Meet Mark Awad: Thoracic Medical Oncologist at MSK

Dr. Mark Awad treats lung cancer at MSK, offering targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and clinical trials, while focusing on quality of life and personalized care.
Video Details
 Dr. Mark Awad

Mark Awad, MD, PhD

Thoracic Medical Oncologist

Areas of Expertise

Conditions I Treat

  • Lung cancer

My Specialties

  • Immunotherapy
  • Cellular therapy
Dr. Awad's Office Information
Languages: English
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Get to Know Me

I am a medical oncologist who treats people with lung cancer and other thoracic cancers. I see patients at the David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). I am also the chief of MSK’s thoracic oncology service, where I lead an exceptional team of lung and thoracic cancer specialists. Our goal is to deliver world-class thoracic cancer care, make groundbreaking discoveries to improve treatment, and lead the most promising clinical trials that can successfully treat more and more people with cancer. 

When patients come to me for treatment, they can expect to have a comprehensive analysis of their radiology scans, pathology, genomics, and immune profile so that I can recommend the most precise and tailored treatment options. We usually discuss both standard treatment options as well as potential clinical trials. They can also expect to receive care in a warm, compassionate, and inclusive environment where all are welcome.

When I was in college, my father was treated for cancer at MSK. He enrolled in a lifesaving clinical trial after many other treatments were ineffective. My family and I formed close relationships with his cancer care team, and this inspired me to pursue a career as a medical oncologist. Years later, I am honored to be part of the same institution, and I am grateful for all the advances and breakthroughs that have helped my family and so many people worldwide who have cancer. I aim to care for patients as if they were my own family, leaving no stone unturned to deliver the highest quality care.

Besides being a clinician, I engage in research to discover new ways to treat lung cancer. My research focuses on developing new immune therapies and cellular therapies for patients, as well as discovering how cancers develop resistance to treatment so that we can overcome and possibly delay the onset of treatment resistance.

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time outdoors, cycling, cooking, and exploring New York City with my husband and young child. 

What I Do at MSK

I'm a thoracic medical oncologist, which is a cancer doctor who specializes in thoracic (thor-A-sik) cancers. These are cancers that have to do with the chest, including lung, tracheal (windpipe), and thymic (thymus) cancers.

  • Chief, Thoracic Oncology Service
Areas of Expertise

Conditions I Treat

  • Lung cancer

My Specialties

  • Immunotherapy
  • Cellular therapy
Education & Honors

Education

  • MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Residencies

  • Internal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Chief Residency, Internal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital

Fellowships

  • Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center

Board Certifications

  • Medical Oncology

Awards and Honors

  • Highly Cited Researcher Award, Clarivate Web of Science (2021-2023)
  • Asclepios Award, GO2 Foundation (2023)
  • Outstanding Teaching Award, Dana-Farber/Mass General Brigham Fellowship Program (2023)
  • A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award, Harvard Medical School (2022)
  • Team Science Award, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2021)

Insurance Information

Understanding your insurance options is an important part of managing your cancer care. We have relationships with many common healthcare providers and plans.

Don't see your carrier or plan? We can help you understand your coverage.

If you don't have health insurance or are worried that your care may not be fully covered, our financial assistance programs may be able to help.

If you have questions about insurance, call us at 646-497-9176.

Make an Appointment

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Current Patients
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Contact and Location

Office Phone
Location
New York, NY
David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
530 East 74th Street New York NY 10021
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Colleagues

Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering work as teams, with specialists from all different areas. This allows us to consider all your needs together, and to give you the best possible care.

See all Thoracic Oncology Service doctors

Clinical Trials

Smiling doctors in the lab
Find a Clinical Trial for You

Memorial Sloan Kettering's doctors and scientists are constantly developing new treatments for cancer. MSK is typically running hundreds of clinical trials at a given time.

You may be able to participate in a clinical trial even if you are new to MSK. Search our online directory to find trial information and see more about who can participate.

Search clinical trials

Research and Publications

Pecci F, Nakazawa S, Ricciuti B, Harada G, Lee JK, Alessi JV, Barrichello A, Vaz VR, Lamberti G, Di Federico A, Gandhi MM, Gazgalis D, Feng WW, Jiang J, Baldacci S, Locquet MA, Gottlieb FH, Chen MF, Lee E, Haradon D, Smokovich A, Voligny E, Nguyen T, Goel VK, Zimmerman Z, Atwal S, Wang X, Bahcall M, Heist RS, Iqbal S, Gandhi N, Elliott A, Vanderwalde AM, Ma PC, Halmos B, Liu SV, Che J, Schrock AB, Drilon A, Jänne PA, Awad MM. Activating Point Mutations in the MET Kinase Domain Represent a Unique Molecular Subset of Lung Cancer and Other Malignancies Targetable with MET Inhibitors. Cancer Discov. 2024 Aug 2;14(8):1440-1456. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-23-1217. PubMed PMID: 38564707; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11294820.

