Panellists
Rudi Dierckx studied as an MD (board certified in neuropsychiatry and nuclear medicine), PhD and MBA. Rudi Dierckx is full professor in Nuclear medicine at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and extra-ordinary professor at the Ghent University, Belgium.
He is head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging at the University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands since 2005. He also was 8.5 years the head of the Department of Radiology in Groningen till 2022. He co-authored more than 700 publications, edited several text books and promoted more than 90 PhD students.
In 2014 he was elected member of the Royal Dutch Society of Sciences. His research encompasses many publications on oncological imaging and radionuclide therapy, which he and his collaborators pioneered in Belgium at the Ghent University Hospital. He is the current EANM President 2023-2024.
Daniela-Elena Oprea-Lager, MD, PhD, is nuclear medicine physician on the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Center, in the Netherlands. She is a member of the ‘Oncology & Theranostics’ committee of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and the chair of the Imaging Subcommittee Group ‘Bone & Oligometastases’ of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). Daniela is also a full-member of the ‘Prostate Cancer Guidelines Panel’ within the European Association of Urology (EAU) and the Chair of the Foundation ‘PSMA Forum NL’, a multicenter, multidisciplinary platform for all PSMA users in the Netherlands.
Her research interests concentrate on prostate cancer theranostics, immuno-oncology and the implementation of new oncological tracers in clinical practice. Her prime ambition is to harmoniously combine patient care, scientific research and transferring her expertise to future generations of doctors.
Full-time employed in Nuclear Medicine as Full Professor of Diagnostic Imaging as well as Director of Nuclear Medicine Division and Director of Oncology Department at IRCCS AOU di Bologna.
EANM Congress Chair 2020-2022, involved in many EANM activities, especially jointly with EAU.
More than 500 full articles in peer-reviewed international journals; more than 20k citations; 15 full books and more than 100 book chapters; associate editor of JNM, EJNM, Cancers; invited lecturer at more than 300 national and international meetings.
Prof. Jolanta Kunikowska is a nuclear medicine as well as internal medicine physician specialist. She is currently assistant professor at the Nuclear Medicine Department, Medical University, Warsaw/Poland. She has a broad interest in positron emission tomography (PET), molecular imaging applications in oncology and theragnostics (radionuclide therapy). She has a particular interest in novel PET radiotracers, and theragnostic applications including prostate, neuroendocrine tumors and glioblastoma. She has authored over 90 peer-reviewed articles and several book chapters. She received several prestigious awards provided by various scientific communities including the Gold prize for Hisada award in 2018 and Marie Curie Award for outstanding scientific work presented at the 29th Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) in Barcelona in 2016. She has served as EANM President (2021-2022).
Dr. Derya Tilki is Professor of Urology at the Martini-Klinik Prostate Cancer Center and at the Department of Urology, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany.
She obtained her medical degree at the University of Hamburg and received her Urologic residency training in Munich, with research fellowships at Harvard Medical School in Boston and at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. Dr. Tilki completed her Uro-Oncology fellowship at UC Davis in Sacramento, USA.
Dr. Tilki‘s research is focused on uro-oncology with a particular interest in prostate cancer. She has authored and co-authored more than 350 publications and is an Associate Editor of European Urology Focus. Dr. Tilki is Panel Member of the EAU Prostate Cancer Guidelines.
Alberto Briganti is Full Professor of Urology at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. He is also deputy-director of the Urological Research Institute and director of the Robotic Surgical Program of the Department of Urology at San Raffaele Hospital.
He was awarded his medical degree from Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, where he also completed his residency training in Urology. He also received his PhD in Clinical and Experimental Biotechnology in Urology in 2016. Since 2017, Prof. Briganti is the Editor-in-Chief of European Urology Oncology, one of the official Journals of the European Association of Urology, fully devoted to the research of genitourinary cancers.
Throughout his career, Prof. Briganti has received prestigious grants to fund several research projects. In recognition of his academic career, in 2016 Briganti received the Matula Award, an annual award given by the European Association of Urology to the most promising academic urologist under the age of 40.
Professor Silke Gillessen is a Medical Oncologist with focus on genitourinary cancer.
