Conference Speakers & Chairs

Dr Paolo Bossi is an associate professor at Humanitas University and chief of the Head and Neck Cancer Unit at Humanitas Cancer Center, Milan, Italy. He received his medical education from the University of Milan.
Dr Bossi is involved in institutional and national/international research activities on head and neck cancer, from translational research (gene expression and next-generation sequencing) to assessment of quality of life and value-based medicine. He is particularly dedicated to rare cancers of the head and neck, including nasopharyngeal, paranasal sinus, and salivary gland cancers. He is experienced in conducting trials with targeted therapy and immunotherapy and possesses a strong commitment to supportive care, both in clinical research and at the education level, with a focus on treatment of the elderly and on immunotherapy-induced toxicities. He is the principal investigator or co-investigator of several Italian and international trials on head and neck cancer.
Dr Bossi is an active member of the European Society for Medical Oncology, the EORTC Head and Neck Group, the International Federation of Head and Neck Oncologic Societies, the Head and Neck Cancer International Group, and the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, of which he serves as chair of the mucositis study group. He is the author of 380 scientific publications and has an H-index of 54.

Erik Briers holds a doctorate in Science – Chemistry from the University of Leuven, Belgium. Since his promotion in 1979 he has been involved in laboratory medicine.
He founded in 1982 the diagnostic company Eco-Bio diagnostics and served as its CEO until 1990. In this function he developed a diagnostic test for the detection of Aspergillus antigens with a fast assay allowing the potential curative treatment of patients with disseminated aspergillosis, a deadly disease. This test has been approved by the FDA.
He has been a guest lecturer for the subject “Applied immunology” within the Master study programme Biochemical Engineering at the University of Leuven 2009-2016.
Erik Briers was the Executive Director of the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC) (2012-2013) and ad interim executive director of EPPOSI (The European Platform for Patient Organizations Science and Industry) (2014).
He was active at the European Medicine Agency (EMA) at the Patient and Consumer working party (PCWP) and later was appointed by the EU commission as an alternate patient member of the Committee on Advanced Therapies (CAT) (2016-2019).
He is board member and vice chairman of Europa Uomo (European Prostate Cancer Coalition).
He is a member of the Guidelines Panel on the treatment of prostate cancer of the European Association of Urology (EAU) since 2013.
He is since 2013 member of the patient advisory board of the European Society of Radiology (ESR-PAG) and has given many presentations at the occasion of the yearly European Congress of Radiology (ECR).
He is vice-president of Us Too Belgium and the chief editor of PROSTAATinfo the magazine of the organization.
He serves as a member of advisory boards of several scientific organizations.
The European Association of Urology awarded him the “2024 Medal of excellence in Patient Advocacy” on the occasion of the EAU congress in Paris 2024.

Michael Brundage, MD MSC FRCP(C) is a Professor Emeritus of Oncology and of Public Health Sciences at Queen’s University in Kingston. His research focuses on patient-reported outcomes and quality of life measurement (both in clinical practice and in clinical trials) and on quality of cancer care, with an emphasis on quality initiatives in oncology. He has enjoyed the privilege of working with many national and international organizations including the International Society for Quality of Life Research, the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (for which he was a long-standing chair of the PRO outcomes group), and Cancer Quality Council of Ontario. He is the Past-President of the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology, and former director of Cancer Care and Epidemiology at Queen’s University. He is co-PI for the PROTEUS Consortium (with the PI Dr. Claire Snyder) which promotes quality of PROs both in clinical practice and clinical trials internationally.

Juan García Burgos is a qualified Medical Doctor from the University of Autonoma in Madrid, specialised in urology. Juan worked as a urologist surgeon at the hospital Gregorio Maranon in Madrid. He joined the European Medicines Agency in 2002 in the scientific Units and was responsible for coordinating the preparation of EU clinical guidelines for drug development. He took up new responsibilities in 2005 where he was appointed Head of Medical and Health Information, being directly involved in the interaction with Patients, Consumers and HealthCare Professionals’ Organisations and the preparation of information on benefit-risk of medicines for lay audiences.
In January 2017, he was appointed Head of Public and Stakeholders Engagement Department and is Co-chair of the EMA patients’ and healthcare professionals’ working party.

