Professor Sandra Demaria

Professor of Radiation Oncology and Pathology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA

Sandra Demaria, MD, a native of Turin, Italy, obtained her MD from the University of Turin, and then moved to New York City for her post-doctoral training in immunology, followed by a residency in anatomic pathology at New York University School of Medicine, where she remained on the faculty until August 2015 raising to the rank of professor. She is currently Professor of Radiation Oncology and Pathology at Weill Cornell Medicine Medical College. Dr Demaria is internationally known for her studies demonstrating the synergy of local radiation therapy with different immunotherapeutic agents in pre-clinical models of cancer. Her laboratory was the first to show that radiotherapy can convert tumours unresponsive to immune checkpoint inhibitors into responsive ones, a finding being translated in several clinical trials at multiple institutions. Her current work is funded by the US National Cancer Institute and several private foundations and is aimed at identifying the molecular mechanisms that regulate ionising radiation’s ability to generate an in situ tumour vaccine in both preclinical tumour models as well as cancer patients treated in clinical trials testing various combinations of radiation and immunotherapy. As a breast cancer pathologist Dr Demaria has also studied the immunological microenvironment of breast cancer in patients. She holds leadership positions in national professional societies, including the Radiation Research Society, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) where she currently serves on the Board, and is a member of the Steering Committee of AACR Cancer Immunology Working Group. She serves in the editorial board of several journals, including Radiation Research, The Journal of Immunology, Clinical Cancer Research and Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.

Professor William Gallagher

Professor of Cancer Biology, Director, Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland

Professor William Gallagher is the Director of the UCD Conway Institute and a Professor of Cancer Biology in the UCD School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science. He is also currently Director of BREAST-PREDICT, which is the first Irish Cancer Society Collaborative Cancer Research Centre (CCRC) to be funded. This country-wide CCRC, which is supported to the level of 7.5 million euro, runs from 2013 to 2018 and involves 6 academic institutions (University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin City University, NUIG and University College Ccork), as well as the not-for-profit clinical trials organisation, the All-Ireland Co-Operative Oncology Research Group (ICORG). Professor Gallagher was also co-PI and Deputy Co-ordinator of a major Science Foundation Ireland-funded Strategic Research Cluster, Molecular Therapeutics of Cancer (2009-2015) (; this was one of the most extensive organ-independent research programmes in the translational cancer research arena within the Republic of Ireland and involved comprehensive interactions with a range of major pharmaceutical, biotechnology and imaging companies.

Professor Gallagher currently co-ordinates the FP7 Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP) programme, SYS-MEL , which is focused on applying systems medicine approaches to development of new diagnostic solutions in melanoma [this programme involves 6 partners (4 academic/2 industrial) across 3 EU countries and runs from 2013-2017]. He is also co-ordinator of a large-scale FP7 collaborative project, entitled RATHER, which is focused on providing new rationalised therapy options for difficult-to-treat breast cancer subtypes (2011-2016). This multi-million euro project involves 6 academic groups and 2 industrial parties across 5 EU countries.

A major focus of Professor Gallagher’s research work is the identification and validation of candidate biomarkers of breast cancer and melanoma, with particular emphasis on translation of transcriptomic and proteomic datasets into clinically relevant assays. In addition, his team (the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Lab) investigates the functional relevance of candidate tumour progression-associated genes at both in vitro and in vivo levels, as well as engages in preclinical evaluation of novel anti-cancer agents.

Professor Gallagher has received a number of awards based on his research work to date, including the BACR/AstraZeneca Young Scientist Frank Rose Award in 2004, the St Luke's Silver Medal Award in 2008, and the RAMI Doctors award in Oncology in 2013. Professor Gallagher has had productive collaborative interactions with a variety of other industrial partners throughout his research, and has filed multiple patents. In 2007, he co-founded OncoMark Ltd., which is a private company centred on the development and application of biomarker panels and associated technologies, on both tissues and biological fluids (www.oncomark.com). Professor Gallagher is currently the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at OncoMark.

