Dr. Ajay Nooka completed his undergraduate studies from Sainik School, Korukonda and received his M.B.B.S (Bachelor in Medicine and Bachelor in Surgery) from Andhra Medical College in 2000. In 2003 he received his master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health. He was a Research Assistant for 3 years in the Department of Gastrointestinal Malignancies at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. His post graduate training consisted of a residency in Internal Medicine at Northeasern Ohio Universities College of Medicine graduating in June 2008. Currently, he is a Fellow in Hematology and Oncology at the Winship Cancer Center, Emory University since July 2008.



At MDACC, he was critically involved in studying the Molecular Epidemiology of Pancreatic and Hepatic Malignancies. His work on the impact of NAT1 polymorphisms in the survival of pancreatic cancer has been invited for an oral presentation at the ASCO G.I symposium. Besides many other conference presentations, his master’s thesis work assessing occupational risks of pancreatic cancer was presented at the AACR meeting. He has several international and national presentations at ASCO, AACR and ASH conferences.



Dr. Nooka’s currently focuses on Hematological Malignancies. His research interests include improving Induction Therapies in Multiple Myeloma and other Lymphoproliferative Disorders. He has worked on several peer-review articles that have been published in high quality journals such as Cancer. He has also been invited to write several review articles that have been published in Cancer Journal, Journal of National Comprehensive Cancer Network and Current Hematologic Malignancy Reports. Besides, he serves as a Peer-Reviewer for numerous prestigious journals and was an Invited Speaker at several major conferences.

Dr. Nooka’s interests also include designing phase I /II trials. He played a pivotal role in the design of Phase I study using a novel proteasome inhibitor with dexamethasone in newly diagnosed myeloma patients. Dr. Nooka’s idea to combine proteasome inhibitor with an HDAC inhibitor as part of conditioning regiment for patients with myeloma has been selected at the esteemed 2010 AACR/ASCO Workshop: Methods in Clinical Cancer Research to be held at Vail, Colarado in August 2010. He is the recipient of the Jack Killian Memorial Scholarship, Frederick Whittier Research Award and the winner of National American College of Physician Abstracts competition.