Corneel Coens is currently working as a lead statistician at the EORTC Headquarters (Brussels, Belgium). As part of his tasks for the EORTC Quality of Life Department, he is involved in various aspects of Quality of Life in oncological clinical trials ranging from instrument validation to design, analysis and reporting of patient-reported outcomes (PROs). He is one of the lead investigators in the international SISAQOL initiative (aimed at standardizing PROs analysis methods) and the designated study statistician for the EORTC Gynaecological Cancer Group since 2001. He is a regular contributor for various EORTC educational courses and has been course director for the Joint FECS/AACR/ASCO Workshop “Methods in Clinical Cancer Research”.

Professor Darlington’s research programme focuses on measuring and improving Quality of Life (QoL) of children and young people with cancer. She is world-leading expert on QoL of Adolescents and Young Adults with cancer, a particularly neglected group. She is the past chair of the EORTC Quality of Life Group. Her work focuses on developing patient-reported outcome measures for young people with cancer, having developed the world’s first QoL measure for AYA with cancer. Her work seeks to understand how young people cope with a serious condition, in order to subsequently develop and test interventions to support young people and their families. Another part of her research programme focuses on palliative and end of life care for children and young people with cancer, as well as sudden and unexpected deaths in children, and ongoing bereavement support needs, which are currently not being met.

Eva Gamper is a clinical psychologist, psychooncologist and PRO research at the Department for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria. She has a PhD and a postdoctoral degree in Clinical Psychology.
Her main research focus over the years has been on the implementation of PRO assessment in clinical practice and PRO instrument development in oncology including multi attribute utility assessment instruments (MAUIs) for use in health economic evaluations.

Jan Geissler has been a cancer survivor, patient advocate and patient engagement expert for 23 years. He is founder and CEO of Patvocates, a think tank and social consultancy on patient advocacy and patient engagement, as well as founder and managing director of the European Patient Advocacy Institute. He acted as Director of the European Patients Academy (EUPATI). Jan co-founded the patient organisations LeukaNET, European Cancer Patient Coalition, CML Advocates Network, Acute Leukemia Advocates Network and WECAN (the network of pan-European cancer patient organisations). Jan is committee member e.g. of the European Cancer Organisation PAC, the European Hematology Association PAC, the strategy board of the German National Decade Against Cancer, and he serves as lay member of the Ethics Committee of the Bavarian Chamber of Physicians. He is a trustee of the HARMONY Foundation and Leukemia Patient Advocates Foundation and is involved in the EU/IHI-funded projects SafePolyMed, T2EVOLVE and SYNTHIA. In 2016, he was awarded with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his work as a patient advocate.

Johannes M. Giesinger is an associate professor at the Medical University of Innsbruck, in Austria, specialising in patient-reported outcome (PRO) research. He is a clinical psychologist with a degree in biostatistics and has previously worked as a research fellow at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and at the GIMEMA foundation in Rome. Currently, he serves as the chair of the grant review committee of the EORTC Quality of Life Group.
Prof. Giesinger has been leading a number of international projects focusing on methodological aspects of the development and use of PRO measures, including studies evaluating PRO endpoints in cancer clinical trials. Furthermore, he has been involved in several projects on the implementation of PRO measures in daily clinical practice.
Recently, he engages in studies facilitating the interpretation of PRO data collected in clinical trials and daily practice. This includes for example the development of thresholds for clinical importance for PRO measures and his work within the SISAQOL-IMI consortium that is developing guidelines for the statistical analysis of PRO endpoints in clinical trials.

Alex is an Associate Professor and Honorary Consultant in Clinical (Radiation) Oncology. She has particular interests in patient reported outcome (PRO) methodology in clinical trials and working across European studies to improve quality of life measurement in cancer patients. Her research expertise includes the use of PROs in toxicity measurement both in clinical trials and routine practice. She has particular interests in PRO methodology in clinical trials and in the use of PROs to develop predictive biomarkers of radiotherapy toxicity. She is the PRO and toxicity lead on multiple interventional radiotherapy trials including complex multi-centre platform RCTs evaluating novel agents and techniques. She leads two PRO methodological projects funded by the EORTC Quality of Life group, optimising the use of the EORTC Item Library. She also co-leads a workstream for the Horizons 2020 project, EUonQOL, developing a PRO toolkit to evaluate quality of life across Europe.
Alex has been an active member of the EORTC Quality of Life group since 2011. Alex is also on the steering committee of the international PRO consortium, PROTEUS, and is clinical lead for the international SISAQOL consortium in RCTs.

