Professor Claudio Basilico - Basic Science

Dr. Basilico received an M.D. degree from the University of Milan in 1960, and the "Libera Docenza" in Microbiology from the Italian Ministry of Education in 1969. After postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology, International Laboratory of Genetics and Biophysics in Naples, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, he became an Associate Professor of Pathology at NYU School of Medicine in 1970. In 1976 he was promoted to Professor of Pathology and in 1990 he became Professor and Chairman of the Dept. of Microbiology. He is currently a Special Advisor to the European Institute of Oncology.

Throughout his career, Dr. Basilico's research interests have focused on the mechanisms regulating cell proliferation and differentiation. He has contributed important work on the molecular biology of oncogenic viruses, gene expression and cell cycle progression in animal cells, and signal transduction by growth factors and their receptors.

He has received numerous awards through out his auspicious career including, 'The Outstanding Investigator Award' from the National Cancer Institute in 1986 and 1993 and the Jan T. Vilcek Professor of Molecular Pathogenesis in 2004. He is the author of over 180 peer reviewed papers and sits on the editorial boards of several renowned journals.

Professor Peter Boyle - Epidemiology and Public Health

Professor Boyle is Honorary Professor of Cancer Prevention and Control at Oxford University, Honorary Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at Birmingham University and Visiting Professor at Glasgow University. He was elected Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO) in Lyon, France and took up his position in January 2004.

Peter Boyle's research interests lie mainly in disease prevention and the application of research findings to reduce population disease risk, and in particular in the associations between tobacco, nutrition, hormones and cancer risk and how this risk is affected by genetic susceptibility. He has published widely on a number of different types of cancer, notably breast, colorectal, pancreas, prostate and oral cavity cancers, as well as on benign urological conditions.

Previously Peter Boyle was Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Chronic Disease Epidemiology and a Member of the European Cancer Advisory Board. In this latter role, he worked as scientific advisor to the European Commission on the European Tobacco Contents Directive, which was voted into law in 2003. He was also responsible for the production of the two European Cancer Atlases and for the two revisions of the European Code Against Cancer.

Peter Boyle has been given numerous awards including the Knight's Cross of Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (for contribution to public health in Poland) and the award of Honorary Membership in the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO).

Professor Pier Paolo Di Fiore - Basic Science

Professor Pier Paolo Di Fiore is Scientific Director of IFOM, the FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology Foundation, a cutting-edge science and technology centre focused on the study of the molecular mechanisms of cancer formation and development. He is also Full Professor of General Pathology at the University of Milan, Medical School, and a co-founder and Professor of SEMM, the European School of Molecular Medicine. At IFOM, Prof. Di Fiore is responsible for the strategic planning of research and for the development of programmes aimed at the reduction into practice of research results, with particular emphasis in the relationships between effector and attenuator signalling by growth factor receptors in cancer.

Prior to joining IFOM, Prof. Di Fiore was Division Director of the Department of Experimental Oncology at the European Institute of Oncology and headed the Section of Molecular Biology of the Laboratory of Cellular & Molecular Biology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, (Maryland, USA). Prof. Di Fiore is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation. He is Scientific Advisor at INSERM, and is current President of the Associazione Biologia Cellulare e Differenziamento (The Italian Society of Cell Biology)

Prof. Di Fiore is the recipient of many internationally acknowledged awards. He is Senior Editor of The Journal of Cell Biology.

Professor Alexander Eggermont - Surgery

Professor Alexander M.M. Eggermont is Full Professor of Surgical Oncology and Head of the Department of Surgical Oncology at the Erasmus University Medical Center - Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center in Rotterdam. He holds the Chair of Experimental Surgical Oncology endowed by the Dutch Cancer Society and the "Joseph Maisin Chair" for Surgical Oncology at the Catholique University of Leuven in Belgium. In 1987 he obtained his PhD thesis on "Interferon and IFN-Inducers in the Treatment of Cancer" at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is the current President of the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO; formerly FECS).

His Clinical Specialties include; melanoma, Sarcoma and regional therapy techniques (TNF-based Isolated limb perfusion program in Europe); General drug development and clinical trial methodology. He is the Past Chair of the EORTC MG Group and Current Chair of the Adjuvant therapy committee EORTC Melanoma Group. He heads with Timo ten Hagen the Laboratory for Experimental Surgical Oncology which specialises in tumour pathophysiology and drug targeting, tumour vasculature and tumour biology.

He is author/coauthor of more than 400 peer reviewed publications, book chapters and monographs and more than 20 PhD thesis out of his clinical and basic laboratory programs at ErasmusMC Rotterdam.

Professor Aaron Goldhirsch - Medicine

Prof. Aron Goldhirsch is Director of the Department of Medicine at the European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy, and Chief Physician at the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland, Bellinzona, Switzerland. From 1994 to 2004 he was Chairman of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK). Since 1978 he is Co-Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the International Breast Cancer Study Group (formerly Ludwig Group). Since 1992 he is Professor for Medical Oncology at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and was Visiting Professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston from 1996 through 2006.

His areas of research include new adjuvant treatments for breast cancer, definition of biological features that predict responsiveness or resistance to anti-cancer treatments, and quality-of-life-oriented approaches. A strong commitment to international cooperation and to the conduct of clinical trials led to his chairing the Update Committee of the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group (conducts large scale meta-analyses of breast cancer treatments) and becoming vice-chair of the Breast International Group (consortium of cooperative groups around the world for conducting trials for breast cancer therapies).

He has received several international prizes including the Robert Wenner Prize of the Swiss Cancer League and the Prize Farmitalia of the German Oncology Group. Most recently, together with Prof. Martine Piccart as Co-Chairs of Breast International Group, he was awarded the ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award 2006.

Professor Gordon McVie - Managing Editor

Professor J Gordon McVie is widely regarded as a leading international authority in the research and treatment of cancer. He currently spends over half of his time at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan, where he is responsible for Clinical Research Coordination, Strategy and International Affairs.

Previously Professor McVie was Chief Executive of the Cancer Research Campaign (CRC), the largest grant giving charity in the UK, which, under his aegis, took over eighty molecules from the laboratory into clinical trial. He led CRC into a merger with ICRF to form Cancer Research UK, the world's largest charity supporting cancer research. He was Clinical Research Director at the National Cancer Institute of the Netherlands in the 80s where he co-founded the European Organisation for Treatment and Research into Cancer (EORTC), New Drug Development Office.

As President of EORTC, he set up the present Drug Development Group in Brussels, and with NCI support, the European New Drug Development Network. In the UK he was one of the architects of the Cancer Trials Networks in Scotland, Wales, and England, and was a founding member of the National Cancer Research Institute. He is Visiting Professor in Medicine at Glasgow University, in Scotland, and at the Welsh Cancer Institute, Cardiff.

His major contributions are the establishment of loco-regional routes of delivering chemotherapy e.g. intraperitoneal platinum in ovarian cancer, as effective treatment, the acceptance of chemotherapy for lung cancer throughout Europe, the shift from blood levels of drug as endpoints to tissue dynamics, either measured by PIXE, MRI or PET, the feasibility of chemoprevention trials in cancer practice, and the importance of ethnicity in patient management.

Professor McVie is the recipient of numerous awards and has honorary doctorates from five universities. In 2003, he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in recognition of his seminal work in promoting a multi disciplinary approach to research and patient care.

Professor Roberto Orecchia - Radiotherapy

Professor Roberto Orecchia is a full Professor in radiation Oncology at the University of Milan. He is the head of the department of radiotherapy at the European Institute of Oncology, Milan and is responsible for the management of clinical and research activities as well as education and training.

His main areas of interest are breast cancer, head and neck cancer, prostate cancer, combined treatment modalities, high precision radiotherapy, image guided radiotherapy, intraoperative radiotherapy and hadrontherapy.

Orecchia is Past President of the Italian Association of Oncological Radiotherapy (AIRO) and Clinical Director of the Italian Center for Hadrontherapy, Pavia (CNAO).

Professor Pier Giuseppe Pelicci - Translational

Professor Pier Giuseppe Pelicci, is Chairman of the Department of Experimental Oncology (DEO) at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO), Milan, Italy, Scientific Director of the SEMM Foundation (European School of Molecular Medicine), Director of the Molecular Medicine Program at IEO and President of the Scientific Committee "Umberto Veronesi Foundation", Milan, Italy.

He is President of the Congentech Consortium. And co-founder and co-director of the IFOM-IEO-Campus, a research infrastructure that hosts IFOM, the IEO research labs, SEMM, Genextra and Cogentech.

He is presently full Professor of Pathology at the University of Milan, Milan, Italy and his research endeavours have resulted in the publication of over 300 publications in international journals.

His scientific achievements include:

• Cloning of the human T-cell receptor T-gamma locus.
• Definition of the assays and utility of immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor gene rearrangements for diagnosis of lineage and clonality in lymphoproliferative disorders.
• Role of myc and myb oncogenes in hemopoietic tumors.
• Cloning of the Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia 15;17 translocation breakpoints and molecular and biological characterization of their abnormal products (PML/RARa and RARa/PML fusion proteins).
• Definition of the molecular basis of retinoic acid treatment in Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia and standardization of molecular assays for the monitoring of APL residual disease during treatment.
• Cloning of the Shc gene and definition of the role of Shc proteins in signal transduction from activated tyrosine kinases to Ras.
• Identification of the p66shc splice variant as a critical determinant of the life span control mechanisms in mammals.

Professor Umberto Veronesi - Founding Editor

Professor Umberto Veronesi MD is the Founder and Scientific Director of the European Institute of Oncology, Milan. He is known as the pioneer of breast-conserving surgery. His introduction of quadrantectomy challenged the idea that cancers could be treated only with aggressive surgery. Since then, he has supported and promoted scientific research aimed to advance surgical techniques resulting in the improvement of sentinel lymph node biopsy. He has also contributed to breast cancer prevention, conducting studies on tamoxifen and retinoids.

He was among the first to develop the technique of intra-operative radiotherapy. He initiated a clinical randomised trial involving some 1,000 patients comparing those treated with breast conserving surgery and traditional external radiotherapy for six weeks to those treated with conservative surgery and simultaneous radiotherapy delivered during operation (ELIOT), the results of which are to be published.

The concept of a European Breast Cancer Coalition originated with Prof Veronesi. He presented his ideas to a handful of women from various parts of Europe who took up the challenge and EUROPA DONNA was established a year later in l995. Today, the organisation has 40 member countries, a strong voice throughout Europe on breast cancer issues and is recognised internationally.

Professor Giuseppe Viale - Pathology

Professor Giuseppe Viale is Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Pathology at the University of Milan School of Medicine. He is the Director, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the European Institute of Oncology, Milan.

He is:

• a member of the AJCC working group for the TNM classification of breast cancer
• member of the Pathology Sub-study Group of the Intergroup Exemestane Study (PathIES)
• member of the Executive and Steering Committees of the ALTTO trial
• Member of the Scientific/Translational Research Committee of the Breast International Group (BIG)
• co-chair of the International Pathology Committee and responsible for the Central Pathology Laboratory for non-US Centers
• chairman of the Biological Protocol Working Group of the IBCSG
• founding Member of the International Sentinel Node Society

Prof. Viale has authored over 260 articles in international Journals and 36 book chapters.