Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexander C.J. van Akkooi, MD, PhD, FRACS was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA. He has both American and Dutch nationalities.

He studied medicine at the Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he gained his MD title in 2008. During his surgical specialty training (2009-2014), he was awarded his PhD cum laude in 2011 on the thesis: “Sentinel Node Tumor Load Assessment in Melanoma: Dilemmas and Clinical Management”.

From 2015 – 2021 he was a staff consultant surgical oncologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (NKI) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he chaired the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Centre. He is the immediate past-Chairman of the EORTC (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer) Melanoma Group.

He is a Fellow to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) within the Specialty of General Surgery within a defined scope of practice of Cutaneous Oncology.

He has served on multiple international committees, such as ASCO and ESMO. Prof. Dr. van Akkooi published over 225 peer reviewed papers (H index 42) in some high impact journals (i.e. New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Lancet Oncol, Cell, Nature Med) and has presented at numerous (international) meetings. He joined the Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA) in 2022 as Chair of Melanoma Surgical Oncology.

He is a clinical academic and his research work focuses on staging and treatment of melanoma, sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), locoregional therapies, adjuvant and neo-adjuvant strategies. He is also a Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC) expert.