Panellists
Sofia Carrilho Vaz is a nuclear medicine physician working at Champalimaud Clinical Center – Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal. Oncology is her main field of expertise. She is a PhD candidate at Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands, and her work is centred in breast cancer. As a member of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Oncology & Theranostics Committee she has collaborated in some EANM guidelines, particularly in breast cancer, and European School of Multimodality Imaging & Therapy (ESMIT) initiatives. She belongs to the examination committee of the European Union of Medical Specialists – European Board of Nuclear Medicine. She is also the president of the General Assembly of the Portuguese Society of Nuclear Medicine and an Associated Editor of the British Journal of Radiology.
Prof. Dr. Karolien Goffin is staff member of nuclear medicine at the University Hospital Leuven and associate professor at KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. She is part of the multidisciplinary teams dealing with uro-oncology, functional urology, neuro-oncology, epilepsy, breast cancer, and head-and-neck oncology. Her main research interests are preclinical development of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, the application of existing oncological PET tracers in a broad range of malignancies and clinical settings and the introduction of novel PET tracers and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals in (uro-)oncology.
Prof. Goffin is board member of the Belgian Multidisciplinary meeting on Urological Cancers (BMUC) and of the Imaging Group of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). She is chair of the Oncology and Theranostics Committee of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM). She is editorial board member of the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (EJNMMI), Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM), Cancers, and of Clinical and Translational Imaging (CATI).
Senior Consultant Medical Oncology and founder and President of the Advanced Breast Cancer (ABC) Global Alliance and of the ABC International Consensus Guidelines.
Board certified in medical oncology and internal medicine. Received medical degree at the University of Porto. Completed fellowships at the Jules Bordet Institute (IJB) in Brussels, Belgium and at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Worked for 10 years as Assistant Professor at IJB and returned to Portugal in 2010 to create and be the Director the Breast Unit of the Champalimaud Clinical Center, in Lisbon, until Jan 2025.
Research interests: biology of breast cancer, prognostic and predictive markers, new anticancer agents and clinical trials.
Deeply involved in global cancer policy and the in many professional organizations such as ESO, ESMO, ASCO, AACR, EORTC and E.C.O. Editor-in-chief of The Breast.
Received several educational and research grants, including from the European Union and BCRF. Authored about 400 publications.
Received several awards, including the Order of Santiago da Espada for Scientific Merit (from the President of Portugal), 2020 European Breast Cancer Science Award, 2021 Umberto Veronesi Memorial Award and 2022 ESMO Women For Oncology Award.
Isabel T. Rubio is the Head of Breast Surgical Oncology at Clinica Universidad de Navarra and Professor of Surgery at the University of Navarra in Madrid, Spain. She is the Director of the EUSOMA certified Breast Center. Board certified General Surgeon, Breast Surgical Oncology Fellow at Arkansas Cancer Center at Little Rock, USA and at the MD Anderson CC in Houston, Texas, USA. Dr. Rubio is active in many societies, as President of the European Society of Surgical Oncology (ESSO), EUSOMA past president, co-Chair of the Prevention, Early detection and screening of the European Cancer Organization, officer at the UEMS Breast Surgery Division, founding member and past President of the Spanish Association of Breast Surgeons (AECIMA), Founding member of EUBREAST. She is the Breast Associate Editor of the Journal of Surgical Oncology Published over 199 manuscripts and book chapters. She has participated in the WHO Global breast cancer initiative and PI of several clinical trials.
Gary Cook trained in radiology and then nuclear medicine in London. In 2011 he returned to King’s College London and Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals to the Chair of Molecular Imaging as a clinical academic and a nuclear medicine physician in the KCL and Guy’s & St Thomas’ PET Centre. His research interests include imaging bone metastases, measuring tumour heterogeneity, radiomics and AI, evaluation of novel tracers and biomarkers and refining multimodality imaging for diagnosis and response assessment in oncology.
I am a Clinical Professor at the Department of Nuclear Medicine, Odense University Hospital/University of Southern Denmark. My work is grounded in evidence-based medicine and is designed to address patient-relevant questions with a strong focus on clinical implementation. I believe in the importance of formulating research ideas in collaboration with patient representatives.
My primary research area is clinical breast cancer using 18F-FDG-PET/CT. We have shown its superior diagnostic accuracy in detecting metastatic breast cancer and its impact on clinical practice and patient benefit. Looking ahead, our research activities will provide level I evidence validating the potential survival benefit for metastatic breast cancer patients monitored with 18F-FDG-PET/CT in a prospective randomised clinical trial as part of a European collaboration in www.premiocollab.eu.
I am also involved in a study on 18F-FAPI-PET/CT for staging patients newly diagnosed with high-risk primary breast cancer.
