Personal Biography
Rachel Offenbacher, MD, is an attending physician at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM) and Assistant Professor, Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, Marrow and Blood Cell Transplantation at Montefiore Einstein. Since joining the Montefiore team, Dr. Offenbacher’s clinical focus has been pediatric sarcomas.
After obtaining her Bachelor of Science in biomedical science at The City College of New York in 2014, Dr. Offenbacher earned her Doctor of Medicine at the State College of New York Downstate in 2017. She completed a pediatric internship at CHAM in 2018, followed by her pediatric residency in 2020. Dr. Offenbacher remained at CHAM to pursue a pediatric hematology oncology fellowship, which she completed in 2023.
Dr. Offenbacher is on a physician-scientist track working in a developmental biology lab, conducting translational bench research at Montefiore Einstein. As a member of a translational sarcoma research lab, Dr. Offenbacher is fascinated by the ability to explore the biological processes behind novel therapeutic approaches before they are used in the clinic. Her research focuses on utilizing difluoromethylornithine to prevent and treat metastatic osteosarcoma. She has seen impressive results in her in vitro and in vivo models and is working to initiate a clinical trial. She is simultaneously working on a project funded by the American Association of Cancer Research, Targeting the Tumor Microenvironment of Metastasis to Treat Metastatic Ewing Sarcoma, which is demonstrating promising results. Dr. Offenbacher’s work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and presented nationally and internationally.
Dr. Offenbacher is board certified in General Pediatrics by the American Board of Pediatrics. She is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Association for Cancer Research, the Children’s Oncology Group and the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Dr. Offenbacher is also an active member of the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. In 2020 and 2022, she won the Leo M. Davidoff Society Teaching Award; in 2022, she won the Pediatric Research Day Oral Presentation Award from CHAM. Dr. Offenbacher is a volunteer pediatric oncologist at Camp Simcha, a residential camp for children with cancer.