Dr. Cristofanilli was born in Italy and received his medical degree and Medical Oncology Fellowship from the University “La Sapienza” Medical School in Rome. He completed medical residency in NY and Medical Oncology Fellowship at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center then joining the faculty at the Breast Medical Oncology Department for more than a decade. He is the Founder and first Executive Director of the Morgan Welch IBC clinic and research program. He joined the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia as Chairman of Medical Oncology, then he served as Deputy Director of Translational Research at the SKCC before moving to Chicago to build an innovative Precision Medicine Program at the Robert H Lurie Cancer Center, Northwestern University. During his term as Professor of Medicine and the Associate Director of Translational Research and Precision Medicine the Institution underwent a successful Core grant renewal based on excellence in Translational Research and Precision Medicine. 

In 2022, he joined the Weill-Cornell Medicine/New York Presbyterian as Professor of Medicine, Chief of Breast Medical Oncology and Associate Director of Precision Medicine at the Meyer Cancer Center. He is also the Scientific Director of The Englander Institute of Precision Medicine.

He is an accomplished board-certified medical oncologist with more than 2 decades of experience as physician, investigator, researcher, and visionary leader. He demonstrated original and innovative vision in the field of molecular diagnostics, liquid biopsy, translational research, and drug development. He has extensive background in clinical trial design and leadership in the field of metastatic and locally advanced breast cancer. He collaborated with several Industry partners contributing to the design of trials submitted for regulatory approval, including Pfizer (palbociclib), serving as co-PI of the PALOMA-3 study, a practice change trial in HR+ MBC. He is the past President of the International Society of Liquid Biopsy (ISLB) and The Inflammatory Breast Cancer-International Consortium (IBC-IC). More importantly, he pioneered the clinical testing of CTCs in MBC leading a multicenter study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The paper was the first to demonstrate the prognostic value of liquid biopsy in solid tumors and it is currently recognized as major Milestone in Cancer Research. He continues to explore and investigate the clinical application of ctDNA and CTCs technologies to implement personalized monitoring and treatment of advanced breast cancer.