She completed her training in Basel, St. Gallen, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. Back in Switzerland, she built up the medical oncology unit for GU cancer and headed the clinical research unit in Cantonal Hospital, St Gallen. She served as president of the SAKK GU group, she chaired the EORTC Genitourinary Cancers Group, and has founded the Advanced Prostate Cancer Consensus Conference (APCCC).
From 2018, Prof Gillessen has been chair of GU Systemic Therapy Research at the University of Manchester and Consultant at The Christie. In January 2020, Prof Gillessen was appointed Head of the Department of Medical Oncology, full professor at the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano and Director of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
Dr. Iagaru is a Professor of Radiology – Nuclear Medicine and the Chief of the Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging at Stanford University Medical Center.
He completed medical school at Carol Davila University of Medicine, Bucharest, Romania, and an internship at Drexel University College of Medicine, Graduate Hospital, in the Department of Medicine in Philadelphia. He began his residency at the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, in the Division of Nuclear Medicine, where he was the chief resident. Dr. Iagaru finished his residency and completed a PET/CT fellowship at Stanford University’s School of Medicine in the Division of Nuclear Medicine.
His research interests include PET/MRI and PET/CT for early cancer detection; clinical translation of novel PET radiopharmaceuticals; peptide-based diagnostic imaging and therapy; targeted radionuclide therapy.
PD Dr. med Irene A. Burger, obtained her medical degree at the University of Zurich, with a thesis on improvement in colorectal cancer stating with the use of PET/CT.
She gained her board certifications for radiology and nuclear medicine at the University Hospital of Zurich, followed by a research year in molecular imaging at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (NY). From 06/2014-12/2018 she was the head of the PET/CT center at the University Hospital of Zurich. In March 2015 she received her venia legendi for “Integrated molecular imaging”. She has a strong research focus in prostate cancer, helped to implement Ga-PMSA-11 PET in Switzerland, reached reimbursement for staging high risk disease since January 2021 and published over 40 papers in this area.
Since 2019 she is the head of the nuclear medicine department at the Kantonsspital Baden still keeping a 20% research affiliation at the University Hospital of Zurich.
Bertrand Tombal is the Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Full Professor of Urology at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc, Brussels, Belgium.
He has both a basic science and a clinical interest in urological oncology, particularly in the field of prostate and bladder cancer. Professor Tombal obtained his MD in 1990 and his PhD in 2003, both from the Université catholique de Louvain. During his PhD, he studied the mechanisms involved in apoptosis of prostate cancer cells and the modulation of apoptosis by growth factors. He completed part of his basic sciences training at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Professor Tombal’s primary clinical interest is the treatment of advanced stages of prostate cancer, and particularly hormonal treatment and of new biological agents. He is heading the uro-oncology division at the Université catholique de Louvain where he is coordinating several trials in this research area.
Dr. Oliver Sartor is an internationally recognized expert in prostate cancer. His medical practice and research have focused on prostate cancer since 1990 when he finished a medical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He has published over 500 peer-reviewed articles, led or co-led multiple national and international clinical studies, including four phase III studies pivotal for FDA approval (samarium 153 EDTMP, cabazitaxel, radium-223, and PSMA-617 Lu-177). He has lectured widely, and at last count has given invited lectures in 33 countries.
He is currently the Associate Dean for Oncology, Medical Director of the Tulane Cancer Center, and serves as the Laborde Professor for Cancer Research at Tulane Medical School with appointments in both the Medicine and Urology Departments.
He has served as the past Chairman of the Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Integration Panel and is the Medical Oncology Chair of the GU committee of NRG.
Barbara Alicja Jereczek-Fossa, MD, PhD, is Full Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Dept. of Oncology and Hemato-oncology at the University of Milan (UNIMI) and Head of the Dept. of Radiation Oncology at the European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, Milan, Italy.
She is also Director of the School of Specialization in Radiation Oncology and Chair of the RTT BSc Degree in Radiography, Radiotherapy and Medical Imaging (UNIMI), and Chair of the National Societies Committee of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology.
Constantly committed to research in the fields of cancer radiotherapy, urological and breast malignancies, oligometastatic cancer, radiomics and artificial intelligence, she is in the Top Italian Scientists list (author of over 400 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 7 book chapters). Her total impact factor (IF) is 1452.136 (mean IF: 3.649/article), her H-index, according to Google Scholar, is 44 (Author ID: 7004306533; ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8151-3673).
