Dr. Winette van der Graaf is a distinguished figure in the field of Medical Oncology, serving as the Professor and Head of the Medical Oncology Department at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NCI), Amsterdam, and as Professor at the Erasmus MC Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Her leadership extends beyond academia, as she holds several key positions in prominent organizations:

• President of European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).
• Chair of National AYA 'Young and Cancer' Care Network.
• Board Member of European Cancer Organisation (E.C.O.).
• Past Board member of Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS).
• Chair of Dutch Sarcoma Group.
• Founding Member World Sarcoma Network.

Dr. van der Graaf's research is deeply focused on two critical areas: adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer, and sarcomas. She is renowned for her expertise in treating patients with sarcomas, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), and desmoid (fibromatosis), showcasing her commitment to advancing the understanding and treatment of these complex diseases.

With a remarkable publication record, Dr. van der Graaf has authored over 525 scientifically peer-reviewed manuscripts in reputable journals, further cementing her status as a leading authority in her field. Her contributions to medical science and dedication to improving patient outcomes make her an invaluable asset to the global oncology community.

Dr. Maingi is a renowned medical expert, associated with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as medical oncologist, hematologist, and palliative care physician. Her career is marked by a strong focus on medical education and addressing healthcare disparities, with a particular emphasis on the LGBTQ+ community.

She holds several key positions in prominent organizations:

• Core member of Diversity and Inclusion Committee and Practice Health Task Force for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
• Co-chair of the Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Task Force for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
• Founding Chair of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine's LGBT Special Interest Group.
• Member of the Board of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA): Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality and Head of the their racial justice task force.

In addition to seeing patients with solid tumors and blood diseases, she is the inaugural DFCI Network Health Equity and Inclusion Liaison.

In addition to seeing patients with solid tumors and blood diseases, she is the inaugural DFCI Network Health Equity and Inclusion Liaison.

Dr. Maryam Lustberg is a prominent figure in the field of breast oncology, serving as the Director of the Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, and Chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center. She is also an Associate Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) at Yale University.

With an illustrious career marked by excellence in patient care and groundbreaking research, she is also actively involved in following committees:

• President, Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC).
• Co-chair of Symptom Intervention for Alliance Clinical Trials.
• Member of the Annual Meeting Education Committee, Patient and Survivor Care Education Committee, and Neuropathy Expert Guideline Panel for American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
• Associate Editor for the Journal of Cancer Survivorship.

Dr. Lustberg's clinical expertise encompasses all stages and types of breast cancer in men & women, and has received numerous accolades for her dedication to patient-focused care, including being rated by Forbes as one of the top breast medical oncologists in the nation and being named to the Castle Connolly list of "Regional Top Doctors" and "Exceptional Women in Medicine" for 2020.

Her research interests, focusing on biomarkers of therapeutic response and cancer treatment related toxicities, have led to over 140 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

Recognized for her exceptional mentorship, her impact on the field extends beyond her clinical and research contributions, making her a revered figure in breast oncology and cancer care.

Dr Nicolò Battisti is an eminent Medical Oncologist specializing in Breast Oncology and Geriatric Oncology. He currently serves as Consultant in the Breast Unit of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK, where he is also Clinical Lead of the Senior Adult Oncology Programme.

His influence extends globally with following key positions:

• His influence extends globally with following key positions:
• Co-Chair of the European Cancer Organisation Inequalities Focused Topic Network.
• Member- Elderly Task Force of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).
• Member of the Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG) Advocacy Committee and Clinical Implementation Core.
• Member of the Clinical Steering Group of the National Audit of Breast Cancer in Older Patients (NABCOP) in the UK.

Dr. Battisti’s primary research interests revolve around comorbidities, comprehensive geriatric assessment, quality of life and prediction of anticancer treatment toxicity in older patients with cancer.

Dr. Battisti is an accomplished author with numerous publications and book chapters in the fields of geriatric, breast, and thoracic oncology, solidifying his reputation as a leading figure in oncological research and patient care.

Dr. Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa is a renowned figure in the field of Oncology, serving as an attending physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), Professor of Medicine at Weill Medical School at Cornell University in New York and Adjunct, Professor at Trinity College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland.

