Molecular Pharmacology Program

The Omar Abdel-Wahab Lab

Research

Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD

Chair, Molecular Pharmacology Program, SKI; Evnin Family Chair in Molecular Pharmacology; Attending Physician, Leukemia Service

Professor

Omar Abdel-Wahab is the Chair of SKI Molecular Pharmacology Program and an Attending Physician on the Leukemia Service in the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

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Featured News

Three Investigators Named Winners of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s 2025 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) will award three influential cancer researchers with this year’s Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. The prize, named in honor of former MSK president Paul Marks, MD, recognizes a new generation of leaders who are making significant contributions to the understanding of cancer or are improving the treatment of the disease.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Physician-Scientist Elected to the Prestigious National Academy of Medicine

Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD, Chair of the Molecular Pharmacology Program at Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI); Evnin Family Chair in Molecular Pharmacology and Attending Physician on the Leukemia Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), one of the most prestigious honors in the fields of health and medicine.

A pipette inserted into a tube in a rack of test tubes

A New Cellular Immunotherapy Approach May Offer Treatment for AML and MDS 

Laboratory research shows how it may be possible to develop an immunotherapy-based approach for treating aggressive forms of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).

Publications Highlights

Diamond EL, Emile JF, Fujino T, Haroche J, Maron MI, Lewis AM, Rahman J, Reiner AS, Bossert D, Rosenblum M, Yabe M, Petrova-Drus K, Francis JH, Rotemberg V, Rampal RK, Yoo S, Daniyan AF, Mahajan S, Hatzoglou V, Young R, Ulaner GA, Rösler W, Hershkovitz-Rokah O, Shpilberg O, Mazor RD, Chen LYC, Singer M, Cuibus MA, Weis K, Benbarche S, Zhang P, Fox N, Castro C, Tittley S, Witkowski M, Cohen-Aubart F, Terriou L, Hanoun M, Schleinitz N, Sosa G, Hautala T, De Lassus LF, Rosen N, Abdel-Wahab O* (co-corresponding), Durham BH* (co-corresponding). RAF-independent MEK mutations drive refractory histiocytic neoplasms but respond to ERK inhibition. Cancer Cell. 2025 Oct 23:S1535-6108(25)00406-4. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2025.09.014. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41135521; PMCID: PMC12616613.

Kim WJ, Crosse EI, De Neef E, Etxeberria I, Sabio EY, Wang E, Bewersdorf JP, Lin KT, Lu SX, Belleville A, Fox N, Castro C, Zhang P, Fujino T, Lewis J, Rahman J, Zhang B, Winick JH, Lewis AM, Stanley RF, DeWolf S, Urben BM, Takizawa M, Krause T, Molina H, Chaligne R, Koppikar P, Molldrem J, Gigoux M, Merghoub T, Daniyan A, Chandran SS, Greenbaum BD, Klebanoff CA, Bradley RK, Abdel-Wahab O. Mis-splicing-derived neoantigens and cognate TCRs in splicing factor mutant leukemias. Cell. 2025 Apr 21:S0092-8674(25)00399-X. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.03.047. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40273911.

Zhang P, Cao Z, Pan X, Liu Y, Castro C, Kim WJ, Fujino T, Lewis J, Rahman J, Shahid S, Um J, Burns E, Chen B, Cai W, Ortiz-Pacheco J, Li Z, Monetti M, Vakoc CR, Daniyan AF (*co-corresponding), Abdel-Wahab O (*co-corresponding), Shi J (*co-corresponding). Systematic evaluation of GAPs and GEFs identifies a targetable dependency for hematopoietic malignancies. Cancer Discov. 2025 Aug 12. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-25-0299. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40788260.

Zhang P, Whipp EC, Skuli SJ, Gharghabi M, Saygin C, Sher SA, Carroll M, Pan X, Eisenmann ED, Lai TH, Harrington BK, Chan WK, Youssef Y, Chen B, Penson A, Lewis AM, Castro CR, Fox N, Cihan A, Le Luduec JB, DeWolf S, Kauffman T, Mims AS, Canfield D, Phillips H, Williams KE, Shaffer J, Lozanski A, Doong TJ, Lozanski G, Mao C, Walker CJ, Blachly JS, Daniyan AF, Alinari L, Baiocchi RA, Yang Y, Grieselhuber NR, Campbell MJ, Baker SD, Blaser BW (co-corresponding), Abdel-Wahab O (co-corresponding), Lapalombella R (co-corresponding). TP53 mutations and TET2 deficiency cooperate to drive leukemogenesis and establish an immunosuppressive environment. J Clin Invest. 2025 Mar 20:e184021. doi: 10.1172/JCI184021. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40111422.

