Abhijit Patel

Abhijit Patel, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Therapeutic Radiology at Yale School of Medicine and serves as the Medical Director of the Lawrence & Memorial Cancer Care Center in Waterford. His work focuses on developing innovative liquid biopsy approaches for cancer detection and monitoring, with particular emphasis on circulating tumor DNA analysis.

Dr. Patel received his medical education at Yale University School of Medicine (MD, 2003) and completed his PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University Graduate School (2002). His training includes an internship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (2004), residency in Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School (2008), and postdoctoral research at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital (2008).

His research program centers on developing ultrasensitive diagnostic tools to measure trace amounts of circulating tumor DNA molecules through analysis of genomic and epigenomic signatures. Dr. Patel's work addresses key challenges in liquid biopsy technology, including assay development for circulating tumor DNA detection, high-throughput RNA profiling, and clinical applications for early cancer detection, treatment response assessment, and monitoring treatment resistance. His research draws upon expertise from clinical oncology, molecular biology, chemistry, computer science, and microfluidics.

Analysis of Dr. Patel's recent publications reveals a strong focus on advancing liquid biopsy technologies for cancer detection and monitoring. His work spans technical innovations in DNA sequencing and analysis, clinical validation studies across multiple cancer types (particularly lung cancer), and collaborative efforts through the Liquid Biopsy Consortium to address challenges in early cancer detection. His research consistently aims to bridge the gap between molecular diagnostics and clinical oncology practice.

• Lungevity Foundation Early Detection Award (2015)
• Tina's Wish Foundation Research Award (2015)
• ASTRO Junior Faculty Career Research Training Award (2011)
• Brozman Foundation Fellowship (2011)
• American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant (2010)

Dr. Patel serves as a sub-investigator on multiple clinical trials focused on cancer detection and treatment, including studies on adjuvant radiotherapy for head and neck cancer, mechanisms of treatment resistance in lung cancer, and peripheral blood profiling for lung cancer screening. He leads the Patel Lab at Yale, which collaborates extensively with scientists and clinicians across disciplines to advance liquid biopsy technologies for clinical implementation.