Ajay Goel, Ph.D., is a Professor and Founding Chair, Department of Molecular Diagnostics at the Beckman Research Institute; as well as Associate Director of Basic Science at the City of Hope comprehensive Cancer Center, and also serves as Director, Biotech Innovations at the City of Hope, Duarte, CA. Dr. Goel has spent more than 25 years researching cancer and has been the lead author or contributor to over 350 scientific articles published in peer reviewed international journals and several book chapters. He is also a primary inventor on more than 40 international patents aimed at developing various disease biomarkers or therapeutic targets for gastrointestinal cancers. He is currently using advanced genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic approaches for developing novel circulating, liquid biopsy-based biomarkers (e.g. cell-free nucleic acids, exosomes) for the early detection, prognosis and determining predictive responses to chemotherapy and targeted drugs in gastrointestinal cancers. In addition, his group is very interested in the identification of novel therapeutic targets, particularly immune therapy, for various gastrointestinal cancers. His research also involves understanding the role of gut microbiome, health disparities, and the prevention of gastrointestinal cancers using integrative and alternative approaches. Dr. Goel is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) and is on the international editorial boards of several journals including Gastroenterology, Clinical Cancer Research, Carcinogenesis, PLoS ONE, Molecular Carcinogenesis, Scientific Reports, Epigenomics, Future Medicine, Alternative Therapies in Heath and Medicine, Digestive Diseases and Sciences and Molecular Therapy Oncolytics. He is also actively involved in peer reviewing activities for more than 100 international scientific journals and various grant review panels of various national and international funding organizations. His research has been actively funded by various private and federal organizations, including funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Cancer Society (ACS) and other state organizations. He has won more than a dozen national and international awards and honors, and has been invited for visiting professorships by various national and international academic institutions and academic bodies.