Professor in Palliative Care and Patient-Reported Outcomes, University of Copenhagen and Bispebjerg/Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark. Founder and leader of the Palliative Care Research Unit Bispebjerg/Frederiksberg Hospital since 1998, the Danish Palliative Care Database since 2007 and the Danish DMCG.DK Committee for Cross-disciplinary Palliative Collaboration since 2018. Work package leader and partner in five EU funded projects. Chairman of the EORTC Quality of Life Group (2011-2014) and Member of EORTC Board (2015-18).
Main research interest include the integration of palliative care in cancer care with a focus on the use of patient-reported outcomes at the individual level, in clinical trials, and from a health services perspective.

Bernhard Holzner graduated from Innsbruck University, Faculty of Psychology in 1994. He obtained special degrees in clinical psychology and health psychology (1995 Vienna) and psychotherapy (1998 Munich) and is a staff member of the Division of Psychooncology and Psychoimmunology at the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical University Innsbruck since 1994. In 2003 he became Associate Professor and Psychotherapy and spent several months at the Center on Outcomes, Research and Education in Evanston/Chicago. In the same year he became associate director of the Division of Psychooncology with special responsibilities for research in the field of patient-reported outcomes (PROs). In 2015 Dr. Holzner became Professor at Medical University of Innsbruck and since then is the leading psychologist at the Department of Psychiatry.
He has published more than 200 articles in the area of PROs and was associate editor of Quality of Life Research. Since 2021 he is member of the executive committee of the EORTC Quality of Life Group. He is a well-known specialist in the implementation of PRO assessments in daily oncology practice and in developing electronic tools for the assessment of PROs. He is one of the developers of the CHES software tool.

I am an Associate Professor and my research group is embedded in two large research institutes in the Netherlands (Erasmus University Medical Centre (Public Health & Surgical Oncology) and the Netherlands Cancer Institute (Medical Oncology)). My research group pursues studies focusing on patient-centred outcomes in rare, heterogeneous, underserved and understudied cancer populations. More specifically, my research group focuses on:

  • 1) short-, long-term and late consequences of cancer at adolescent and young adult (AYA) age, it’s risk factors and the mechanisms behind;
  • 2) outcomes of people living with a rare cancer – with an emphasis on sarcomas (i.e. tumours of the bones and soft tissues);
  • 3) health equity research in oncology: ethnic minority groups, LGBTQIA+, patient involvement.

As a trained epidemiologist with broad methodological expertise, I am well-equipped to conduct extensive qualitative and quantitative studies into these topics. Moreover, I have extensive experience with the development and implementation of health-related quality of life measures (psychometrics) for these populations.
I highly value national and international collaborations with diverse stakeholders and have therefore built up a large network that has contributed to the successful acquisition of several large research grants that enabled me to set up large (inter)national cohort studies and research infrastructures.

Kirsten Janke is a Research Associate with supervisory responsibilities in the Drug Assessment Department of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), Germany’s Health Technology Assessment body. In this role she is responsible for supervising drug assessment procedures and for the development of methods and processes for these assessments. She has specific expertise in the assessment of PRO data for assessment purposes and a special interest in improving study designs to allow collection of suitable PRO data meeting the assessment requirements. Before joining the IQWiG team, she was involved in medical writing for clinical studies in early drug development as well as in basic oncology research.

Scottie is a patient-based clinical technology expert with over 25 years of clinical research experience and serves as the Executive Director of the eCOA Consortium at C-Path. Beginning his career in clinical data management roles at several CROs and pharmaceutical companies, Scottie was first exposed to Electronic Patient Reported Outcome (ePRO) technology back in 2003. Enthused by the potential of this technology and its direct interaction with patients, Scottie took a role as the functional lead for ePRO at Wyeth’s Vaccine Research Unit in 2004, one of the earliest dedicated enterprise-level ePRO ownership roles in the industry. Establishing himself as an industry SME and thought leader on ePRO and Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessments (eCOA), he went on to serve as the Head of Patient Technologies and Global Head of ePRO at Pfizer. Scottie launched his own consulting company in 2013, via which he supported a range of pharmaceutical companies with eCOA strategy and implementation. Scottie joined C-Path in 2021.

