CHRISTOPHER C. BENZ, MD
Professor and Program Director, Cancer & Developmental Therapeutics
Buck Institute for Age Research

Dr. Christopher Benz was presented with the 2006 Community Breast Cancer Research Award for his early leadership in convening scientists and breast cancer advocates for a series of dialogues that led to the formation of the NIEHS Bay Area Breast Cancer & the Environment Research Center; a partnership between the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and Marin Breast Cancer Watch.

A board certified oncologist whose early interest in hormone-related diseases motivated him to investigate the role of genes in breast cancer, Dr. Benz is an adjunct Professor at the University of California San Francisco and member of the Marin County Scientific Advisory Group, a panel of national cancer experts. His extensive knowledge on breast cancer is helping to shape the Marin Women's Study, a one-year pilot study that will employ biomonitoring technology to study risk factors and individual breast cancer cases in Marin County. Dr. Benz feels confident that by engaging the community, both research scientists and the public can learn more about breast cancer and other women's health issues. Throughout his decades of medical practice and collaborative research to discover how breast cancer develops, Dr. Benz is a trailblazer and a sleuth. He is searching for clues that will ultimately lead to the prevention of breast cancer, and involving the community in the process of discovery.