I am a nuclear medicine physician specialist. Since 08/24 I hold a professorship for “Imaging Host Responses” at the European Institute for Molecular Imaging of the University of Münster and the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University Hospital Münster in Germany. In the department of Nuclear Medicine I am senior physician and head of the diagnostics division.
I received my medical degree at the University of Würzburg in 2015. I clinically trained in Nuclear Medicine at the University Hospital Münster and at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. I completed my Nuclear Medicine specialization in Germany in 2021 and became American Board of Nuclear Medicine certified in 2022.
I work as a postdoc clinician scientist since 2017 and am now leading a research group. My research focuses on molecular imaging of the tumor microenvironment with an emphasis on PET imaging in breast cancer.
Dr. Romeo is a breast Radiologist and Researcher at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Her research activities are focused on the use of advanced imaging modalities such as PET/MRI in breast imaging, particularly on the application of AI techniques for breast cancer diagnosis, characterization, stading and response to systemic treatment.
Professor Weber (b. 1967) is Director of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at “Klinikum rechts der Isar” (the University Hospital of the TUM) since 2018. He specialises in the field of molecular imaging and targeted radionuclide therapy. His research focus is the combination imaging and therapy of cancer (theranostics).
Professor Weber obtained his doctorate at the TUM in 1995. He then worked as an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles from 2003-2007. In 2007, he became Chair of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Freiburg. From 2013-2017 he was Chief of the Molecular Imaging and Therapy service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Professor of Radiology at Weill-Cornell Medical College, New York.
Dr Gennari’s areas of expertise include diagnostic and therapeutic innovation in breast cancer. Her current research is focused on the identification of individual drug responsiveness in breast tumors and therapy optimization in metastatic breast cancer.
Other active research areas include the evaluation of host metabolism in breast cancer, and functional imaging by PET-CT with 18F-FES to evaluate endocrine responsiveness in advanced breast cancer. She is the PI and Coordinator of the ERA-NET JTC 2011 project (European TRANSCAN project) – Early prediction of efficacy of endocrine therapy in breast cancer: pilot study and validation with 18F Fluoroestradiol (ET-FES project).
She is also expanding research interests in immunotherapy and response prediction in BC. She acts as referee for numerous high-profile oncology journals, and has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications as well as numerous book chapters, abstracts, and other articles.
Gary Ulaner is the James & Pamela Muzzy Endowed Chair of Molecular Imaging and Therapy (MIT) at the Hoag Family Cancer Institute and Professor of Radiology and Translational Genomics at the University of Southern California. He has been the PI for more than a dozen novel MIT agents for patients with breast, prostate, neuroendocrine, pancreatic, and myeloma malignancies, funded by two NIH R01s and grants from the Department of Defense (DoD) Breast Cancer Research Programs and Komen Foundation. His trials emphasize targeting ER, HER2, PSMA, SSTR and CD38. Gary is on the editorial board of 4 leading radiology journals, authored the text “Fundamentals of Oncologic PET/CT”, and is on the scientific advisory boards of GE Healthcare, Lantheus, Nuclidium, Precirix, and the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance. Gary lives in California, with his wife, Alena, son, Ilya, and daughter, Anabel. He met Alena while swing dancing, and they are still dancing, albeit with less frequency.
Frédérique PENAULT-LLORCA, MD, PhD, graduated in pathology in 1993 and in oncology in 1995. She also received her PhD in Cell Biology and Microbiology from the Université d’Aix-Marseille II in 1995 on the topic of HER2. Professor PENAULT-LLORCA is currently Professor of Pathology at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, CEO of the Centre Jean Perrin Comprehensive Regional Cancer Institute, Deputy Director of the INSERM 1240 IMoST research team and Head of the Molecular Biology Platform at the Centre Jean Perrin, Clermont-Ferrand, France, and Vice-President of the UNICANCER GROUP. She chairs the Immuno-Oncology Group at UNICANCER R&D since 2019. She is a member of several pathology and oncology societies (ESMO, ASCO, ESP, AIP, SFP). Her main areas of interest as a pathologist are female cancers. Professor PENAULT-LLORCA has conducted several biomarker-based research studies in oncology. She has authored more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and several books.
Michel van Kruchten is a medical oncologist in the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), the Netherlands. He obtained a PhD in ‘Molecular imaging of estrogen receptors in breast cancer’, and is involved in various clinical trials investigating the role of FES PET. He collaborated with international colleagues and was a member of the EANM/SNMMI guideline committee on estrogen receptor imaging in breast cancer. Next to imaging, his area’s of expertise include molecular profiling, as a member of the Molecular Tumour Board of the UMCG, and development of AI tools for translation of quantitative assessment of PET scans towards the clinic.