Naomi Kiyota is an Associate Professor at Kobe University Hospital Cancer Center, Japan. He is a board-certified medical oncologist specializing in head and neck cancer (HNC) and thyroid cancer (TC). His primary research focus is on the conduct of multi-institutional clinical trials for HNC and TC.
In Japan, Dr. Kiyota has been an active member of the Japanese Society of Medical Oncology (JSMO) and the Japanese Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG). Since 2024, he has served as the Chair of the JCOG Head and Neck Cancer Study Group.
Internationally, Dr. Kiyota underwent short-term training at the University Hospital Antwerp under the guidance of Professor Jan B. Vermorken in 2009. He has actively participated in EORTC Head and Neck Group meetings since 2010. In the field of patient-reported outcomes (PRO) and quality of life (QOL) research, he has been an active member of the EORTC QOL Group since 2014 and has chaired the JCOG PRO/QOL Research Committee since 2019.

Sigrid Klaar is a medical doctor, PhD and specialist in oncology. She is a former assessor for both HTA and regulatory agencies, currently in consultancy at NDA – an SSI Strategy company. Her extensive regulatory experience from the Swedish Medical Products Agency encompasses oncology drug marketing authorisations in the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) centralised procedure, scientific advice, drafting guidelines for industry and collaborating with external stakeholders in the EMA Oncology Working Party. At the Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency (TLV), she worked with reimbursement applications as well as EUnetHTA and FINOSE joint clinical assessments and was involved in EU HTA regulation deliberations and implementation planning.

Dagmara Kuliś has worked at the EORTC Quality of Life Department since 2009. Her academic background is in languages and translation, but over the years she has developed a broad expertise in HRQOL and PROs. She holds two MA titles, from Warsaw University (Poland) in English, French and Spanish languages and literature, and from the University of Warwick (UK) in Translation Studies.
In her role as Associate Head of the QOL Department and QOL Tools Team Leader, Dagmara coordinates daily work of the department and in particular the team responsible for the use of EORTC questionnaires and the Item Library, development of language versions and migration onto electronic platforms. She is actively involved in the linguistic aspect of developing new questionnaires in the EORTC Quality of Life Group’s portfolio from the linguistic point of view, performing translatability assessment and providing advice on wording and translations.
Dagmara has been involved in many research projects, with special interest in methodological aspects of PRO translation. She has been an active member of the ISOQOL Translation and Cultural Adaptation Special Interest Group, serving as member of its Steering Committee.

Jan Liliemark is a professor at the priority center at Linköping University, Sweden. He has a professional background in hematology/oncology and research on pharmacokinetics and introduction of new drugs for leukemias and lymphomas. Jan has also worked in drug industry, the medical products agency and SBU, the HTA-authority in Sweden. He has also been a regional politician for >20 years. In 2014 he started and is still active in the new therapies’ council which is a national council for evaluation and recommendation of new hospital drugs.

Francesca Martinelli, MSc in Biostatistics, has been a dedicated member of the EORTC Quality of Life Department since March 2008. As a fellow, she investigated the underlying structure of variables in the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire using various multivariate data analysis techniques. Currently, as a Quality of Life Specialist, she focuses on the development of instruments to measure the quality of life of cancer patients. She has actively participated in international meetings and conferences, and her research interests include palliative care and module development. Prior to her current role, she worked as a biostatistician at the Institute for Cancer Study and Prevention (ISPO) in Florence, Italy. She is the author and co-author of several papers.

Jammbe joined the EORTC in 2015 after completing a PhD in Biostatistics at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam. He supports both the Quality of Life and Statistics Departments. Currently, he serves as the statistician for the EORTC Cutaneous Lymphoma and Thyroid Cancer Groups, providing expertise in the statistical design of cancer clinical trials. In his role with the Quality of Life Department, he contributes to the design, analysis, and reporting of studies focusing on quality of life endpoints. Jammbe is actively engaged in quality of life research and leads various projects, including the EORTC Minimally Important Difference project, which aims to establish interpretation guidelines for the EORTC QLQ-C30. He regularly contributes to EORTC educational courses and participates in international collaborative projects like SISAQOL-IMI, which aims to standardize the use, analysis, and interpretation of patient-reported outcome data in cancer clinical trials.

Paul O’Donohoe is Senior Director, eCOA Product and Science at Medidata Solutions, a clinical software platform provider. He is responsible for providing strategic oversight of the development of Medidata’s electronic clinical outcome assessment technologies, and supporting internal teams and partners around the implementation of industry, regulatory and scientific best practices in clinical trials using mobile health technologies. He is passionate about developing the field of eCOA and mobile health through research and active involvement in industry consortia, and was previously the Industry Vice-Director of the C-Path ePRO Consortium.
Previously, Paul worked as a research psychologist at a child and adolescent mental health clinic based in Dublin, Ireland. He moved into the health consulting field with United BioSource Corporation where he worked across the health outcomes, health economics and health data capture groups. Prior to Medidata, Paul was Director of Health Outcomes at CRF Health (now Signant Health), an eCOA provider, where he led their health outcomes team. He has a MSc in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience.

