Dr. David Paul Kelsen

Dr. David Paul Kelsen, MD, is a board-certified medical oncologist specializing in gastrointestinal malignancies at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), where he serves as an attending physician on the Gastrointestinal Oncology Service. He led that service as Chief from 1991 to 2011 and continues to contribute to institutional leadership through his role on MSKCC's Research Council, which oversees the center's clinical research portfolio. His clinical practice encompasses gastrointestinal cancers, neuroendocrine tumors, and cancers of unknown primary site.

Dr. Kelsen's research is concentrated on upper gastrointestinal cancers, with a particular focus on pancreatic and gastroesophageal malignancies. A central premise of his work is that these cancers are not single diseases, and that characterizing their distinct subtypes at the genomic level can yield better strategies for prevention, early diagnosis, staging, and treatment. He leads MSKCC's registry studying inherited BRCA mutation-related pancreatic cancer, and his translational research includes efforts to identify new biomarkers through molecular profiling to guide individualized treatment decisions. As principal investigator on national phase II and III clinical trials, his work has been supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the Lustgarten Foundation.

On the national level, Dr. Kelsen has served on several prominent advisory bodies, including the Oncology Drug Advisory Committee of the US Food and Drug Administration, the GI Committee of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, and the Investigational Drugs Steering Committee of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program of the National Cancer Institute. He currently serves as co-chair of the Clinical Trials subcommittee of the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, reflecting his ongoing commitment to advancing the science and treatment of one of oncology's most challenging diseases.