MSK Announces New Chief of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology

Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD

Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD

Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD, has been appointed chief of the Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology Service in the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology, Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York. She will succeed Leonard Saltz, MD, who had held this position for 5 years. Saltz will assume the position of executive director for clincal value and sustainability.

Janjigian has been a part of the faculty at MSK since 2009, serving in the Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology Service, with a focus on improving treatment outcomes for patients with esophageal and gastric cancers.

An international expert in cancers of the esophagus and stomach, Janjigian is currently leading several studies that could impact the standard of care for cancers in these fields. For example, she is the lead investigator for the ongoing phase III CheckMate 649 trial of immunotherapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) in treatment-naïve patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer compared with nivolumab and chemotherapy or chemotherapy alone (NCT02872116). She focuses her research on new treatment strategies, with an emphasis on defining therapeutically relevant molecular characteristics of tumors in the gastrointestinal tract.