Professor Herrmann completed his residency in Nuclear Medicine at Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, as well as his habilitation titled „In Vivo-Proliferation Imaging with 3´deoxy-3´-[18F]Fluorothymidine PET in Oncology“.
In May 2011 he joined as Visiting Assistant Professor and was later promoted to tenure track Associate Professor in the Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division of the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) . From August 2012 to July 2016, he served as Vice Chair of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Universitätsklinikum Würzburg. Since August 2016 Professor Herrmann acts as Chair of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the Universitätsklinikum Essen.
He also is currently the Chair of the EANM Oncology & Theranostics committee and Section Editor of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. He is a key opinion leader in molecular imaging and theranostics with special focus on prostate cancer.
Maria De Santis is a medical oncologist and Chair of Section for Interdisciplinary Genito-Urinary Cancer Medicine at the Charité Medical University Hospital, Berlin, Germany.
She made her habilitation at the Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversität in Salzburg, Austria in 2008 and has been working as a senior consultant at the Kaiser Franz Josef-Spital in Vienna for 18 years. From 2015 until April 2018 she was appointed Associate Clinical Professor for Oncology at the University of Warwick, Coventry. Her clinical work was at the genitourinary oncology service at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Cancer Center, in Birmingham, UK. Also, she has been appointed Adjunct Professor at the Department of Urology at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, in 2016.
Dr De Santis is a member of several international scientific committees and guideline group panel memeber including EAU and ESMO. Her main research interests are in prostate, renal and bladder cancer.
Qualifications/Education:
Assistant Professor Urology MD
Master of Arts in management of health care institutions
FEBU Board certified Urologist Research fellow at the Cancer Prognostics and Health Outcomes Unit at the University of Montréal /Canada
Residency:
University of Hamburg/Germany and Marseille/France
Medical School:
University of Mainz/Germany Professional
Experience/Appointments:
Head of Urology, Institut Paoli-Calmettes
Cancer Centre Co-editor in chief European Urology Open Science
Former Chairman EAU Section of Urological Imaging (ESUI)
Research interests:
-Imaging in Urology
-Prostate cancer
Prof. Dr. Sandra Heskamp works at the Department of Medical Imaging – Nuclear Medicine, at the Radboud university medical center Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She leads a research group “Nuclear Imaging and Therapy in Immuno-Oncology”.
Her research focuses on novel radiotracers to visualize tumor cells and their (immune)microenvironment, in order to study the biology of cancer in preclinical tumor models and cancer patients. Furthermore, she develops new therapeutic radiotracers and studies their radiobiological and immunological effects in preclinical tumor models. She performs translational research, from the development of new radiopharmaceuticals, to preclinical testing in cells and mice, to first clinical trials in cancer patients. She is also chair of the Radboudumc Technology Center Imaging and board member of the Dutch Society for Clinical Radiochemistry.
Roman Sosnowski has been working for almost twenty years at The Uro-oncology Department at the Cancer Memorial Hospital, Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Warsaw, Poland.
His main areas of interest include surgical treatments related to the bladder, the kidneys and prostate cancer but also testicular and penile cancer. He undertook clinical fellowships at some of the leading urological institutions in Denmark, Germany, Canada, and the United States. Recently he has been involved with a multi-centre collaboration across Europe, mainly with The European Association of Urology network.
He has an interest in health awareness and prophylactics and, for more than ten years, has collaborated with patients, organizations, and institutions that support education, organizing content for their seminars, publications, and websites, and delivering lectures on a variety of topics related to urology. Recently he received diploma of Associated Professor mainly due to his scientific work focus on QoL.
Dr. Uta Eberlein is a medical physicist working at the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University Hospital Würzburg, Germany. She received her PhD in life sciences in 2015. Since then, she has been responsible for several national and international research projects. Her main research interest is the combination of internal dosimetry and biodosimetry in nuclear medicine with a focus on radionuclide therapies. She has published more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and reviews and received several international Awards (MELODI, EURAMED).
Presently she chairs the EURAMED Membership Committee and is a member of the Radiation Protection Committee of the EANM. From 2016 to 2020 she was a member of the EANM Dosimetry Committee. Since 2020, she has been an associate editor of the Zeitschrift für Medizinische Physik (Journal of Medical Physics).
