“Fundamental to caring for our cancer patients is the continuous striving for better outcomes for all of them,” says Benjamin Li, MD, Director of MetroHealth’s Cancer Center. “Investment by MetroHealth in discovering new knowledge and better treatments for our cancer patients is our commitment to improving cancer outcomes for our community.”

Other researchers on the MetroHealth team are:


Donald D. Anthony, MD, PhD, who’s working with University Hospitals researcher David Wald, MD, PhD, to turn NK cells – a form of white blood cells that fight invaders like infection or cancer – into an off-the-shelf treatment for cancer, especially those types that are difficult to treat.
Xiaonan Han, PhD, whose team is delving into what goes wrong in gut stem cells of children who develop Crohn’s and other chronic gastrointestinal inflammation that can lead to colon cancers as the children grow to adulthood. Their goal is to find a way to prevent those inflammation-induced cancer cells from traveling to other organs.
Ashwini Sehgal, MD, working with MetroHealth Physiatrist Richard Wilson, MD, is studying whether a special type of deep-tissue massage can help women recovering from breast cancer surgery avoid severe and persistent pain and limited use of their shoulders.
Chengfeng Yang, PhD, and his team are researching heavy metals, a common group of pollutants in the environment, and how they affect lung cancer, in the hopes of finding new ways to treat it. He’s also studying what causes triple-negative breast cancer to spread to other parts of the body and developing therapies to slow that process.
All of these MetroHealth-based investigators in cancer research are – or are becoming – full members of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and add significant value to the research programs of the center.

Case Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of only 51 Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States designated by the National Cancer Institute.

About The MetroHealth System
The MetroHealth System is redefining health care by going beyond medical treatment to improve the foundations of community health and well-being: affordable housing, a cleaner environment, economic opportunity and access to fresh food, convenient transportation, legal help and other services. The system strives to become as good at preventing disease as it is at treating it.

The system’s more than 600 doctors, 1,700 nurses and 7,800 employees go to work each day with a mission of service, to their patients and to the community. As Cuyahoga County’s safety-net health system, MetroHealth plays an essential role in the region, caring for anyone and everyone, regardless of an ability to pay.

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