Heinz-Josef Lenz is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Preventive Medicine, holds the Kathryn Balakrishnan Chair for Cancer Research, is Associate Director, Clinical Research, Co-Chair of GI Oncology, Co-Director USC Center for Molecular Pathways and Drug Discover at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, California.

Dr Lenz received his medical degree from Johannes-Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany, and went on to complete a residency in haematology and oncology at the Eberhard-Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany before completing clerkships in oncology and haematology at George Washington University and the Beth Israel Hospital of Harvard Medical School, respectively. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the USC Keck School of Medicine.

Dr Lenz’s research focus is in the identification of biomarkers in GI cancers, early drug development, and novel clinical trials. He is Co-Chair of the SWOG GI Committee, Co-Chair of SWOG GI Translational Medicine, and member of the NCI GI Steering Committee and NCI Gastroesophageal Task Force and NCI Correlative Science Committee. He is the USC Principal Investigator for NIH U01, N01, and U10.