Dr. Aaron D. Viny
COVER STORY
By John Soeder
Dr. Viny at the Harlem Community Bone Marrow Drive and Family Science Extravaganza in June 2023, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of his own bone marrow transplant. | Photo: Timothy Lee
I’m a transplant to New York City, but Cleveland is in my blood.
Dr. Aaron D. Viny and his wife, Aly, when he was a CCLCM student.
I was born and raised there. Cavaliers and Browns memorabilia above my desk let visitors know that my Cleveland sport fandom emblemizes my resilience in my career as a cancer-focused physician-scientist.
I’ve always found medical science fascinating. Studying science turned personal during my junior year at the University of Michigan, when I was diagnosed with leukemia. I was treated back home at Cleveland Clinic on a clinical trial from Memorial Sloan Kettering. Unfortunately, I relapsed. After a bone marrow transplant, also at Cleveland Clinic, with my younger brother as my donor, I was cured.
When the Lerner College of Medicine was announced, I applied … and I was waitlisted. Four days before classes started, I got the call —
I was in!
Falling in love with science
CCLCM made me who I am as a physician-scientist. To understand fundamental biology, we didn’t just read a textbook. We pored over actual scientific papers. When we were learning about cholesterol biosynthesis, we read primary source papers by Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Joseph Goldstein. They received Nobel Prizes for their work — and from them, we learned how cholesterol is synthesized. Years later, I would find a prayer book dedicated in honor of Dr. Goldstein’s Nobel Prize at my new synagogue in NYC.
After a year in Dr. Jarek Maciejewski’s lab at Cleveland Clinic, I really fell in love with basic and translational science. Jarek has been my career role model.
From CCLCM, I went to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical College for a residency in internal medicine and to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology, mentored by Dr. Ross Levine.
I’ve dedicated my life to studying leukemia — the disease I faced personally — and I aspire to identify less toxic and more effective therapies that aim to rewire and reprogram cancer cells. Last year my lab received our first NIH R01 grant, but the best is yet to come.
A hockey analogy
Wayne Gretzky said, “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where the puck already has been.” I think the cancer epigenome is “where the puck is going to be,” looking beyond just the genes that are mutated and toward the regulatory programs that give a cell instruction on which genes to turn off and which genes to turn on. And really, at its core, that’s what cancer is: turning on the wrong genes at the wrong time.
When I had cancer, I hated when people told me, “Everything happens for a reason.” I do not believe that everything happens for a reason. Things just happen, and we’re made up of the good things and the bad things that happen to us. By becoming a leukemia physician-scientist, I could give meaning to what I went through — and hopefully improve the options for people who come after me. ◼
Aaron D. Viny, MD, MS
Aaron D. Viny, MD, MS, is a physician-scientist who specializes in leukemia at Columbia University’s Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research uses 3D genomic techniques to uncover the underpinnings of disease. Dr. Viny also is a board-certified hematologist and medical oncologist, as well as an assistant professor of medicine at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He and his wife, Aly, have two daughters: Lilah and Ada.