Dr. Vivian Oehler is a hematologic oncologist who cares for patients with leukemia and other blood disorders. She graduated from the Case Western Reserve University Medical School. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Hematology at the University of Washington. She is also an Associate Member at the Fred Hutch Clinical Research Division. Her research explores the genetic origins and drivers of those diseases.
Dr. Oehler also studies why some patients don’t respond to the standard treatment for leukemia, a class of targeted cancer drugs called tyrosine kinase inhibitors. These drugs block chemical messengers that help send growth signals in cells. A significant minority of patients develop resistance to the therapy, and Dr. Oehler’s lab is trying to identify predictive markers for identifying these patients. Her lab also develops and tests new drugs to treat chronic myeloid leukemia CML and acute myeloid leukemia AML.