Kanti R. Rai, M.B, B.S. Long Island Jewish Medical Center

Dr. Rai has been the Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, NY since 1984. He is Joel Finkelstein Cancer Foundation Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY.

In 1955, Dr. Rai received his M.B., B.S. from SMS Medical College at University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. He was a resident in the Pediatrics Department at Lincoln Hospital of the City of New York, Bronx, NY in 1957 and the Chief Resident in Pediatrics at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset, NY in 1958. In 1959, Dr. Rai completed a fellowship at the Long Island Jewish Hospital in the Nuclear Medicine and Hematology Department. Between 1960-1962, he was a research associate in Hematology at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Medical Research Center, Upton, NY and became board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in 1961.

Dr. Rai went back to India from 1962-1966 and served as Chief of the Division of Experimental Medicine at the Institute of Nuclear Medicine in the Government of India's Research and Development Organization in New Delhi, India. He returned to Brookhaven National Laboratory as an associate scientist in 1966, where he stayed until becoming an Attending Hematologist at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in the 1970's. Dr. Rai became the Professor of Medicine at Stony Brook in 1980. In 1989, he transferred his academic affiliation from Stony Brook to Albert Einstein College of Medicine as Professor of Medicine.

Dr. Rai has received many honors including: Eastern Leukemia Society Scholar 1966-68; President, New York Society for the Study of Blood 1992-93, and 1999-2000. He was named the Joel Finkelstein Cancer Foundation Man-of-the Year in 2002. He is the Co-chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Lauri Strauss Leukemia Foundation, and is the founding member and Co-chair of International Workshop on CLL (IWCLL). He was a member of the NCI-Sponsored Working Group on CLL. Other memberships include: ASCO, ISH, Fellow American College of Physicians, Cancer And Leukemia Group B (CALGB), and CLL Research Consortium (NCI-funded). He has served in several positions for American Society of Hematology (ASH): Member Executive Committee, 2000; Vice President, 2004; President-Elect, 2005; and President, 2006.

Dr. Rai's major fields of interest are hematologic malignancies, prognostic markers and improved therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.