Dr El-Khoueiry completed his medical degree, residency in internal medicine and fellowship in hematology and oncology at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. He is currently Assistant Professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology, a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program and director of the phase I Drug Development Clinical Program. He has been the medical director of the Clinical Investigations Support Office at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center since 2007.

 His primary research interests include the development of novel drugs for the treatment of solid tumors, especially gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies, the design and conduct of phase I and II clinical trials to test these drugs, and translational research focused on developing prognostic and predictive markers in patients with GI malignancies. Dr El-Khoueiry has established a national reputation in the area of hepatobiliary cancers clinical research; he is the co-chair of the hepatobiliary cancers committee of the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) and a member of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) hepatobiliary cancers task force. He is the principal investigator on several clinical trials that are evaluating the role of novel drugs for the treatment of biliary and hepatocellular cancers.
 As the phase I program director, Dr. El-Khoueiry has formed an experienced and highly skilled phase I clinical research team and established an efficient infrastructure for the conduct of high quality and innovative phase I studies. He has also worked with basic scientists at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center to design phase I studies to test novel compounds or novel combinations that had undergone pre-clinical testing at USC.
 Dr. El-Khoueiry is considered a key opinion leader, receiving frequent invitations to give lectures nationally about gastrointestinal malignancies, particularly hepatobiliary cancers, and has a large number of peer-reviewed publications in his areas of research.