Who we are? Steering Committee

Dr Sandrine Aspeslagh is a medical oncologist and working at the department of medical oncology at UZ Brussel (Brussels, Belgium). Her main interests are immunotherapy, skin cancers (melanoma and spinocellular carcinoma of the skin), urogenital cancers and immune related adverse events.

She obtained her PhD in immunology in 2012 at Ghent University through her work with iNKT cells in cancer models in the lab of Prof Dirk Elewaut (rheumatology). The promising results of anti-CTLA-4 immunotherapy made her choose oncology for further subspecialisation. Since then she has worked for applying successes from immunology research to patients and particularly cancer patients. In 2014, she obtained the Georges Mathé prize for her research in immunotherapy which gave her the opportunity to join the Drug Development Department (DITEP) where she was investigator of several early and late phase trials). Later she moved to Institut Jules Bordet and now she is working at the department of Medical oncology at the UZbrussel. She has been organizing a lot of education on immune-oncology in order to prepare oncologists, GPs and other specialities, scientists and paramedicals for the treating patients with immunotherapy. She is co-author on several publications on immunotherapy and targeted therapy. She supervised the development of the Immunomanager, an online webtool of the BSMO (Belgian Society of Medical Oncology
https://www.bsmo.be/immunomanager/start/) on how to handle immune related adverse events that is freely available to all careproviders. In collaboration with the BSMO she also started the Multidisciplinary Immunotoxicity board (BITOX) in March 2021. Untill now about 200 cases of patients with severe immune related adverse events and an underlying dysimmunity (such as organ transplantation) have been discussed together with organ specialists. Together with her PhD student Marthe she is currently setting up a diet trial, FORX, in order to diminish immune related advents in cancerpatients.

Ahmad Awada is Head of the Oncology Medicine Department at Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium. He studied Medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, before specialising in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology at the Jules Bordet Institute. In 1994, after continuing his training in the Netherlands and the US, he became Assistant Head of the Medical Oncology Clinic and Head of the New Drugs Development Unit at the Jules Bordet Institute.

Professor Awada’s research interests lie in the identification of new cytotoxic and molecular-targeted therapies that are active against solid tumours and in individualising the treatment of patients with cancer. He has been awarded the Prix de la Fondation Marc Hurard, for medical and pharmacological research in the field of oncology; the Prix de la Fondation Docteur Maurice Godin-Maria Savelkoul, for his clinical research activity for the development of new anticancer agents; and the Patent of Honour in the National Orders, Belgium. He is a member of several scientific societies, including (but not limited to) the European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer, the Belgian Society of Medical Oncology, the European Society of Medical Oncology, the European Cancer Organisation and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He is one of the founders of Oncodistinct network. He is on the Editorial Board of numerous international journals and Editor-in-Chief of EMJ Oncology. He has authored 28 book chapters and 409 articles in international publications.

Veronique del Marmol is Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, and Head of Department of Dermatology at Erasme Hospital. She obtained her medical doctorate from the Université Catholique Louvain in 1987 and her PhD from the Institut Bordet between 1989 and 1991. Following which, she trained as a dermatologist from 1993 to 1996. She then became an Associate Professor in the Department of Dermatology, Erasme Hospital until 2009. Since 2009, she has been head of the same department.

Professor Del Marmol’s research interests are in the fields of pigment cell and melanoma, skin cancer prevention, hair disease, innate immunity (Hidradenitis suppurutiva), cutaneous non-invasive imaging and wound healing. She has been Chair of the Euromelanoma Europe since 2009, and she is a board member of the European Academy of Dermato and Venereology (EADV), the European Academy of Dermato oncology (EADO), the European Dermatology Forum (EDF), the European Society of Pigment Cell Research (ESPR), and the Belgian Association Dermato Oncology (BADO). She is a reviewer for several journals including Archives of Dermatology, British Journal of Dermatology, Melanoma Research, Clinica Chemica Atica, Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, Expert Dermatology, Dermatology and Therapy, European Journal of Dermatology, Revue Medicale de Bruxelles, Dermatology, and Annales de Dermatologie Français. She has been publishing in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals.

Guy Jerusalem Is Professor of Oncology at the Liege University, Belgium and Head of Medical Oncology at the University Hospital of Liege. He attended medical school at Liege University between 1983 and 1990. He went on to study Medical Oncology between 1990 and 1995 at Liege University before undertaking his PhD thesis in 1999 at the same university. Following which he became a resident specialist followed by assistant professor before finally becoming Head of Department in 2009 at CHU Liege.

