Leading Smoking Cessation Expert Joins
Medical University of South Carolina & Hollings Cancer Center

Benjamin A. Toll, Ph.D., previously served as director of the tobacco cessation program at Yale Smilow Cancer Center

Charleston, SC – The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and Hollings Cancer Center have recruited one of the country’s leading experts in the treatment of nicotine addiction, Dr. Benjamin Toll, Ph.D., from Yale University. Dr. Toll will serve as Associate Professor in the MUSC Department of Public Health Sciences and will hold a joint clinical appointment in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Division of Behavioral Medicine, where he has been appointed as the Chief of Tobacco Cessation and Health Behaviors. Prior to joining MUSC, Dr. Toll was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University and director of the tobacco cessation program for Yale Cancer Center’s Smilow Cancer Hospital.

“We are very excited to have Dr. Toll join our efforts at Hollings and MUSC,” said Dr. Anthony Alberg, interim director of the Hollings Cancer Center. “His expertise and leadership in the critical area of smoking cessation will continue to propel MUSC and Hollings Cancer Center forward as leaders devoted to developing more effective treatment approaches for our cancer patients. As an institution, we are now uniquely positioned with an exceptionally strong concentration of tobacco control experts not found anywhere else in the country.”

Dr. Toll has served on the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Tobacco and Cancer Subcommittee and has been a national leader on tobacco control with several presentations at AACR, the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Institutes of Medicine. He was also instrumental in the development of current guidelines for tobacco control and e-cigarettes by AACR, ASCO, NCI, and other leading cancer organizations. He is also the Co-Chair of the Treatment Committee of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, the leading organization in the U.S. focused on nicotine and tobacco research.

“We are pleased that Dr. Toll will join the faculty in the MUSC Department of Public Health Sciences,” said John E. Vena, Ph.D. Professor and Founding Chair, Department of Public Health Sciences at MUSC. “These are exciting times at MUSC and the opportunities are well-matched with his expertise in behavioral health, smoking cessation and psychiatry.”

Dr. Toll received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cornell University, a master’s degree and doctorate in clinical psychology from Nova Southeastern University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine and VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His current research pursuits include multiple grants from NCI along with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Current projects focus on novel treatments to enhance smoking cessation before cancer surgery, understanding tobacco additives and modified risk tobacco products, the effects of message framing for cessation couples where both partners smoke, treating low-income smokers in the hospital emergency department, and studying the effectiveness of a novel integrated tobacco order set in promoting sustained smoking abstinence in adult inpatients.