Perlmutter Cancer Center Appoints Inaugural Director of Center for Blood Cancers

Faith E. Davies, MD, a nationally renowned hematology expert, has been appointed the inaugural director of the Center for Blood Cancers at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center. Dr. Davies currently serves as professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the Clinical Myeloma Program at Perlmutter Cancer Center.

In her new role, Dr. Davies will work with established NYU Langone clinicians and scientists to enhance the new Center for Blood Cancers’clinical and translational research programs, help to recruit new basic, translational, and clinical researchers in hematological malignancies, and oversee the development of a powerful biospecimens resource to facilitate research on blood cancers across Perlmutter Cancer Center.

The Center for Blood Cancers was established, through an anonymous gift of $75 million, to enhance research and clinical efforts for all types of blood malignancies. According to the National Foundation for Cancer Research, blood cancers account for almost 10 percent of all new cancer cases in the United States each year. The most common of these—including leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma—prevent the blood from performing normal functions, such as fighting off infection or preventing serious bleeding.

The Center for Blood Cancers supports new and ongoing research efforts and provides expanded educational resources for students and faculty at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. As part of the center’s mission to enhance services for patients, the recently opened state-of-the-art Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Center provides patients with a healthcare team and services dedicated to blood and marrow transplants and cell therapy. This new facility, located between 33rd and 34th Streets on 2nd Avenue, will offer outpatient transplants to appropriate patients and house a cell processing facility to enable increasing efforts in cell therapy.

“We are delighted that Dr. Davies will be leading the Center for Blood Cancers,” Michael L. Grossbard, MD, professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and section chief of hematology at Perlmutter Cancer Center, said. “Her work has been fundamental to revealing the importance of achieving complete remission in myeloma therapy, and under her leadership, the center is poised to extend treatment advances for all blood cancers.”

About Dr. Faith E. Davies

Dr. Davies received her medical degrees from University of Wales College of Medicine and completed her hematology specialty training in the United Kingdom. She completed fellowships at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research, London, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.

Dr. Davies joined NYU Langone in 2019 as director of the Clinical Myeloma Program at Perlmutter Cancer Center from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where she was medical director of the Myeloma Institute. Throughout her career, Dr. Davies has worked to examine potential new drugs and genetic technologies that can be used to treat myeloma more effectively. She has helped to define the role of changes in chromosomes (cytogenetics) in myeloma prognosis, which has led to the identification of myeloma subgroups that determine prognosis and promise to result in ever more personalized therapy.

At Perlmutter Cancer Center, she and her colleagues are building a clinical trial portfolio concentrating on new immunotherapy approaches, and current studies include the investigation of new immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs), bispecific antibodies and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell approaches. The strength of these studies is enhanced by translational work using patient samples. In collaboration with Gareth J. Morgan, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of multiple myeloma research at Perlmutter Cancer Center, Dr. Davies is investigating the impact of both tumor genomics and the immune microenvironment on the outcome of these immune strategies.

“I am excited to lead the Center for Blood Cancers,” Dr. Davies said. “Perlmutter Cancer Center has an outstanding team of hematologists and medical oncologists, and I am looking forward to building on this strong foundation to provide improved care for our patients.”