Aram F. Hezel, M.D.

Serving the University and Rochester community as Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology is a great privilege and honor.

Oncology is a field of work I chose driven by the loss of my grandfather from cancer as a young man, and then later in medical school, as I came to understand the scientific challenges cancer medicine presented and the deep satisfaction of caring for and helping people facing cancer. In particular I found the people I met in the clinics and labs who devoted themselves to this area to be role models and sources of inspiration.

Every patient is different – and so is each cancer. Understanding patients and their families, what is important to them, and providing the best possible care is my goal. While many people face cancer, each person does so with specific concerns, fears and beliefs. I will always do my best to provide the highest quality care, while preserving a patient's dignity.

My areas of special interest include clinical trials with new therapies for gastrointestinal cancers, and understanding the genetics and biology of pancreatic and liver cancers. My clinical specialty, caring for patients with gastro-intestinal cancers, both motivates and informs my research aspirations.

In the course of this work, I have promoted physician-scientist training at multiple levels including through the cancer center and the national cancer research community. Specifically, I have mentored numerous oncology fellows, postdoctoral fellows and PhD candidates, including MD-PhD students. As a physician, researcher and leader at URMC and Wilmot I am committed to enhancing the diversity of our community.

Conditions I Treat

- Esophageal cancer
- Stomach cancer
- Liver cancer
- Pancreatic cancer
- Bowel cancer
- Colon cancer
- Rectal cancer
- Anal cancer
- Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST)
- Neuroendocrine tumors
- Carcinoid tumors

Professional Background

Dr. Hezel is Chief of its Division of Hematology and Oncology and Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, John and Ethel Heselden Professor and has joint appointments as associate professor of biomedical genetics and as associate professor of oncology at the Wilmot Cancer Institute.

Dr. Hezel's research focuses on cancer genetics, animal modelling, and therapeutic development in pancreatic and hepato-biliary tumors and clinical trials in gastro-intestinal malignancies. In biliary tract cancers he has studied how mutations in key oncogenes and tumor suppressors cause cancer to arise and to understand the cells of origin in the liver as well as how liver injury can impact disease. Hezel's clinical focus is on treating patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancers including those of the pancreas and liver and on clinical research testing new therapies in gastrointestinal malignancies. His research has appeared in Cancer Research, Cell Reports, Nature, and the British Journal of Cancer among other publications.

Hezel is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, as well as the American Association for Cancer Research, and his work is supported by the National Cancer Institute.

Hezel, a graduate of Vassar College, received his MD from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2000. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Boston followed by fellowship at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Partners Oncology/Hematology Program and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Hezel came to Rochester in 2009 from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School.