Prof Jerusalem’s research interests and clinical expertise lies in the field of breast cancer and new drug development. He has been local Principal Investigator of many early phase multiorgan and breast cancer clinical studies, member of the international Steering Committee of many trials in the field of breast cancer and is head of the clinical trial unit in Medical Oncology. He is member of the Belgian Society of Medical Oncology (BSMO), the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Since 2023 he is also Vicepresident of the Institut de Cancérologie Arsène Burny (ICAB) in Liège.

Prof. Jerusalem has published his research widely in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine (283 publications, 9 book chapters).

Tessa Kerre is Head of Clinic and Head of the Department of Hematology, at the Ghent University Hospital, Belgium.

She is Associate Professor at the Ghent University. She has been senior researcher of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for 15 years (2001-2016) and is Clinical Director of the stem cell transplant unit, Ghent University Hospital. She obtained her PhD from Ghent University in 2002. She has been a specialist in internal medicine since 2005 and in clinical haematology since 2006. She worked as a visiting physician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle and University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle in 2008 and in 2010.

Professor Kerre’s research interests lie in the fields of acute leukemia, stem cell transplantation and T-cell therapy, and immunodeficiency. She has received multiple scientific awards for her work. In 2003 she obtained the ‘PfizerPharmacia’ award for the best PhD in medical sciences. She was a board member from 2010 to 2014 of the Belgian Hematological Society (BHS), of which she still is an active member of several committees, she is chair of the BHS transplant committee since 2019. She is an EMA advisor. Prof. dr. Kerre is a steering committee member of both the Immuno-oncology Network (ION) Ghent and of the Cancer Research Institute Ghent (CRIG) (2016-2019), she is CRIG group leader. She is a reviewer for many journals including Blood, Journal of Leukocyte Biology, Acta Clinica Belgica, Clinical and Experimental Immunology, Leukemia and Lymphoma and International Journal of Cancer. She has been author of 97 papers in international, peer-reviewed journals. She has developed Immuno-T, a motion comic explaining several forms of immunotherapy to patients and their caregivers (immune-T.inmotion.care), for which she received a Prize for science communication from the ‘Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor wetenschappen en kunsten’ and the ‘Jonge Academie’ and the Public prize from EOS magazine, in 2018. She has written 2 books: Immuun voor kanker?, Academia Press, 2021 (also translated in French as Immunisé contre le cancer?, Racine, 2022) and Kunst op voorschrift, Academia Press, 2022. She has developed Katie, a serious game on cancer, which was published in the App and android stores in 2023.

Patrick Pauwels is Professor of Molecular Oncopathology, Antwerp University, Belgium. After his studies in medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL Belgium), he started a residency program in internal medicine. After 2 years, he switched to a pathology residency program at KUL. He became a pathologist in 1992 and joined the Stichting PAMM (Catharina Hospital), Eindhoven, the Netherlands. His career became academic when he moved to Maastricht University Hospital, where he was involved in the development of a molecular pathology lab. From there he moved to the University Hospital of Ghent, Belgium, where he was head of the molecular pathology unit, and he took up his current position at Antwerp University in 2009.

Professor Pauwels’ main research interest is biomarker research in oncology. As such, he now has five PhD students working with him in this field. He is Chair of the Belgian Molecular Pathology Working Group and the Antwerp Thoracic Oncology Group (TOGA); furthermore he is a member of the board of directors of the CORE (Center for Oncologic Research).

Stefan Rauh is a Medical Oncologist at Centre Hospitalier Emile Mayrisch, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. He studied Medicine at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Switzerland, prior to undertaking postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and Oncology in Germany, France and Luxembourg.

Dr Rauh is involved in a number of clinical phase II–IV studies and has developed prospective randomised studies in outpatient symptom monitoring (PRO-ELECTS). He is a qualified member of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and served as National Representative from 2006 to 2014, again since 2019. He has been Chair of the ESMO Practising Oncologists’ Committee/Working Group 2015-2019 and was member of the ESMO Educational Steering Committee 2017-2018. In 2015 and 2016, he was an ESMO Executive Board Member. He is President of the Société Luxembourgeoise d’Oncology, a European Union of Medical Specialists Working Group member and a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Haematology and Health Volunteers Overseas.

