As part of our “Meet Yale Internal Medicine” series, today’s feature is on Sarah Weiss, MD, assistant professor of medicine (medical oncology).
Q: What led you into medical oncology and melanoma research?
A: I was looking for a changing field where I could make an impact. I always had a lot of compassion for patients with cancer and have experienced it within my own family. Unfortunately, I think we all know someone who has suffered from cancer.
In medical oncology there is so much opportunity to make a difference for patients. During my fellowship, I worked with melanoma oncologists who at the time were treating patients on clinical trials with new drugs including targeted and immunotherapies. These drugs went on to be FDA approved and were significantly more effective than anything ever used before in melanoma. This new hope we were able to offer patients was infectious and I thought, ‘I have to do this.’ In oncology, and in melanoma specifically, a lot has changed and hopefully more will continue to change for the better. I love having the relationships with my patients and the personalized care that I’m able to provide.
Q: What brought you to Yale?
A: I wanted to be a melanoma oncologist and work at an institution with an active melanoma program in terms of patient care and research, and Yale is known to be that place. For me, it was important as a junior faculty member to have good mentorship, to have colleagues who are leaders in the field, who’ve been part of development of the drugs and the algorithms for how we treat patients with melanoma. I joined Dr. Harriet Kluger and Dr. Mario Sznol in Yale’s melanoma program in 2016 and have found Yale to have many resources and so much opportunity in terms of active clinical trials and research. Yale is a great combination of mentorship, experience, resources and room for me to grow professionally.
Q: You mentioned in the past that melanoma was considered a death sentence. Can you speak to how things have changed?
A: Things changed about 10 years ago. When I was in my fellowship, new drugs were just getting approved so I had access to them for patient care. The time period was amazing, because we went from not having any effective drugs available, to having them available on a clinical trial, to now, having them available commercially. These new treatments were really effective in some people. It's been a total shift. It was great to witness this change, and there are now many patients living for years with melanoma who have had amazing responses.
Q: What are you studying in the lab for melanoma?
Yale gives you the expertise in melanoma and our patients get very personalized attention. You don't always get that at other hospitals.
Dr. Sarah Weiss
A: Despite all the great advances around immunotherapy and the targeted therapies we use, there are still many patients with melanoma who don't respond to treatment. I want to learn how to treat those patients, to understand why they don't respond to the standard therapies and to try to develop new treatment strategies for them. Within our team, we've identified some drugs that we think could be important in helping patients who are resistant to standard immunotherapies, and how to overcome the resistance if it is possible for them to do so.
Under Dr. Kluger’s mentorship, I have written a phase I clinical trial now open here at Yale for patients who have progressed on PD-1 inhibitors who have advanced melanoma, renal cell carcinoma or non-small cell lung cancer. If they have not responded to a standard PD1 inhibitor, then they can go on this trial. We are looking at a combination of several different immunotherapy-type drugs to see if we can find the appropriate dosing regimen and if there’s efficacy for the drugs in this setting. We are also collecting tumor tissue and blood samples from patients on the trial to see if we can predict whether or not a patient will respond to this new treatment. And if they haven’t responded, we are hoping to determine why.
Q: What would be your advice be to someone who was diagnosed with melanoma? Why should they come to Yale Cancer Center for treatment?
A: I am biased, but I think if you have cancer, being treated at an academic medical center is key because oncology is a rapidly changing field and access to this expertise is important. At Yale Cancer Center, you have people who are leaders in the field and are up-to-date on the latest treatments and research. We might be offering the latest treatment through a clinical trial and may be doing things that could even soon become the standard of care.
Yale gives you the expertise in melanoma and our patients get very personalized attention. You don't always get that at other hospitals.
Q: What are your hopes and your goals for your future?
A: My hope is in some way to make an impact, small or large, for patients whether that's through identifying new treatment approaches or understanding who are the right patients for a particular treatment. The melanoma community is pretty small, and I like to think that many of us, not just at Yale, are all working towards the same goal.