Professor Catherine Hayes

Associate Professor Public Health Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Catherine Hayes obtained her undergraduate medical degree from University College Cork. Having completed a Training Scheme for General Practice, she then completed Higher Specialist Training in Public Health Medicine. She holds a Master in Public Health and Medical Doctorate from University College Dublin. Subsequent to this she was appointed Consultant in Public Health Medicine in the Health Service Executive (HSE) and continues to retain a commitment to the Health and Wellbeing Directorate of the HSE. She was appointed Associate Professor of Public Health at Trinity College Dublin in the Discipline of Public Health and Primary Care in 2011.

Her research interests lie in in the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions on lifestyle factors associated with cancer prevention, development and progression. She is a member of the All-Ireland NCI Cancer Consortium. She attended NCI for Public Health aspects of Cancer Prevention Curriculum in 2013 and Molecular aspects of Cancer Prevention in 2015. She is a former Board member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and is co-chair of the Royal College of Physicians Policy Action Group on Obesity. She currently serves on the UK and Ireland Society for Social Medicine Committee

Professor Chris Peters

Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant Upper GI and General Surgeon, Imperial College London, UK

Christopher Peters went to medical school in Leeds and stayed there to complete his junior surgical training. After a brief fellow job in London he moved to Cambridge to carry out a PhD with Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald. During his PhD he developed a four gene signature to predict outcome in oesophageal adenocarcinoma which was validated in 371 independent cases. With Rebecca he also set up the OCCAMS collaboration which went on to be selected to run the International Cancer Genome Consortium's Whole Genome sequencing project in oesophageal adenocarcinoma. OCCAMS has ongoing CRUK funding and is now recruiting in excess of 500 patients per year from 11 centres.

After returning to London to complete his higher surgical training he was appointed as a Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant Upper GI surgeon at Imperial College London with a specialist interest in oesophageal and gastric cancer. His academic interest is molecular and clinical predictors of outcome in Oesophageal adenocarcinoma, in particular developing ways of combining the two to improve stratification of patients, thereby improving management strategies.

Professor William R. Jarnagin

Chief, Hepatopancreatobiliary Service, Benno C. Schmidt Chair in Surgical Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA

Dr William R. Jarnagin was raised in outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1982, a Master’s degree from Brandeis University in 1984 and an MD from Rush Medical College in 1988. He completed his training in general surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1996. From 1990 to 1993, he completed a research fellowship at the Liver Center Laboratory at San Francisco General Hospital. In 1996-97, he served as the Hepatobiliary Fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Since 1997, he has been an attending surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he has served as Chief of the Hepatopancreatobiliary Service since 2008 and was a Vice-Chairman of the Department of Surgery from 2006 to 2010. He holds the Benno C. Schmidt Chair in Surgical Oncology at MSKCC and is Professor of Surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

Dr Jarnagin’s research has focused on genomics, novel therapies and biomarkers of treatment response in patients with biliary cancer, intraoperative navigation during hepatic resection and intraoperative blood conservation strategies during liver and pancreas resection. He has authored or co-authored 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals, over 60 chapters or invited reviews and has edited or co-edited three textbooks. He is the HPB Section Editor for Annals of Surgical Oncology and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, and HPB. He is a member of several surgical societies, including SUS and ASA, and has been a member of the AHPBA Executive Council since 2004, serving as the Program Chair in 2007-08, Treasurer in 2009-11 and President in 2012-2013. He currently serves on the IHPBA Executive Council as the association’s Treasurer.

Professor Philippe Lambin

Head of Department, Maastricht Radiation Oncology Lab, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands

Professor Philippe Lambin is a clinician, radiation oncologist, pioneer in translational research with a focus on hypoxia, imaging and Decision Support Systems. He has a PhD in radiation biology and is Professor at the University of Maastricht (Radiation Oncology). He is co-author of more than 385 peer reviewed scientific papers and co-inventor of more than 15 patents. His main areas of interest are directed towards translational research in radiation biology with a specific focus on tumour hypoxia, functional imaging (CT-PET), lung and head and neck cancer. He has a recent interest in the development of multifactorial ‘treatment decision support system’ (www.predictcancer.org). He has been a visiting professor at the University of Leuven, Philadelphia and Toronto.

