U.S. Medical Advisory Board

Al B. Benson III, MD, is a professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. He is also the associate director for cooperative groups at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, at Northwestern University. In addition, he is an attending physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a staff physician at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, and a consultant to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Dr. Benson earned his medical degree at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, following which he completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison, Wis. He was an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Illinois and co-medical director for the National Public Health Service in Champaign, Ill. He then served as a clinical oncology and research fellow at the University of Wisconsin Clinical Cancer Center, where he received an American Cancer Society Fellowship Award.

Dr. Benson is active on numerous professional committees, often serving as an officer. He is a recipient of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Statesman Award (Fellow of ASCO) and has served on a number of committees. He has been a member of the Task Force on Quality of Cancer Care, the co-chair of ASCO’s Colorectal Cancer Guidelines Subcommittee, the Stage II Colon Cancer Guidelines Panel and the Guidelines Panel for Use of Radiofrequency Ablation for Colorectal Cancer Hepatic Metastases. He also is the chair of both the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Gastrointestinal and Data Monitoring Committees and a member of the NCI GI Steering Committee. In addition, he is a past president of the Illinois Medical Oncology Society, past president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC), an executive committee member and immediate past-chair of the Board of Directors of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) and a member of the Board of Directors of the NCCN Foundation. He is the chair of both the NCCN Hepatobiliary Guidelines Panel and of the Colon, Rectal and Anal Panel, and a member of the Pancreatic Cancer and Neuroendocrine Panels. He is also a past president of the International Society of GI Oncology (ISGIO). Dr. Benson is a member of the Scientific Board of Directors of the Patient Advocate Foundation, the National Patient Advocate Foundation and Friends of Cancer Research.

He is on the editorial board of the ASCO Connection, American Health and Drug Benefits, Personalized Medicine in Oncology, Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research and Gastrointestinal Cancer Research, among others.

His most recent national awards include the NCCN Rodger J. Winn award and the ACCC Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Research Award.

Dr. Benson’s research is primarily in the areas of gastrointestinal cancer clinical trials, cancer clinical trials, biologic therapies, phase I cancer clinical trials and cancer guideline development. He has authored or co-authored numerous reports, reviews and book chapters focusing on these topics. His research in biologics, cancer therapy and cancer prevention has been awarded funding from a variety of sources including the NIH.