Dr. Wasif Saif Also Tapped for Leadership Role
Dr. Wasif Saif, a nationally-recognized expert in gastrointestinal cancer and experimental therapeutics, has joined the team of specialists at Orlando Health Cancer Institute. He will serve as deputy director of the Cancer Institute and department chair for hematology and oncology.
Before joining Orlando Health Cancer Institute, Dr. Saif served in leadership and teaching posts in top-tier programs at the medical schools of Columbia University in New York City, Tufts University in Boston and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He has extensive experience researching and treating tumors in the gastrointestinal tract, including the pancreas, bile duct, gall bladder, liver, colon, rectum, anus, small bowel, esophagus, stomach, and peritoneum.
“I am very fortunate to be part of a great team of physicians here at Orlando Health Cancer Institute who are on the cutting edge of cancer care,” said Dr. Saif. “I look forward to working with our specialists to continue to bring the best and most advanced treatments to our patients.”
Dr. Saif received his medical training at King Edward Medical College in Pakistan. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington and performed fellowships in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute and in hematology at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Both are part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.
In addition to being an internationally recognized expert on GI cancers and phase I studies, Dr. Saif has been the principal investigator for more than 65 prospective cancer clinical trials for agencies such as the NIH and the American Cancer Society. He serves on the editorial board of numerous peer review journals, is a grant reviewer for competitive grants, and is a highly sought-after lecturer. Dr. Saif has distinguished himself as an eminent scholar, publishing over 600 scientific papers, textbook chapters, and abstracts/proceedings of meetings.
