International Faculty

Dr. Shaji Kumar
United States
Dr. Ranjana H Advani
United States
Dr. Swaminathan P Iyer
United States
Dr. LEE SOO CHIN
Singapore
Dr. Lim Kiat Hon Tony
Singapore
Dr. Balazs Halmos
New york
Dr. Shaji Kumar is a Consultant in the Division of Hematology and Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center in Rochester, Minnesota. He serves as Medical Director for the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center Clinical Research Office and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Shaji Kumar received his medical degree from All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India. His postdoctoral training included a residency in internal medicine from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, followed by a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota.
The research of Shaji Kumar focuses on development of novel drugs for treatment of myeloma. Dr. Kumar's research team evaluates the in vitro activity of novel drugs that, based on their mechanisms of action, are likely to have activity in the setting of myeloma. Promising drugs are brought into the clinic through early-stage clinical trials in Phase I or II studies.
Multiple myeloma, Monoclonal gammopathies
Ranjana H. Advani, MD is the Saul Rosenberg Professor of Lymphoma and serves as the Physician Leader of the Lymphoma Clinical Care Program. She specializes in research and treatment of Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas and has developed a broad collaborative investigative program, encompassing clinical trials and translational correlates. She is the Principle Investigator on numerous clinical trials. She currently serves on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) non Hodgkin and Hodgkin Lymphoma (vice chair) guidelines panel, Lymphoma Core Committee of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) and the National Cancer Institute Lymphoma Steering Committee.
Lymphoma, Burkitt's Lymphoma, Hodgkin's Disease, Investigational Therapeutics
Dr. Swaminathan P Iyer is Professor, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
He has been in practice for more than 20 years.
Diseases of the blood, spleen and lymph glands, treating such conditions as anemia, clotting disorders, sickle cell disease, hemophilia, leukemia and lymphoma.
She is currently Head and Senior Consultant in Medical Oncology and Associate Director of Research at the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore, and Senior Principal Investigator at the Cancer Science Institute, Singapore. She is ex-Chairperson of the Chapter of Medical Oncologists, Academy of Medicine, Singapore, and has been a member of the Ministry of Health Specialist Accreditation Board for Medical Oncology since 2009. She has been Chair of the National Healthcare Group Domain-Specific Ethics Review Board B since 2008. She is also a member of the Singapore Ministry of Health Drug Advisory Committee for Oncology drugs.
She specializes in breast cancer and directs the Cancer Genetics program at the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore. Her research focus is on breast cancer, pharmacogenetics and cancer genetics, and she has been the Principal Investigator of more than 40 industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated breast cancer clinical trials. She directs the Hematology-Oncology Research Group, a cancer clinical trials unit that conducts 100-120 phase I-III therapeutics clinical trials in solid tumors and hematological malignancies at the National University Cancer Institute.
Senior Consultant and Head, Department of Anatomical Pathology, Singapore General Hospital
Vice Chair, Strategic Programmes, Pathology Academic Clinical Programme (ACP)
Clinical Core Faculty Member, Pathology Residency Programme, Sing Health
Adjunct Associate Professor, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School
Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
Clinical Director, Personalized OMIC Lattice for Advanced Research and Improving Stratification (POLARIS)@GIS
Dr Tony Lim’s research interests revolve about the use of latest technologies in the field of molecular genetics and various omics platforms to characterize poorly understood diseases, especially those with higher prevalence among Asians. The aim of this is to develop advanced diagnostic capabilities which can guide therapy. In particular, he is interested in the study of gastrointestinal and liver pathology, biliary tract diseases like pancreatobilary cancers and lung cancer.
Balazs Halmos, MD received his medical degree summa cum laude from Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary. He completed an internal medicine residency program at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital/Columbia University in New York City followed by a hematology/oncology fellowship program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
While in Dr. Halmos, also obtained an MS degree in Clinical Sciences from Harvard Medical School. Since completion of his fellowship, he has been a faculty member at Harvard, Case Western Reserve University and most recently an Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. There he served as Director of Thoracic Oncology from 2009-2014 and was also Chair of the Cancer IRB.
Dr. Halmos also oversees the thoracic clinical trials program of novel clinical studies at the Montefiore Albert Einstein Cancer Center and is spearheading the effort to develop a molecular testing paradigm for cancer patients managed within the Montefiore to facilitate a personalized cancer medicine approach throughout the health system.
He is the recipient of multiple awards from prestigious organizations such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Association for Cancer Research and the American Cancer Society, where he also serves as a permanent review board member.
Cancer - Lung, Cancer - Lung (Mesothelioma), Cancer - Lung (Thymoma), Medical Oncology
As a clinician-investigator and a practicing medical oncologist, Dr. Leibowitz is engaged in basic, translational and clinical cancer research.
Since 2008, the lab at the cancer research center at the 'Sheba' campus has been studying the role of micro-RNAs in solid malignancies, and was the first to identify the large micro-RNA cluster that is silenced in melanoma. This cluster was later dubbed 'the larger tumor suppressor miRNA cluster' and was shown to be down-regulated in a wide range of malignancies. Dr. Leibowitz team showed the involvement of three miRNAs from this cluster in melanoma progression, and continue to study the role of this cluster in the pathogenesis of this disease and in determining the 'stemness potential' of cancer cells. In parallel, the team studies the involvement of micro-RNAs in regulation of immune checkpoint genes at the 'immunological synapse' in both melanoma and bladder cancer. The group continues to study the cross talk between miRNAs, checkpoint mRNA expression and immunogenicity of solid malignancies.