Lyudmila Bazhenova

Lyudmila Bazhenova, MD is Professor of Medicine, Section Chief of Hematology/Oncology, and Medical Director of the Clinical Trials Office at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. She is a nationally recognized thoracic oncologist with particular expertise in rare oncogenic driver alterations in lung cancer, most notably NTRK gene fusions. Dr. Bazhenova was among the early investigators in the clinical development of larotrectinib (LOXO-101), the first highly selective pan-TRK inhibitor, contributing to the pivotal multi-tumor basket trial that demonstrated an 75% objective response rate across TRK fusion-positive cancers regardless of histology — leading to the first tumor-agnostic FDA approval based purely on molecular biomarker. In parallel, she contributed to clinical development of entrectinib, the second TRK inhibitor with additional ALK and ROS1 activity, in the STARTRK-2 trial. NTRK fusions in NSCLC are rare (~0.1–0.3%), and Dr. Bazhenova has championed the clinical and scientific infrastructure needed to identify these patients through broad-panel NGS and to enroll them in targeted therapy trials. She has also been an active clinical trials investigator across multiple areas of thoracic oncology including immunotherapy combinations, antibody-drug conjugates, and novel targeted agents in the acquired resistance setting. Under her direction, the UCSD clinical trials office has markedly expanded thoracic oncology trial capacity and accrual.