Dr. Abou-Alfa holds prestigious roles in following esteemed organizations:

• Immediate previous Chair of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Hepatobiliary Task Force and currently serves at the NCI AIDS Malignancy Consortium (AMC) Steering Committee.
• Vice-Chair for Solid Tumor Working Group, while serving on its Steering Committee.
• Member of the International Affairs Committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and serves as a member of its Steering Committee.
• Immediate past President for the International Society of Gastrointestinal Oncology (ISGIO).
• Serves on the council of the governing board of the Asia Pacific Primary Liver Cancer Expert Association.

Abou-Alfa specializes in the treatment of gastrointestinal malignancies, and in particular, hepatocellular carcinoma, pancreas, gallbladder and bile duct tumours. His research focuses on incorporating small biological molecules into standard cancer therapies.

Abou-Alfa’s multidimensional contribution to oncology also extends to patient education & advocacy. He co-authored with Professor Ronald DeMatteo 100 Questions and Answers About Liver Cancer, now coming to its fourth edition, and with his dear wife and colleague Professor Eileen O’Reilly, also a medical oncologist at MSK, 100 Questions and Answers About Biliary Cancer now coming to its third edition.

Ashish M. Kamat, is an Endowed Professor of Urologic Oncology (Surgery) and Cancer Research at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also

• President of the International Bladder Cancer Group (IBCG) and International BladderCancer Network (IBCN).
• Associate Editor for European Urology Oncology.
• Editor for the UroToday Bladder Cancer Center of Excellence, directed the MDACC Urologic Oncology Fellowship from 2005-2016.
• Alumnus of the AUA Leadership Program.

Dr. Kamat is recognized internationally as an expert in urologic oncology with an emphasis on bladder cancer, immunotherapy, organ-sparing and minimally invasive techniques. 

Dr. Kamat maintains an active research portfolio in this area with a focus on efforts to develop novel therapies and diagnostics, and identifying predictors of response to therapy (e.g. intravesical immunotherapy), as a first step towards personalized cancer therapeutics. He has led several national and international studies, which have been reported in high impact journals. Dr. Kamat is an exceptional educator and as Program Director grew the Urologic Oncology Fellowship into the premier program in the US.

Dr. Kamat is on grant review panels of national and international study sections, serves in an advisory capacity to various organizations, such as the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Bladder Cancer Task Force (BCTF), Society of Immunotherapy for Cancer (SITC); and as an AUA International Faculty. He is a member of the AUA Guidelines Panel for Bladder Cancer.

MBBS MRCS DSc MCh (Urol) FRCS (Urol) RCSEng Robotic Urological Fellowship

Professor Nikhil Vasdev is

• Professor and Chair of Robotic Surgery at the School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
• Consultant Urological and Robotic Surgeon at the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Urological Cancer Centre, Lister Hospital, UK.
• Associate Medical Director for Cancer Services and Cancer Lead at the East and North Herts NHS Trust (Appointed in October 2019). 
• International accredited proctor in Robotic Urology and operates regularly in Asia and Europe.
• Lead Consultant (Cancer) for the COVID-19 Response at NHS England for the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.
• Visiting Consultant Urological Surgeon at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi.
• His private practice is Pinehill Hospital, Hitchin and One Hatfield Hospital, Hatfield.

His specialist interest is Urologic Oncology (Clinical and Academic). He specializes in both Robotic Prostate and Bladder cancer surgery (Robotic Prostatectomy with intra- operative Frozen section of prostate (NeuroSAFE) and extended pelvic lymph node dissection and Robotic Cystectomy) and kidney surgery (Robotic Nephrectomy and Robotic Pyeloplasty). He performs Robotic Salvage Prostatectomy and Robotic Salvage Cystectomy in patients with cancer recurrence following initial radical radiotherapy, making him one of the few select robotic surgeons with this skill. He also performs robotic cystectomy with both ileal conduit and neobladder formation

Professor of Surgery, executive Chief of the Verona Pancreas Institute, University of Verona, Italy.

Roberto Salvia qualified in Medicine (MD degree) in 1991 at the University of Verona and received his certification in General Surgery in 1997. Furthermore, in 2002 he attained a Ph.D. degree in Pancreatic Sciences. He completed a research fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard Medical School), Boston, USA. He is currently a full Professor of Surgery and the executive chief of the Verona Pancreas Institute.

Salvia served as an Attending Surgeon at the Unit of Pancreatic Surgery at the University of Verona Hospital Trust. His experience covers all the surgical diseases of the pancreas but is particularly relevant in the field of cystic neoplasms and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. 

• President of the European Digestive Surgery (EDS) society
• Secretary of the European-African Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (EAHPBA)
• Editor-in-chief of Digestive Surgery
• Member of numerous scientific societies, including Società Italiana di Chirurgia (SIC)
• Author of more than 300 full-text papers in peer-reviewed journals, with an impact factor >1500 and an H-index of 60
• Author of more than 70 book chapters, and has been invited to more than 100 national and international meetings as a speaker

He performed or tutored more than 800 pancreatic resections and 350 other pancreatic operations. He followed the European course in laparoscopic surgery, the advanced course in laparoscopy of the ACOI school of surgery, and the advanced course of hepatic surgery of the ACOI school of surgery.

Damian Rieke is a clinician scientist at Charité - University Medicine Berlin in Berlin, Germany.

He chairs the platform for personalized cancer therapy at the Charité Comprehensive Cancer Center and works as a specialist for internal medicine and hematology and oncology at the Department for Hematology, Oncology and Tumor Immunology. His main areas of interest include the development of targeted treatment strategies and the targeted use of immune therapeutics as well as their application in clinic.

Professor - Department of Leukemia, Director - Leukemia CAR-T Program, The University of Texas MD - Anderson Cancer Center

He earned his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India in 2002. He completed Internal Medicine residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He then completed clinical fellowship in Leukemia at MDACC followed by a Leukemia research fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He then pursued fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at The University of Chicago. He joined as a faculty in the Department of Leukemia at MDACC in July 2012. Dr. Jain treats patients with acute and chronic leukemias with focus of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Dr. Jain research interests focus on new drug development for patients with leukemia, especially CLL and ALL. Since 2021, he has also served as Director, Leukemia CAR-T Program within the Department of Leukemia, MDACC. Dr. Jain is Principal Investigator of several investigator-initiated phase I-II clinical trials, including combination targeted therapies (ibrutinib and venetoclax) in CLL, checkpoint inhibitor in Richter transformation, JAK2 inhibitor ruxolitinib in Ph-like ALL, novel CD22 antibody drug conjugate in B-ALL, venetoclax + chemotherapy in B- and T-ALL, ponatinib in T-ALL, and off-the-self allogeneic CARTs in B-ALL. The trial combining ibrutinib and venetoclax was published in New England Journal of Medicine in 2019.

He has published papers in prominent journals including NEJM, Lancet, JAMA Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Blood, Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer, Leukemia & Lymphoma, and others. He has won many awards during his career including Sardari Lal Kalra Gold Medal in Microbiology from AIIMS and Merit Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He secured first rank at the national level in India in the medical school (AIIMS) entrance examination.

He received High-Impact Clinical Research Support Award from MD Anderson Cancer Center in the year 2014 and 2016. He has served as faculty on American Society of Hematology CRTI workshop from 2017-2019. He is recipient of Sabin Family Foundation Award in 2018. In 2020, he received MD Anderson Faculty Scholar award. In 2021, he was appointed Director of the CAR-T program for the Leukemia Department, MDACC. In 2022, he received Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) Career Development Program (CDP) Award as well as LLS Translational Research Program (TRP) award.

Director - Division of Surgical Senology, Head - Division of Breast Surgical Oncology, Candiolo Cancer Institute FPO-IRCCS, Turin, Italy

Dr. Toesca plays a leading role in Candiolo Comprehensive Cancer Center in Italy as Director of the Breast Surgical Oncology Program. His renowned breast care group specializes in the multidisciplinary care of patients with breast cancer.

He maintains a busy clinical research program and is also a Principal Investigator for the Robotic Breast Cancer Surgery Program in Europe.

Dr. Toesca leads the premier program to train Robotic breast cancer surgeons.

He serves as a Professor on Master's Degree Course of Mastology in Madrid and member of Educational Committee of "Italian School of Breast Disease".

Dr. Toesca is heavily involved with the Candiolo Comprehensive Cancer Center Network clinical expansion in terms of assessment, benchmarking, and review of potential new partners and ongoing member hospital and programmatic relationships nationally and internationally.

