Richard T. Silver, M.D.
Founder, Silver MPN Center
Dr. Richard Silver received his M.D. from Cornell, where he also completed his postgraduate training in internal medicine and hematology. From the time of his early work as Clinical Associate, Leukemia Service, General Medicine Branch, National Cancer Institute, Dr. Silver contributed to the development of modern clinical cancer chemotherapy.
Driven to increase collaboration and improve therapy for blood cancer patients, Dr. Silver returned to Weill Cornell and helped establish a Residency Training Program as a Visiting Fulbright Professor at the University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil. This collaboration with the University of Bahia was also supported, in part, by the Rockefeller Foundation and still exists today. While in Brazil, he was able to journey to study the blood groups of the native people of the upper Xingu River region, where he discovered a new blood subgroup.
He is internationally recognized as one of the pioneers in clinical investigation of the MPNs, including CML. Among his many accomplishments in the field, Dr. Silver steered the development and broad clinical application of interferons for the treatment of these diseases, and was known as a publishing leader in clinical research in the MPNs. He is widely credited with developing the use of the bone marrow biopsy technique that is used throughout the world for the diagnosis of hematologic disorders. He wrote over 300 peer-reviewed articles, wrote or edited more than four books and 20 chapters, and innumerable abstracts. He was routinely listed among the Best Doctors in New York.
He organized or was invited to speak at numerous national and international meetings and consensus conferences, and had many distinguished visiting professorships. Among his many honors for his work in myeloproliferative neoplasms, he was awarded the Catherine Pasmantier Award, the Timothy Gee Award of the Sass & Straus Leukemia Foundation, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Cancer Research and Treatment Fund, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the SASS Foundation for Medical Research. He also received an Award from the Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College for “Lifetime of Academic Achievement, Dedication and Service”, the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Israeli Society of Hematology and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Weill Cornell Alumni Association, and the Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN) Heroes Award. He was past President of the Weill Cornell Alumni Association; Editor of the Cornell Alumni Magazine for a decade, and served for years as a Senior Advisor to the Weill Cornell Alumni Association. He was a Life Member of the Cornell University Council. The Silver MPN Center was = named in his honor to recognize his enduring commitment and contributions to the understanding and treatment of myeloproliferative neoplasms.