Rik Schots (MD, PhD) is Head of the Department of Haematology at the Universitair Ziekenhuis (UZ) Brussels of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) since 2012. He is also Director of the haematopoietic stem cell transplantation program, president of the transfusion committee of the UZ Brussel and since 2004 Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the VUB. Prof Schots is past Vice-President (2010-2013) and President of the Belgian Hematology Society (BHS) (2013–2016). Currently, he is also president of the national transfusion platform BeQuinT, coordinator of the patient committee of the BHS, member of the College of Oncology and a member of BHS, ASH, EBMT and EHA. Furthermore, he is an editorial board member for the Belgian Journal of Hematology.

Professor Schots’ main research interests are multiple myeloma (clinical, translational and biological) and stem cell transplantation. He has been the principal and clinical investigator of numerous clinical trials in the field of various haematological malignancies (leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma). He has published over 90 PubMed-cited papers.

Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, is full professor and Division Head of Digestive Oncology at
University Hospitals Gasthuisberg & KULeuven, Belgium.
He is a member of the Belgian Royal Academy of
Medicine and president of the Belgian
Foundation against Cancer (Stichting tegen
Kanker; Fondation contre le Cancer).
In 2018 he became doctor honoris causa of the
Medical University of Warsaw, Poland and received
several national and international awards, amongst
which were in 2019 the ESMO Award and the
European Awards in Medicine for Cancer Research.
He published extensively: >705 articles in PubMed
and more than 1600 according Thomson Web of
Science, leading to more than 110.000 citations and
an H-factor of 146. His research interests are various
aspects of Gastrointestinal and Digestive cancers
(colorectal, gastric, pancreas, bile duct, esophageal
cancer and neuroendocrine tumors). He serves on
many industry advisory boards for new anti-cancer
drugs and treatment modalities and Independent
Data Monitoring Committee of clinical trials.

He co-founded and is chair of ESMO GI/World
Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona,
Spain. He serves/served on the board or key
committee of ESMO (European Society Medical Oncology; executive board, several committees), UEG (United European Gastroenterology; educational committee, public affairs committee, scientific committee), ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology; program committee, international affairs committee), ENET (European NeuroEndocrine Society; advisory board), EORTC (European Organisation Research Treatment Cancer; executive board, chair of GI Cancer group), ECO (European Cancer Organisation; program committee), ESDO (European Society Digestive Oncology; president), ESO (European School of Oncology; Scientific council) and of patient advocacy groups EuropaColon (medical director) and Digestive Cancers Europe (DICE; co-founder, executive board) and the Foundation Engie (CSR) France & Belgium.
He was chairman of the governmental colon cancer
prevention task force in Flanders, Belgium, was/is in Belgian active as president and treasurer of Belgian Group Digestive Oncology and as president/vice-president of Familial Polyposis Association (FAPA).
He is/was member of the Scientific Advisory board for different international hospitals/cancer centers: Institut National du Cancer (INCA), Toulouse & Paris, France; University of Ulm & Leipzig, Germany; Humanitas Hospital, Milan & Avignon, France and is member of the board of directors of the regional hospital of Halle (vice-president since 09-2023) and member of the board of CUROZ, network of hospitals, Belgium.
He is member of the governmental commission of recognition for specialists in gastroenterology/ digestive oncology.

Johan Vansteenkiste is Emeritus Professor of Internal Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and associated to the Respiratory Oncology Unit in the Leuven University Hospital. Professor Vansteenkiste studied Medicine at the University of Leuven before becoming a Board Certified Pulmonologist-Oncologist. He had additional training in Respiratory Oncology at the European School of Oncology in Milan, Italy, and in Respiratory Endoscopy at the Laser Center in Marseille, France. He authored more than 350 peer-reviewed papers in Respiratory Oncology.

Prof Dr van Pesch obtained his medical degree in 1999 from the UCL and defended a PhD thesis in immunology and virology in 2003. He is neurologist since 2006 and is Associate Head of the Neurology department of the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc. His clinical activity involves the management of neuro-immunological diseases, mainly Multiple Sclerosis (MS). He also coordinates in part the clinical neurophysiology unit. He has been involved in over 50 phase II-IV clinical trials in the field of MS and participates to the worldwide MS registry, MSBase. He supervises the cerebrospinal fluid and neuroimmunological analysis of the clinical biology department. He is head of the Neurochemistry Unit (Institute of Neuroscience, UCL) and currently doing translational research on the role of extracellular vesicles and microRNAs in MS. He has authored and co-authored 140 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.