About Me

I am a clinical scientist, book author, and essayist who practices humanistic medicine in caring for people with leukemia and related bone marrow cancers.

I am also a Professor of Medicine with Tenure and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Previously, I was Director of the Leukemia Program and Vice-chair for Clinical Research at the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center. I earned a medical degree and a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine before completing my postgraduate training at Harvard University, finishing an internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and a fellowship in hematology-oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. 

Other leadership roles have included chairing the medical advisory board of the Aplastic Anemia and Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) International Foundation, the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee of the F.D.A, the MDS Research Fund of the Dresner Foundation, and the Cleveland Clinic Enterprise Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee. 

Some external activities include being a member of the American Society of Hematology, where I serve on the Executive Committee, the Program Committee, and chair the Committee on Communications; the American Society of Clinical Oncology; and the National Cancer Institute Leukemia Committee. 

I have given hundreds of talks on a wide range of topics to scientific, clinical, and lay audiences. These include the science and clinical practice of leukemia and MDS, risk factors in cancer, leukemia genetics, the FDA and regulatory science, and storytelling and narrative medicine.

My research focuses on patients with MDS and older adults with acute myeloid leukemia, and I have been the national and international primary study investigator on dozens of phase I/II/III trials. I have  authored or co-authored over 450 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 650 conference abstracts published in leading journals such as NEJM, JAMA, Blood, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Genetics, Cancer Cell, Nature Reviews Disease Primers, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and Journal of Clinical Investigation, among dozens of others. 

I was the inaugural editor-in-chief of the ASH Clinical News magazine; am on the editorial board of several journals; am an award-winning essayist and have written over 100 pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other popular outlets; and have authored a number of books, including When Blood Breaks Down: Life Lessons from Leukemia (The MIT Press 2020) and Drugs and the FDA: Safety, Efficacy, and the Public’s Trust (The MIT Press 2022).

I am a proud Dad of three and husband of one, an avid cyclist and a passable repair guy, and thrilled to live in beautiful Miami, Florida.