Key players

Christian Albert Theodor Billroth was a German surgeon.

Dr Matti Aapro received his Doctorate in Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine at the Geneva of University in Switzerland and did part of his medical training at the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson (USA).

Federico Arcamone (1928-2019) obtained his degree in chemistry at Pisa University in 1951. In 1952, he obtained the Diplôme d’études supérieures de sciences physiques.

Dr Riccardo A. Audisio was born in Milan, Italy, where he completed his High School at the Istituto Leone XIII in 1975. He graduated in Padua in Medicine & Surgery (1980) and specialised in General Surgery at the University of Verona (1985) as well as in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Milan (1994).

Hatem Azim is a medical oncologist now working as a senior consultant the Cairo Cure Oncology Center, in Egypt, occupied in the field of pregnancy and fertility in young patients with breast cancer.

Nutritionist Sheila Bingham was the director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Nutritional Epidemiology in Cancer Prevention and Survival at the University of Cambridge, and one of the founding members of the EPIC study.

Gianni Bonadonna (1934-2015) received his degree in Medicine in1959 at the University of Milan and obtained a training fellowship at Memorial Hospital in New York.

Sir Austin Bradford Hill was an English epidemiologist who pioneered the modern randomised clinical trial and, together with Richard Doll, demonstrated the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

Pietro Bucalossi (1905-1992) obtained his degree in Medicine at the University of Pisa in 1927. He was the first director in the post war era of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori of Milan, the largest comprehensive cancer center in Italy, established in 1928.

Hilary Calvert, a British oncologist, was responsible for the early clinical development of carboplatin, the analogue of cisplatin that showed similar anti-tumour activity to the parent compound with markedly less toxicity.

Born in Milan, Natale Cascinelli graduated in 1965 from the University of Milan in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in General Surgery in 1970.

Prof. Dr. Castiglione completed in Bern her specialization in internal medicine, after which she switched to medical oncology and joined the IBCSG.

Michael Cleare, a British chemist, worked for Johnson Matthey, a materials company, from 1966 to 1999 where he was involved in the discovery and development of the second-generation platinum chemotherapy, carboplatin.

Johannes (Hans) Carolus Clevers (born on 1957 in The Netherlands) is the main responsible for the pioneering work in the field of organoids.

Dr. Coates graduates in medicine from the University of Melbourne in 1966.

Tom Connors was a British chemist and pharmacologist who graduated in physiology from University College London in 1957, and gained an organic chemistry PhD in alkylating agents from the Chester Beatty Research Institute (subsequently the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London), in 1960.

Dr. Costa is internationally recognised for his work for the advancement of breast cancer management and renowned for his innovative ideas in scientific communication and educational development and as Director of the European School of Oncology.

David Cunningham is a distinguished Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London and Surrey, where he leads the Gastrointestinal and Lymphoma Unit.

Nick Day has been professor of Epidemiology at the Medical Research Council, co-director of the Strangeways Research Laboratory, and the first Principal Investigator of the EPIC-Norfolk study, in England.

Franco De Conno was member of the Sardinian-European Meeting of Palliative Care and honorary director of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC).

Aimery de Gramont is a prominent French oncologist with significant contributions to cancer treatment, particularly in the field of gastrointestinal cancers.

Lucia Del Mastro is a medical oncologist and a full professor and director of the Complex Operative Clinical Unit at the San Martino Polyclinic Hospital and University of Genoa, in Italy.

Louis Denis was a Belgian urologist who dedicated his career to improving prostate cancer knowledge and decision making.

Aurelio Di Marco (1911-1984), after obtaining his degree in Medicine worked in Farmitalia, where he became director of the Farmitalia Research Laboratories for Microbiology and Chemotherapy.

Jean Yves Douillard is a renowned French oncologist with significant expertise in the treatment of colorectal and lung cancers. He has held several influential positions throughout his career, including his role as Chief Medical Officer for the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), where he led the scientific strategy and initiatives of the organization.

Guillaume Dupuytren was a French anatomist and military surgeon, physician of Napoleon.

Medical oncologist at Gustave Roussy, specializing in the management of prostate cancer, Professor Karim Fizazi is a professor of oncology at the University of Paris-Saclay.

Katheen Foley is an American neurologist and cancer pain expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Pierre Fumoleau is a world-renowned oncologist.

Dr. Gelber obtains his PhD in the field of Applied Probability and Statistics from Cornell University in 1975.

Son of survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Goldhirsch was born on 25 April 1946 in a refugee camp in Landsberg Am Lech, Germany.

His area of expertise are lung cancer and cancer in the elderly.

Born in Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, William Sampson Handley worked at the cancer department at the Middlesex Hospital where he studies the ways by which cancer spread.

Geoffrey Hanks was a British palliative care specialist, born in India. He was professor of palliative care at the University of Bristol and a pioneer in the specialty.

John Hunter was a Scottish surgeon who was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific methods in medicine.

Rudolf Kaaks is Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the University of Heidelberg, Head of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ), and the Principal Investigator of the EPIC study in Heidelberg.

Stan Kaye qualified in medicine in 1972 in London and completed training in medicine and oncology in London and Australia.

Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes, to give him his full name and title, was a surgeon who did medical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, but it was cut short by the outbreak of the first world war, when he served as a regimental medical officer and pioneered a new blood transfusion technique that saved the lives of many soldiers.

Mary-Claire King is an American geneticist. Initially a mathematician, transitioned to genetics research and significantly impacted cancer genetics and human rights.

A French physician, in 1816 René Theophile Hyacinthe Laënnec introduced the stethoscope to investigate the sounds made by the heart and lungs in order to determine diagnoses, supporting the observations made during autopsies.

Matteo Lambertini is a medical oncologist and associate professor at the San Martino Polyclinic Hospital and University of Genoa, in Italy.

Börje Larsson was a biologist who held academic positions at Uppsala and Zurich universities and who played a key role the field of radiation therapy, radiosurgery and the development of the Gamma Knife machine with Lars Leksell.

He is an expert in therapeutic strategies and translational research applied to lung cancer.

Lars Leksell was a pioneering neurosurgeon, and the father of stereotactic radiosurgery and the Gamma Knife machine now used to treat brain tumours at many locations globally.

Francis Lévi, a French medical oncologist, led the development of oxaliplatin at all phase.

Neil MacDonald was born in Calgary, Alberta in Canada. He is an oncology researcher and clinical practitioner, and an authority in the provision of palliative care as an academic discipline.

Machover is a French oncologist best known for the discovery in 1982 that the effectiveness of fluoropyrimidines in colorectal and gastric cancers could be enhanced by addition of folate.

While French oncologist and immunologist Georges Mathé is best known for performing the first successful allogeneic bone marrow transplant he also played a significant role in developing the third-generation platinum anticancer drug, oxaliplatin.

Jan Mikulicz-Radecki was a Polish-German surgeon.

In 1986, French oncologist Jean-Louis Misset led the phase I trial of oxaliplatin at Paul Brousse Hospital, Paris.

A graduate of the University of Milano Medical school, Dr Silvio Monfardini has been the first coworker of Gianni Bonadonna at the Division of Medical Oncology of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori of Milan.

William Norris was born in Stourbridge, England, and trained at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital under John Abernethy, later continuing his education at the University of Edinburgh.

Giovanni Paganelli is an Italian nuclear medicine specialist who has pioneered the use of radioisotopes in several applications in cancer.

James Paget was an English surgeon and pathologist, who is best remembered for naming Paget's disease and is considered, together with Rudolf Virchow, as one of the founders of scientific medical pathology.

Nicholas Pavlidis born in 1949 obtained his degree in Medicine at the University of Athens in 1973.

Jules-Émile Péan was a French surgeon.

Fedro Peccatori is a medical and gynaecologist oncologist and Director of the Fertility and Reproduction Unit at the European Institute of Oncology, placed in Milan, Italy.

Elio Riboli is currently Professor of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial College London and the European coordinator of the European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study.

Ludwik Rydygier was a Polish surgeon.

After many years at the Health and Science City of Turin in Italy, epidemiologist Carlotta Sacerdote is now Professor at the University of Eastern Piedmont and the Principal Investigator of the EPIC study centre in Turin.

Epidemiologist Rodolfo Saracci has been President of the International Epidemiological Association, and he has worked as chief of the Unit of Analytical Epidemiology at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, in France.

Fritz Schröder is a German urologist who spent most of his career at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Born in Switzerland, Dr. Senn trains in medical oncology in the United States.

Alberto Sobrero is a highly respected oncologist with a focus on gastrointestinal cancers. He has been the Head of the Medical Oncology Unit at Ospedale San Martino in Genoa, Italy, since 2001.

Dr Pierre Soubeyran is a Medical Oncologist at Institut Bergonié, Comprehensive Cancer Center in Bordeaux, and Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Bordeaux.

Sir Thomas Spencer Wells (1818–1897) was a prominent British surgeon, medical professor, and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, who also served as a surgeon to Queen Victoria.

Dame Cicely Saunders was an English nurse, social worker, physician and writer, known for her work in palliative care and the hospice movement.

Robert Twycross is a retired British physician and writer. He was a pioneer of the hospice movement during the 1970s and played a crucial role in establishing palliative care as a recognized discipline within modern medicine.

Eric Van Cutsem is a world-renowned expert in gastrointestinal oncology. He recently retired from the position of Head of Digestive Oncology at University Hospitals Gasthuisberg and the University of Leuven (KULeuven) in Belgium.

Vittorio Ventrafridda was an anaesthesiologist from Milan, and one of the founders of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) during the 1970´s.

Jan Vermorken is a Dutch medical oncologist who spent most of his career in Belgium as Professor of Oncology and head of the Department of Medical Oncology at the University of Antwerp.

Umberto Veronesi was an Italian breast surgeon who became one of the most well-known figures in Italian and international oncology.

Eve Wiltshaw, British medical oncologist, started the first European trial of cisplatin in cancer in 1971 at the Royal Marsden, London.