which he organized and chaired or co-chaired several meetings focused on policy issues in personalized medicine and tobacco control such as, “Policy Issues in the Development of Personalized Medicine in Oncology,” “Reducing Tobacco Related Cancer Incidence and Mortality,” “Optimizing Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) for Clinical Research,” and “Addressing the Impact of Tobacco and Alcohol Use on Cancer-Related Health Outcomes.” Most recently he led the authorship of the manuscript from the 2023 PPP meeting published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and is leading the writing team for the most recent workshop. For his lifetime achievement in scientific contributions to thoracic cancer research, Dr. Herbst was awarded the 2016 Paul A. Bunn, Jr. Scientific Award by the IASLC at their 17th WCLC in Vienna, Austria. He and his team at the Yale Cancer Center were awarded the 2018 Team Science Award from the Association for Clinical and Translational Science for their pioneering work in advancing our understanding of immunotherapy. In 2020, Dr. Herbst was awarded the AACR Distinguished Public Service Award for Exceptional Leadership in Cancer Science Policy. Dr. Herbst is the recipient of the 2022 Giants of Cancer Care® award for Lung Cancer and was honored by Friends of Cancer Research in 2021 as one of their 25 scientific and advocacy leaders who, through their work and partnership, have been instrumental over the course of the last 25 years in making significant advancements for patients. In 2024, Dr. Herbst became a member of the Board of Directors for Friends of Cancer Research. That year, he was also awarded the Ezra Greenspan Award from the Chemotherapy+ Foundation. In 2025, he was elected into the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. Beyond Dr. Herbst’s exceptional research accomplishments, he remains a noted educator and teacher. Dr. Herbst is proud to serve as the creator and inaugural director of the Masters in Health Science in Clinical Investigation at the Yale Medical School, which provides training in, and integration of, translational research of all types. He has written chapters for major oncology textbooks (Devita, Frei) and is the Hematology/Oncology Section Editor for the upcoming 28th Edition of Goldman-Cecil Medicine. Since 2021, he has been the Co-Chair/Co-Director of the Robert A. Winn Excellence in Clinical Trials Award Program: Design and Implementation of Clinical Trials Workshop in collaboration with the AACR. Today, and throughout Dr. Herbst’s storied career, he has remained steadfastly committed to delivering exceptional and compassionate patient care, producing top-notch translational research, and providing enlightening educational experiences to trainees that will prepare them for successful and meaningful careers as healthcare providers and clinical researchers. He has and continues to promote an atmosphere of collegiality and collaboration, building translational bridges between basic and clinical researchers, as well as between academic and industry partners. Dr. Herbst inspires his peers, colleagues, and trainees to strive for excellence in the laboratory, clinic, classroom, and community, and his legacy will make an impact on patients for years to come.

Dr. Nikolai Podoltsev is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology). His practice is focused on management of patients with acute leukemias, including acute myeloid leukemias (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) as well as myeloid neoplasms like myelodisplastic syndromes (MDS) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), such as polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), myelofibrosis (MF), and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) among others. He also provides care for patients with aplastic anemia and bone marrow failure syndromes and follows patients with clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), and systemic mastocytosis and hypereosinophilic syndrome. He is the director of the Hematology/Leukemia Tumor Board. As the Associate Director of the Yale Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program and Yale-New Haven Hospital Duffy Firm Chief for Education, Dr. Podoltsev is involved in organizing and providing hematology education for hematology/medical oncology fellows, internal medicine residents, and medical students. The Yale Cancer Outcomes Public Policy and Effectiveness Research (COPPER) Center membership helps Dr. Podoltsev to study epidemiology, and the patterns of care and outcomes of patients with hematological malignancies. Dr. Podoltsev is engaged in the clinical research programs of the Leukemia Clinical Research Team as a Principal Investigator for multiple clinical trials enrolling patients with acute leukemias and myeloid malignancies.

Dr. Srikumar is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and cares for patients as part of the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center in New Haven. After obtaining her undergraduate degree from Harvard, Dr. Srikumar received her medical degree from the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, and completed her residency at Yale where she also served as Chief Resident. She then went on to complete her fellowship and served as Chief Fellow in Hematology/Oncology at Yale, during which she obtained an Executive Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology and Health Informatics tracks. Dr. Srikumar’s clinical and research efforts center around caring for young adults with gastrointestinal malignancies. She is also passionate about medical education, and serves as an Assistant Program Director of the Yale Medical Oncology-Hematology Fellowship Program.

Dr. Layla Van Doren is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology) and cares for patients with sickle cell disease and patients with bleeding and clotting disorders at Smilow Cancer Hospital. Dr. Van Doren received her medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and completed her residency at the University of Southern California. She went on to complete a hematology & oncology fellowship at Tufts Medical Center where she served as chief fellow. She also received an MBA in Healthcare Administration from Loma Linda University.Prior to joining Yale, Dr. Van Doren was an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology & Oncology at the Herbert Irving Cancer Center. Her clinical practice focused on the diagnosis and management of bleeding and clotting disorders, with a special emphasis in women’s health. She is also an expert in difficult-to-manage blood disorders. As a research fellow in the lab of Lidija Covic, PhD, Dr. Van Doren established a mechanistic framework and validated the pathophysiologic and therapeutic relevance of the lipid receptor GPR31 during PAR4-depedant platelet activation.

Dr. Eric Winer was appointed Director of Yale Cancer Center and President and Physician-in-Chief of Smilow Cancer Hospital Yale New Haven Health System on February 1, 2022. He is also the Alfred Gilman Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and Deputy Dean of Cancer Research at Yale School of Medicine. An internationally renowned expert in breast cancer, Dr. Winer has led and collaborated on innumerable clinical trials that have changed the face of the disease. His work has touched almost all aspects of breast cancer and he is particularly well known for his work in HER2 positive disease. Dr. Winer has long been an advocate of building teams consisting of scientists and clinicians to accelerate progress in cancer research and care. He previously served as principal investigator of a breast cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) for over a decade. Dr. Winer is a member of the Board for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. For over a decade, he served as chief scientific advisor and chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. He co-led the National Cancer Institute Breast Cancer Steering Committee from 2016-2022. Dr. Winer has published over 400 original manuscripts and mentored over 30 fellows and junior faculty. In recognition of his mentoring impact, he was the recipient of the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from Harvard Medical School in 2020. He has also received numerous awards for his breast cancer research, most notably the William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture Award in 2016 at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the Gianni Bonadonna Breast Cancer Award at ASCO in 2017, the Susan G. Komen Brinker Award for Clinical Research in 2018, and the Jill Rose award from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in 2019. Dr. Winer is an alumnus of both Yale College and Yale School of Medicine. After receiving his medical degree in 1983, he completed training in internal medicine and served as chief resident at Yale New Haven Hospital. He completed a fellowship in hematology/oncology at Duke University School of Medicine and served on the Duke faculty from 1989 to 1997. He then joined Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School where he built an internationally prominent breast cancer program. Prior to his move back to Yale in 2022, he held the Thompson Chair in Breast Cancer Research and served as chief clinical development officer, and senior vice president for medical affairs at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.