Sepideh Gholami, MD

Sepideh Gholami, MD, is a highly accomplished surgical oncologist and hepatobiliary surgeon who serves as the Director of the Liver Multidisciplinary Clinic and Hepatic Artery Infusion Pump Program at Northwell Health. Additionally, she holds a joint appointment as the Director for Translational Research in Surgical Oncology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Her internationally recognized research focuses on developing new drugs for colon cancer that has spread to the liver. “Research is a very big part of what I love about this job. We study pathways of drug resistance and tumor growth to find new immunotherapy for patients with liver tumors. The addition of science makes the job of a surgeon even more exciting. We take questions from bedside to the laboratory and translate what we learn in the laboratory back to bedside. It’s two-way street.”Her mother’s diagnosis with breast cancer sparked her original interest in oncology and drug development research. “I want to change the future treatment landscape and keep pushing the envelope to improve experience and outcomes for cancer patients,” Gholami says. She started her scientific experience as an undergraduate student and solidified her passion for oncology while completing medical school and residency at Stanford University. She completed fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in complex general surgical oncology and hepatobiliary surgery. Dr. Gholami worked at University of California, Davis before joining Northwell, where she established an innovative liver surgery and translational research program while introducing the region’s first Hepatic Artery Infusion Pump program.At Northwell, she credits the work to a long list of team members—including nurse practitioners, navigators, clinicians, and ancillary staff—for providing high-quality care. “It’s the larger team and program that takes care of the patient” she says. “We all have the same vision: taking care of patients in a personalized fashion,” she says. “We carry that attitude into the laboratory, striving to develop new drugs and practice-changing clinical trials.” Born in Iran, Dr. Gholami arrived to Germany as a refugee at age 5 and immigrated to the US at 17 with English as third language. Her immigrant experience gives her an expanded perspective on patient care. “It helps me assimilate to patients from diverse backgrounds and hopefully provide the most compassionate care, which is something I always aspire to do.”