Dr. Amer Assal

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Get to know Hematologist-Oncologist Dr. Amer Assal, who serves patients in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Dr. Assal is a board-certified medical oncologist and hematologist who specializes in the use of cellular therapy for the treatment of blood cancers and other blood disorders. He also specializes in cellular therapies which includes autologous and allogeneic bone marrow stem cell transplantation as well as chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR T-cell). 

Thinking of himself as a coach who will guide the patient and support them throughout their treatment journey, Dr. Assal is pleased to join the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

His medical training began at New York University Grossman School of Medicine where he attended medical school and completed a residency in internal medicine. He then completed a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he also served as chief fellow. Finally, Dr. Assal completed a fellowship in blood and marrow stem cell transplantation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

During his time working at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and now at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, his approach to medicine is to understand the patient as a whole. 

Teaching medical students since 2023, Dr. Assal serves as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Board-certified in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology, he is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM). The ABIM is a physician-led, non-profit, independent evaluation organization driven by doctors who want to achieve higher standards for better care in a rapidly changing world.

On a professional level, Dr. Assal is an active member of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, the American Society of Hematology, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American College of Physicians, and the American Medical Association.

His research interests center around improving outcomes of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy while making them safer with less side effects. He has a particular interest in immunotherapy and studying ways to harness the immune system to attack tumor cells, while at the same time decreasing the risk of graft versus host disease and other complications. 

Hematology is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. A hematologist-oncologist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of cancer, malignant blood diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, and blood disorders such as iron-deficiency anemia, clotting abnormalities, hemophilia, and sickle-cell disease.

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