Andrea Wolf, MD
Dr. Andrea Wolf is a thoracic surgeon and Director of the New York Mesothelioma Program at the Mount Sinai Health System. She offers patients diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma expertise in the treatment of her disease and skill in the use of a video-assisted thoracoscopic surgical procedure known as lobectomy. She is also skilled in robotic and minimally invasive techniques and laparoscopic surgery for benign and malignant diseases of the chest wall, lung, mediastinum, diaphragm, and esophagus.
Dr. Wolf believes that it is best to take a multidisciplinary approach to treating malignant mesothelioma, including specialists from all aspects of care including oncology, radiation oncology, surgery, and clinical trials. She was attracted to surgery by its demand for excellent technical skill and consummate judgment to achieve the best outcomes for patients.
Education and Career
Dr. Wolf graduated cum laude from Princeton University and earned highest honors in pursuing her medical degree at Harvard Medical School. She trained in General Surgery and served as Chief Resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and earned a Master in Public Health degree with a focus on Clinical Effectiveness at Harvard University School of Public Health. At the same time, she was researching malignant pleural mesothelioma and early-stage lung cancer as a Thoracic Oncology Research Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. After serving as Chief Resident in Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she completed training in Cardiothoracic Surgery.
In her role as Director of the New York Mesothelioma Program at the Mount Sinai Health System, Dr, Wolf led her team to the 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Cancer Care Team Award. She presents on the topic of malignant pleural mesothelioma and other thoracic malignancies at national and international meetings and is co-editor of the third edition of Sugarbaker’s Adult Chest Surgery. She has also published numerous articles in professional medical journals on the topic of pleural mesothelioma and lung cancer and won the 2022 Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization Irving J. Selikoff Award.
Research
Dr. Wolf is leading the efforts of the Thoracic Surgery Translational Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine, which is working to identify the key proteins and important pathways involved in malignant pleural mesothelioma. The group is developing novel tests to identify which mesothelioma tumors have abnormal transcription factor activity and designing drug therapies intended to inhibit these factors. Dr. Wolf is also actively involved in identifying biological differences responsible for gender differences in mesothelioma outcomes with hopes of identifying molecular targets for new therapeutic agents.
She is also engaged with an international partnership that is working to identify and validate novel germline DNA variants associated with an increased risk of asbestos-induced malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Professional Memberships
Dr. Wolf is the Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee Chair of the Eastern Cardiothoracic Surgical Society. She is on the Science Advisory Board of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, was the featured surgeon of Women in Thoracic Surgery in November of 2022, and is a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
