https://www.cmmc-uni-koeln.de/research/cmmc-researchers/matthias-fischer-curriculum-vitae

Dr. Irwin is a clinician-scientist whose research is focused on the study of genes and pathways that regulate cell death and metastasis in neuroblastoma to identify novel therapies. She is also interested in the identification of biomakers to optimize risk classification and precision medicine approaches for neuroblastoma.

https://ccri.at/research-group/sabine-taschner-mandl-group/

Gudrun Schleiermacher is a pediatric oncologist and researcher and works as a physician-scientist at Institut Curie, Paris, France, where she is Delegate Director for Translational Research of the SIREDO Integrated Pediatric Oncology Center, and a group leader of the INSERM-labelled RTOP (Translational Research in Pediatric Oncology) team.

In addition to care for children and adolescents with cancer, she is involved in clinical and translational research programs. Her work focusses the study of molecular mechanisms involved in cancer progression and clonal evolution in neuroblastoma and other pediatric cancers, based on biomarker studies using liquid biopsies and on single cell analysis. Future aims are to integrate biomarkers into integrative treatment approaches, taking into account high throughput molecular characterization and drug profiling, while working towards a better understanding of the underlying genetic and epigenetic modifications involved in oncogenesis and tumor progression. She is also involved in personal and precision medicine approaches at a national and international level.

Dr. Applebaum’s research focuses on the discovery of novel therapeutics and biomarkers for children with neuroblastoma. His laboratory frequently utilizes distributed and varied data in these efforts which has included the INRG Data Commons in several projects.

Bio coming soon.

Pablo’s research focuses on early-phase clinical trials and precision medicine, with a particular interest in neuroblastoma and bone sarcomas, as well as real-world use of off-label/compassionate use drugs.

Dr. Margaret (Meg) Macy is a pediatric oncologist who focuses on early phase clinical trials/drug development. She has strong interest in the development of new therapeutics for relapsed and refractory high-risk neuroblastoma. She is the Program Leader for the Experimental Therapeutics Program and Director of Clinical Research for the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at the Children’s Hospital Colorado as well as a Medical Director for the Colorado Child Health Research Institute. Dr. Macy serves as the Site Principal Investigator for the COG PEP-CTN and New Advances in Neuroblastoma Therapy (NANT) Consortium. She is co-chair of the recently completed COG relapse neuroblastoma trial in ANBL1821 and vice chair for the next relapsed neuroblastoma trial for COG. In addition to her focus on finding innovative and better therapies for neuroblastoma, Dr. Macy also has a particular interest in the practical application and implementation of the International Neuroblastoma Response Criteria in clinical trials.

Dr. London is Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Director of Biostatistics in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital, Director of the Survey and Qualitative Methods Core, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. She was awarded her PhD in Biostatistics from Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia in 1997. She has >25 years of experience in design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of clinical trials and biological studies in pediatric cancer. Dr. London serves on the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Neuroblastoma Steering Committee, and was Lead Statistician from 1998-2014. She collaborated/designed/conducted phase 3 trials in high-risk neuroblastoma that set a new standard of care, including FDA approval of dinutuximab. Dr. London was instrumental in developing the COG Neuroblastoma Virtual Tumor Bank of specimen, biology, and outcome data, and automated systems for assigning risk group. Dr. London worked in the pharmaceutical industry for CRO start-up Pharmaceutical Research Associates (PRA) [now PRA Health Sciences] from 1987-1992.

Dr. London’s research focuses on the identification of prognostic biomarkers in neuroblastoma, and applying them to create and improve risk stratification for the assignment of treatment intensity for children with neuroblastoma, at diagnosis and relapse. She has developed a risk stratification for use in low- and middle-income countries, the Adaptive Clinical Neuroblastoma Risk Groups (ACNRG), which is analogous to the INRG risk stratification, except the ACNRG uses more readily available clinical prognostic factors. She co-chairs the Statistics Committee of the International Neuroblastoma Risk Groups (INRG) task force, where she collaborated to develop a global system for pre-treatment risk stratification and the INRG Data Commons.

Dr. London is a member of the Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee of the FDA (2023-27) and NIH/NCI Therapeutic Immune Regulation (TIR) Study Section (2022-26). She served on NIH/NCI Clinical Oncology Study Section (2006-10), NIH/NCI Immunotherapy Study Section (2022-23), and American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) program committee (2014-16). She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2020-present), and was on the Journal of Clinical Oncology editorial board (2013-2020). She has been a faculty member of AACR/ASCO Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop since 2011, currently a workshop co-chair (2024-26).

https://www.siopen.org/siopen-executive-committee/ulrike-poetschger

Dr. Federico completed her pediatric residency at Stanford University followed by a hematology/oncology fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. During fellowship she became passionate about advancing therapies for the treatment of high-risk solid tumors and conducted translational studies evaluating new therapeutic combinations in murine models. Additionally, during this time, she developed the Molecular Analysis of Solid Tumors (MAST) protocol and contributed to the creation of the Childhood Solid Tumor Network, the world’s largest resource for pediatric solid tumor research.