Benbarche S, Pineda JMB, Galvis LB, Biswas J, Liu B, Wang E, Zhang Q, Hogg SJ, Lyttle K, Dahi A, Lewis AM, Sarchi M, Rahman J, Fox N, Ai Y, Mehta S, Garippa R, Ortiz-Pacheco J, Li Z, Monetti M, Stanley RF, Doulatov S, Bradley RK, Abdel-Wahab O. GPATCH8 modulates mutant SF3B1 mis-splicing and pathogenicity in hematologic malignancies. Mol Cell. 2024 May 16;84(10):1886-1903.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2024.04.006. Epub 2024 Apr 29. PMID: 38688280; PMCID: PMC11102302.

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People

Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD

Chair, Molecular Pharmacology Program, SKI; Evnin Family Chair in Molecular Pharmacology; Attending Physician, Leukemia Service

Professor

Physician-scientist Omar Abdel-Wahab studies the functional genomics of hematopoietic malignancies.
MD, Duke University School of Medicine

[email protected]: Email Address
View physician profile: Physician profile

Members

Yuxi Ai

Research Scholar

Salima Benbarche

Senior Research Scientist

Cynthia Castro

Research Technician

Bing-Yi Chen

Research Scholar

Takeshi Fujino

Research Fellow

Yue Huang

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Won Kim

Graduate Student

Xiaoli Mi

Fellow

Jahan Rahman

Computational Biologist II

Erich Sabio

Senior Research Scientist

Robert Stanley

Fellow

Steven Tittley

Research Lab Manager

Pu Zhang

Research Scholar

Qian Zhang

Research Scholar

Jihae Ahn

Volunteer

Shlomzion Aumann

Research Fellow

Lillian Bitner

Research Technician

Jessie Bourcier

Research Fellow

Anna Chan

Research Technician

Sisi Chen

Research Scholar

Hana Cho

Research Assistant

Young Rock Chung

Research Technician

Daniel Cui

Research Technician

Caroline Erickson

Research Technician

Luisa Escobar Hoyos

Research Fellow

Nina Fox

Research Technician

Simon Hogg

Research Fellow

Monisha Hosier

Administrative Assistant II

Daichi Inoue

Visiting Investigator

Michelle Ki

Research Technician

Eunhee Kim

Research Fellow

Min Kim

Research Technician

Katherine Knorr

Fellow

Stanley Lee

Research Associate

Alex Lewis

Research Technician

Jennifer Lewis

Medical Student

Bo Liu

Research Associate

Bin Lu

Research Associate

Sydney Lu

Assistant Member, Myeloma Service

Jean Baptiste Micol

Research Fellow

Alessandro Pastore

Senior Research Scientist

Alexander Penson

Senior Computational Biologist

Danielle Richards

Program Assistant

Ruth Saganty

Michael Singer

Research Technician

Justin Taylor

Instructor (Dept. of Medicine)

Eric Wang

Research Scholar

Kenyon Weis

Research Technician

Akihide Yoshimi

Senior Research Scientist

Xiao Zhang

Achievements

Josie Robertson Investigator (2012-2017)
Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research, American Society of Clinical Investigation
Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Clinical Scholar Award
William Dameshek Prize, American Society of Hematology

Joanne Levy Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement, American Society of Hematology
V Scholar Award, V Foundation
Junior Faculty Scholar Award, American Society of Hematology (ASH)
Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award
Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research
National Academy of Medicine

Open Positions

To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center

To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs

Get in Touch

[email protected]

Lab Head Email

Disclosures

Members of the MSK Community often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community. These activities outside of MSK further our mission, provide productive collaborations, and promote the practical application of scientific discoveries.

MSK requires doctors, faculty members, and leaders to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public. Not all disclosed interests and relationships present conflicts of interest. MSK reviews all disclosed interests and relationships to assess whether a conflict of interest exists and whether formal COI management is needed.

Omar Abdel-Wahab discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

AIchemy, Inc.
Equity; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
Array Biopharma
Professional Services and Activities
AstraZeneca
Professional Services and Activities
Codify Therapeutics, Inc.
Equity; Intellectual Property Rights; Professional Services and Activities
Envisagenics
Equity; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)

Epizyme
Intellectual Property Rights
Harmonic Discovery Inc.
Equity
Janssen Global Services, LLC
Professional Services and Activities
Loxo Oncology
Professional Services and Activities

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2024 through disclosure submission in spring 2025). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].

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