EEC Executive Committee

Sandra Strauss is a Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Medical Oncologist. Her clinical post is based at University College London Hospital, part of the London Sarcoma Service, one of the largest sarcoma services in Europe. She specialises in the systemic treatment of bone and soft tissue sarcomas in both adults and teenagers.

I am a paediatric oncologist in the Solid Tumours Department at Princess Máxima Center for Paediatric Oncology and coordinate the care of children with bone and soft tissue sarcomas. I am chair of the SKION Protocol Committee Rhabdomyosarcomas, and the SKION Disease Committee Bottumoren. The Máxima Sarcoma group work closely with the research groups in the laboratory and with international sarcoma experts worldwide. In addition, I am the chair of the SKION Taskforce Pediatric Oncogenetics.

Andrew's daughter Imogen was successfully treated for Ewing sarcoma in 2014/15. He joined EEC as a patient advocate in 2017 and sits on the rEECur Trial Management Group, NEWTS therapeutic group and the Executive Committee. Andrew is also an active member of PORT (Paediatric Oncology Reference Team) and a trustee of aPODD Foundation. He recently retired as Finance Director of Bone Cancer Research Trust.

I was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma in my right distal femur on 21 April 2005, age 8. I received Euro-Ewings99 treatment protocol and a full knee replacement. I later had leg lengthening surgeries to correct the discrepancy as I grew through puberty, including an illazrov frame. Now, I work for the leading children and young people's cancer charity in the UK in the fundraising team and share my story to help the next generation of childhood cancer patients.

Professor Uta Dirksen is Vice Chair of Paediatrics III, Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, Immunology, Cardiology and Pulmonology, founder of the AYA unit and vice director of the West German Cancer Center, University Hospital Essen, German Cancer Research Center (DKTK) and National Center for Tumordiseases (NCT) and full professor at the University Duisburg-Essen.

Thomas Grünewald from the Hopp Children's Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ) and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) has been awarded the Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC is one of the highest awards for scientists. The Consolidator Grant gives research group leaders the opportunity to expand their research team. Thomas Grünewald wants to use it to research a new gene therapy for children with bone and soft tissue cancer and bring it to clinical development.

Paediatric oncologist at Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus (Villejuif, France), head of the adolescent and young adult (AYA) unit and chair of the AYA programme of the institute (SPIAJA programme), since 2009. She is in charge of bone sarcomas, cancers with peak incidence in the AYA population, from biology to clinical care. Dr Gaspar is also paediatric head of the French bone adult and paediatric sarcoma group, GROUPOS. She is actively involved in early new drug development in France and in Europe.

He worked at the Haematology Center of the Polyclinic Hospital of Milan until October 1989. He has worked at the Complex Paediatrics Structure of this Foundation where he has a highly specialized role for the coordination of high-dose therapies and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation activities in paediatric solid tumours. He is responsible for clinical protocols regarding bone sarcomas and neuroblastoma, with roles of coordination of national and international study protocols.

Dr Raciborska has developed a long-term research collaboration with Dr Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo of Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, the world’s leading specialist on Ewing Sarcoma and is, herself, now one of Poland’s leading experts in the treatment of the disease, the second most common paediatric malignant bone tumour.

Michiel van de Sande is Professor of Paediatric Orthopaedic Oncology at Leiden University and an oncological paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at the Princess Maxima Center for Paediatric Oncology. He is Chairman of the Bone Tumours and Infection Working Group of the EPOS and a board member of the Dutch Sarcoma Group, FOSTER and EuroEwing and the EMSOS. His surgical specialty focuses on the treatment of paediatric, AYA and adult patients with bone and soft tissue sarcomas.

Dr Tomazou's research focuses on epigenome-based precision medicine at CCRI. She has a strong background in epigenomics research and two years' experience in clinical diagnostics and management of a high-throughput diagnostics lab. She did her PhD at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK) and postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute and the Harvard Department for Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (Cambridge, USA).

I founded and lead the Research Group ATBsarc devoted to Sarcoma Research at CITIUS III (Seville, Spain). From 1994, I have been devoted to sarcoma care in different Hospitals (Hospital Son Dureta/Son Espases & Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío) in different Hospitals. I have fought to achieve accreditation in sarcoma centres, systems and reference units (CSUR) of the National Health Service in Spain. At the HU Virgen del Rocio I worked actively to achieve accreditation for this centre.