Dr Yifat Merbl

Department of Immunology, The Leonard and Carol Berall Career Development Chair, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Dr Yifat Merbl completed her BS summa cum laude in Computational Biology at Bar Ilan University in 2003. She earned an MSc in immunology at the Weizmann Institute in 2005 with Professor Irun Cohen and joined the first PhD programme in systems biology at Harvard Medical School, completing her PhD there in 2010. She stayed on at Harvard as a postdoctoral fellow until joining the Department of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute in 2014.

Dr Merbl’s research explores the many modifications that proteins undergo in the human body. Drawing on her background in computational biology, cell biology, biochemistry, and immunology, Dr Merbl developed a high-throughput system that enabled her to monitor post-translational modifications of thousands of proteins in parallel, under conditions that are relatively close to those of the complex cellular environment. In addition, she developed a profiling system using protein microarrays that allow her to identify the changes that occur to thousands of individual proteins, simultaneously. In her new lab, Dr Merbl wants to zero in how the ubiquitin system, one of the most important post-translation modifiers in the process of cell division, controls the macrophages that have been shown to play a role in various human disorders ranging from inflammatory diseases (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease) to cancer.

Her scholarships and awards include a pre‐doctoral fellowship in the Department of System Biology at Harvard Medical School, the Horowitz Center for Complexity Science Award in 2005, the Sarah Werch Research Scholarship in 2004, and the Sara Rottenberg Scholarship in Cancer Research at the Weizmann Institute in 2003. She received the 2000 President’s Excellence Award at Bar‐Ilan University. In 2014, she was also selected to join the Israeli Centers of Research Excellence (I-CORE) programme in structural biology of the cell. Dr Merbl received the ERC (European Research Council) starting grant award in 2015. She is the author of five patents, including one for the application of her protein profiling system to clinical diagnostics and biomarker discovery.

Professor Kingston Mills

Professor of Experimental Immunology, Head Immunology, Inflammation and Infection Research Theme, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Kingston Mills is Professor of Experimental Immunology, School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Trinity College Dublin (TCD). He is Head of The Centre for the Study of Immunology at Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute and Theme Champion for Immunology, Inflammation and Infection at TCD. He is a graduate of TCD and trained at as a Postdoctoral Fellow at University College London and the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London, before joining the Scientific Staff of National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), UK. He returned to Ireland in 1993 to take up an academic position at National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He was appointed to a Personal Chair at Trinity College Dublin in 2001 and was Head of the School of Biochemistry and Immunology from 2008 to 2011. He heads an active research team focusing on T cells in infection, autoimmunity and cancer. He is co-founder of Opsona Therapeutics and TriMod Therapeutics, biotech companies focusing on the development of immunotherapeutics for inflammatory diseases and cancer.

Professor Gabriel Nuñez

Paul de Kruif Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Gabriel Nuñez earned his MD degree from the University of Seville, Spain, in 1977. He received postdoctoral training in immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas (1979-1984) and residency training in Anatomical Pathology at Washington University in St Louis (1985-1990). In 1987, he joined the laboratory of Stanley Korsmeyer at Washington University, where he studied the function of the anti-apoptotic protein BCL-2. In 1991, he joined the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to full Professor in 2001. He holds the Paul de Kruif Endowed Professorship in Academic Pathology. His laboratory identified NOD1 and NOD2, the first members of the Nod-like receptor (NLR) family, a class of pattern-recognition receptors that mediate cytosolic sensing of microbial organisms. Nuñez and colleagues showed that genetic variation in a NLR family member, NOD2, is strongly associated with susceptibility to Crohn's disease. Dr Nuñez is the author of more than 300 scientific publications that have resulted in more than 70,000 citations (h-index 132, Google Scholar). His research programme is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Professor Kai Wucherpfennig

Chair of the Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Professor, Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Dr Wucherpfennig received his MD in 1986 and his PhD in 1987 from the University of Goettingen, Germany. He completed research fellowships at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University. In 1995, he joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), where he is principally involved in basic laboratory research that focuses on T cell immunology and the role of T cells in cancer immunology.

