Biographies

Consultant Surgeon, The Royal Marsden, UK

Mr Barry qualified from University of Sydney, Australia and obtained a Fellowship in Surgical Oncology in sarcoma, melanoma and breast cancer at The Royal Marsden from 2000–02. He now focuses on breast oncoplastic techniques and reconstructive options following cancer surgery as well as preventative surgery for high-risk women and has been a consultant surgeon at The Breast Unit, Royal Marsden since 2012. He introduced the chest wall perforator flap service for breast conservation and has led development of targeted axillary dissection. He has an interest in translational medicine with publications on tumour evolution and heterogeneity in breast cancer using ctDNA and immunophenotyping markers. He also leads development and trialing of new devices in surgery.

Professor, University of Lucerne, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine
Breast Surgeon, Head of Tumour and Breast Centre, Hirslanden Klinik St. Anna, Lucerne

Peter Dubsky developed and heads the Tumour and Breast Cancer Centre at the Hirslanden Klinik St. Anna in Lucerne, Switzerland. In 2023 he joined the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine at the University of Lucerne. He is the founder of the “Network of Hirslanden Breast Cancer Centres (NHBCC)” and the “Lucerne Toolbox Consensus” which provides clinical guidance on local therapy options for breast cancer patients.

He received his MD and completed his surgical training at the Medical University of Vienna. After a post-doctoral fellowship in cancer immunology in the US and board certification in General and Visceral Surgery, he focused his clinical work and research on breast cancer.

In addition to his ongoing work as a breast surgeon and clinical trialist, his active research interests focus on biomarkers in early breast cancer. He has served in several scientific committees of European oncology societies and is part of the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) scientific committee.

Clinical Head of Breast Medical Oncology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Consultant Medical Oncologist, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne

Professor Prue Francis is a breast cancer clinician researcher who received her medical degree from the University of Melbourne and completed medical oncology training at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, before returning to Australia in 1994.

Prue is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Breast Cancer Trials (BCT).

She chairs the international Steering Committee for the SOFT and TEXT premenopausal trials.

Prue is a member of the St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Consensus Panel, the Advanced Breast Cancer (ABC) International Consensus Panel, and the Steering Committee for the Oxford Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG).

Professor of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine
Professor of Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr Hurvitz serves as Division Head of Hematology/Oncology at University of Washington School of Medicine and as Senior Vice President of the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where she holds the Smith Family Endowed Chair in Women’s Health. Dr Hurvitz earned her MD from the University of Southern California. She served internship/residency at UCLA, was Chief Resident of internal medicine and completed a hematology-oncology fellowship at UCLA in 2006. Dr Hurvitz received board-certification in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology. She led the breast cancer clinical trials program at UCLA for 17 years and was Medical Director of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center until 2023 when she accepted a leadership position at UW/FHCC. Dr Hurvitz has won numerous awards over the past few years, among them the Marni Levine Memorial Breast Cancer Research Award 2008 through 2015 and the European Society of Medical Oncology Breast Cancer Award in 2023. She has an active clinical practice specialising in the treatment of women with breast cancer. She is involved in designing, implementing and leading multiple national and international clinical trials testing new targeted therapies.

Head, Breast Unit and Chair, Breast Cancer Multidisciplinary Team (MDT), Florence University Hospital
Associate Professor, Department of Clinical and Experimental Biomedical Sciences “M. Serio”, University of Florence (Florence, Italy)
Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Radiation Oncology Unit, AOU Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy

Dr Icro Meattini has been practicing as a Clinical Oncologist since 2011 at the Radiation Oncology Unit of the Oncology Department at the Florence University Hospital. He is responsible for the Outpatient Clinics Unit and the Clinical Trials Unit, and leads the Clinical Oncology Group within the Breast Cancer MDT. Since 2024, Dr Meattini has served as Head of the Breast Unit and Chair of the Breast Cancer MDT at Florence University Hospital.

He is an active member of the European Society for Radiation Oncology (ESTRO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), the Italian Association of Radiotherapy and Clinical Oncology (AIRO), and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). He is also involved in educational activities as a faculty member of the European School of Oncology (ESO). Dr Meattini is deeply engaged in the ESTRO and EORTC networks and currently serves on the Steering Committee of the EORTC Breast Cancer Group and the Radiation Oncology Scientific Council. He is Founder of the Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer Group (COBCG) cooperative network. In addition, he serves as an ESTRO Clinical Board member and ESTRO teacher.

Dr Meattini has authored over 300 peer-reviewed international publications and has served as principal or co-principal investigator in numerous phase II–III clinical trials, both academic and industry-sponsored. His research interests include breast cancer, multimodal treatment strategies, oligometastatic disease, cardiotoxicity prevention, partial breast irradiation, and the optimization of clinical trial methodology. He has organised and participated as an invited speaker in over 100 national and international scientific conferences over the past five years.

Professor of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney
Senior Staff Specialist, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

Sandra O'Toole is a Professor of Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney and a Senior Staff Specialist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, with recognised expertise in breast cancer pathology and molecular pathology.

She has made notable contributions to breast cancer studies, including being a member of a Eureka Prize-winning team in 2022 for work on developing a highly innovative nanoslide technology for breast cancer microscopy published in Nature. She has over 150 publications, many in high-impact journals. Her research has garnered over 7,700 citations and more than $30 million in grant funding over the past decade, with an emphasis on molecular pathology that has impacted routine testing and treatment guidelines in Australia as well as on breast cancer. She serves on various Australian committees and boards, including the Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC), BreastScreen Australia Clinical Advisory Group, the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia Quality Assurance Programme (RCPAQAP) and is Chair of Cancer Australia's Intercollegiate Advisory Group. She is a contributing author to the upcoming 6^th edition of the World Health Organisation Classification of Breast Tumours.

Chief Executive & National Director of Cancer Control, Te Aho o Te Kahu / Cancer Control Agency, New Zealand

Rami is the Chief Executive of the Cancer Control Agency, and National Director of Cancer Control. The Agency’s mandate is to provide advice to government and work with the rest of the health care sector to advance national cancer priorities.

Rami brings to his current role over thirty years of health system consulting and senior leadership with a focus on health policy measurement and evaluation. For 12 years, Rami held several senior leadership roles at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (Canada’s national cancer agency). There, he led the implementation of major cancer research projects including Canada’s largest population cohort study. He also played a key role in advancing indigenous data and research, and led the design and implementation of cancer system quality measurement and improvement initiatives.

Prior to that, Rami led a healthcare management consultancy firm, providing policy and planning decision support to cancer agencies and other health care organisations across Canada.

Rami is active in the international cancer control landscape with roles on several international boards and advisory bodies. He has authored over 50 publications on the topic of health system performance measurement and evaluation

Associate Professor, University of Rochester
Director of Breast Cancer Service, Wilmot Cancer Institute

Dr. Anna Weiss completed her undergraduate and medical school training at Case Western Reserve University and her general surgery residency at the University of California, San Diego. She then completed her Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and started her career as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. At Harvard she was a breast surgeon at Dana-Farber/Brigham Cancer Center, Director of Breast Surgery Research at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center South Shore, and an Executive Officer for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.

She is now an Associate Professor at University of Rochester, Wilmot Cancer Institute, where she is the Director of the Breast Cancer Service Line, Breast Surgery Lead, Director of the Comprehensive Breast Center at Pluta and Clinical Trials Office Community Outreach liaison. Her current research interests include surgical management of patients at an elevated risk for breast cancer due to an inherited predisposition or other reasons, and subtype-specific surgical management of the axilla, including management after neoadjuvant systemic therapy.