Mark Heaney received his undergraduate education at Harvard and graduate education at the University of Virginia where he received an M.D. and a Ph.D. in microbiology. After Internal Medicine residency at SUNY Stony Brook, he had fellowship training in Hematology and Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Heaney subsequently joined the faculty at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. As a member of the Leukemia Service for nearly 20 years, Dr. Heaney continued laboratory research, initially studying the cell surface receptors that govern white blood cell development and leukemia cell growth. More recently, he has focused on metabolic differences between leukemia cells and normal cells that can provide insight into how leukemias behave in the individual patient and how they respond to treatment. His finding that vitamin C has the potential to blunt the beneficial effects of chemotherapy has been widely cited.

Dr. Heaney has also been an active clinical investigator. He has been the Principal Investigator of many clinical trials that have aimed at developing new treatments for leukemia. In particular, he has focused on new treatments of the myeloproliferative neoplasms, primary myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera and essential thrombocythemia, but has also studied new treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia, mastocytosis and Langerhans cell histiocytosis in keeping with his clinical expertise in rare blood cancers.

Dr. Heaney joined the faculty at CUMC in January, 2013. He has continued his commitment to caring for patients with blood cancers, developing new treatments including cutting edge clinical trials, and laboratory research that concentrates on translating discoveries from the bench to the bedside. He also renewed his investment in medical education, becoming Director of the Hematology and Medical Oncology Fellowship Program in 2014.