Brian Henick, MD

Dr. Bret Taback is a nationally recognized surgical oncologist in the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center department of surgery. Dr. Taback is a leader in the clinical management of melanoma, sarcoma and skin/soft tissue tumor surgery. Dr. Taback is the Director of the Melanoma and Sarcoma Program and Director of the Breast Surgery Fellowship. Dr. Taback received his MD degree at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston , and completed his general surgery residency at Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital. During that time he completed a Basic Science Research Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston. Following this, he completed a fellowship in Complex Surgical Oncology at the John Wayne Cancer Institute, Santa Monica, California. Dr. Taback is a member of a number of organizations and societies including Society of Surgical Oncology, American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association for Cancer Research. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He has published and authored numerous peer review manuscripts, abstracts and presentations, as well as book chapters over the years in notable publications such as Annals of Surgery, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. He is a clinical investigator with SWOG and Alliance for clinical trials. Dr. Taback has served on numerous hospital committees including tumor boards, Institutional Review Boards, Oncology Operations Council and is the American College of Surgeon’s Commission on Cancer Physician Liaison for NYP Hospital. Most recently, Dr. Taback is a noted Castle Connolly Top Doctor.

Dr. Hua-Jay “Jeff” Cherng is an assistant professor of medicine in the lymphoma program in the Division of Hematology and Oncology. He earned his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and completed internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He subsequently trained at MD Anderson Cancer Center for his hematology and oncology fellowship. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology. Dr. Cherng is a clinical investigator who researches non-invasive response assessment tools such as biomarkers and imaging to predict outcomes of lymphoma patients. His focus is on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), fragments of genetic material shed by lymphomas that can be sequenced and tracked to measure molecular response and minimal residual disease. His work on ctDNA and PET scans in lymphoma has led to publications in high-impact journals including Blood, Blood Advances, American Journal of Hematology, and British Journal of Haematology. He has earned abstract merit awards from the American Society of Hematology, American Society of Clinical Oncology, and Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference. His accomplishments during fellowship earned him a Waun Ki Hong Award for Achievement in Clinical Investigation. He has participated in the Academy of Next Wave of Investigators for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the American Society of Hematology Clinical Research Training Institute. His research on ctDNA has been funded by a Conquer Cancer Young Investigator Award and Career Development Award as well as a NIH/NCI R03 Small Research Grant. He is a member of the SWOG Lymphoma Working Group and Committee. Dr. Cherng’s designs clinical trials with treatment guided by ctDNA; this would allow for treatment de-escalation in good responders to minimize toxicity and escalation in poor responders to maximize chance for durable remissions. Dr. Cherng sees patients with all types of lymphoma with an emphasis on aggressive non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphomas. He treats patients with standard-of-care treatments as well as on clinical trial protocols.

Dr. Prager is Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of Clinical Ethics and Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee at Columbia University Medical Center. He spent two years in the Indian health Service practicing general medicine on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota after his medical internship. Dr. Prager held clandestine medical clinics in the Soviet Union during a visit to Refuseniks in 1986, and later set up the first U.S. - Soviet medical student exchange program between Columbia P&S and the First Moscow Medical Academy. Dr. Prager has been a pulmonologist for over 35 years. He is heavily involved in teaching pulmonology and medical ethics to medical students, house officers and nurses. His writings on medicine and medical ethics have appeared in medical journals and textbooks as well as on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Prager is a regular guest lecturer in Israel for the Ben Gurion University MD Program in International Health and Medicine in collaboration with Columbia University Health Sciences. He has received honors for his teaching, clinical expertise, contributions to organ donation, and medical humanism.