Nilay Sethi, MD, PhD

Raised in Cranbury, New Jersey, I received a bachelor’s degree from The College of New Jersey, completed a doctorate at Princeton University, and attended Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. I then ventured west for internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Francisco before returning back east for medical oncology fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Many invaluable experiences impacted my development, guided important decisions, and ultimately inspired a career in medical oncology and investigative cancer research. I initially engaged academia through teaching opportunities. My interest derived primarily from the feeling of gratitude towards my teachers and mentors as they were instrumental in fueling my enthusiasm for learning and channeling my excitement in constructive directions. I enjoyed illustrating the way new hypotheses are generated and the methodical approach used to investigate these emergent hypotheses. These experiences helped me discover an academic community bonded by scholarship and nourished by mentorship.

I am a dedicated physician-scientist who treats patients with gastrointestinal cancer in the hospital and conducts basic and translational research in the laboratory. I am particularly committed to better understanding the fundamental molecular mechanisms that promote gastrointestinal cancers and generate new opportunities for clinical advances. My passion for investigative research is fundamentally dependent on its power to impact our understanding of human disease and ultimately improve patient care. I am determined to improve the outcomes in patients with gastrointestinal cancers. By fulfilling my career promise as a gastrointestinal medical oncologist and cancer investigator, I hope that I will come one step closer to this goal.