Eric Winer, MD

Eric Winer, MD, is the Director of Yale Cancer Center, as well as President and Physician-in-Chief of the Smilow Cancer Hospital Yale New Haven Health System. An internationally renowned medical oncologist and expert in breast cancer, his work has influenced almost all aspects of research and treatment of the disease.

Although he has always divided his time between patient care, research, and mentoring, Dr. Winer’s work as a clinician has driven him to ask research questions and strive to improve all aspects of care. In spite of many advances, there are still far too many individuals with breast cancer who either suffer from the cancer and treatment and sometimes lose their lives. In the United States alone, there are over 40,000 deaths each year, and there are 10 times as many worldwide.

Dr. Winer has long been an advocate of teams that include both scientists and clinicians as a means of accelerating research with the goal of advancing care. “Our mission at Yale is to deliver the best cancer care today and improve that care tomorrow and in the years ahead,” he says.

Dr. Winer is the Alfred Gilman Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and Deputy Dean of Cancer Research at Yale School of Medicine. He is a past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and is a current member and past chair of its board of directors. For more than a decade, he served as chief scientific advisor and chair of the scientific advisory board for Susan G. Komen for the Cure and is now on the scientific advisory board of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. He will be the board chair in 2025.

Dr. Winer has published over 600 articles, mentored, and has received numerous awards for his breast cancer research. He directed the breast cancer program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for over two decades, served as principal investigator of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE), and won Harvard Medical School’s lifetime achievement award for mentoring. “I have seen the transformation of cancer care over the past three decades and look forward to even more remarkable advances over the next decade. Yale will continue to play an ever more prominent role in cancer care and research in the years ahead,” he says.