Sjoukje Oosting (MD, PhD) studied medicine between 1994 and 2000 at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and finalized specialization in internal medicine and medical oncology in 2008. She is currently member of staff at the Department of Medical Oncology at the University Medical Center Groningen. Her areas of expertise are treatment of head and neck cancer and genitourinary cancers. Her research is focused on improving outcome and quality of life, identification of novel treatment targets, molecular imaging and COVID vaccination in patients with cancer. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the EORTC Head and Neck Cancer Group since 2009. Dr. Oosting is Chair of the ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale Working Group for which she coordinated the development of the quality of life checklist. Dr. Oosting was scientific co-chair of the Head and Neck Cancer track of ESMO Asia 2021, and of the International Congress on Innovative Approaches in Head and Neck Oncology (ICHNO) and European Congress on Head and Neck Oncology (ECHNO) in 2022 and ICHNO 2024. Dr. Oosting has authored around 100 peer reviewed papers.

Madeline Pe, PhD is the Head of the Quality of Life Department at the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). In this role, she oversees the various quality of life (QOL) research activities, ensuring that it is in line with the mission of the EORTC. She leads a team that provide advice and methodological guidance for the inclusion of QOL endpoints in EORTC cancer trials. She ensures that appropriate support is provided to the EORTC Quality of Life Group network for the development of the QOL measures and implementation of their research activities. Dr. Pe’s expertise is on statistical and methodological research for participant/patient-reported outcomes, and is the scientific lead for the “Setting International Standards in Analysing Patient-Reported Outcomes and Quality of Life Endpoints Data” (SISAQOL) Consortium, which aims to develop consensus recommendations for the design, analysis and interpretation of patient-reported outcomes and quality of life endpoints in cancer clinical trials. She was a member of the International Advisory Board for the Lancet Oncology and collaborates with different international stakeholder groups to promote the inclusion of QoL into their cancer research programs.

Claire is a researcher in the Quality of Life Department at the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) where she supports different EORTC Quality of Life Group research projects and initiatives. Currently, her main activities involve overseeing the use of the EORTC Item Library alongside the Item Library Support Team to provide recommendations on the implementation of flexible Item Library-derived measures in patient-reported outcomes (PRO) assessment strategies. Her research is focused on evaluating trends in EORTC Item Library usage, implementing standardised frameworks to support item/measure selection, and developing guidelines and recommendations to facilitate the use of item libraries for PRO measurement in cancer clinical trials and other research studies, and as part of routine care. She is also actively involved in the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL), where she is a member of the Communications Committee and Psychometrics Special Interest Group.

Ananda Plate is a cancer survivor, patient advocate since 2006 and an Executive Director at Patvocates. She holds a law degree from the University of Barcelona and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ananda’s main field of interest is cross border healthcare within the European Union, health data protection, patient involvement in R&D and evidence based patient advocacy. For over 10 years she was the CEO and a board member of Myeloma Patients Europe (MPE). She was also a member of the ESMO Patient Advocacy Working Group and EHA Patient Advocacy Workgroup, the European Cancer Organisations Patient Advisory Committee, as well as ePAG on the European Reference Network EuroBloodNet. She is currently a member of the Ethics Committee at Chamber of Physicians Bavaria, Germany.

Dr. Katarzyna Pogoda is a medical oncologist and researcher specializing in breast cancer treatment and quality-of-life studies. With over 15 years of clinical and academic experience, she focuses on advancing care for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, brain metastases, and young-onset cases. Her recent work explores the evolution of receptor changes in residual disease following systemic therapy.
Dr. Pogoda earned her M.D. in 2008, followed by postgraduate studies in “Methodology of Clinical Trials” at the Medical University of Warsaw in 2009. Since joining the Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology (MSCNRIO), she has excelled in clinical care and research. A certified medical oncologist since 2015 with ESMO accreditation, she earned her Ph.D. with honors in 2019 and was appointed Assistant Professor in 2023.
As an active member of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), Dr. Pogoda serves on the Breast Cancer Group Steering Committee and collaborates with the Quality of Life Group. She leads a clinical trial (QOL-ET-BC) focused on improving the quality of life for patients undergoing endocrine therapy.
Dr. Pogoda has participated in renowned international training programs, including the Avon Global Scholars Program at Johns Hopkins University, the EORTC Early Career Investigator Leadership Program, and the ESMO Leaders Generation Programme Europe (2023–2024). She holds leadership roles in oncology organizations, serving as Chairman of the Breast Cancer Group within the Polish Society of Clinical Oncology.
Dr. Pogoda has co-authored over 90 publications, serves as a lecturer and reviewer, and collaborates with patient organizations. Her awards include the Jaskółka Nadziei, the Autorytet Polityki Zdrowotnej – Popularyzator Award, and the Omnia Pro Infirmis Wszystko Dla Chorych award. She also received first place for the best poster at the VI Polish Oncology Congress.