Dr. Pinker-Domenig is Chief of the Division of Breast Imaging for the Department of Radiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Radiology at the Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. She is an expert in translational and clinical breast and oncologic gender imaging. Her research interests focus on advanced breast imaging with high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using multiple advanced MRI parameters, hybrid imaging (PET)/MRI with specific tracers and the application of AI in oncologic imaging to develop imaging biomarkers for precision medicine. She has published more than >200 peer-reviewed papers in breast and oncologic imaging.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1Ree7PGLGSF5Q/bibliography/public/
Born in Naples, Italy, on July 31, 1987, Dr. Francesco Schettini graduated with honors in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Naples Federico II, where he also specialized in Medical Oncology in 2018. He holds a Ph.D. in Advanced Biomedical and Surgical Therapies and currently works as medical oncologist in the Breast Cancer Unit of the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, postdoctoral researcher at the IDIBAPS in the Translational Genomics and Targeted Therapies in Solid Tumors group, and collaborates with the Precision Oncology Innovation Chair, led by Prof. Prat at the University of Barcelona. Dr. Schettini’s research focuses on identifying and validating prognostic and predictive biomarkers to advance Precision Oncology for HR+/HER2-negative and HER2-low breast tumors. To date, Dr. Schettini has co-authored over 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals, is an active member of the SOLTI, GIM, EORTC, and GEICAM academic research groups and EACR ambassador.
Carolien Schröder, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist, with a focus on breast cancer, at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (AVL-NKI) Amsterdam, and the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), the Netherlands. Schröder’s research focus is molecular imaging of hormone- and immune receptors and their implementation in clinical practice, and rare breast cancer subgroups including male breast cancer and inflammatory breast cancer. She has initiated and led multiple studies, from early phase- to multicenter (inter)national clinical trials such as the ongoing Dutch multicenter SONImage imaging study, using FES-PET to predict of CDK inhibition benefit. She is involved in national breast cancer guideline development. Her research, funded by different institutions including the Dutch Cancer Society, led to over 125 scientific publications, with an H-index of >40. She is a frequently invited speaker at (inter)national conferences for colleagues and patients.
David GROHEUX, MD, PHD, is a French nuclear physician with expertise in oncology. He practices at the Saint-Louis hospital in PARIS, where he is also a researcher, within a multidisciplinary team seeking to better understand the development of breast cancer in order to better treat it. He has mainly worked on the role of FDG PET/CT in the initial staging of breast cancer and in the early assessment of neoadjuvant treatment. In parallel with his research activity in Paris, he developed PET imaging in two departments in France, La Charente-Maritime and les Deux-Sèvres, by installing the first PET-Scan centers in these departments.
Geraldine is focused on molecular imaging and theranostic approaches for Breast Cancer. Her PhD project explored the role of molecular imaging in early response evaluation to anti-HER2 agents. She contributed to several key projects, including:
- Evaluation of the FDG-PET/CT performed in the biological window of the NEOALTTO trial, which has compared, the preoperative administration of trastuzumab, lapatinib or their combination.
- The ZEPHIR study, a phase II prospective imaging study evaluating the clinical utility of pre-treatment zirconium-89 labelled trastuzumab PET/CT and an early FDG-PET/CT response to identify patient unlikely to benefit from TDM1.
- The PHERGAIN study, using FDG-PET/CT to de-escalate neoadjuvant chemotherapy for early HER2-positive BC after two cycles of trastuzumab and pertuzumab.
Her work earned the JNM Editor’s Choice Award (2013), Alavi Mandell Award (2013), and Marie Curie Award (EANM2023).
Ritse Mann is breast radiologist at the Radboudumc in Nijmegen and the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. He is research group leader of the breast imaging group, performing clinical breast imaging research at both institutions.
Areas of particular interest include breast cancer screening and breast MRI. Major achievements include the invention of ultrafast breast MRI, clinical validation of MRI screening in various populations including women with dense breasts, and the development of several guidelines and state-of-art recommendations in this field. In addition, his research focusses on minimal invasive therapy and the use of artificial intelligence for screening, diagnosis and therapy selection of breast cancer.
He is member of the executive board of the European society of breast imaging (EUSOBI) since 2015, and current chairperson of the scientific committee. He is chair of the Dutch college of breast imaging, and associate editor for Radiology.
Dr. Thiemo van Nijnatten is a breast- and nuclear radiologist at the Department of Radiology and Nuclear medicine at Maastricht University Medical Center+, Maastricht, the Netherlands. In addition, he is assistant professor at GROW Research Institute for Oncology and Reproduction at Maastricht University. His research includes locoregional and distant staging in breast cancer patients, using different diagnostic and molecular imaging modalities. He is PI of the Dutch multicenter REFINE trial, investigating optimized diagnostic and treatment strategies for locoregional staging in breast cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemo-immunotherapy. He is chair of the Young Club of the European Society of Breast Imaging (EUSOBI). Next, he is section editor for the European Journal of Radiology (sections: hybrid imaging and breast imaging).