Professor Richard van Hillegersberg

Gastrointestinal Oncologic Surgeon, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands

Richard van Hillegersberg attended medical school in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 1990 he received a research grant from the Dutch Digestive Foundation that enabled him to perform PhD research on the local treatment of liver metastases at the Department of Surgery, Erasmus MC in Rotterdam. In 1993 he received his PhD with honor. After obtaining his MD in 1994, he was a resident of Surgery in Rotterdam and was registered as general surgeon in 2000. From 2001-2002 he was a fellow of Surgical Oncology in the Academic Medical Center and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Netherlands Cancer Center Amsterdam. Since 2003 he is appointed as staff surgeon at the University Medical Center Utrecht. From 2009 he is a full professor of gastrointestinal oncology and program leader of the GI-Oncology department. His clinical interests focuses on upper gastrointestinal tract surgery. Research is focused on minimally invasive and robotic surgery, surgical imaging, genetic profiling and radiofrequency ablation for cancer. He has authored and co-authored over 250 articles in international peer-reviewed journals. He is past president of the Dutch GI Surgical Association, board member of the Dutch Surgical Association and board member of the Dutch Society for liver surgery and is currently President of the Dutch Upper GI Surgery and President of European Digestive Surgery.

Dr Paul Brennan

Head of the Genetics Section of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO), Lyon, France

The research focus of Dr. Brennan’s group has two primary aims (i) identifying cancer predisposition genes through either genotyping or sequencing of very large numbers of cases and controls, and (ii) using biomarkers to help identify non-genetic risk factors for cancer, and even help identify early stage cancers. His group works with colleagues in many different parts of the world, with active field work studies underway in central and eastern Europe, central and south-east Asia, and Latin America.

Dr David Gilham

Reader, Clinical and Experimental Immunotherapy Group, Institute of Cancer Sciences, Manchester Cancer Research Centre, University of Manchester

Dr. Gilham obtained his PhD from the University of Dundee in 1996 before moving to Bristol University to work with Professor Robert Hawkins on T cell immunotherapy. The group moved to the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in Manchester in 1998 where the focus upon T cell immunotherapy and Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells continued. In 2008, Dr. Gilham was appointed Senior Research Fellow to lead the laboratory research group. In 2015, the group moved into the Manchester Cancer Research Centre and Dr. Gilham appointed to Reader in 2016. Dr. Gilham is also a co-founder of Cellular Therapeutics, a University spin-out company focused upon producing clinical grade cell products.

The Clinical and Experimental Immunotherapy group is currently focused upon three main areas of study. The first involves understanding the phenotype and function of T cells within the tumour environment. The second focuses upon engineering T cells including investigating the biology of CARs and to improve the approach through T cell engineering and, finally, translating these approaches into clinical trials.

Professor Elisabete Weiderpass

Professor of Medical and Cancer Epidemiology, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

Elisabete Weiderpass, MD, MSc, PhD, is a Professor of Medical and Cancer Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and a senior researcher and head of the Department of Research at the Institute of Population Based Cancer Research and Cancer Registry of Norway in Oslo. She is also actively involved in research and training at University of Tromsø and Samfundet Folkhälsan in Helsinki.

Elisabete serves as an expert in several scientific committees and advisory boards of organisations, such as the International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Cancer Research Fund, Norwegian Research Council, Norwegian Programme for Global Health and Vaccination (GLOBVAC), Danish Cancer Society, French National Cancer Institute (INCA), French INSERM, French Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire (ANSES), French Institute National Recherche Securite (INRS), French Foundation for Cancer Research (ARC), and Center of Diseases Control (CDC) in Gansu Province, China.

Elisabete has been frequently invited as a speaker at international cancer conferences and acts as a cervical cancer prevention activist.

Mr Simon Oberst

Accreditation and Designation WG Chairperson of the OECI

Simon Oberst is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. After graduating in History from Trinity College Cambridge he began his career in the City of London and the North-East of England with KPMG and PwC. He specialised in the taxation of international companies and high net worth individuals. After moving into the charity sector, he spent six years with Macmillan Cancer Support as Director of Improving Cancer Services, a strategic role interacting with the NHS and the Department of Health. His current role is Director of Clinical Development of the Cambridge Cancer Centre, working with colleagues within Cambridge University Hospitals and the CRUK Cambridge Institute on the Strategic Cancer Plan for Cambridge, which embraces basic science, translational research and clinical excellence. In particular he is leading plans to develop a revolutionary Cancer Research on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus with the UK’s first National Institute for the Early Detection of Cancer.