Karim Fizazi, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist at Institut Gustave Roussy and full professor in Oncology at the University of Paris Saclay in Villejuif, France.
After training as a medical student at the University of Poitiers, France, Prof. Fizazi completed his residency (Internat) in Paris and attained his medical degree in 1995. In 1997, he completed a fellowship in medical oncology at Gustave Roussy. After a visiting professorship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, USA from 1999 to 2001, he gained his PhD in Molecular Oncology in 2003. He was head of the Department of Cancer Medicine at Institut Gustave Roussy from 2005 to 2018 and he became full professor at the University of Paris in 2009. He is the president of the French Groupe d’Etude des Tumeurs Genito-Urinaires. Prof. Fizazi is associate editor of European Journal of Cancer.
To push forward clinical research on prostate cancer in Europe, Prof. Fizazi created in 2013 the Prostate Cancer Consortium in Europe (PEACE).
After earning my MD, PhD and Radiology degree at the RadboudUmc I started working at the University Medical Center of Groningen (UMCG) in 2016 as a Radiologist.
In these last 5 years at the UMCG I have been involved in various clinical and research activities as an abdominal radiologist. I have a special interest in MRI and prostate cancer in diagnostics as well as interventions. One of my future foci will be exploring and expanding on the power of AI by investigating its ability to detect diseases and improve existing imaging techniques.
Moreover, ethically and morally challenging everything we do is an important part of my research activities. Altogether, focusing on the Precise diagnosis of abdominal diseases (in particular prostate cancer with the help of AI), in a Fast (efficient and affordable), and Fair context (patient-centered, value-based radiology), is my main goal.
Igle Jan de Jong Md PhD FEBU is professor and chairman in Urology at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands.
He obtained his medical degree at the State University of Utrecht was trained in Urology with special interest in oncology, reconstructive urology and molecular imaging. He finished a PhD on Carbon-11 radiopharmaceuticals in prostate and bladder cancer in 2003 at the University of Groningen. He continued his research on targets for imaging in urological tumors in collaboration with the PET Center in Groningen with emphasis on development and clinical evaluation of radionuclides targeting cell proliferation, GRPR, androgen receptor.
His research is focused on recurrent prostate cancer using image guided selection and treatment including locoregional salvage treatment and theranostics. Professor de Jong contributed as member of national guidelines on prostate and kidney cancer and served as board member of the Dutch Urological Society.
Dr. Nina Tunariu works as a Consultant Radiologist at Royal Marsden Hospital, UK as the dedicated Radiologist for the Drug Development Unit and Prostate Cancer Targeted Therapy Clinical Trials Team.
Dr. Tunariu’s main academic and clinical interests are the development of multiparametric whole body MRI DWI as a research and clinical tool in oncological imaging with a focus in improving the assessment of metastatic bone disease.
Dr. Tunariu has co-authored numerous publications together with Radiology and Clinical colleagues at Royal Marsden Hospital, with main focus in metastatic prostate cancer and oncological clinical trials.
Joe O’Sullivan is Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research, Queen’s University Belfast and a Consultant Prostate Cancer Oncologist at the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre, Belfast.
Joe graduated from University College Dublin medical School in 1993 and trained in Radiation Oncology in St. Luke’s Hospital in Dublin. In 2000 he took up a Clinical research Fellowship at the Royal Marsden London. He was appointed to Queen’s University Belfast in 2004 and subsequently appointed as Professor of Radiation Oncology in 2011. He served as Clinical Director of Oncology at The Northern Ireland Cancer Centre, Belfast from 2014-2017. He has been a voting panel member of APCCC since 2019.
His research interests include radionuclide therapy in metastatic prostate cancer and he has published over 200 research papers. He is one of the 4 Directors of the FASTMAN Movember Centre of Excellence.
Evis Sala is a Professor of Radiology and Chair of Department of Radiology at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCC, Rome. Italy. Previously she was the Professor of Oncological Imaging at the University of Cambridge and co-led the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre Advanced Cancer Imaging and the Integrated Cancer Medicine Programs. Dr Sala’s research focuses on the development and validation of functional imaging biomarkers to rapidly evaluate treatment response using physiologic and metabolic tumour habitat imaging.
