Rafael Bejar

Dr. Rafael Bejar is an internationally recognized physician scientist with extensive research and clinical experience in the area of hematologic malignancies. Dr. Bejar joined Aptose from UC San Diego where continues to serves as an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, cares for patients, and maintains a research laboratory focused on translational studies of myeloid malignancies. At UCSD, he founded the MDS Center of Excellence and led the Hematology Disease Team. There he has directed several clinical studies and served as an advisor for numerous companies including Celgene, Takeda, AbbVie, Astex, Genoptix, Forty Seven, PersImmune, and Daiichi-Sankyo. Outside UCSD, Dr. Bejar sits on the Scientific Advisory Board for the MDS Foundation, is a prior member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines Committee, and has led projects for the International Working Group for MDS. He is frequently invited to speak at national and international meetings and has published articles in a variety of journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Leukemia, Blood, and Blood Advances. Dr. Bejar has been board certified in Hematology and Oncology since completing his fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He completed his internship in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago followed by his residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston where he later served a Medical Chief Resident and an Instructor in Hematology. He holds an MD degree and Neuroscience PhD from UCSD and a BS in Physics from MIT.