I am a physician-scientist with a scientific focus on cancer genetics and a clinical practice in oncology. I lead a laboratory in the Department of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicial College where we use zebrafish to address fundamental problems in cancer genetics. Using a zebrafish model of melanoma we are examining the requirements for chromatin modifying enzymes in tumor initiation and progression. We are building new cancer models in zebrafish to model specific mutations found in individual patients. These efforts are leading to new insights into specific vulnerabilities in cancer including the identification of critical epigenetic regulators that are promising drug targets. In order to identify new drugs for cancer patients we are collaborating with leading chemical-genetics groups to adapt zebrafish based screens to the drug discovery process. These efforts are inspired by the problems faced by cancer patients.