Webinar ‘Cardiotoxicity in Chemotherapy: Back to Basics’
Organised by: Medicom Medical Publishers

Dr Rachel H. Giles studied immunology and medicine at the University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco (USA) where she graduated in 1990. After working in labs in Israel and Japan, she accepted a PhD project in Leiden, the Netherlands, on the genetic factors that contribute to leukaemia and the developmental disorder Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome under the supervision of Prof. Martijn Breuning and Prof. Gert-Jan van Ommen. She was awarded her PhD cum laude. In 2000, she accepted a post-doctoral position in the Department of Immmunology at the University Medical Centre Utrecht, and at the Hubrecht Institute, the Netherlands, in the lab of Prof. Hans Clevers, studying colorectal cancer, with the ultimate aim to translate clinical problems to novel therapeutic targets. In 2003, she became Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Oncology at the UMC Utrecht (Prof. Voest), and was promoted to Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in 2006. Her clinical and fundamental research on kidney cancer is recognised internationally. In addition to her academic career, Dr Giles has extensive experience communicating medical advances to various stakeholders, such as preparing immuno-oncology information for the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). Dr Giles is currently working as the Medical Science Officer at Medicom Medical Publishers.

Prof. C.J.A. (Kees) Punt received his M.D. degree at the Free University of Amsterdam in 1980 and was trained as an internist and medical oncologist in the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the Daniel den Hoed Cancer Centre Rotterdam, respectively. He received his PhD on protein tyrosine kinases in haematopoietic cells at the University Hospital Utrecht in 1991. Since 2001 he is Professor in Medical Oncology, since 2007 chairman of the Department of Medical Oncology of the Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen, and since 2011 chairman of the Department of Medical Oncology of the Academic Medical Centre Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2013 he became the chairman of the AMC Oncology Centre. After his retirement in 2020 he moved to the Department of Epidemiology of the Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care of the University Medical Centre Utrecht to continue his research. His area of expertise concerns gastrointestinal cancer, with emphasis on colorectal cancer and tumour immunology. He has held many (inter)national positions. In 2015 he received the Hamilton Fairley Award of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) for internationally recognised outstanding achievements in cancer science and clinical/translational research.

Dr Arco Teske studied medicine at Utrecht University and received his M.D. degree in 2005. Afterwards, he accepted a PhD project at Utrecht University and in 2009, he successfully defended his thesis entitled ‘Echocardiographic quantification of regional right ventricular function’. In 2008, he received a personal grant from the European Association of Echocardiography and accepted a postdoctoral position at the KU Leuven. Since 2016, Dr Teske has been working as a cardiologist at the UMC Utrecht. He is the head of the heart function outpatient department and a clinical consultant in cardio-oncology since 2016. He started a specialised outpatient clinic for the treatment of patients that experience heart failure induced by chemotherapy. His areas of expertise are advanced imaging of genetic heart diseases and chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity for which he has been recognised as an international IC-OS certified cardio-oncologist.

Prof. Pia Österlund is halftime Adjunct Professor at Karolinska Institutet and senior consultant at Karolinska Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Stockholm, Sweden. She is also halftime deputy head at the Department of Oncology at Tampere University Hospital and head of the GI cancer team and tumour boards. Before that, she worked as Full Professor in oncology at Tampere University, Finland and as consultant with responsibility of the GI outpatients at Helsinki University Hospital. She is supervising/has supervised 9 PhD theses. Pia Österlund has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles. Prof. Österlund has done research in the field of GI cancers since 1997 and did her PhD thesis on tolerability of chemotherapy for colorectal cancer. Some novel research findings regarding secondary lactose intolerance, lactobacillus supplementation, cytokine release and so forth improve everyday life of cancer patients. She has been PI or national PI in >30 clinical studies and has done translational research in collaboration with national and international groups. ESMO and ASCO memberships have been a privilege, and she has served on several ESMO boards and in GI faculties. She is member of several Nordic GI cancer groups, academic collaborations in colorectal cancer, International Rare Cancer Initiative – small bowel cancer, and the Finnish GI Cancer group.