Dr. Dominik Modest

Dr. Dominik Modest studied medicine at the Charité in Berlin, Germany and at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Currently, he is a physician at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany. His research activities focus on metastatic colorectal cancer and include the concept and coordination of trials for the FIRE study group and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Internistische Onkologie (AIO). Dr. Modest also coordinates the translational research components of these trials, aiming to identify prognostic and predictive biomarkers of metastatic colorectal cancer. His research has been published in several papers in scientific journals. In 2015, he received a postdoctoral qualification on factors for personalisation of metastatic colorectal cancer therapy. Dr. Modest is an active member of several national and international cancer associations and served as spokesman for the Young Medical Oncologists of the AIO until 2014.

Dr Juan Manuel O’Connor

Dr. Juan Manuel O’Connor is currently Head of the Department of Gastrointestinal Tumors at Instituto Alexander Fleming, a position he has held since 2015. He is Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the School of Medicine of the Instituto Universitario CEMIC, Buenos Aires. He is a founding member of the Argentine Group of Neuroendocrine Tumors (ARGENTUM), created in 2005. Dr. O´Connor is a member of the Argentinian Intergroup of Gastrointestinal Tumors (IATTGI), and also of the recently created Latin American Society for Gastrointestinal Tumors, chaired by Dr. Jorge Gallardo. He has been a member of the Advisory Board of the European Society of Neuroendocrine Tumors, ENETS since 2008, and an active member of ASCO since 2011. He finished his fellowship in Clinical Oncology in 2003, held at the Alexander Fleming Institute, affiliated to the University of Buenos Aires, rating with Cum Laude10/10. Dr. O´Connor has authored over 50 papers and chapters of books about gastrointestinal tumors. He received several international awards for his work in the area of ​​neuroendocrine tumors. He has participated in more than 200 national and international events as a speaker. Dr. O´Connor also served as a consultant to the National Cancer Institute in Argentina, and was involved in the development of the Clinical Practice Guidelines in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer in Argentina, in 2014.

Dr. Jenny Seligmann

Dr. Jenny Seligmann gained her MBChB and BMedSci at the University of Aberdeen in 2005 then gained her PhD in 2015 from the University of Leeds on Biomarkers of Prognosis and Prediction of Response in Colorectal Cancer. She was appointed a Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Fellow in 2015, then a University Academic Fellow and Consultant in Medical Oncology in Leeds in 2017. Her research interests are in clinical trials and biomarkers of prediction of response in colorectal cancer. She is involved in several ongoing clinical trials, including the FOCUS-4 trial and has an ongoing lab-based programme of research. She has been involved in several national and international committees, including the UK Colorectal Clinical Studies Group and is currently the EORTC GI Group Young Investigator. She has received several awards including an ASCO Merit Award in 2013.

Dr. Thomas Winder

Dr. Thomas Winder, M.D. Ph.D. graduated in 2005 from the Medical University of Innsbruck. He became Dr. scient.med. at the Private University of Liechtenstein in 2008, with his thesis: “Different types of K-Ras mutations are conversely associated with overall survival in patients with colorectal Cancer”. In 2010, he completed his Ph.D. studies at the Private University Liechtenstein in co-operation with the University of Southern California, Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center with his thesis: “Predictive and prognostic molecular markers in gastrointestinal malignancies”.

His main research area is the predictive and prognostic molecular markers in gastrointestinal malignancies. He presently holds professional positions with many different society memberships and is an active reviewer for diverse journals.

Dr. Loredana Vecchione MD, Ph.D

Dr. Loredana Vecchione was awarded her medical degree in 2004, her degree as specialist in Medical Oncology in 2008 and her Ph.D from the Second University of Naples in 2012. She performed the last two years of her Ph.D program in Leuven, in Professor Tejpar’s group. After achieving the ESMO fellowship for Translational Research in 2012, she joined Professor Bernards’ group at the Netherlands Cancer Institute where she has been focusing on identifying vulnerabilities of BRAF-like CC. She recently joined the group of Prof Keilholz at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Charite in Berlin where she is investigating mechanisms of resistance to conventional treatments in BRAF-like CC and the role of certain genes in some of the CRC subtypes. Dr. Vecchione is an active member of ESMO. She is involved in the assignment of educational hours (ESMO CME points) to proposed activities. She has been Section Editor of Current Colorectal Cancer Reports since 2014 and Section Editor of Current Oncology Reports since 2015.

Prof. David Tougeron

Dr. David Tougeron is a professor of gastroenterology at Poitiers University Hospital, France. His clinical interests focus on gastrointestinal cancers, in particular, colorectal cancer. Dr. Tougeron has participated in more than 40 clinical trials in digestive oncology and has co-authored more than 50 articles, editorials and book chapters. After a Ph.D. in immune response in colorectal cancer, Dr. Tougeron completed a postdoctoral position at the Mayo Clinic, U.S., in colorectal cancer chemosensitivity. His research is currently focussing on colorectal cancer, particularly colorectal cancer with microsatellite instability and predictive biomarkers of response to targeted therapies. He presently holds professional positions in different organisations, notably the Fédération Francophone de Cancérologie Digestive (FFCD).

Ass. Prof. Yu Sunakawa

Dr. Yu Sunakawa is a medical oncologist at St. Marianna University, Japan and previously worked as an instructor at Showa University Northern Yokohama Hospital in Yokohama, Japan. He also completed postdoctoral research fellowship training at University of Southern California/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in United States. In 2011, Dr. Sunakawa received the board certification of the Japanese Society of Medical Oncology. Dr. Sunakawa’s research interests are the identification and determination of molecular markers in cancerous tissues or blood that could predict cancer risk and clinical outcome in gastrointestinal cancer. He is also focusing on research regarding tumour immunity and received a Merit Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2014, for the research of genetic variations in immune checkpoint-related genes.