Prerna Mewawalla, MD, is a multiple myeloma and cellular therapy physician. She is Director of the Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Program and Apheresis Medical Director at Allegheny Health Network, where she also sits on the Cancer Institute executive committee, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine.
Her path into myeloma was personal. In her final year of medical school, when she intended to become a surgeon, her mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, at a time when survival was measured in just a few years. Experiencing the disease as a family member and caregiver changed her direction entirely: "If there is something I want to do, it is for multiple myeloma and for blood cancers."
That experience drives a defining commitment: expanding access to advanced therapies. Much of her work focuses on making CAR T-cell therapy and bispecific antibody treatment safer, faster, and available beyond major academic centers, establishing community administration and ramp-up pathways, and helping lead a workflow redesign that reduced institutional CAR T-cell hospitalization from approximately 21 to 7 days.
She is an active program builder and researcher, having contributed to transplant and cellular therapy program development within a FACT-accredited program, and publishing widely on real-world myeloma outcomes with CAR T-cell therapy, bispecifics, and post-BCMA sequencing. She is a frequent national and international speaker.
