Meet Mandar Muzumdar, MD

Transcript

• 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.