Benjamin Drapkin

Dr. Benjamin Drapkin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He specializes in lung cancer treatment with a focus on small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and leads research on SCLC clinical trials and translational studies for aggressive neuroendocrine tumors. His laboratory utilizes patient-derived xenograft models to identify novel therapeutic targets and develop new treatments.

He completed the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program through Weill Cornell Medicine, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, followed by internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and hematology/oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Board-certified in medical oncology, he joined UT Southwestern in 2020.

Research interests include small-cell lung cancer biology, neuroendocrine tumor therapeutics, clinical trial design, translational oncology, and cancer model development. His work focuses on overcoming treatment resistance in aggressive cancers through innovative therapeutic approaches.

Honors include the 2020 University of Texas Lung Cancer SPORE Career Enhancement Program Award and K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award. He maintains active collaborations with national cancer research consortia and leads multiple early-phase clinical trials investigating novel SCLC treatments.