Cynthia is a newborn ICU nurse by trade that has spent the last six years in the medical device industry educating nurses and doctors about devices that are new to their facility. In her spare time she enjoys hiking, traveling the world with her family, and creating Halloween animatronics for her annual front yard display. She has a passion for life-long learning and enjoys sharing what she learns with the people around her.

Cesar Rodriguez, MD, recently joined the faculty of Mount Sinai Hospital and is the Clinical and Operations Director of the Myeloma Program for the system. He previously was Associate Professor of Hematology and Oncology at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and led the Myeloma program there for 6 years. His focus is early phase clinical trials, translational medicine using 3D culture models, and immunotherapies. He has led a number of first-in-human studies with bi-specific therapies and has opened the first tri-specific therapy for myeloma targeting NK cells. He is one of three winners of the second Myeloma Crowd Research Initiative (MCRI) competition. His project uses a three-dimensional organoid tumor modeling platform which allows the testing of multiple treatment combinations against a specific tumor to identify which treatments will work best for each individual’s type of myeloma. This personalized approach may help doctors to help find useful drug combinations that will have the most impact and avoid treatments that will be ineffective. Dr. Rodriguez earned his MD at Escuela de Medicina Ignacio A. Santos, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico. He completed his residency at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso and a fellowship at the University of Louisville.