Keynote Speaker

Luis Alberto Diaz Jr., MD

Head of the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology; Grayer Family Chair, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
 Luis Alberto Diaz Jr., MD Website

Dr. Luis Diaz is the Head of the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology in Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Department of Medicine. He is also a medical oncologist who cares for people with advanced colon cancer and pancreatic cancer and a researcher applying cancer genetics to find new ways to diagnose and treat the disease.

Dr. Diaz's research focuses on applied cancer genetics. The more his team learns about a tumor’s makeup, the more precise targets and diagnostics they can create against it — including immunotherapy treatments, which harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Dr. Diaz is also very interested in how they can use cancer genetics to screen for, detect, diagnose, and monitor cancer by looking at DNA in tumor tissue and by using liquid biopsies.

Together with his colleagues, he is working to develop a “molecular pap smear” that is able to diagnose early-stage ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer based on these genetic markers — a crucial advance that would mean he could catch more instances of these cancers and begin treating them as quickly as possible. The test is currently in clinical trials. Dr. Diaz's hope is that they will start seeing this as part of the standard of care within the next few years.