Dr. Leonard Gunderson is Professor of Oncology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and is a consultant and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, Mayo Clinic in Arizona. In addition, he is the Deputy Director for Clinical Affairs, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center ? Arizona and is the Getz Family Professor of Radiation Oncology. He is currently Vice-Chair for the AJCC Staging Hindgut Task Force and is on the Steering Committee for the yearly GI Cancer Symposia that are co-sponsored by ASCO, ASTRO, SSO and AGA.

Dr Gunderson has had long-standing clinical research interests in the indications for and results of external beam irradiation as a component of multi-modality treatment for patients with gastro-intestinal (GI) cancers (colo-rectal, gastric, pancreas, biliary, anus, esophagus) and soft tissue sarcomas. In addition he has teamed with surgical colleagues in evaluating the role of intraoperative irradiation plus maximal surgical resection for patients with locally advanced primary and locally recurrent cancers. He served in a leadership position in RTOG from 1987-2001; Chair of the GI Cancer Committee (1987-94) and Vice-Chair for Disease Sites (1994-2001). Most recently, he was co-PI on a large U.S. GI Intergroup phase III protocol for anal canal carcinoma which confirmed concurrent chemoradiation with 5FU/mitomycin as the preferred primary treatment.