ICRF International President and Chair Emeritus, ICRF International Scientific Council Member and Honorary ICRF International Board Member
Yashar's Story
Dr. Yashar Hirshaut has dedicated his life to fighting—and winning—the battle against cancer. A renowned oncologist specializing in the treatment of breast cancer, Dr. Hirshaut first met ICRF founder Dr. Dan Miller in the hallways of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center while working in a lymphoma clinic the year of ICRF’s founding in 1975. He was quickly drawn in, and joined in the first meetings in 1976, where “we dreamt about the future”.
Dr. Hirshaut went on to serve as ICRF President and Chair for 30 years, balancing these demands with his private practice and as an attending physician at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Beth Israel and Lenox Hill Hospital. Today, Dr. Hirshaut continues to serve as a member of the ICRF International Scientific Council (ISC), a volunteer body comprised of internationally recognized cancer specialists with oversight responsibility for the entire ICRF grantmaking process and operations of the ICRF Scientific Review Panels. In 2012, Dr. Hirshaut was recognized with the Tower of Hope Lifetime Achievement Award for his decades of tireless dedication and leadership that has enabled ICRF to flourish into the organization it is today.
During Dr. Hirshaut’s leadership tenure, ICRF funding grew from reaching its first $1 million to surpassing $40 million, and supported hundreds of grants to brilliant scientists conducting research at leading institutions across Israel. His contributions to ICRF’s scientific leadership have helped burnish ICRF’s reputation and commitment to funding the highest caliber research and enabled ICRF-funded science to have an outsized impact on the field.
In addition to elevating the lifesaving work of ICRF and mobilizing significant financial resources in the fight against cancer, as a leading oncologist, Dr. Hirshaut has not only directly impacted the lives of his patients but has also helped further the field as an educator. He authored the book, Breast Cancer: The Complete Guide, as well as founded and edited the journal, Cancer Investigation. Dr. Hirshaut is currently associate clinical professor of medicine at Cornell University, adjunct professor of biology at Yeshiva University and an attending physician at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Beth Israel and Lenox Hill Hospital.
Thanks to Champions of Hope like Dr. Hirshaut, the future of cancer research has never looked brighter. “When I first came to Sloan Kettering, all the known cancer drugs were in one small medicine cabinet. We're making tremendous discoveries and what I can do now as an oncologist is far greater than what I could do 30 years ago. There's no comparison.”
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