{"id":5728,"date":"2024-11-25T15:52:38","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T14:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/event.eortc.org\/qol-conference-2025\/?page_id=5728"},"modified":"2025-04-30T08:45:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T07:45:39","slug":"conference-speakers-chairs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/event.eortc.org\/qol-conference-2025\/conference-speakers-chairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference Speakers & Chairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conference Speakers & Chairs<\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Dr Paolo Bossi<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nDr 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.
\nDr 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.
\nDr 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Dr Erik Briers<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nErik 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.
\nHe 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.
\nHe has been a guest lecturer for the subject \u201cApplied immunology\u201d within the Master study programme Biochemical Engineering at the University of Leuven 2009-2016.
\nErik 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).
\nHe 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).
\nHe is board member and vice chairman of Europa Uomo (European Prostate Cancer Coalition).
\nHe is a member of the Guidelines Panel on the treatment of prostate cancer of the European Association of Urology (EAU) since 2013.
\nHe 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).
\nHe is vice-president of Us Too Belgium and the chief editor of PROSTAATinfo the magazine of the organization.
\nHe serves as a member of advisory boards of several scientific organizations.
\nThe European Association of Urology awarded him the \u201c2024 Medal of excellence in Patient Advocacy\u201d on the occasion of the EAU congress in Paris 2024.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Prof. Michael Brundage<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nMichael Brundage, MD MSC FRCP(C) is a Professor Emeritus of Oncology and of Public Health Sciences at Queen\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Juan Garc\u00eda Burgos<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nJuan Garc\u00eda 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.
\nIn January 2017, he was appointed Head of Public and Stakeholders Engagement Department and is Co-chair of the EMA patients\u2019 and healthcare professionals\u2019 working party.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Corneel Coens<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nCorneel 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 \u201cMethods in Clinical Cancer Research\u201d.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Prof. Anne-Sophie Darlington<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nProfessor Darlington\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Dr Eva Gamper<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nEva 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.
\nHer 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Jan Geissler<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nJan 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Prof. Johannes Giesinger<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nJohannes 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.
\nProf. 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.
\nRecently, 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Dr Alexandra Gilbert<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nAlex is an\u202fAssociate 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.\u202fShe 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.
\nAlex 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Prof. Mogens Groenvold<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nProfessor 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).
\nMain 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Bernhard Holzner<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nBernhard 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.
\nHe 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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/i><\/i><\/span>Dr Olga Husson<\/span><\/a><\/h4><\/div>
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<\/td>\nI 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:<\/p>\n