Dr. Christopher Lao received his medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and completed internal medicine residency training at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Dr. Lao also obtained a master's in public health degree in epidemiology from Emory University. He completed a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the University of Michigan and joined the U-M faculty as an assistant professor in 2004. He specializes in the care of patients with melanoma and gastrointestinal cancers. Dr. Lao's research interests include experimental therapeutics for advanced melanoma. He has funding from the National Institutes of Health to develop new strategies for melanoma chemoprevention.