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Howard I. Scher, MD
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Howard I. Scher, MD Chief, Genitourinary Oncology Service; D. Wayne Calloway Chair in Urologic Oncology
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I am Chief of the Genitourinary Oncology Service at the Sidney Kimmel Center for Urologic and Prostate Cancers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and a board-certified medical oncologist with special expertise in treating men with advanced prostate cancer. Under my leadership, the Genitourinary Oncology Service program is dedicated to the treatment of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, bladder and upper-tract urothelial cancer, and kidney cancer. Our objective is to foster synergy between scientific research and clinical practice, and to ensure that promising scientific discoveries are used to develop new diagnostic tests and treatments for patients.
My own research is focused on three critical areas: developing treatments that target specific signaling pathways that contribute to prostate cancer growth, developing non-invasive methods to determine whether these agents are working, and improving the way drugs are evaluated in the clinic.
Targeted therapies, which attack specific cancer cells without harming normal cells, have the potential to treat cancers with fewer side effects than conventional therapies. Critical to the development of this approach, is to determine which treatment is most likely to be benefit an individual patient. Currently, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is the best routinely available biomarker providing diagnostic and prognostic information about prostate cancer. PSA testing is useful, but I does not determine reliably determine whether or not a treating is working, nor does not provide definitive guidance in selecting one therapy over another. My colleagues and I are evaluating a promising new blood test for circulating tumor cells. We are finding that the number of circulating tumor cells in a patient’s blood helps determine a patient’s prognosis and whether or not a treatment is working. Circulating tumor cells are also providing a biological snapshot of an individual patient’s tumor, which may help determine the choice of therapy.
As a member of the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Working Group, I led an international effort to standardize development of the design and analysis of phase 2 clinical trials, so we can better utilize prostate cancer therapeutics and imaging modalities. I also developed the Clinical States Model of Prostate Cancer Progression, which, in categorizing the clinical spectrum of prostate cancer from diagnosis to metastasis, provides a framework to access and reassess prognosis over time.
I am also the principal investigator of the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium, a 13-center research collaborative headquartered at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and funded by the Department of Defense and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. A critical part of this effort is to design and conduct clinical trials of promising new approaches are available to patients as soon as possible. Since 2006, the consortium has facilitated 60 new studies related to prostate cancer. Ultimately, through these clinical trials, we seek to develop more effective treatments for prostate cancers of all stages and to discover means of prevention.
In addition to serving as Chief of the Genitourinary Oncology Service for the past 16 years, I am the incumbent of the D. Wayne Calloway Chair in Urologic Oncology and a Professor of Medicine at the Joan and Sanford Weill Medical College of Cornell University. I am a recipient of the Donald S. Coffey-Prostate Cancer Foundation Physician-Scientist Award, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award. I also serve on numerous editorial and scientific advisory boards and am a reviewer for many journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, Clinical Cancer Research, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Journal of Urology, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. I have written extensively and published over 370 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals and coauthored the textbook Principals and Practice of Genitourinary Oncology.
Appointments for New Patients
646-497-9068
Phone
646-422-4330
Education
MD, New York University School of Medicine
Residencies
Bellevue Hospital Center (New York)
Fellowships
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center
Board Certifications
Internal Medicine; Medical Oncology
Clinical Expertise
Prostate Cancer and Other Genitourinary Malignancies; Immunotherapy
Department & Service
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