In recognition for her contribution to education and research in oncological imaging she received the Radiology Society of North America (RSNA) Honorary Membership in 2022. She is a Fellow of the International Cancer Imaging Society, Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Fellow of the European Society of Urogenital Radiology and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Translational research in molecular medicine has been the scope of scientific work, with a focus on oncology. The aim is to bring new radiopharmaceuticals to clinical practice. This specifically resulted in the introduction of new oncological treatment modalities in the Netherlands, such as bone seeking radiopharmaceuticals for the palliation of metastatic bone pain (153Sm-EDTMP, 188Re-HEDP, 223Ra-chloride), protein-receptor radionuclide therapy (177Lu-PSMA, 177Lu-HA-dotatate), and radioembolization for treatment of hepatic malignancies (90Y microspheres and 166Ho microspheres).
Current research is focussed on dosimetry of therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, image-guided treatment technology, alfa- and beta-emitting isotopes for therapeutic purposes, intra-arterial and intra-tumor treatment approaches, and radio-immunotherapy.
Radiologist, expert in Urogenital Imaging with more than 15 years of experience on clinical MRI. Her current position is at Department of Radiological Sciences, Oncology and Pathology, Sapienza University of Rome, where she’s Associate Professor in Radiology and Responsible of Advanced MR & CT Imaging Division.
She focused her research on Prostate and Bladder Cancer. ACR international representative, PI-RADS Committee of ACR, as well as Faculty Member and Promotor of EAU/ESU MRI Masterclass in Prostate cancer, Member of Genitourinary Scientific Sub-Committee of the ECR, Member of working group on prostate cancer of the ESUR, ESUR delegate for ESR, and Member of AMPC of the ISMRM. She has authored about 200 printed papers on “peer reviewed” journal, mainly focused on prostate cancer and bladder cancer MRI Pathways.
I was the leader of position papers on MRI standardization for Bladder Cancer (VI-RADS) and on MRI standardization for Prostate Cancer Recurrence (PI-RR).
Mike Sathekge is a Professor and Head of Nuclear Medicine department at University of Pretoria and Steve Biko Academic Hospital. He also heads the South African Nuclear Medicine Research Infrastructure.
He led and introduced several targeted molecular imaging and therapeutic probes in infection and oncology in South Africa. He is involved in several projects regarding prostate cancer therapy using 225Ac-PSMA.
Mike is one of the two Editor-in-Chief of Seminars in Nuclear Medicine and an Associate Editor of the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging and the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
He is the President of the World Association of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Therapy, the Past Chair of South African Medical Research Council and Past Secretary General of The World Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology.
Prof Louise Emmett is the Director of Theranostics and Nuclear medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, Australia with a specialty interest in the imaging and therapy of prostate Cancer.
She undertook her medical undergraduate training in Auckland, New Zealand, prior to completing her specialty training in Nuclear Medicine in Sydney, and a post specialty Nuclear Cardiology fellowship in Toronto, Canada. She commenced work in Nuclear medicine and PET at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney in 2012, initiating radio-pharmacy production of multiple new imaging and therapy peptides on the St Vincent’s campus for clinical and research evaluation.
She is principal investigator in multiple phase I-II trials including the PRIMARY trials (PSMA + MRI in prostate diagnosis), LuPIN trial (Phase I/II trial of Lu PSMA+ Idronoxil), ENZAp( phase II randomised trial of enza vs enza + Lu PSMA), in addition to running multiple phase I imaging trials in new theranostic agents.
Anders Bjartell MD, PhD, FEBU graduated from Lund University Medical School, Sweden, in 1986 and received his PhD from Lund University in 1990. He became Specialist in Urology in 1998 and received his Fellows of the European Board of Urology diploma in 1999.
Professor Bjartell was a Clinical Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York from 2005 to 2007 and has been associate editor for European Urology, president and board member of the European Association of Urology (EAU) Section of Urological Research and he is now Chairman of the EAU Research Foundation and Board member of the EAU Guidelines Office.
In 2006 was appointed full Professor in Clinical Urology at Lund University and Senior Consultant at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö. He leads a research group in translational and clinical prostate encompassing biomarkers, drug development, robotic surgery, imaging and artificial intelligence. Prof Bjartell has published more than 354 peer reviewed articles.