Memorial Sloan Kettering medical oncologist Ciara Kelly

Ciara Kelly, MBBCh BAO

Sarcoma Medical Oncologist

Areas of Expertise

Conditions I Treat

  • Bone cancers and conditions
  • Soft tissue sarcomas
  • Merkel cell carcinoma

My Specialties

  • Immunotherapy
  • Clinical trials
  • Liquid biopsy
View more expertise
Dr. Kelly's Office Information
Languages: English
Request an Appointment
Our Care Advisors can answer many of your questions. They will connect you with the best healthcare provider for your needs.

Get to Know Me

I am a medical oncologist who has expertise in treating and researching bone and soft tissue sarcomas and merkel cell carcinoma. I work very closely with our team of medical oncologists, surgeons, radiation oncologists, nurses, and patient support advocates. We provide our patients with the best care and treatment options for their unique disease and circumstances.

My research aims to develop new and more personalized therapies to treat sarcomas. I am actively involved in developing and designing clinical trials that will look at novel agents that target molecular changes within tumors. I am also studying innovative combination immunotherapy options that will harness a person’s own immune defenses to fight their cancer.

I have a particular interest in advancing our understanding of gastrointestinal stromal tumors and other sarcomas at the molecular level. I am using liquid biopsies to analyze tumor DNA in the blood and tumor biopsies to uncover a biomarker that will ultimately help us match the best treatment option with each individual person’s tumor.

When someone is diagnosed with a rare cancer like a sarcoma, they may think there are limited treatment options. At MSK, the rare is not uncommon. We have an entire team of experts who are solely focused on diagnosing and treating sarcomas. We are constantly looking for newer and better ways to care for our patients.

What I Do at MSK

I'm a sarcoma medical oncologist, which is a cancer doctor who specializes in sarcoma. This includes bone and soft tissue sarcomas (such as Ewing sarcoma and Liposarcoma) and benign (not cancer) growths that are like sarcoma. 

  • Clinical Director, Sarcoma Oncology Service
Areas of Expertise

Conditions I Treat

  • Bone cancers and conditions
  • Soft tissue sarcomas
  • Merkel cell carcinoma

My Specialties

  • Immunotherapy
  • Clinical trials
  • Liquid biopsy
  • Biomarker testing
Education & Honors

Education

  • MBBCh BAO, University College Dublin

Residencies

  • Internal medicine – The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland

Fellowships

  • Medical Oncology – The Royal College of Physicians Ireland
  • Medical Oncology - Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Board Certifications

  • Internal Medicine (Ireland)
  • Medical Oncology (Ireland & Europe)

Awards and Honors

  • Irish Society of Medical Oncology Scholarship Award (2014)
  • American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Merit Award (2017)
  • ASCO Young Investigator Award (2017)

Insurance Information

Understanding your insurance options is an important part of managing your cancer care. We have relationships with many common healthcare providers and plans.

Don't see your carrier or plan? We can help you understand your coverage.

If you don't have health insurance or are worried that your care may not be fully covered, our financial assistance programs may be able to help.

If you have questions about insurance, call us at 646-497-9176.

Make an Appointment

Women talking
New Patients
Scheduling an appointment is easy. Click or call 646-497-9067— we’re available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Make an Appointment
Current Patients
Request an appointment by calling your Care Team or messaging them in MSK MyChart.

Contact and Location

Office Phone
Location
Basking Ridge, NJ
New York, NY
Memorial Sloan Kettering Basking Ridge
136 Mountain View Boulevard Basking Ridge NJ 07920
Get Directions
Rockefeller Outpatient Pavilion
160 East 53rd Street New York NY 10022
Get Directions

Looking to see a doctor at a different location? See all MSK locations.

Colleagues

Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering work as teams, with specialists from all different areas. This allows us to consider all your needs together, and to give you the best possible care.

See all Sarcoma Medical Oncology Service doctors

Clinical Trials

Smiling doctors in the lab
Find a Clinical Trial for You

Memorial Sloan Kettering's doctors and scientists are constantly developing new treatments for cancer. MSK is typically running hundreds of clinical trials at a given time.

You may be able to participate in a clinical trial even if you are new to MSK. Search our online directory to find trial information and see more about who can participate.

Search clinical trials

Research and Publications

Publications on PubMed

Visit PubMed for a full listing of Dr. Kelly’s journal articles. Pubmed is an online index of research papers and other articles from the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

See all on PubMed

Disclosures

Members of the MSK Community often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community. These activities outside of MSK further our mission, provide productive collaborations, and promote the practical application of scientific discoveries.

MSK requires doctors, faculty members, and leaders to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public. Not all disclosed interests and relationships present conflicts of interest. MSK reviews all disclosed interests and relationships to assess whether a conflict of interest exists and whether formal COI management is needed.

Ciara Kelly discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

  • Deciphera
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Kartos Therapeutics, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
  • Physicians' Education Resource
    Professional Services and Activities

If you’re a patient at MSK and would like more information about your doctor’s external relationships, please talk with your doctor.

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2024 through disclosure submission in spring 2025). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].


View all disclosures

Related topics: