The SIOPEN Executive Committee
Featured
President
Lucas Moreno is a paediatric oncologist dedicated to early phase clinical trials and neuroblastoma. He trained in La Fe (Valencia, Spain), started his career in the Royal Marsden Hospital (London, UK) under the mentorship of Andy Pearson.
Vice-President
Cormac is a consultant paediatric oncologist at CHI, Crumlin and associate clinical professor at University College Dublin. He is the clinical lead of the Cancer Clinical Trials Unit at CHI.
Vice-president and CTC chair
She is the clinical lead of the Southampton Paediatric Oncology unit and also leads a translational research group focused on novel antibody immunotherapies for neuroblastoma, including preclinical evaluation of novel combinational therapies as well as early phase clinical trials. Her specific research interests include anti-GD2 and immunomodulatory antibodies, such as those targeting PD-1.
Manager
Carla was Clinical Trials Coordinator and Manager in the Pediatric Oncology and Hematology Department at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital for almost seven years. During this time, she coordinated more than 50 clinical trials, launched more than 10 research projects, and developed links with SEHOP in Spain and ITCC.
Treasurer
Sabine Taschner-Mandl, PhD, has been head of the Tumor Biology group at St. Anna Children's Cancer Research Institute (Vienna Austria) since 2018, where she has been working scientifically since 2008. Taschner-Mandl completed her studies of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Vienna.
Chair TRSC
A physician-scientitist originally from Heidelberg, Germany, Gudrun Schleiermacher studied medicine in Heidelberg, including a final year in the USA, and obtained her basic medical training as a pediatrician in Paris, France and Edinburgh, UK.
Representative widening countries
Professor Jelena Rascon graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Vilnius University in 1995. In 1998, she finished her pediatric haematology and oncology training at Vilnius University. In 2002, she established a pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant program in Lithuania after receiving specialised training at the Children's Bone Marrow Transplant Unit of the Charité University Medicine in Berlin.
Country representative Germany
Thorsten Simon is associate professor of pediatrics since 2011 and clinical director of the department of pediatric oncology and hematology of the University of Cologne since 2014. After training in general pediatrics, he completed his pediatric oncology/hematology training at the University of Cologne in 2006.
Countries representative
Maja Česen Mazič is a pediatric oncologist at Pediatric Oncology/Hematology Department, University Children's Hospital Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Country representative Spain
Dr Irene Jiménez has started her training in pediatric oncology in 2011 at the Institut Curie, in Paris. She has first worked for 5 years in the Department of Pediatric Oncology, leaded by Jean Michon.
Countries representative
Toby Trahair is a senior staff specialist in paediatric & haematology and oncology at the Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital, a translational researcher at the Children’s Cancer Institute and conjoint lecturer at the University of New South Wales.
Chair LCD-G
Dr. Annemieke Littooij is senior consultant pediatric radiology at University Medical Center Utrecht and the Princess Maxima Center for pediatric oncology in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Representative Patient Advocates
Leona Knox is Head of Research at Solving Kids’ Cancer UK, a non-profit organisation driving international collaboration to speed up pioneering clinical research that could improve outcomes for children.
Principal Investigator HR trial
Claudia Pasqualini is a medical doctor specialized in pediatric oncology. She is leading the HR-NBL-2 trial and is an active researcher in precision medicine.
Representative Education
Pablo Berlanga MD, PhD, is a paediatric oncologist at Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus, involved in early-phase pediatric clinical trials and precision medicine. He is a member of the ITCC and SIOPEN.
Representative Statistics & Data Science
Ulrike is statistician at CCRI, Vienna. She is the team lead of the statistical group of the CCRI.
Senior advisor
Professor Andy Pearson is chair of Solving Kids Cancer Scientific Advisory Board, Trustee of Neuroblastoma UK, and member of the Programme Committee of Fight Kids Cancer. He was awarded a Life Time Achievement Award from Advances in Neuroblastoma Research in 2016. Pearson’s expertise is in the fields of drug development and neuroblastoma and has over 45 years of experience in clinical paediatric oncology.
Special mission immunotherapy
Prof. Lang is the deputy medical director of the department of Hematology/Oncology, University Children’s Hospital Tuebingen. He is a member of the American Society of Hematology, the EBMT pediatric working party, the SIOPEN group and of several German study executive boards.