Alastair Thompson, BSc (Hons), MBChB, M.D.

Dr. Alastair Thompson, is an internationally recognized breast surgeon-scientist. Dr. Thompson serves as section chief of Breast Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology and co-Director of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, part of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine.

Thompson joins Baylor from the University of Texas MD Anderson, where he was professor of Surgery in the Department of Breast Surgical Oncology. He led a forward-thinking clinical practice treating breast cancer patients, including an emphasis on skin sparing and nipple sparing mastectomy, autologous reconstruction and innovative localization techniques for breast conservation and axillary node surgery.

Amongst his innumerable research leadership roles, Dr. Thompson has served as principal investigator on landmark breast cancer clinical trials, including SOLE, MA 32, MINDACT and KRISTINE trials. He currently chairs the Translational Medicine Breast Group of the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG); co-chairs the Loco-regional Steering Group of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC), is a member of the NCI BOLD taskforce and of the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group, is national co-investigator and correlative science lead for the Comparison of Operative to Monitoring and Endocrine Therapy (COMET) trial for low-risk DCIS, and co-chairs the NCI-Breast Cancer Steering Committee-proposed “no surgery” clinical trial planning committee. Dr. Thompson also continues to chair the Sloane Project (the NHS Breast Screening Programme non-invasive prospective cohort study of 13,000 women), which is the largest prospective study of screen detected DCIS in the world. He is co-author of over 350 publications.

Dr. Thompson completed his BSc (honors) in Medical Science Anatomy and a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery degree (with distinction) (MBChB) from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He subsequently trained as an MD clinical scientist, focused on gene expression on breast cancer, at the University of Edinburgh, and is a Fellow of the Intercollegiate Board of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Prior to coming to the US, Dr. Thompson rose to the rank of professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Dundee, UK.