Robert Maki is an American medical oncologist, Professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, He is a specialist in the management of and translational research regarding sarcoma, the group of connective tissue malignancies that include leiomyosarcoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), liposarcoma, angiosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, desmoid tumor and many others.
Maki has been involved in medical research for over 30 years, first working at Northwestern University under T. T. Wu on immunoglobulin structure and genetics.
After finishing his MD, he worked with Kenneth Rock on antigen presentation then with Abul Abbas on CD4 T cells in the anticancer immune response before turning his attention to clinical sarcoma studies during his residency and fellowship.
In 1999, Maki returned to New York, where he developed the sarcoma medical oncology program at MSKCC over 12 years, and served as principal investigator in a number of phase I-II-III trials of anti-neoplastic agents and worked in translational projects in GIST, angiosarcoma, desmoid tumor and other diagnoses.
He continues to participate in the training of oncologists in his regular work and in workshops, such as the annual Methods in Clinical Cancer Research program sponsored by ECCO, ESMO, EORTC and AACR in Zeist, Netherlands.