About David Einstein, MD
Dr. Einstein is an academic medical oncologist specializing in genitourinary cancers. His clinical activities include providing direct patient care and consultation during three half-day clinics a week and four weeks a year on the inpatient oncology ward and hematology/oncology consult services. In addition, Dr. Einstein spends 60% of his time on clinical trial development, serving as overall Principal Investigator (PI) and site PI of several DFHCC clinical trials that investigate immune-based and targeted therapies for GU cancers. He also conducts translational research as PI of a grant on biomarkers for low-risk prostate cancer. He has also developed tools to improve quality of life, physician communication, and end-of-life decision-making, especially as it relates to patients with genitourinary cancers.
Dr. Einstein's research interests include immunotherapy for genitourinary malignancies, targeted agents for prostate cancer, and translational studies of biomarkers and drug resistance in prostate cancer. He is overall PI of an investigator-initiated trial of PD-1 inhibition in prostate cancer, currently accruing at BIDMC and DFCI (NCT03637543). Together with research mentor Dr. Steven Balk, he has designed correlative studies for this study, which were incorporated into a funded PCF Challenge Award proposal. They also successfully obtained funding through a P20 grant for a pilot study of immunogenic prostate cancer in African Americans. Dr. Einstein developed correlative studies and contributed to protocol writing for an in-progress multi-center trial involving combination checkpoint inhibition in kidney cancer (NCT03117309). Aside from immunotherapy, he is also investigating targeted therapies in prostate cancer. He is overall PI of a trial of a polo-like kinase 1 inhibitor combined with abiraterone, currently accruing patients at BIDMC, DFCI, and MGH (NCT03414034), and is a co-investigator on a Bridge Grant from the Koch Institute to perform further pre-clinical work on this combination therapy. He is overall PI of an investigator-initiated study of HER2 inhibition in biomarker-selected castration-resistant prostate cancer (NCT04781374) and is working with colleagues in the Balk lab to design correlative studies funded by a grant from the Department of Defense. Dr. Einstein serves as site PI of several other currently accruing and forthcoming clinical trials for genitourinary cancers.
He is PI of a project investigating biomarkers of indolent versus aggressive disease in the setting of low-risk prostate cancer and active surveillance, supported by a physician research award from the Department of Defense. Work from this effort has been published in the Journal of Precision Oncology. Dr. Einstein is PI of the DF/HCC Rapid Autopsy Program, through which they have banked tissue from patients deceased of genitourinary cancers for multiple research efforts investigating mechanisms of drug resistance and tumor biology. Multiple DF/HCC labs are generating patient-derived xenografts and organoids from these tissues, and they are working with the Center for Cancer Precision Medicine to perform advanced techniques such as single-nucleus RNA sequencing. Given its importance to many labs, this project is included in the DF/HCC Prostate SPORE submission as a component of the Pathology core.
Education
Certification in Applied Biostatistics, Harvard Catalyst: 2016-2017
MD: Tufts University School of Medicine (MD): 2007-2011
BS: Biochemistry, Neurobiology Track, Yale University: 2003-2007
Postdoctoral Training
Resident: Internal Medicine, Tufts Medical Center: 2011-2014
Clinical Fellow: Hematology/Oncology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: 2014-2017
Grant Support
Koch Institute Bridge Grant, “Optimizing Plk1 Therapeutics for Clinical Translation”: 2019-2021
Prostate Cancer Foundation, Challenge Award, “Identifying and Targeting Immunogenic Prostate Cancer at High Risk for Lethal Metastatic Progression”: 2019-2021
Department of Defense, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, Prostate Cancer Research Program, Physician Research Award (W81XWH-17-1-0350), “Prognostic Biomarkers in Active Surveillance: Parsing Risk in Early-Stage Prostate Cancer”: 2017-2021
Clinical Trials
2018
“A Phase 2 Study of Nivolumab in Patients with High-Risk Biochemically Recurrent Prostate Cancer.” (Investigator-initiated)
Overall Principal Investigator
Funding from Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
2018
“A Phase 2 Study of PCM-075 in Combination with Abiraterone and Prednisone in Subjects with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (Joint Investigator/Industry-initiated)
Overall Principal Investigator
Funding from Trovagene, Inc.
2018
“A Phase 2, Randomized Study of Proscavax, a PSA/IL-2/GM-CSF Vaccine, in Treatment-naïve Patients with Clinically Localized Prostate Cancer Versus an Active Surveillance Strategy.”
Co-Investigator
Funding from OncBioMune Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Research Publications
- Russo JW, Liu X, Ye H, Calagua C, Chen S, Voznesensky O, Condulis J, Ma F, Taplin ME, Einstein DJ, Balk SP, Chen S. Phosphorylation of androgen receptor serine 81 is associated with its reactivation in castration-resistant prostate cancer. Cancer Letters. 2018; 438:97-104. [PMID: 30217568]
- Einstein DJ,* Desanto-Madeya S, Gregas M, Lynch J, McDermott DF, and Buss MK. Improving end of life care: palliative care embedded in an oncology clinic specializing in targeted and immune-based therapies. J Oncol Pract. 2017; 13(9):e729-e737. [PMID: 28562197
- Einstein DJ,* Einstein KL, and Mathew P. Dying for advice: code-status discussions between resident physicians patients with advanced cancer—a national survey. J Palliat Med. 2015;18(6):535-41. [PMID: 25984641]
Other Peer-Reviewed Scholarships
- Einstein DJ and Garnick MB. Genitourinary Cancers chapter of forthcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology Self-Evaluation Program, 7th
- Einstein DJ and Sonpavde G. Optimizing management of cisplatin-ineligible bladder cancer patients. Current Treatment Options in Oncology. In press
- Einstein DJ,* Compassion and Compassionate Use. J Clin Oncol. 2018; 36(29):2969-2971. [PMID: 30156981]
- Selected for author interview with Section Editor on JCO’s Cancer Stories Podcast
- Featured in ASCO’s Cancer in the News bulletin
- Einstein DJ* and McDermott DF. Combined blockade of vascular endothelial growth factor and programmed death 1 pathways in advanced kidney cancer. Clinical advances in hematology & oncology. Clin Adv Hematol Oncol 2017;15(6)478-488. [PMID: 28749908]
- Einstein DJ,* Ladin K, and Mathew P. The ethical imperative of healthy paternalism in advance- directive discussions at the end of life. JAMA Oncology. 2016;2(4):429-30. [PMID: 26914544]
- Einstein DJ,* Trowbridge RL, and Rencic J. A problematic palsy: an exercise in clinical reasoning. J Gen Intern Med. 2015;30(7):1029-33. [PMID: 25743429]
- Einstein* Knot. Ann Intern Med. 2012;157(5):381-2. [PMID: 22944877]