David Solit

David Solit, MD, is a Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Graduate School of Medical Sciences and a leading physician-scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He serves as the inaugural Director of the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology, where he leads a multidisciplinary team integrating clinical and molecular data to develop individualized cancer therapies. His research focuses on cancer genetics, molecular pharmacology, and drug resistance mechanisms, particularly in bladder and genitourinary cancers.

His educational background includes an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed clinical training and a postdoctoral fellowship at MSKCC under Neal Rosen, with clinical mentorship from Howard Scher. His career has been supported by early funding from ASCO and the Kimmel Foundation, enabling a successful transition to independent research.

Dr. Solit’s research centers on the RAS-BRAF and AKT signaling pathways, exploring how genetic context influences drug response. His lab uses cancer cell lines, xenografts, and patient-derived models to identify therapeutic targets and resistance mechanisms. A key focus is understanding why BRAF inhibitors show high efficacy in melanoma but limited response in colorectal cancer, highlighting the importance of tumor lineage and co-mutations.

His most recent publications reveal trends in precision oncology, including the role of tumor lineage in BRCA-related phenotypes, clinical responses to HER2/HER3-targeted therapies, and the genomic basis of drug sensitivity. These studies emphasize the need for context-dependent therapeutic strategies and have advanced clinical cancer genomic profiling.

• Inducted, Association of American Physicians (2019)
• Inducted, American Society of Clinical Investigation (2011)
• Boyer Award for Excellence in Clinical Research (2007)
• Doris Duke Translational Research Award (2001)

Dr. Solit has been instrumental in mentoring trainees and securing major research grants, including an R01. His clinical work informs his research, focusing on mutations in recurrent cancers to address unmet therapeutic needs. He maintains a balanced role with approximately 30% clinical duties and 70% research commitment, seeing patients one day per week and serving as an attending physician for 2–4 weeks annually.

He leads the Solit laboratory and the Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology, fostering collaboration among clinicians, geneticists, bioinformaticians, and laboratory scientists. His team is actively involved in the Tumor Cancer Genome Atlas and other large-scale genomic initiatives, working toward rational, individualized cancer treatments.