Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System recently announced that Edward Chu, MD, MMS, has been named Director of the National Cancer Institute-designated Albert Einstein Cancer Center, Vice President for Cancer Medicine at Montefiore Medicine, Professor of Medicine and of Molecular Pharmacology; and will hold the Carol and Roger Einiger Professorship of Cancer Medicine at Einstein. In these roles, Dr. Chu will unite Einstein and Montefiore’s cancer programs into a fully integrated research and clinical enterprise. The appointment will be effective October 1, 2020.
Edward Chu, MD, MMS
Dr. Chu currently serves as the Deputy Director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center (HCC), co-leader of the HCC Cancer Therapeutics Program, Director of the HCC Phase I Program, as well as Associate Director of the University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute and Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology.
Clinician, Researcher, Investigator
In addition to his leadership positions, Dr. Chu is a National Institutes of Health-funded basic, translational, and clinical investigator, and clinical oncologist, with a long history of developing and leading phase I and phase II clinical trials, particularly for colorectal cancer and other gastroenterology cancers. With his expertise in cancer pharmacology and drug development, he has been active in designing and developing novel agents and treatment approaches. His research has also focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying drug resistance. Additionally, he has studied Chinese herbal medicine and its integration with standard care with the goal of improving outcomes and reducing the toxic side effects of chemotherapy.
“I am honored and humbled to have been appointed Director of the Albert Einstein Cancer Center and Vice President for Cancer Medicine at Montefiore Medicine,” said Dr. Chu. “I am also deeply honored to follow in the footsteps of my good friend Dr. David Goldman, who has been a tremendous leader for AECC for such a long period of time.”
Education and Training
Dr. Chu received his undergraduate, masters, and medical degrees from the Brown University Program in Liberal Medical Education and stayed on at Brown University to do his internal medicine residency, training at Roger Williams General Hospital. He completed his medical oncology fellowship at the NCI in Bethesda, where he was subsequently appointed a member of the senior staff and then a tenured senior clinical investigator in the NCI Medicine Branch and NCI-Navy Medical Oncology Branch.
In 1996, Dr. Chu was recruited to the Yale University School of Medicine, where he first served as Director of the VA Connecticut Cancer Center and co-leader of the Yale Cancer Center (YCC) Developmental Therapeutics Research Program. In 2004, he was appointed Chief of Medical Oncology and YCC Associate Director of Clinical and Translational Research and was subsequently named YCC’s Deputy Director in 2007. In 2010, he was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh.
