Meet Mandar Muzumdar, MD
March 22, 2022Information
Dr. Muzumdar cares for patients with pancreatic cancer and explains how the Yale Pancreatic Cancer Collaborative is working together to search for novel combinations of chemotherapies and targeted therapies to further improve the treatment outcomes for pancreatic cancer.
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- 00:00My name is Mandar Mazumdar name,
- 00:03a medical oncologist at Smilow Cancer
- 00:05Hospital, scientific director of the
- 00:06Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers
- 00:08at the Yale Cancer Center and a
- 00:10cancer biologist in the Department
- 00:12of Genetics at Yale University,
- 00:13School of Medicine.
- 00:15I treat patients admitted to the
- 00:17medical oncology service at Smilow
- 00:19Cancer Hospital and have a special
- 00:22clinical focus in pancreatic cancer.
- 00:24Pancreatic cancer remains one of the
- 00:26greatest challenges we have in cancer care.
- 00:29Although we've improved outcomes
- 00:30in a variety of cancers due to the
- 00:33development of new chemotherapies
- 00:35new targeted therapies that go after
- 00:37specific mutations within tumors
- 00:39and new therapies that target cancer
- 00:41through harnessing the immune system
- 00:43outcomes and pancreatic cancer have only
- 00:45modestly improved over the last four decades,
- 00:47I've chosen to invest a large bulk
- 00:50of a large bulk of my career.
- 00:52In trying to meet this challenge and have
- 00:55developed a team here at Yale called the
- 00:58Yale Pancreatic Cancer Collaborative.
- 01:00Or Yale pack that brings together
- 01:02clinicians and researchers at various
- 01:04disciplines across Yale and is poised
- 01:06to make dramatic discoveries in
- 01:08basic biology of pancreatic cancer,
- 01:10which will translate to improved
- 01:12therapies for our patients.
- 01:14Our lab studies the basic biology of KRAS,
- 01:17which is mutated in more than 90%
- 01:19of pancreatic cancers,
- 01:20and our work is uncovering new ways
- 01:23of targeting pancreatic cancers
- 01:24that harbor care as mutations,
- 01:27and also to identify drug combinations
- 01:29that can be used effectively.
- 01:31With new care as inhibitors
- 01:33that are entering the clinic.
- 01:34Our labs also interested in
- 01:36understanding the links between
- 01:38obesity and pancreatic cancer.
- 01:39Since obesity is a major risk
- 01:41factor for the disease,
- 01:43when I see patients at smilow Cancer
- 01:45Hospital on the inpatient service with
- 01:47pancreatic cancer or other solid tumors,
- 01:50I'm reminded of the challenges
- 01:52that our patients face.
- 01:54And when I it reinvigorates me to
- 01:56get back into the lab and work
- 01:58even harder to identify new ways of
- 02:00helping those patients through new
- 02:02approaches for treatment or prevention.