Faculty Biographies
26 November 2024; Virtual Meeting
Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD
Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
Prof Nadia Harbeck is director of the Breast Center and holds the chair for conservative oncology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Hospital, Munich, Germany. She received her medical degree from LMU, then obtained her specialist training in obstetrics and gynecology at the Technical University of Munich.
Prof Harbeck is a member of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) executive board, the ESMO director of education (2023–2025), and subject editor of the ESMO Breast Cancer Guidelines (since 2022). She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting educational committee (2022–2025) and a member of the expert panel issuing the German Gynecological Oncology Group (AGO) recommendations for breast cancer therapy. She is co-director of the West German Study Group. From 2009–2015, she served on the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) executive board as chair of the Translational Research Division. Prof Harbeck is principal investigator or steering committee member of numerous breast cancer trials, particularly with novel targeted compounds and individualized treatment strategies. She has a strong interest in eHealth and is a co-developer of the international digital patient diary CANKADO.
Prof Harbeck is one of the most frequently cited clinical researchers worldwide (Highly Cited Researcher 2021, 2022, 2023). She has authored more than 665 papers in peer-reviewed journals (h–index 97) and is coordinating editor in chief of Breast Care. She is the ESMO co-director of the annual EORTC-ESMO-AACR (American Association for Cancer Research) Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop and a panel member of several international breast cancer consensus conferences.
Prof Harbeck is the recipient of the 2023 German Cancer Award and the 2020 ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award. She has also received several additional recognitions for her clinical and translational research, such as the 2021 UPO Award for Women in Academy and Research, the 2015 Bavarian Cancer Patient Award, the 2012 Claudia von Schilling Award, the 2008 European Breast Cancer Conference Award, the 2002 AGO Schmidt-Matthiesen Award, a 2001 AACR Award, and the 2001 ASCO Fellowship Merit Award for the highest-ranking abstract.
Giuseppe Curigliano, MD, PhD
University of Milano, Italy
Dr Giuseppe Curigliano is a full professor of medical oncology at the University of Milan and chief of the Clinical Division of Early Drug Development at the European Institute of Oncology, Italy. He received his MD from Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Gemelli University Hospital, in Rome, and his PhD from the University of Pisa.
Dr Curigliano is an expert in the field of advanced drug development in solid tumors, with specific interest in breast cancer. He contributed to the development of many anticancer therapies that are now standard of care in the treatment of multiple solid tumors. Since 2001, he has been a tenure-track and full-time cancer specialist at the European Institute of Oncology, one of the world’s leading cancer research institutes and the premier cancer center in Italy, third in Europe, and 12th globally.
Dr Curigliano serves as a member of the Italian Higher Health Council and as chair of the Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee for the European Society for Medical Oncology. He was awarded the first European School of Oncology Umberto Veronesi Memorial Award in Vienna in 2017, and in the same year, a Fellowship of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences in Paris. In 2022, he was identified as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate. Dr Curigliano has contributed to over 670 peer-reviewed publications.
Sara Tolaney, MD, MPH
Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA
Dr Sara Tolaney is associate director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers, director of clinical trials in the Breast Oncology Center, director of breast immunotherapy clinical research, senior physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. She received her medical degree from the University of California San Francisco. Subsequently she completed her residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and fellowships in hematology and medical oncology at DFCI. She obtained her master of public health degree from Harvard School of Public Health.
Dr Tolaney’s research focuses on the development of novel therapies in the treatment of breast cancer. She is principal investigator (PI) of many therapeutic clinical trials and translational studies for breast cancer. She is the recipient of the Lee M. Nadler “Extra Mile” Award, and the Innovation Award for Clinical Faculty at DFCI.
Recently Dr Tolaney has become very involved in the development of immunotherapy in breast cancer. She was part of several of the early studies first exploring checkpoint inhibition in breast cancer and served as the national PI for the ENHANCE-1 trial, exploring eribulin and pembrolizumab in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. She developed and conducted the first randomized trial of chemotherapy with or without checkpoint inhibition in hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer, recently published in JAMA Oncology. She also has a strong interest in exploring biomarker predictors of response to immunotherapy and recently found that high tumor mutational burden was associated with benefit to checkpoint inhibition (independent of programmed death-ligand 1 status) and that phosphatase and tensin homolog alterations were associated with resistance.
Dr Tolaney’s research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, among them The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology, JAMA Oncology, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, and Clinical Cancer Research.
