Biography

Dr. Gary K. Schwartz is a medical oncologist dedicated to advancing cancer research, treatment, and community outreach. He is a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), vice dean for oncology, and the Peter and Laurie Weinberger Professor in Oncology Research. Since becoming director of Case Comprehensive Cancer Center (Case CCC), a consortium cancer center, in 2023, he has promoted cancer collaborations, expanded community and nationwide health initiatives, and fostered Case CCC's standing among comprehensive cancer centers in the country.

Dr. Schwartz sets the strategic direction of the Case CCC, which emphasizes basic, translational, and clinical research efforts. He is the only physician in Cleveland who treats patients at both consortium hospitals (University Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic). This has allowed him to bridge research programs and patient care and to drive innovation, while championing community wellness and cancer prevention.

Prior to taking his post at Case CCC, Dr. Schwartz was chief of hematology and oncology at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and deputy director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, and he spent over 30 years working extensively in early drug development with bench-to-bedside research in gastrointestinal cancers, melanoma, and sarcoma. As the former chief of the melanoma and sarcoma service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), he successfully brought together clinical researchers and basic scientists to develop therapeutic agents that have become the standard of care today.

Dr. Schwartz is a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of rare cancers. He has developed novel therapies for sarcoma and uveal melanoma, resulting in a series of innovative translational clinical trials with inhibitors of MDM2, MEK, AKT, IGF-1R, mTOR, Notch, PARP, BRD4, and receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors, to name a few. Dr. Schwartz serves as the national co-chair of the Experimental Therapeutics and Rare Tumor Committee for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology that has been successful in developing new therapeutics trials for patients with rare cancers, ranging from rare forms of head and neck cancer to sarcoma.

At MSKCC, Dr. Schwartz was PI of its K12 and continues in that role at the Case CCC. He has mentored many trainees, fellows, and junior faculty who have gone on to receive the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Young Investigator Award and Career Development Award, as well as R01s. He was awarded the NY State Empire Clinical Research Investigator Program in Training grant (ECRIP) to mentor junior faculty in precision medicine at CUMC. He was also the PI of the CUMC T32 to train fellows in medical oncology. As PI of the CUMC NCORP, he worked to bring clinical trials to the underserved patient populations of northern Manhattan. Most recently, Dr. Schwartz and his team received funding to open a multi-site study across Ohio for children and adolescents impacted by neurofibromatosis type 1. Case CCC consortia partners, University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic, will be the first to make the trial available to patients. Dr. Schwartz initiated “Stop the Burn,” now in two catchment-area counties, designed to educate and build awareness of skin cancer among residents in northeast Ohio by distributing educational messaging and free sunscreen to residents in specific areas and collecting data on awareness and skin protection patterns.

To engage the community, Dr. Schwartz collaborates with the East Cleveland Concerned Pastors and CWRU’s Provost Scholars program to establish monthly Health & Wellness programming at a neighboring church. Experts representing identified social determinants of health present topics of interest to these groups and entertain questions. This grassroots approach has been highly successful in engaging the community to understand cancer risk factors and to be more open-minded about participation in clinical trials.

Dr. Schwartz has authored or co-authored more than 260 publications and has contributed to several books and book chapters. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Children’s Tumor Foundation, among others. He serves or has served as associate editor for the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Clinical Cancer Research and has served on NIH study sections and Special Emphasis Panels, including NeXT.