William Kelly, MD

William Kelly, MD, is a medical oncologist at Mays Cancer Center, specializing in neuro-oncology and thoracic oncology. He is an assistant professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

An early clinical investigator, Dr. Kelly is dedicated to translating scientific discoveries into innovative therapies for patients with complex cancers. His passion for translational research began during his postbaccalaureate training at the National Cancer Institute, where he received a research training award to study the Trim 32 and Carp-1 genes in the myc apoptotic pathways. There, he developed foundational skills in molecular biology techniques, including DNA extraction, PCR amplification and sequencing. As a medical student at Georgetown University School of Medicine, he completed his capstone project at the NIH’s Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, conducting genetic analysis in a case of suspected Reifenstein syndrome.

His interest in clinical research deepened during residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, where he studied data from more than 2,000 patients to help identify women at high risk for breast cancer and improve referral to prevention and early detection programs. That work underscored for him the urgent need for more accurate prognostic biomarkers in oncology.

Dr. Kelly completed his hematology and medical oncology fellowship at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. He was especially drawn to the challenges of central nervous system malignancies, which rob patients of vital cognitive and functional abilities, and are protected by the immune-privileged environment of the brain. In his final year of fellowship, he returned to the National Cancer Institute to train in the Laboratory of Translational Immunology. There, he developed a protocol to study the impact of corticosteroids on checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with CNS tumors and gained hands-on experience in flow cytometry. He later completed a dedicated neuro-oncology fellowship to lead this study as an associate investigator and further refine his clinical expertise in rare CNS malignancies.

At UT Health San Antonio, Dr. Kelly continues to advance neuro-oncologic research, focusing on identifying biomarkers and immunotherapeutic strategies that offer hope for patients with some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers.