Invited Speakers

Membership in Scientific Societies

• Society of Nuclear Medicine
• European Association of Nuclear Medicine
• German Society of Nuclear Medicine
• German Society of Radiology
• German Cancer Society
• German Society of Addictive Diseases

Educational Background

Employment

Positions

Chairmen

• of the German Cooperative Neuroblastoma Trials (GPOH) since 1885
• of the national neuroblastoma tumor bank
• of the Liason group “neuroblastoma” of the Center for Molecular Medicine of the University of Cologne
• Advances of Neuroblastoma Research Association (ANRA) 2006-2008

Member

• German Society of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology GPOH
• International Society of Paediatric Oncology SIOP
• Ethical Committee, University of Cologne

Biographical Sketch

Memberships:

• German Pediatric Society, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), German Society for Pediatric
• Hematology and Oncology (GPOH), International Society for Pediatric Oncology (SIOP)

Awards:

• Young Investigator Award: International Symposium on Advances in Neuroblastoma Research, City of Bath, UK
• Evans-Prize: International Symposium on “Advances in Neuroblastoma Research”, Philadelphia, USA
• Poster Prize of the German Society of Pediatrics
• Dr. Odile Schweisguth Prize, SIOP Meeting, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Research Prize of the WTZ, Essen, Germany
• AACR Young Investigator Award, New Orleans, USA
• Kind-Philipp-Prize for Pediatric Oncology, GPOH-Meeting, Frankfurt, Germany

Dr. Fuchs is Professor and Head of the Department of Pediatric Surgery and Pediatric Urology at the University Children’s Hospital in Tuebingen/Germany. He trained as pediatric surgeon at the Medical Faculty of the University Dresden, the Department of Pediatric Surgery in Mannheim, and at the Medical School Hannover. In 2010 he was elected President of the German Society of Pediatric Surgery, and currently fulfills his term until 2013. He is board member of the German Society of Surgery, as well as member of the Executive Committee of IPSO and WOFAPS. He is the elected Congress Chairman of the World Congress of Pediatric surgery, which will be held in Berlin in 2013.

His clinical focus lies on pediatric oncology, pediatric urology and newborn surgery. He is board member of several collaborative trials of the German Society of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology where he acts as reference surgeon for renal tumors, liver tumors and soft tissue sarcoma. Dr. Fuchs’ basic research interests focus on liver tumors and soft tissue sarcomas. He is author of over 150 scientific articles and has been awarded with several national and international prizes.

• Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania
• Physician-scientist who has developed a translational research program from the basic genetic mechanisms of childhood cancer initiation to pivotal clinical trials for these same diseases
• Chief of the Division of Oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)
• Director of the Center for Childhood Cancer research
• Leader of a team of over 50 faculty clinicians and scientists, and is responsible for the strategic direction of the pediatric cancer program at CHOP and Penn
• Director of the Pediatric Oncology Program in the Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Dr. Maris
• Director of the fellowship program at CHOP for a decade
• Major role in the training of the next generation of investigators in field of childhood cancer
• Past Chair of the Neuroblastoma Disease committee in the Children’s Oncology Group (COG)
• In the COG Scientific Council
• Member of the Cancer Genetics Study Section at the NCI, and serves on many additional funding review committees and Scientific Advisory Boards
• Leading expert in the field of pediatric oncology, especially in the disease neuroblastoma
• His work on the genetic basis of human neuroblastoma has taken both traditional family-based linkage
    approaches and more recently whole genome association approaches
• He is currently leading a large collaborative effort to sequence 200 human neuroblastoma genomes and
    this will provide an unprecedented opportunity for translational science and impacting patient care
  

Awards:

• several prestigious awards including election into the American Society of Clinical Investigation
• The Oski award for outstanding pediatric oncologists
• The Berwick award at Penn for melding basic and clinical teaching

Tom Monclair, born 1942, is a consultant paediatric surgeon at The National Hospital (Rikshospitalet) in Oslo. He graduated from the University of Oslo in 1968. In 1980 he received his PhD from the University of Oslo after having defended his thesis ”Active and Passive Renal Sodium Reabsorption”. He became a specialist in General Surgery in 1981, and in Paediatric Surgery in 1982. Since 1997 he has been U.E.M.S.certified from the European Board in Paediatric Surgery.

Tom Monclair was a resident in general and paediatric surgery in Oslo from 1970, and became a consultant paediatric surgeon in 1981. Since 1986 he has been in charge of the paediatric surgical oncology at The National Hospital in Oslo. He has been a SIOP member since 1990 and was the same year a founding member of IPSO (International Society of Paediatric Surgical Oncology). He is a member of SIOP Europe Neuroblastoma Group, and has since 2005 been a member of the Executive Committee of the INRG (International Neuroblastoma Risk Group) Task Force and the Chair of the INRG Surgical Sub-committee. He has for many years had a special interest in staging and risk grouping of neuroblastoma, and has been a main contributor to the INRG staging system.

The International Neuroblastoma Risk Group (INRG) staging system: an INRG Task Force report.

Monclair T, Brodeur GM, Ambros PF, Brisse HJ, Cecchetto G, Holmes K, Kaneko M, London WB, Matthay KK, Nuchtern JG, von Schweinitz D, Simon T, Cohn SL, Pearson AD; INRG Task Force.
J Clin Oncol. 2009 Jan 10;27(2):298-303.

Education

Degrees

Academic appointments

Prizes and Honors

Awards

Heinz Maier Leibnitz Prize, Wilhelm und Maria Meyenburg Prize, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, Avery Landsteiner Prize, Robert Koch Prize, Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, Rose Payne Distinguished Scientist Award

Curriculum vitae

Main personal achievements

• Work out genetics of risk for cancer (melanoma, neuroblastoma) in a fish genetic model (Schwab (1987) Trends in Genetics 3, 38-42; Schwab (1986) Advances in Cancer Research 47, 63-97)
• First establishment and use of parallel (array) analysis for mRNA expression profiling (Schwab et al. (1983) Nature 303, 497-501)
• Discover the MYCN-gene and its amplification in neuroblastomas by mRNA expression profiling (Schwab et  al. (1983) Nature 305:245-248), work out MYCN-transforming functions (Schwab et al. (1985) Nature 316, 160-162) and localisation of amplified MYCN to previously enigmatic abnormal chromosomal structures specific to tumor cells (Schwab et al. (1984) Nature 308, 288-291); amplified MYCN was the very first oncogenetic biomarker, now in clinical use worldwide for therapy design of neuroblastoma (Schwab et al. (2003) Lancet Oncology 4:472-480

Activities in the scientific community (selected)

Honors & awards

Paul Sondel, M.D., Ph.D. is the Reed and Carolee Walker Professor in Pediatric Oncology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (UW).  Dr. Sondel, a Milwaukee native, completed undergraduate and graduate education at UW leading to a Ph.D. in Genetics (1975), with guidance from Bone Marrow Transplant pioneer, Fritz Bach, M.D.  He received his M.D. magna cum laude in 1977 from Harvard Medical School, while beginning his research in tumor immunology.  Following pediatric residency training at the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin, he joined the faculty of UW in 1980 in the Departments of Pediatrics, Human Oncology and Genetics.  He became Head of the Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology in 1990 and is committed to leading a multidisciplinary clinical and research team that is providing comprehensive and compassionate, state of the art, treatment linked to innovative research.

Dr. Sondel’s research has emphasized the translation of laboratory innovations into clinical progress.  His laboratory has pursued the biology of graft-versus-leukemia reactions, activation of anti-tumor immune destruction with Interleukin-2 and the use of tumor reactive monoclonal antibodies to facilitate tumor killing by leukocytes.  These studies have all moved into clinical testing led by Dr. Sondel at UW, and in national studies he has led through the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), in collaborative efforts focused on developing curative treatments.  He has published more than 350 scientific articles and chapters, and his laboratory has provided training for >40 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.  Dr. Sondel has been a leader in scientific policy through multiple national committee roles, including The National Institutes of Health, The American Cancer Society, The Children’s Oncology Group, The National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Counselors, and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

A more detailed research summary can be found at his research website: http://www.pediatrics.wisc.edu/research/research-groups/sondel/

Position

• Chair of the German Paediatric Radiation Oncology Group (APRO).
• Deputy Head of the Westgerman Protontherapy Center Essen (WPE), Germany.
• Head of the Program for Children and Sarcomas at WPE.
• Associate Professor for Radiation Oncology at the University Münster, Germany.

Educational Background

• MD Degree: University of Hamburg, Germany.
• Specialty Training: Radiation Oncology, Medical University of Tübingen, Germany.
• Involved in Pediatric Oncology since 1995.

Speciality and Research Field of Interest:

• Radiation Therapy in CNS Tumours,
• Soft Tissue/Osseous Sarcomas and,
• Paediatric Malignancies.
• Modern Conformal Radiation Techniques and
• Proton Beam Therapy.

Education

Degrees

Academic appointments

Prizes and Honors