Howard Hochster assumed the role of associate director for clinical research and chief of gastrointestinal medical oncology at Rutgers Cancer Institute, as well as director of cancer clinical research for oncology services at RWJBarnabas Health.
Hochster is an expert in the development of cancer clinical trials, gastrointestinal oncology and early phase cancer drugs.
Hochster, who is awaiting appointment as a distinguished professor of medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, was most recently on the faculty at the Yale Cancer Center and the Yale School of Medicine, where he served as a professor of medicine, associate director for clinical sciences and the disease aligned research team leader for the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program. He also served as a clinical program leader for the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital.
In his new roles, Hochster will oversee clinical research activities, which include therapeutic cancer clinical trials offered at Rutgers Cancer Institute and throughout the RWJBarnabas Health system.
Hochster, whose most recent clinical trials work focused on checkpoint inhibitors, is chair of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee of SWOG.
Prior to Yale, Hochster spent more than two decades at the former New York University Cancer Institute, where he led the Office of Clinical Trials and Developmental Therapeutics and held other leadership roles.
He is a medical director of the Chemotherapy Foundation and an associate editor of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and an editorial board member of Gastrointestinal Oncology and Current Colorectal Cancer Reports.