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Christopher Benz, MD
Dr. Benz is a medical oncologist who specializes in breast cancer treatment and research at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center. When he came to UCSF in 1983, he saw the need for more research in the field, and established the first basic research laboratory at UCSF to focus solely on human breast cancer. Since he's had a longstanding interest in the role of hormones and growth factors in breast cancer, Dr. Benz has worked to develop new treatment approaches that rely less on chemotherapy and more on hormonal agents and novel therapeutics that target specific cancer-causing mechanisms, including oncogene pathways and growth factor receptors associated with breast cancer development and progression. He believes these new approaches will ultimately prove to be much more effective and have fewer side effects than our existing chemotherapies. Since aging is one of the most important risk factors associated with breast cancer development, Dr. Benz's lab has also been studying how female aging impacts the biology of breast cancer, in order to design better treatment and prevention approaches taylored for each individual. Dr. Benz, who is also a professor in the UCSF Department of Medicine, graduated from the University of Michigan School of Medicine in 1972. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Vancouver General Hospital in 1972, then joined the Cancer Control Agency in British Columbia, finishing a clinical oncology fellowship there in 1978. In 1979, Dr. Benz completed a research fellowship in oncology at Yale University School of Medicine and joined the Yale School of Medicine faculty where he worked as a junior professor until moving to UCSF in 1983. When he isn't busy with patients or in the lab, Dr. Benz likes to spend time with his family, travel, visit new places in the Bay Area and California, swim and go backpacking and mountaineering in California's back country.
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