Priya Ranganathan is Professor of Anaesthesiology at the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), Mumbai. She has a special interest in developing clinical research capacity, and is the convener of the CReDO (International Collaboration for Research methods Development in Oncology) workshop, organized by the TMC and the National Cancer Grid of India (NCG). CReDO is an intensive residential oncology research protocol development workshop that trains oncology researchers to convert their research ideas into full-fledged protocols over the span of one week. She is the convener of the Masters in Clinical Research degree programme at the TMC, and has organized and been faculty in several other short courses in clinical research methodology, biostatistics and critical appraisal.

Antoine Regnault (Modus Outcomes) is Global Lead – Statistics at Modus Outcomes. With over 20 years of experience as a biostatistician specializing in measurement science applied to patient-centered outcomes, he bridges the gap between complex data analysis and meaningful patient-centric healthcare decisions. At Modus Outcomes, he leads one of the industry’s largest dedicated patient-centered outcomes statistical teams, driving innovative approaches to analyzing patient-centered outcomes data across clinical trials and observational studies. With his psychometric and statistical expertise, he helps solve complex measurement challenges in therapeutic areas including oncology, hematology, neurolosciences and rare diseases. Dr Regnault has held several leadership roles at the International Society of Quality of Life (ISOQOL) and actively contributes to key international research initiatives, such as SPIRIT-PRO, NeuroMET-2, and SISAQOL-IMI.

Dr J.C. (Jaap) Reijneveld is neurologist and combines a research appointment at the Amsterdam UMC with clinical work at a tertiary referral centre for epilepsy patients in the Netherlands.
Apart from his clinical work, he is involved in research projects on cognitive disturbances, epilepsy, and quality- and end-of-life issues in patients with brain tumours and/or epilepsy. He is and has been project leader of a large number of PhD-projects on underlying mechanisms resulting in epilepsy and cognitive disturbances in patients with brain tumours. Furthermore, he is involved in research projects regarding factors impacting quality of life and the value of supportive care of epilepsy and brain tumour patients and their partners. Apart from that he coordinates several projects on genomic markers as prognostic and predictive tools in glioma patients.
He is member of the Dutch Society for Neurology (NvN), past-president of the Dutch Society for Neuro-Oncology (LWNO), past-secretary of the EORTC Brain Tumour Group, and the current chair of the EORTC Quality of Life Group.

David Riedl is an academic researcher specializing in patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and psychotherapy research. He holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Innsbruck, where he also earned his master’s degree in psychology. Currently, he serves as a senior researcher at both the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics, and Medical Psychology at the Medical University of Innsbruck and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Rehabilitation Research within the Ludwig Boltzmann Society.
Dr. Riedl’s academic work centers on the development and implementation of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), particularly in pediatric oncology. He is the principal investigator for two EORTC QLG-funded projects focused on creating age- and disease-specific questionnaires to assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children with cancer. Additionally, he is actively involved in several EU-funded projects evaluating HRQoL aspects of various diagnostic and clinical approaches for pediatric oncology. Dr. Riedl also serves as co-chair of the ACCELERATE PRO Working Group, reflecting his leadership and dedication to advancing PRO research in the field.

Bettina Ryll is the founder of the Melanoma Patient Network Europe and was member of the first EU Cancer Mission Board. A physician by training and with a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from University College London, she became a patient advocate after losing her husband to cancer.
Her work focuses on patient-centric innovation, covering the full spectrum from basic research over successful translation and clinical trials to timely and equitable implementation. Most recently and trigged by her work on the EU Cancer Mission Board, her particular interest has been how to best leverage the potential of personalized medicine for patients and society through novel forms of collaboration and the support of health policy and governance.
Bettina Ryll currently works as strategist for Vision Zero Cancer, a mission-driven innovation ecosystem in health financed by Sweden’s Innovation Agency Vinnova.

