Sun Young Rha PhD

Sun Young Rha is a professor of Medical Oncology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Yonsei University College of Medicine. She is also the vice-director of Songdang Institute for Cancer Research, Yonsei University College of Medicine, and the director of the Human Research Protection Center, Severance Hospital of the Yonsei University Health System in Seoul, Korea.

Professor Rha is a clinical and translational researcher, mainly in the areas of gastric cancer, GU cancer (renal cell and bladder carcinoma), and sarcoma. Her research interests include therapeutic strategies and new drug development, genomics-based biomarker development and drug screening, and pharmacogenomics. She has published over 350 peer-reviewed articles. As a clinical researcher, she has been involved in various global Phase I-III clinical trials including many novel immuneoncologic agents, and worked as a main principal investigator for the Korean Cancer Study Group(KCSG). As a translational researcher, she is leading many projects of preclinical anticancer drug screening with potential mechanism evaluation and several correlative studies for target and biomarker development in gastric cancer.

Currently, Professor Rha is leading the “phase I and early phase clinical trial team” of Yonsei Cancer Center. She is currently actively working as a chair of the Academic Committee of the Korean Cancer Association (KCA), a chair of the Translational Research Committee of the Korean Cancer Study Group (KCSG), and a vice president of the Korean Genomic Organization (KOGO). She is also a key member of the Cancer Therapeutics Research Group (CTRG); the Asia Pacific cancer study organization in gastric cancer division and early drug development, the Federation of Asian Clinical Oncology (FACO), and an active member of the ESMO GI faculty group and GI preceptorship for ESMO Asia.