Moderator:

Manuela Benary, PhD
Bioinformatician
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Presenter(s):

Peter Horak, MD, PhD
Medical Oncologist for Clinical Translation
National Center for Tumor Diseases, Heidelberg, Germany
I serve as the Deputy Head of the Department of Translational Medical Oncology at NCT Heidelberg and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). