Neal Rosen

Dr. Rosen is a Member of the Molecular Pharmacology Program and the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Dr. Rosen’s major interests involve identification and study of the key molecular events and growth signaling pathways responsible for the development of human cancers, and the use of this information for the development of mechanism-based therapeutic strategies. Dr. Rosen has pioneered the concepts that feedback inhibition of physiologic signaling is an important consequence of oncogene activation that shapes the phenotype of cancer cells and that relief of this feedback in tumors treated with inhibitors of oncoprotein-activated signaling causes adaptive resistance to these drugs. Recent work from the Rosen laboratory includes the elucidation of the underlying mechanisms whereby mutated BRAF genes cause cancer and the discovery that these mutations may be divided into three different classes that determine the effective strategies for their treatment. These studies predicted several of the cellular mechanisms whereby tumors develop acquired resistance and adaptive resistance to standard therapy and the discovery and development of new drugs that will reverse this resistance. Recently, the Rosen laboratory has also focused on the development of the first direct inhibitor of RAS, a gene involved in the development of 25% of human cancers. This work, in addition to other recent studies by the Rosen laboratory on the consequences of relief of negative feedback by oncoprotein inhibitors, has led to multiple clinical trials of combination therapies at Memorial Sloan Kettering and other cancer centers in the United States and internationally that have shown promising early results. He is the incumbent of the Enid A. Haupt Chair in Medical Oncology at MSK and the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Melanoma Research.

Dr. Rosen received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Columbia College and an M.D. and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and postdoctoral training and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute. He was on the senior staff of the Medicine Branch at the NCI prior to joining the faculty of MSK.