He is a regularly invited speaker at academic and international meetings and has authored or coauthored peer-reviewed scientific reports, editorials/commentaries, and text chapters

Lisa is Director of the Endocrine Head and Neck Surgery Program and Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology, Division of Head and Neck Surgery, at Stanford University School of Medicine. She directs the Thyroid Tumor Program for the Stanford Cancer Center as well as the AHNS Fellowship in Endocrine Head and Neck Surgery at Stanford. Dr. Orloff earned her B.A. from Stanford University and her medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

She completed her internship and residency in Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle, and received mentorship in Microvascular and Reconstructive Surgery by Dr. Mark Urken at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. Prior to joining Stanford’s faculty in 2014, Dr. Orloff was the Robert K. Werbe Distinguished Professor in Head and Neck Cancer, and Chief of the Division of Head and Neck Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, dedicating her practice to the care of patients with head and neck and thyroid cancer.

Dr. Orloff specializes in diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound applications within the head and neck, with an emphasis on thyroid cancer and thyroid ablative techniques. She is editor of the textbook, Head and Neck Ultrasonography, Essential and Extended Applications (Second Edition, Plural Publishing). She holds leadership roles within the American Head and Neck Society, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Thyroid Association. She is a former Fulbright scholar.

Vinidh Paleri is a Consultant Head & Neck Surgeon at The Royal Marsden Hospitals (RMH) and Professor of Head and Neck Surgery at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR). He leads a surgical service that is regularly referred some of the most complex head and neck presentations.

He has accrued the largest experience in Transoral Robotic Surgery in the UK and has proctored over 25 centres in the UK. He has pioneered and demonstrated the utility of transoral robotic surgery in recurrent cancer, including a new robotic technique to remove radiorecurrent and radioresidual cancers and is the first surgeon in the UK to perform transoral robotic free flap reconstructions.

Vin’s research interests are in early diagnosis, recurrent cancer, the processes of cancer care, and functional outcomes in head and neck oncology practice. He is the primary or co-recipient for ~£7 million in grant funding, has published over 220 papers, and has an h index of 55. He is currently chief investigator for the NIHR funded programme grant (EVEREST-HN).

As Director of the International Centre for Recurrent Head and Neck Cancer (IReC) , he leads a large group of researchers with a portfolio of 17 studies and has set up the IREC network of 9 centres across the UK. He co-leads the theme on Advanced Technologies for Cure at the RMH/ICR Biomedical Research Centre (CancerBRC).

Vin co-edited the fourth and fifth editions of the UK National Head and Neck Cancer Multidisciplinary Management Guidelines and edited the volume on "Head and Neck Disease" for the 8th edition of Scott-Brown's Otolaryngology, the leading multi-volume multi-author textbook in the specialty in the world. He is also chief editor for the forthcoming 6th edition of Stell & Maran's Textbook of Head and Neck Surgery and Oncology.

Division of Bone Marrow Transplant and Immune Deficiency Director, Histiocytosis Center Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, University of Brescia Brescia, Italy

Professor Mahendra Bhandari, Padma Shri, Director of Robotic Surgery Research at Vattikuti Urology Institute, Detroit CEO of Vattikuti Foundation Pioneer in robotic surgery education and advancement of techniques in US and India

Elisabete Weiderpass, MD, MSc, PhD, is the Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization (WHO)’s specialized cancer agency, based in Lyon, France. She took office in January 2019 and, in May 2023, was elected for a second, and final, five-year term, commencing on 1 January 2024.

Dr Weiderpass is an expert in cancer epidemiology and cancer prevention, with a particular interest in cancer registration, the understanding of cancers and the implementation of effective prevention strategies. She is the co-author of more than 1,000 scientific articles (ORCID: 0000-0003-2237-0128) in peer-reviewed international journals. She is a member of the EU Mission Board for Cancer, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Institut Gustave Roussy (Paris, France), a member of the Governing Council of the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm), (Paris, France), a member of the Scientific Council of the Centre Léon Bérard (Lyon, France) and a Steering Committee member of the WHO Academy.

Prior to joining IARC, Dr. Weiderpass served as Head, Department of Research at the Cancer Registry of Norway (Oslo, Norway), and of the Genetic Epidemiology Group at the Folkhälsan Research Center (Helsinki, Finland). She served as Professor of Medical Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden), and as Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the Arctic University of Norway (Tromso, Norway). She has held visiting professorship positions in cancer epidemiology in Brazil, China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Kuwait, and is an honorary Adjunct Professor at the Yale School of Public Health (Connecticut, USA).

Born and raised in Brazil, Dr. Weiderpass is a naturalized citizen of Sweden and Finland.