Owen A. O’Connor, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, is the Director of the Lymphoid Development and Malignancy Program in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University, and Chief of the Lymphoma Service in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at NewYork- Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.  His clinical and research interests focus on the discovery and development of novel small molecules for the treatment of hematologic malignancies. 

Dr. O’Connor received his Ph.D. from the New York University School of Medicine in Biochemical Toxicology and Chemical Carcinogenesis, and his M.D. from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  He then went on to complete a medical internship and residency at The New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center.  Following his medical residency, he did a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he was Chief Fellow from 1997-1998, and a Fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at the New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center.  During his fellowship, he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph R. Bertino.  Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia University, we was an Attending Physician in the Department of Medicine on the Lymphoma Service, and Head of the Laboratory of Experimental Therapeutics for the Lymphoproliferative Malignancies  at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  Dr. O’Connor maintains a laboratory program focused on the discovery of novel small molecules for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease using unique animal models of lymphoma and high-throughput screening approaches.  Clinically, he is focused on the conduct of Phase I and II clinical trials, with an emphasis on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies.  He has a particular interest in the development of proteasome inhibitors, histone deacetylase inhibitors and Bcl-2 targeted drugs for the treatment of lymphoproliferative malignancies.  To date, his efforts in conducting early phase clinical trials with bortezomib (Velcade) and SAHA (Vorinostat) have led to recent FDA approvals of these drugs for the treatment of mantle cell and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.   

Dr. O’Connor is a member of several professional societies, including the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the American Society for Hematology.  He serves on the Lymphoma and Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (PET) Committees for the CALGB.  He is a member of the Executive Committee for the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Consortium for the Lymphoma Research Foundation, and serves as a member of their Scientific Advisory Board.  He is also on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Leukemia and Lymphoma.  He has published nearly 100 articles in numerous journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Journal of Clinical Oncology, British Journal of Hematology, Leukemia and Lymphoma, Clinical Cancer Research, Environmental Science and Technology and Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.  His research has resulted in numerous abstracts of papers presented at National and International meetings.  Dr. O’Connor is the recipient of several honors and awards, including the Scholar in Clinical Research Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a Merit Award from the American Society for Clinical Oncology, and the William Guy Forbeck Scholar Award.