In 2011, Dr. Federico joined the faculty in the Division of Solid Tumors at St. Jude. She has committed her career to developing clinical trials for the treatment of high-risk neuroblastoma, with a focus on chemoimmunotherapy. Additionally, she collaborates with lab-based investigators to move encouraging agents into clinical trials for patients with recurrent solid tumors. For neuroblastoma, she led the GD2NK trial (NCT01576692) and demonstrated that the humanized anti-GD2 monoclonal antibody (hu14.18K322A) combined with allogeneic natural killer (NK) cells and standard chemotherapy in children with relapsed/refractory neuroblastoma was well-tolerated and had a 61.5% response rate. This trial served as the rationale for the NB2012 trial (NCT01857934), in which hu14.18K322A was incorporated into 6 cycles of Induction therapy for patients with newly diagnosed high-risk neuroblastoma. The 3-year event-free and overall survival of the single-institution study were 73.7% and 86% respectively. To assess whether chemoimmunotherapy could be safely administered across diverse institutions, Dr. Federico chaired the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) pilot study ANBL17P1 (NCT03786783) which was the first study to demonstrate that dinutuximab could be safely administered concurrently with Induction cycles 3-5. She now co-chairs the COG randomized phase 3 trial, ANBL2131 (NCT06172296), which is evaluating whether early or late administration of chemoimmunotherapy contributes to an improved outcome for patients with high-risk neuroblastoma. This trial includes numerous correlative studies assessing for biomarkers of response. Dr. Federico is currently chairing 2 additional trials. HuNB803 (NCT07085338) is a multi-institution study evaluating whether the addition of an IL-15 superagonist (N803) to a chemoimmunotherapy backbone improves response rates in patients with relapsed or refractory neuroblastoma. ONITT is a phase 1/2 study, evaluating liposomal irinotecan plus talazoparib or temozolomide for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory solid tumors.

In 2024, Dr. Federico became Division Director of Solid Tumors at St. Jude, where she leads collaborative research and mentors investigators to advance clinical trials and correlative science for children with high-risk solid tumors.

Daniel Morgenstern is an Associate Professor at University of Toronto and co-leads the neuroblastoma service at Hospital for Sick Children. He is director of the therapeutic MIBG and new agents and innovative therapies (NAIT) early phase trial programs at SickKids. His research is focussed on early phase clinical trials for solid tumours, with a particular interest in molecularly targeted therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors.

https://www.prinsesmaximacentrum.nl/en/professionals/researchers/professor-lieve-tytgat

Dr. Federico completed her pediatric residency at Stanford University followed by a hematology/oncology fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. During fellowship she became passionate about advancing therapies for the treatment of high-risk solid tumors and conducted translational studies evaluating new therapeutic combinations in murine models. Additionally, during this time, she developed the Molecular Analysis of Solid Tumors (MAST) protocol and contributed to the creation of the Childhood Solid Tumor Network, the world’s largest resource for pediatric solid tumor research.

In 2011, Dr. Federico joined the faculty in the Division of Solid Tumors at St. Jude. She has committed her career to developing clinical trials for the treatment of high-risk neuroblastoma, with a focus on chemoimmunotherapy. Additionally, she collaborates with lab-based investigators to move encouraging agents into clinical trials for patients with recurrent solid tumors. For neuroblastoma, she led the GD2NK trial (NCT01576692) and demonstrated that the humanized anti-GD2 monoclonal antibody (hu14.18K322A) combined with allogeneic natural killer (NK) cells and standard chemotherapy in children with relapsed/refractory neuroblastoma was well-tolerated and had a 61.5% response rate. This trial served as the rationale for the NB2012 trial (NCT01857934), in which hu14.18K322A was incorporated into 6 cycles of Induction therapy for patients with newly diagnosed high-risk neuroblastoma. The 3-year event-free and overall survival of the single-institution study were 73.7% and 86% respectively. To assess whether chemoimmunotherapy could be safely administered across diverse institutions, Dr. Federico chaired the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) pilot study ANBL17P1 (NCT03786783) which was the first study to demonstrate that dinutuximab could be safely administered concurrently with Induction cycles 3-5. She now co-chairs the COG randomized phase 3 trial, ANBL2131 (NCT06172296), which is evaluating whether early or late administration of chemoimmunotherapy contributes to an improved outcome for patients with high-risk neuroblastoma. This trial includes numerous correlative studies assessing for biomarkers of response. Dr. Federico is currently chairing 2 additional trials. HuNB803 (NCT07085338) is a multi-institution study evaluating whether the addition of an IL-15 superagonist (N803) to a chemoimmunotherapy backbone improves response rates in patients with relapsed or refractory neuroblastoma. ONITT is a phase 1/2 study, evaluating liposomal irinotecan plus talazoparib or temozolomide for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory solid tumors.

In 2024, Dr. Federico became Division Director of Solid Tumors at St. Jude, where she leads collaborative research and mentors investigators to advance clinical trials and correlative science for children with high-risk solid tumors.