Stephen H. Wrzesinski MD, PhD, is Director of Immunooncology and Cell Therapies and a medical oncologist at New York Oncology Hematology (NYOH) as well as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Albany Medical Center. Dr. Wrzesinski received his BA degree with a concentration in chemistry at Hamilton College followed by an MD and PhD in microbiology and immunology at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. His PhD research focused on the use of retroviral vectors to evaluate the biology and effects of the HTLV-1 tax gene expressed in human pleuripotential stem cells and neuroglial cells. He subsequently completed an internal medicine residency training program at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center followed by a medical oncology fellowship at the Yale Cancer Center. During his residency training he was the recipient of a Hitchcock Foundation grant to evaluate genetic signatures of dendritic cell subtypes considered for future tumor vaccine studies. Dr. Wrzesinski received a Yale Melanoma SPORE Career Development Award during fellowship training to study immunotherapy combinations in preclinical melanoma models. He stayed on the Yale faculty as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine and transitioned to full clinical faculty with a focus on clinical research at the VA Medical Center in West Haven, Connecticut. During his tenure at Yale he published a number of articles detailing the role of TGF-beta in promoting tumorigenesis through immunosuppressive mechanisms within the tumor microenvironment and preliminary preclinical data suggesting a rationale of blocking this cytokine in combination with other immunotherapies such as IL-2 to promote antitumor immunity.
In 2011 Dr. Wrzesinski moved to the Capital District and joined the St. Peter’s Cancer Care Center in Albany, NY, becoming Division Chief of Medical Oncology/Hematology in 2015. During this time he opened a number of clinical trials as local PI, including two seminal studies evaluating the use of checkpoint inhibitor therapy to treat patients with advanced lung cancer: the CheckMate-153 and KEYNOTE–189 studies. He subsequently joined NYOH as Director of Immunooncology and Cell Therapy in 2019. Over the last two years he has opened clinical trials focusing on novel approaches to treat patients with melanoma and advanced lung cancer refractory to checkpoint inhibitor therapies. He has also overseen the early development of the immune effector cell therapy program at NYOH which has included the opening of the first outpatient-based CAR T trial in the Capital District in 2020 for patients with refractory B cell NHL (TRANSCEND-OUTREACH-007). He serves on a number of US Oncology Network clinical and research committees, including the Cellular and Gene Therapy Executive Committee. His clinical research interests focus on developing approaches for the treatment of patients with checkpoint inhibitor refractory malignancies as well as novel immune effector cell therapies in addition to CAR-T cell therapies to treat cancer. Dr. Wrzesinski subspecializes in cutaneous and thoracic oncology.