Ajay Goel, Ph.D., AGAF, is a Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Molecular Diagnostics at the Beckman Research Institute, as well as Associate Director of Basic Sciences at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, and also serves as Director of Biotech Innovations at the City of Hope, Duarte, CA.
Dr. Goel has spent over 25 years researching cancer and has been the lead author or contributor to more than 450 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed international journals, as well as several book chapters. His current H-index is 111, and an i10-index of 358, with more than 41,000 citations of his research work. He is also a primary inventor of over 75 international patents, developing various disease biomarkers and therapeutic targets for gastrointestinal cancers. He uses advanced genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic approaches to develop novel circulating, liquid biopsy-based biomarkers (e.g., cell-free nucleic acids, exosomes) for early detection, prognosis, and determining predictive responses to chemotherapy and targeted drugs in gastrointestinal cancers. Additionally, his group is particularly interested in identifying novel therapeutic targets, including immune therapy, for various gastrointestinal cancers. His research also involves understanding the role of the gut microbiome, addressing health disparities, and preventing gastrointestinal cancers through integrative and alternative approaches.
Dr. Goel is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA). Dr. Goel is also a fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGAF). He serves as the Associate Editor-in-Chief (Molecular Therapy Oncology), Executive Editor (Molecular Carcinogenesis), Senior Editor (Scientific Reports), Associate Editor (Digestive Diseases and Sciences), and as an editorial board member of more than 25 international journals, including Gastroenterology, Clinical Cancer Research, Carcinogenesis, Cancer Letters, PLoS ONE, Epigenomics, Future Medicine, Cancer Biomarkers and Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. He is also actively involved in peer-reviewing activities for more than 100 international scientific journals and various grant review panels of national and international funding organizations.
His research has been actively funded for over 20 years by various private and federal organizations, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and numerous research foundations and state organizations. He has won more than 50 national and international awards and honors and has been invited for visiting professorships by various national and international academic institutions and academic bodies.