Meet the 2024-2025 Surgical Fellow Dr. Andrew Hanna

Andrew Hanna, MD | Kristen Ann Carr Fund Surgical Fellow

Andrew Hanna, MD, is currently a second-year surgical oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He received his undergraduate degree in economics and neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University and his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He completed his general surgery residency training at the University of Pennsylvania, serving as an administrative chief resident during that time. Dr. Hanna spent two years in the lab of Dr. Ronald DeMatteo, MD, studying gastrointestinal stromal tumor, the most common human sarcoma. His focus was on integrating bioinformatic and next generations sequencing data with more traditional laboratory methods to gain further insight into tumor heterogeneity and the tumor immune response.

Current Research

Dr. Hanna’s research focus centers on utilizing the ever-evolving field of genomics, next-generation sequencing, and computational biology to better understand sarcoma tumor heterogeneity and better define sarcoma subtypes. We cannot adequately treat a tumor without knowing what it is. Current means of describing sarcomas involve a thorough histologic assessment under the microscope, with adjunct information gleaned from genomic analysis of the tumor. Our current treatments with this paradigm produces a response rate of about 20% across all sarcomas. A better means of describing these heterogeneous group of tumors may be at the DNA or RNA level, which is a better window into tumor function and therefore a window into potential targets for treatment. Furthermore, a better understanding of tumor function and activity at the DNA or RNA level would potentially allow surgeons to better select patients who would benefit from aggressive surgical intervention regardless of underlying histology.