Dr. Ben Lawrence

Biography

Dr Lawrence specialises in caring for people with gastro-intestinal cancers. He also has a special interest in caring for people with cancers in the pancreas, biliary, neuroendocrine tumours, and cancer genomics. Ben graduated from the University of Otago with a BSc with first class honours and an MSc with Distinction. He then completed his medical degree at the University of Auckland in 2003, and registered as a specialist in 2011. He has been recognised with several prizes and scholarships. In 2008 he was awarded the Gavin and Ann Kellaway Medical Research Fellowship to support his time as a Drug Development Scholar at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Scottsdale Arizona, USA. In 2009 he was awarded the Murray Jackson Clinical Fellowship and completed his two-year Research Fellowship at Yale University in Connecticut, USA. Ben returned to Auckland in 2012 to work as both a Medical Oncologist at Auckland Hospital and as a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. Ben works with other researchers on a number of projects, including leading a nationwide translational project involving tumour collection that involves collaboration with specialists across the country. With a team of talented researchers at the University of Auckland, he also undertakes multi-level genomic profiling of Neuroendocrine Tumours using cutting-edge gene sequencing technologies. The research finds the unique combination of abnormal genes that drive each person’s cancer, and then will choose a treatment strategy that matches the exact changes. Ben works closely with a large team of surgeons, radiologists and pathologists to choose the best treatment strategy for each patient, with the best combination of treatments that each speciality can offer.

Research Interest

Gastro-intestinal, Pancreas, Hepatobiliary, Neuroendocrine, Cancer Molecular Profiling and Genomics