Dr. Elizabeth Dibble is a radiologist at Rhode Island Medical Imaging who is fellowship-trained in breast imaging and in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. She is an Associate Professor of Diagnostic Imaging at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Her research centers on optimizing risk-based breast cancer screening, improving breast cancer staging with functional imaging modalities, and radiology and nuclear medicine diversity and workforce issues.
Pascal Andreas Thomas Baltzer, is a radiologist at the University Clinic for Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna (MUW). He studied human medicine and received his doctorate from Friedrich Schiller University Jena. He completed his specialist training and habilitation in 2011, then became the head of breast imaging unit University Hospital Jena. In 2012, he moved to the MUW, where he became the head of the urogenital diagnostic department and was appointed professor in 2014. He has worked for many years as the editor of various scientific journals, and since 2020, has been the chief editor of the European Journal of Radiology. He is active in several national and international societies, past working group leader of the Austrian breast imaging working group and urogenital imaging working group; executive board of the Medical Imaging Cluster of the Medical University Vienna, currently executive board member of the breast imaging working group of the Deutsche Röntgengesellschaft, secretary general of the EUSOBI.
Antoinette Attard is a retired Senior Practice Nurse, and Nurse Educator. She was one of the first Practice nurses specialising in breast care and was the senior nurse in charge of the Breast Care Clinic in Mater Dei Hospital Malta for about 20 years. Antoinette is now working at the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate.
She is also a committee member of Europa Donna Malta, where she gives support to women and their families dealing with breast cancer. She also, acts as a scientific advisor to the committee during conferences, talks and publications related to breast cancer. Antoinette has been asked to present the patient perspective on behalf of the coalition of Europa Donna.
Professor Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD, is Director of the Breast Center and holds the chair for Conservative Oncology at the Dept. of OB&GYN, LMU University Hospital, Munich, Germany. She is member of the ESMO Executive Board, ESMO Director of Education (2023-25), and Subject Editor of the ESMO Breast Cancer Guidelines (since 2022). She is member of the ASCO Annual Meeting Educational Committee (2022-2025) and of the expert panel issuing the German AGO recommendations for breast cancer therapy (www.ago-online.de).
She is co-director of the West German Study Group (www.wsg-online.com). She is a Highly Cited Researcher (2021-2024), has authored more than 715 papers in peer-reviewed journals (h-index 97) and is coordinating editor-in-chief of Breast Care. She is a panel member of several international breast cancer consensus conferences.
Among multiple honors and awards, she has received the 2023 German Cancer Award and the 2020 ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award.
Assistant professor and scientist working at the Interventional Molecular Imaging Laboratory at the Leiden University Medical Center and the Dutch National Cancer Center – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in the Netherlands. She is the chair of the Translational Molecular Imaging and Therapy (TMI&T) committee of the EANM. Her research activities are focused on evaluation and clinical translation of novel molecular imaging and image-guided technologies.
Dr Sofia Rivera MD, PhD, is a radiation oncologist, head of a radiotherapy oncology unit and radiobiology researcher. Her area of expertise is breast cancer patients’ care. Her clinical activity is associated with pre-clinical research in radiobiology within the INSERM1030 unit. She coordinates clinical trials on hypofractionated radiotherapy. She leads the 5-day breast radiotherapy program, in Gustave Roussy implementing scientific, technological and organizational innovation thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence into clinical practice and her whole team commitment and expertise.
Dr Sofia Rivera is MD from the University of Burgundy (2008). Former assistant professor and hospital practitioner in radiation oncology at Saint Louis hospital in Paris, she joined Gustave Roussy in 2013. In 2016, she obtained her PhD in radiobiology. She is the president of the French national radiotherapy group of UNICANCER: UNITRAD and chair of the ESTRO breast focus group.
Martina Bašić-Koretić graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Zagreb.
She completed a two-year internship at Sveti Duh General Hospital while working at the Department of Anatomy, Laboratory for Mineralized Tissues. After passing the state exam, she became a research assistant at the Faculty of Medicine, teaching Anatomy and Clinical Anatomy. Her research focused on the effects of bone morphogenetic proteins on osteoporosis, and she co-organized scientific conferences, including the First European Conference on BMPs. In 2001, she began her oncology and radiotherapy specialisation at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb, focusing on breast diseases. She completed a postgraduate course in breast ultrasound and advanced in diagnosis and treatment using clinical exams, ultrasound, biopsies, and modern systemic therapies. She has published numerous papers and actively participates in national and international conferences.