Stephen Nimer: Leads big Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center growth

Dr. Stephen D. Nimer is director of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and executive dean for research at the Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami. For more than 40 years he has led extensive clinical research for the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma.

He joined the cancer center in 2012 and his leadership was crucial to receive the National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation in 2019. Sylvester, the only NCI-designated cancer center in South Florida, now serves more than 6 million people.

“I’m proud of what we’re building here, and this is something that everyone is recognizing,” he said. “You don’t have to leave South Florida to get world-class care.”

He spent 20 years at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he held the Alfred P. Sloan Chair and helped educate dozens of new physicians and researchers.

Dr. Nimer is also a professor of medicine, biochemistry and molecular biology. He is a member of the Association of American Cancer Institutes, and the Science Policy and Government Affairs Committee of the American Association for Cancer Research, and has authored more than 300 scientific publications.

“Taking care of patients, which I still do, is one at a time, but if you can teach 20 doctors how to take care of leukemia or something else, those 20 doctors, in any given day, may touch the lives of 200 people,” he said.

Dr. Nimer spoke with Miami Today reporter Monica Correa.

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