Ricciuti B, Lamberti G, Puchala SR, Mahadevan NR, Lin JR, Alessi JV, Chowdhury A, Li YY, Wang X, Spurr L, Pecci F, Di Federico A, Venkatraman D, Barrichello AP, Gandhi M, Vaz VR, Pangilinan AJ, Haradon D, Lee E, Gupta H, Pfaff KL, Welsh EL, Nishino M, Cherniack AD, Johnson BE, Weirather JL, Dryg ID, Rodig SJ, Sholl LM, Sorger P, Santagata S, Umeton R, Awad MM. Genomic and Immunophenotypic Landscape of Acquired Resistance to PD-(L)1 Blockade in Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2024 Apr 10;42(11):1311-1321. doi: 10.1200/JCO.23.00580. Epub 2024 Jan 11. PubMed PMID: 38207230; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11095860.

Awad MM, Govindan R, Balogh KN, Spigel DR, Garon EB, Bushway ME, Poran A, Sheen JH, Kohler V, Esaulova E, Srouji J, Ramesh S, Vyasamneni R, Karki B, Sciuto TE, Sethi H, Dong JZ, Moles MA, Manson K, Rooney MS, Khondker ZS, DeMario M, Gaynor RB, Srinivasan L. Personalized neoantigen vaccine NEO-PV-01 with chemotherapy and anti-PD-1 as first-line treatment for non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer. Cancer Cell. 2022 Sep 12;40(9):1010-1026.e11. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2022.08.003. Epub 2022 Aug 25. PubMed PMID: 36027916.

Ricciuti B, Arbour KC, Lin JJ, Vajdi A, Vokes N, Hong L, Zhang J, Tolstorukov MY, Li YY, Spurr LF, Cherniack AD, Recondo G, Lamberti G, Wang X, Venkatraman D, Alessi JV, Vaz VR, Rizvi H, Egger J, Plodkowski AJ, Khosrowjerdi S, Digumarthy S, Park H, Vaz N, Nishino M, Sholl LM, Barbie D, Altan M, Heymach JV, Skoulidis F, Gainor JF, Hellmann MD, Awad MM. Diminished Efficacy of Programmed Death-(Ligand)1 Inhibition in STK11- and KEAP1-Mutant Lung Adenocarcinoma Is Affected by KRAS Mutation Status. J Thorac Oncol. 2022 Mar;17(3):399-410. doi: 10.1016/j.jtho.2021.10.013. Epub 2021 Nov 2. PubMed PMID: 34740862; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10980559.

Awad MM, Liu S, Rybkin II, Arbour KC, Dilly J, Zhu VW, Johnson ML, Heist RS, Patil T, Riely GJ, Jacobson JO, Yang X, Persky NS, Root DE, Lowder KE, Feng H, Zhang SS, Haigis KM, Hung YP, Sholl LM, Wolpin BM, Wiese J, Christiansen J, Lee J, Schrock AB, Lim LP, Garg K, Li M, Engstrom LD, Waters L, Lawson JD, Olson P, Lito P, Ou SI, Christensen JG, Jänne PA, Aguirre AJ. Acquired Resistance to KRAS(G12C) Inhibition in Cancer. N Engl J Med. 2021 Jun 24;384(25):2382-2393. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2105281. PubMed PMID: 34161704; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8864540.

Publications on PubMed

Visit PubMed for a full listing of Dr. Awad’s journal articles. Pubmed is an online index of research papers and other articles from the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

See all on PubMed

Disclosures

Members of the MSK Community often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community. These activities outside of MSK further our mission, provide productive collaborations, and promote the practical application of scientific discoveries.

MSK requires doctors, faculty members, and leaders to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public. Not all disclosed interests and relationships present conflicts of interest. MSK reviews all disclosed interests and relationships to assess whether a conflict of interest exists and whether formal COI management is needed.

Mark Awad discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

  • AbbVie
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Affini-T Therapeutics
    Professional Services and Activities
  • AstraZeneca
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Coherus BioSciences, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • D3 Bio, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • EMD Serono, Inc
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Genentech
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Gilead Sciences, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Gritstone bio, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Lilly Oncology
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Merck & Co Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Mirati Therapeutics
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Novartis
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Pfizer, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Seagen
    Professional Services and Activities
  • Synthekine, Inc.
    Professional Services and Activities

If you’re a patient at MSK and would like more information about your doctor’s external relationships, please talk with your doctor.

The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.

This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2024 through disclosure submission in spring 2025). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at ecoi@mskcc.org.


View all disclosures

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