Robert M Samstein, MD, PhD

Robert (Robbie) Samstein, MD PhD is a radiation oncologist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Mount Sinai and a physician scientist with a laboratory in the Precision Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai. He treats a wide variety of cancer, specializing in thoracic malignancies. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and completed his combined MD-PhD training in the Tri-Institutional Weill Cornell/ Memorial Sloan Kettering/ Rockefeller MD-PhD Program. He completed his graduate work with Alexander Rudensky studying the development and function of regulatory T cells. He completed his transitional year internship and residency in radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY.  During residency, he conducted laboratory research with Dr. Timothy Chan as part of the American Board of Radiology Holman Research pathway.

Dr. Samstein’s research interests are focused on understanding the interaction between the patient’s immune system and cancer cells in the tumor, elucidating the role of the DNA damage repair and response pathway in altering the tumor’s ability to be recognized and attacked by the immune system. His laboratory will work to identify new strategies to harness the immune anti-tumor response and expand the therapeutic window of traditional immunotherapies.