Jamie E. Chaft, MD

In the clinic, my team and I focus on personalizing our care for each patient not only to his or her type of cancer and its genetics but to the patient’s personal circumstances, beliefs, and wishes.  We consider a patient’s disease characteristics and biological characteristics in light of the priorities of each patient and his or her family, and discuss treatment options — including clinical trial opportunities when appropriate — to provide the best care for our patients as we work with them to fight their cancer.

While I care for patients with all types and stages of lung cancer, my research focuses on the use of multimodality therapies (such as chemotherapy​, immunotherapy, or targeted therapy plus radiation or surgery) to improve cure rates in patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.

At Memorial Sloan Kettering, I am a lead investigator on all trials evaluating multimodality treatment for non-small cell lung cancers. These trials focus on developing new treatment regimens by finding different applications for standard drugs or testing new therapeutic agents with surgery and/or radiation. Additionally, I conduct research to identify biomarkers that are unique to a patient or his or her cancer. These biomarkers can be used to preferentially select a drug treatment regimen that is likely to be more effective against that individual’s lung cancer. Discovering such biomarkers will allow us to optimize the use of available therapies to maximize the benefit of anticancer treatments while minimizing the patient’s exposure to side effects of less-active treatments. This is a promising and active research niche in the area of personalized medicine where we aim to improve the outcomes and quality of life of patients diagnosed with lung cancer.