Ari Melnick, MD, is the Laurel Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology/Oncology and a Professor of Medicine, Immunology and Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) in New York City, USA.  Dr. Melnick was raised in Argentina and received his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology/oncology, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, USA.

Dr. Melnick’s long-standing research interests include oncogenic epigenetic mechanisms, biology and molecular targeting of B-cell lymphomas and acute leukemias, targeting transcriptional and epigenetic repressors for cancer therapy, and identifying the epigenetic basis of hematologic malignancies. He and his research associates have developed several novel therapies to correct aberrant transcriptional regulation and signaling in these tumors.  These have led to early phase as well as phase III cooperative group clinical trials and  FDA approvals.  He has created novel infrastructures for translational research and created dynamic bench to bedside teams of clinical investigators with laboratory scientists. He also has an interest in health disparities in hematologic malignancies and is developing precision medicine approaches to address some of these challenges.

Dr. Melnick has authored more than 340 published manuscripts in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Cancer Discovery, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, and the New England Journal of Medicine. He is a past ASH Faculty Scholar, LLS Scholar, Burroughs Wellcome Translational Research Scholar and Kimmel Foundation Scholar and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians.   He was the Bonadonna Lecturer at the 2019 ICML meeting in Lugano and recipient of the 2020 Beutler Lecture and Prize from the American Society of Hematology. 

Dr. Melnick has a primary interest in fostering the career development of junior scientists at every level. He has created and led training programs and national initiatives on training and mentoring. Many of his trainees have become successful independent investigators and about 40% of these are under-represented minorities.

Dr. Melnick has been Scientific Chair of the American Society of Hematology annual meeting and chair of the AACR Lymphoma Meetings in 2018 and 2020. He also has organized a number of other international scientific meetings in the areas of epigenetics and hematologic malignancies. He has participated in numerous study sections for the NIH and other organizations, and is a member of the editorial board for journals such as Cancer Discovery, Blood Cancer Discovery and Science Advances.