Alex A. Adjei, MD, PhD
Senior Vice President of Clinical Research
Chair, Department of Medicine
The Katherine Anne Gioia Chair in Cancer Medicine
Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Alex Adjei, MD, PhD, joined the faculty of Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) in 2006 as Senior Vice President of Clinical Research and Chair of the Department of Medicine.

Dr. Adjei is responsible for expanding the Department’s phase I and Thoracic Oncology programs and strives to enhance existing programs and establish new clinical and research initiatives.

Dr. Adjei is a distinguished national leader in translational research, drug development and thoracic oncology. He comes to RPCI from the Mayo College of Medicine, Rochester, MN, where he served as Professor of Oncology and led highly successful thoracic oncology and Phase I clinical research programs. 

Dr. Adjei earned his medical degree from the University of Ghana Medical School in Legon. He obtained a doctorate degree in pharmacology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Dr. Adjei completed residency training at Howard University, Washington, DC, and clinical and research fellowships in oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Adjei’s research is focused on assessing the toxicity, pharmacology and initial activity of novel agents for the therapy of solid tumors and developing biomarkers of drug effects. His laboratory studies focus on elucidating mechanisms of action and resistance of novel agents that inhibit cell signaling. He also conducts phase II clinical trials of novel agents in lung cancer.

Dr. Adjei is an active member of numerous professional organizations. As a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), he has served as Chair of the Minorities in Cancer Research Council; Co-Chair of the AACR’s 2005 Annual Meeting and currently is Co-Chair of the 2007 AACR Annual Meeting.

Dr. Adjei also has served on many committees for the National Cancer Institute. He is Group Vice-Chair of the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) and Chair of the NCCTG Lung Cancer Committee. He was a member of the Lung Cancer Progress Review Group in 2000 and the Lung Cancer Concept Evaluating Panel from 1999-2002. He is a member of the Clinical Research Review Committee Study Section of the National Center for Research Resources for the National Institutes of Health, and the Investigational Drug Steering Committee, for which he co-chairs the Clinical Trials Design Task Force.

Dr. Adjei has authored or co-authored more than 200 journal articles, abstracts and book chapters. He is a Senior Editor of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Associate Editor of the American Journal of Clinical Oncology and Current Drug Targets, and a member of the editorial boards for Investigational New Drugs, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Chemotherapy and Pharmacology, Clinical Lung Cancer, Medicinal Chemistry Reviews and Update on Cancer Therapeutics.

Click here for a listing of Dr. Adjei's publications through PubMed.