Professor to lead joint pediatric hematology/oncology program

Issue: December 10, 2015

Kara Kelly, MD, has been appointed as the new leader of the joint program in pediatric hematology/oncology at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, UBMD Pediatrics and University at Buffalo.

Kelly — who currently serves as professor of pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, as well as associate director of the division of pediatric hematology, oncology and stem cell transplantation at Columbia — will assume her new appointments in February. She also will become division chief of hematology and oncology at both UBMD Pediatrics and the department of pediatrics in Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at University at Buffalo, where she will be appointed research professor.

Kara Kelly

“Dr. Kelly is a gifted physician leader who brings openness and great sensitivity to the care she provides and her interactions with families,” Candace S. Johnson, PhD, president and CEO of Roswell Park, said in a press release. “With all she has accomplished in the clinical, academic and research arenas, she is poised to be an outstanding chair,”

Kelly is an expert in the treatment of pediatric lymphoma and leukemia. She serves as chairwoman of the Children’s Oncology Group’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma committee. Her interests include how nutrition and diet may help children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia better tolerate their therapy.

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Kelly join our program. She is a national and international leader in the oncology field and brings to Western New York her rich expertise as a clinician, teacher and clinical investigator, with specific expertise in clinical trials,” Teresa Quattrin, MD, chair of the department of pediatrics at Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB and pediatrician-in-chief at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, said in the release.