Dr. Bob Li

Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, FRACP, is an Senior Fellow on Global Public Health at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, an Australian medical oncologist and physician-scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and tenure-track associate professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, who specializes in novel drug development for lung cancers and solid tumors. He is Chief Scientific Officer, MSK Direct, responsible for scientific innovation in MSK’s digital outreach strategy. He is also Co-Director of MSK’s multidisciplinary Thoracic Liquid Biopsy Program. Dr. Li is international principal investigator of multiple pivotal clinical trials of precision medicines including “drugging the undruggable” KRAS - and targeting HER2 across multiple cancer types. These efforts have resulted in the FDA approval of the first KRAS inhibitor sotorasib, a milestone in oncology after four decades of research since the discovery of the KRAS oncogene. Dr. Li has received numerous awards for his practice changing research, including the competitive NIH R01 grant and has published over a hundred original articles in prestigious scientific journals including first and senior author manuscripts in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Nature Medicine, Cancer Discovery, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. As MSK’s Physician Ambassador to China and Asia-Pacific, Dr. Li provides administrative leadership to advance MSK’s mission abroad with transparency and impact. In this role, he has helped launch the multi-stakeholder Bloomberg New Economy International Cancer Coalition, and his work on patient-centric international clinical trials as part of a growing global movement is frequently featured on Forbes.com. Through compassionate patient-centric care and by leveraging technology and collaboration, his career is dedicated to bringing the world together to accelerate the cure of cancer in this lifetime.