Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD

Clinical Cancer Research Deputy Editor

Dr. Omar Abdel-Wahab joined Clinical Cancer Research as a Deputy Editor in 2018. He currently works at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as a Co-Director of the Center for Hematologic Malignancies, a Co-Director of the Hematology/Medical Oncology Fellowship Program, an Associate Member of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, and a clinician on the Leukemia Service.

As a physician-scientist, Dr. Abdel-Wahab studies the functional genomics of hematopoietic malignancies, and his lab focuses on understanding and targeting the somatic mutations driving hematologic malignancies. His expertise is in leukemia and myeloid malignancies, including myeloproliferative neoplasms, myelodysplasia, and acute myeloid leukemia.

He completed his fellowship in hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and his medical degree at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Abdel-Wahab has received numerous awards, the most recent being the American Society of Clinical Investigation’s Donald Seldin-Holly Smith Award for Pioneering Research in 2017, the Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research in 2016, and both the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Clinical Scholar Award and the American Society of Hematology’s Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in 2015.

Dr. Abdel-Wahab began participating in AACR’s journal program as a reviewer in 2011. He also chaired the “Understanding and targeting RNA splicing factor mutations in cancer” session at AACR’s 2018 Annual Meeting in Chicago and the “Alterations and Inhibition of the Spliceosome” session at the AACR’s 2016 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, and he presented research at AACR’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. In addition to his work in AACR’s journal program, Dr. Abdel-Wahab serves as an editor and reviewer on a variety of other hematology journals, including Haematologica and Leukemia.

Select Publications

• Diverse and Targetable Kinase Alterations Drive Histiocytic Neoplasms.
  E.L. Diamond…O. Abdel-Wahab. Cancer Discovery February 2016.
• Prospective Blinded Study of BRAF^V600E Mutation Detection in Cell-Free DNA of Patients with Systemic Histiocytic Disorders.
  D.M Hyman…O. Abdel-Wahab. Cancer Discovery January 2015.
• Efficacy of Intermittent Combined RAF and MEK Inhibition in a Patient with Concurrent BRAF- and NRAS-Mutant Malignancies.
  O. Abdel-Wahab…P.B. Chapman. Cancer Discovery May 2014.

Recent Publications

• Rational targeting of cooperating layers of the epigenome yields enhanced therapeutic efficacy against AML.
  C. Duy…A.M. Melnick. Cancer Discovery July 2019.
• Molecular Profiling of Tumor Tissue and Plasma Cell-Free DNA from Patients with Non-Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis.
  F. Janku…R. Kurzrock. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics June 2019.
• A Novel Germline Variant in CSF3R Reduces N-Glycosylation and Exerts Potent Oncogenic Effects in Leukemia.
  D.R. Spiciarich…J.E. Maxson. Cancer Research December 2018.
• Allele-Specific Mechanisms of Activation of MEK1 Mutants Determine Their Properties.
  Y. Gao…N. Rosen. Cancer Discovery May 2018.