Anja Schiel has studied Biology at the Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany. She received her PhD from the Free University in Amsterdam in 2006 and worked several years as Post-Doc on a range of subjects focusing on oncology, immunology and molecular biology, first at the University of Leiden and later at the University of Oslo, before starting at the Norwegian Medical Products Agency (NOMA) in 2012.
At NOMA she is working as Special Adviser/Statistician/Methodologist both on regulatory and HTA projects. She has been Chair of EMA’s Biostatistics Working Party (2017 – 2019) and during 2019 – 2022 she was Chair of EMA’s Scientific Advice Working Party (SAWP). She continues currently as alternate member at the SAWP and is member of the recently established Methodology Working Party (MWP) at EMA.
She has been involved in EUnetHTA JA3 and its successor, EUnetHTA 21, with particular focus on parallel EMA-HTA scientific advice (joined scientific consultations). As one of the vice Chairs of the JSC Committee for Scientific Consistency and Quality (JSC CSCQ) she was involved in the preparation of the implementation of developer support under the Regulation on Health Technology Assessment (HTAR, to apply from January 12th 2025). Until January 2025 she was a member of the Joined Scientific consultation sub-group (JSC SG) and alternate Member in the Methodological and Procedural sub-group (MPG SG).

Dr. Samantha Sodergren is a Senior Research Fellow and Health Psychologist from the University of Southampton, UK with over 20 years of experience in the development and validation of patient reported outcome assessments, with a focus on quality of life (QoL) measures in oncology. She has a special interest in young people with cancer and gastrointestinal cancers. She is a member of the EORTC Quality of Life Group (QLG) Committee and for the past 13 years has coordinated the development of multiple EORTC QLG questionnaires including the Adolescent and Young Adult and Pediatric questionnaires, Symptom Based Questionnaire, and the anal cancer questionnaire, as well as the updates of the gastric and pancreatic cancer questionnaires. Samantha is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the EORTC QLG.

Monika Sztankay, PhD, is a certified clinical psychologist with a focus on psycho-oncology and a senior researcher specializing in Patient-Reported Outcome (PRO) research at the Department of Psychiatry II at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her clinical practice involves providing psycho-oncological treatment to patients and implementing assessments to identify their treatment needs. In her research, she focuses on leveraging PRO data for various stakeholders in both research and clinical settings. Since 2011, she has been an active member of the European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), where she currently co-leads projects within the EORTC Quality of Life Group, including the update of the EORTC QOL Reference Value Database and the development of the EORTC PRO Interpretation Guideline.

Hugo Vachon obtained a PhD in Psychology from the University of Nantes (France) in 2016 followed by a postdoctoral position at KU Leuven (Belgium). During this period, his research has focused on the remote monitoring of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in patients suffering from severe mental disorders (e.g., clinical depression, bipolar disorder, psychosis).
He is working as a researcher at the EORTC Quality of Life Department since 2019 and is involved in different EORTC projects using new technologies for the assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in oncology. Among his duties, he is responsible for the management and use of the EORTC CAT Core, a computerised system which adapts HRQoL assessments in real-time to each individual patient.

Lonneke van de Poll-Franse, PhD, is Professor of Cancer Epidemiology and Survivorship (Tilburg University) and Leader of the Survivorship Research Program at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Lonneke van de Poll-Franse studied biomedical sciences with a major in epidemiology. Her research focuses on identifying and understanding the physical and psychological consequences of cancer and its treatment, with a special interest in quality of life. She directs the Survivorship Research Program at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. Her observational research informs the development of evidence-based interventions to optimize survivorship care and outcomes; she is PI of several multicenter RCTs on the effectiveness of new models of survivorship care. Van de Poll-Franse is an active member of the EORTC Quality of Life group, where she leads the development of different QoL questionnaires. She sits on the scientific advisory boards of several European cancer institutes, and participates in EU research consortia to improve cancer survivorship care and quality of life.

