Leader in personalized lung cancer therapy named Ensign Professor of Medical Oncology

Roy S. Herbst, M.D., Ph.D., a nationally recognized leader in lung cancer treatment and research, has been named the Ensign Professor of Medical Oncology. Herbst joined the School of Medicine in 2011 as professor of medicine, associate director for translational research at Yale Cancer Center, and chief of medical oncology at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. Prior to his appointment at Yale, Herbst was the Barnhart Distinguished Professor and chief of the Section of Thoracic Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston.

Herbst is best known for his work in developmental therapeutics and personalized therapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Over the last decade, he has spearheaded translational studies of many anticancer drugs.

He is a major proponent of personalized therapy for NSCLC. As co-principal investigator of the Biomarker-Based Approaches of Targeted Therapy for Lung Cancer Elimination (BATTLE-1) trial, he made significant advances in personalized therapy for NSCLC by using molecular analysis of tissue biopsies to determine the most appropriate targeted treatment for each patient in real time. He now leads the BATTLE-2 clinical trial at Yale.

Herbst earned a B.S. and M.S. from Yale University. He received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College and earned a Ph.D. in molecular cell biology from the Rockefeller University. He completed fellowships in medical oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and in hematology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he also received a M.M.S. from Harvard University.