Dr. Leonard Sender is Medical Director of the CHOC Cancer Institute and Division Chief of Pediatric Oncology for Pediatric Subspecialty Faculty at CHOC Children’s Hospital in Orange, California. Furthermore, he is Director of the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Programs at CHOC Children’s Hospital and at UC Irvine Medical Center’s Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Adolescent patients (up to age 21) of the combined multi-institutional program are seen at CHOC and the young adult patients (up to age 39) are seen at UC Irvine.

Dr. Sender received his medical education in South Africa and his pediatrics internship and residency at UC Irvine Medical Center. His pediatric hematology/oncology subspecialty training included Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Dr. Sender subsequently developed expertise in adult hematology/oncology at the University of Kentucky, where he was a faculty member in the School of Medicine. He is board-certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Outside of the University and CHOC, Dr. Sender serves as chairman of the LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance Cancer Centers Working Group, chairman of the I’m Too Young for This (i[2]y) foundation, and is the founding member and chairman of SeventyK.org, an AYA cancer advocacy foundation.

Dr. Sender’s clinical interests lie in the treatment of adolescents and young adults with cancer. Along the way, he strives to also address his patient’s “ancillary” needs including preservation of fertility, management of acute and chronic effects of treatment, and being sensitive to the psychosocial impact that a cancer diagnosis imparts to those just at the beginning of their “productive years.” To that end, he has established collaborative relationships both inside and outside his institutions to ensure a truly comprehensive approach towards patient care and subsequent survivorship. Dr. Sender’s primary research interests lie in better understanding cancer and its impact on the AYA cancer patient. This interest is comprehensive and multidisciplinary extending from epidemiological components (incidence, prevalence, root causes) to biological factors (genetic or cellular differences) to the psychosocial impact of disease in the population, to long-term cancer survivorship.