Professor Galina Velikova is an academic Medical Oncologist at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals, UK, with over 20 years’ track record of successful patient-centred research using electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in daily practice and clinical trials. She led a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) 5-year Programme Grant for applied research on patient self-reported symptoms and toxicity, using an online reporting system (QTool), uniquely integrated in electronic records, along re-designed care pathways for remote monitoring during cancer treatment to improve patient safety. Further research projects evaluate the use of the electronic system for remote monitoring and follow-up of cancer patients after treatment.
Professor Velikova has experience in leading collaborative research, both nationally and internationally, such as Quality of Life sub-studies of international breast cancer trials (TACT2, SUPREMO). She is on the Steering Committee for the NHS England national quality-of-life metric project for cancer survivors. Professor Velikova is the past Chair of the British Psychosocial Oncology Society; past Chair of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group; and past President of the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL). Professor Velikova was the Chair of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Living with and Beyond Cancer Group and was an elected board member of the EORTC from 2018 – 2021. She is the recent recipient of the 2024 Health Assessment Lab/Medical Outcomes Trust John Ware and Alvin Tarlov Career Achievement Prize in Patient Reported Outcomes Measures (PROMs).

Prof. Katarzyna Wac is the leader of the Quality of Life (QoL) technologies research lab affiliated with the Geneva School of Economics (GSEM), Center for Informatics at the University of Geneva (CUI, Switzerland). She holds a BSc and MSc degree in Computer Science (2003) from Wroclaw University of Technology (WUT, Poland), an MSc in Telematics (2004) from the University of Twente (UT, the Netherlands), as well as a Ph.D. in Information Systems (2009) from University of Geneva (UNIGE, Switzerland).
Prof. Wac’s research interests include the fundamental and algorithmic problems, as well as the human-centric challenges related to the assessment and improvement of human behavior, well-being, health, disease self-management, and quality of life as it unfolds naturally over time and in context. She has conducted her research at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU, USA, 2009-2010), Stanford University and its Medical Center (MED, USA, since 2013), and the University of Copenhagen (DIKU, Denmark, 2015-2020).
She published more than 150 scientific articles and co-edited two books in the digital health area. She is a PI/co-PI in several European, national, and institutional projects. Prof. Wac is a keynote speaker, a teacher, and a mentor and consults the industry on topics related to digital health. Prof. Wac is also a Senior Member of both: the ACM and the IEEE.

Dr Sally Wheelwright is a senior research psychologist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, UK. Her research interests centre round measuring and improving quality of life in people with life limiting and life changing conditions. Key topics include the development and use of patient reported outcome measures, co-production of digital interventions and supporting self-management. Dr Wheelwright has been an active member of the EORTC Quality of Life group for nearly 14 years and is currently co-leading a project to develop a QOL curriculum in oncology.

Professor Christina Yap is Professor of Clinical Trials Biostatistics and Group Leader of ICR-CTSU Early Phase & Adaptive Trials at The Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK.
Professor Yap has over 20 years of experience in the statistical design and analysis of clinical trials. Her main expertise comprises of development and practical implementation of efficient designs and analysis in clinical trials. This includes adaptive designs in early phase dose-finding trials as well as multi-arm multi-stage randomised Phase II/III designs and platform designs; with a focus on Bayesian approaches. She is also passionate on advancing the integration of patient-reported outcomes in early phase trials to enhance decision-making and patient-centered care.
She is a Joint-lead of the Precision Medicine Working Group within the UK MRC-NIHR Trials Methodology Research Partnership (TMRP) and Joint-lead of the NIHR Statistics Group – Early Phase Trials. Christina actively serves on funding panels, including the Cancer Research UK Clinical Research Committee. Additionally, she led the international consensus-based SPIRIT and CONSORT extensions guidelines for trial protocols and trial reports in dose-finding trials.

Dr. August Zabernigg, born on November 6, 1962, studied medicine at the University of Innsbruch/Austria and completed his post-doctoral training at the Kufstein Hospital and the Innsbruck University Clinic.
As part of the training in internal medicine, he specialized in hematology and oncology. Since 2015 he is the head of the department for internal medicine and oncology at Kufstein Hospital/Austria.
The first scientific works dealt with the function of leukocytes in myeloid diseases. Clinical studies in the field of hematology and oncology followed and since 2004 a close scientific cooperation with the Department of Psycho-oncology at the Innsbruck University Hospital. Since then, clinical scientific work has focused on quality of life (QL) in oncological patients undergoing chemotherapy (CTH).
Topics of the scientific work on QL were “Taste disorders as a side effect of chemotherapy” and the longitudinal development of QL in patients with lung cancer and pancreobiliary carcinomas.
Current scientific work on QL under CTH deals with the feasibility and consequences of dose-dense CTH in patients with breast cancer.
The systematic assessment of QL in patients receiving chemotherapy is an integral part of clinical routine at the Department of Oncology at Kufstein Hospital.