Hochster Joins Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and RWJBarnabas Health

Howard S. Hochster, MD

Howard S. Hochster, MD

Howard S. Hochster, MD, an internationally recognized leader in the development of cancer clinical trials, gastrointestinal oncology, and early phase cancer drugs, has joined Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey as associate director for clinical research and chief of gastrointestinal medical oncology. He also assumed the position of director of cancer clinical research for oncology services at RWJBarnabas Health beginning in January 2018.

Previously, Hochster was a professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine and the associate director for clinical sciences at Yale Cancer Center. He was also a clinical program leader of the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital and disease aligned research team leader of the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program at Yale Cancer Center.

“Dr Hochster’s vast experience within highly recognized hospital systems and cancer centers in the Northeast region will enhance the ability of Rutgers Cancer Institute and RWJBarnabas Health to develop today’s scientific discoveries into tomorrow’s cancer treatments. This level of expertise is critical for Rutgers Cancer Institute as the state’s only National Cancer Institute [NCI]—designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in improving the infrastructure for clinical research expansion across the hospitals of the RWJBarnabas Health system,” Steven K. Libutti, MD, FACS, director of the Rutgers Cancer Institute and senior vice president of oncology services for RWJBarnabas Health, said in a statement.

Hochster will oversee clinical research undertakings, including therapeutic cancer clinical trials, offered at Rutgers Cancers Institute and the RWJBarnabas Health system. Hochster has decades of clinical trial experience and has collaborated with national cooperative groups, as well as the NCI. His most recent clinical trials work involved the investigation of checkpoint inhibitors in gastrointestinal cancers.

“I feel privileged to join the team-science environment at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and RWJBarnabas Health where we will continue to improve clinical outcomes and quality of life for patients in New Jersey and across the globe. I have been on the front lines of developing cancer therapies for nearly 3 decades, and I am passionately dedicated to joining Rutgers Cancer Institute investigators in bringing state-of-the-art clinical trials to all the hospitals of the RWJBarnabas system and to the people of the Garden State,” Hochster said in a statement.

Hochster is chair of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee of SWOG, 1 of 3 NCI-funded national clinical trials cooperative groups in the National Clinical Trials Network. His work has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other funders. He has also shared his peer-review expertise with the NIH Clinical Oncology Study Section, Cancer Research UK, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, and other organizations.

Publishing more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, Hochster is an associate editor of theJournal of the National Cancer Institute, and an editorial board member ofGastrointestinal OncologyandCurrent Colorectal Cancer Reports. He also serves as an ad hoc reviewer to numerous other journals including theJournal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer,and theBritish Medical Journal.