Kantarjian Hagop

Hagop Kantarjian is a professor in and chair of the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, USA. He is the Samsung Distinguished Leukemia Chair in Cancer Medicine and a special fellow in healthcare policies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston. Dr. Kantarjian advocates for healthcare issues pertinent to patients with cancer, particularly those with leukemia.

Dr. Kantarjian’s research focuses on translational and clinical developmental therapeutics in leukemia. In the past 3 decades, he has made several contributions that have improved prognosis and survival in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (tyrosine kinase inhibitors, e.g. imatinib, dasatinib, nilotinib, bosutinib, and ponatinib, which increased the 10-year survival from 20% to 90%) and acute lymphocytic leukemia (hyper-CVAD regimen and its derivatives; antibodies including blinatumomab and inotuzumab). He also aided in the discovery of decitabine for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndromes and of clofarabine for the treatment of leukemias. His research and collaborations have formed the basis for the FDA approval of numerous leukemia drugs.

Dr. Kantarjian has received various prestigious honors and awards, including: the 37th Jeffrey A. Gottlieb Memorial Award; the John Mendelsohn Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award; the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Joseph H. Burchenal Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Cancer Research; and the Charles A. LeMaistre, MD Outstanding Achievement Award in Cancer. Additionally, he was honored for lifetime achievement at the 2014 Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Awards. He has authored or co-authored more than 2000 peer-reviewed publications over the course of his career.