Anil K. Rustgi is the Director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Rustgi is a world-renowned leader in the field of gastrointestinal oncology. His interdisciplinary research focuses on tumor initiation, the tumor microenvironment and tumor metastasis in the context of gastrointestinal cancers, including cancer of the esophagus, pancreas, and colon. Dr. Rustg's lab works to translate their discoveries into improving molecular diagnostics and finding new experimental therapeutics for patients, and is funded through several grants including an NCI P01 (program project on esophageal cancer), an NCI U54 on Barrett's esophagus, two NIH R01 grants (for pancreatic cancer and colon cancer) and an American Cancer Society Research Professorship. He has more than 300 publications and his work has appeared in high-impact journals such as Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Cancer Cell, Genes and Development, Gastroenterology, Journal of Clinical Investigation, PNAS and New England Journal of Medicine.

He has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Previously, he was president of the American Gastroenterological Association (17,000 members), editor-in-chief of Gastroenterology, and president of the International Society of Gastroenterological Carcinogenesis. Dr. Rustgi will serve as president of the American Pancreatic Association.

He has been recognized for his contributions with numerous awards, including the AGA Julius Friedenwald Lifetime Achievement in Gastroenterology Medal (2017), AGA Distinguished Mentor Award (2016), the Ruth C. Brufsky Award for Excellence in Research in Pancreatic Cancer (2013), the Distinguished Achievement Award from the South Asian American Society for Cancer Research (2012), and an American Cancer Society Research Professorship. In addition he received the top mentorship awards (Arthur Asbury for faculty and one from the postdoctoral fellow program) from his tenure at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Rustgi graduated summa cum laude from Yale College with a bachelor's degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry (departmental honors) and earned his medical degree at Duke University School of Medicine, where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honorary society. He completed an internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital and a GI fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), both of which are affiliates of Harvard Medical School. He also rose to associate professor of medicine at MGH before joining the University of Pennsylvania in 1998, where he served as Chief of Gastroenterology and directed two Centers and NIH T32 training grants until 2018.