Payal Khincha is a board-certified pediatric hematologist-oncologist and a physician-scientist. After completing her medical training in India, Dr. Khincha completed her pediatric residency and pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship a Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn NY and Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC), Washington, D.C. – during which she first came to the NCI as a Clinical Collaborator. In 2014, she formally joined CGB as a clinical fellow. In 2017, she became a staff clinician, and in 2018, the principal investigator on the NCI’s longitudinal family study on Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS). In 2020, Dr. Khincha was appointed assistant clinical investigator in CGB. Dr. Khincha’s research interests lie in understanding different aspects of cancer predisposition syndromes, particularly those that can affect children. Her research portfolio spans the spectrum from etiology, risk characterization, psychosocial impact, screening, management and prevention of these syndromes. Dr. Khincha’s studies have led to multiple publications strongly supporting the need for LFS patients to receive comprehensive cancer screening. In 2023, she was the first person in DCEG to be appointed to the tenure-track position of Lasker Clinical Research Scholar. In addition, she and Dr. Christina Annunziata in the Center for Cancer Research were recognized with a CCR-DCEG Flex Award for a clinical trial, currently under development, of metformin as a chemopreventive agent in patients at extremely high risk of cancer due to an inherited mutation in TP53.