2008 Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievements by a Young Investigator
Dr. Rai is an assistant attending clinical chemist in the clinical chemistry service of the department of pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. During his fellowship training at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Rai focused on proteomics- and bioinformatics-based biomarker discovery in ovarian cancer, in addition to his clinical service training. His current research interests lie in the discovery of novel biomarkers for cancer and their translation into clinically useful diagnostic tests. Recent projects have included biomarker discovery using multiplexed gene expression profiling and proteomics techniques, and development of assays for multiplexed single nucleotide polymorphism analysis. He is interested in designing, evaluating, and validating tests for stratifying cancer subtypes and identifying patients unable to metabolize chemotherapeutic drugs. By stratifying a patient’s disease based on biomarker profiles and screening patient genotypes prior to their starting therapy, treatment of a patient’s cancer and selection of the most appropriate therapeutic regimen can be custom tailored. Dr. Rai has published more than 20 scientific articles and presented more than 25 invited lectures nationally and internationally. He serves on committees for several professional organizations, including the New York Metro Section of the the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (formerly AACC), the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry, and the Clinical Ligand Assay Society.