Daniel P. Petrylak, MD

Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, was appointed to lead the genitourinary cancers medical oncology team at Smilow Cancer Hospital as director of the Prostate Cancer Research Group, professor, and codirector of the Signal Transduction Research Program at Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, CT.  He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia College and his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and his fellowship in medical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He served as a professor of medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center before joining Yale in September 2012.

Dr Petrylak’s research interests span both prostate and bladder cancers. He currently serves as the principal investigator or coprincipal investigator for 9 SWOG clinical trials on genitourinary cancers. He has led the Advanced Bladder Cancer Subcommittee for SWOG since 1995, as well as multiple national and international studies on prostate and bladder cancers. He led an investigator-initiated trial of docetaxel and estramustine in castration-resistant prostate cancer. The results of this study supported a phase 3 SWOG trial of this combination led by Dr Petrylak that, in turn, supported the US Food and Drug Administration approval of docetaxel for castration-resistant prostate cancer. This was one of the first two trials to demonstrate a survival benefit in this state of disease. Dr Petrylak has also been instrumental in the development of immunotherapy and targeted therapies for refractory bladder cancer. His work with Enfortumab Vedotin has supported the accelerated approval of this drug

Dr Petrylak is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American College of Physicians, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Urological Association, and SWOG (formerly known as the Southwest Oncology Group). He has authored more than 140 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on prostate and bladder cancer research outcomes.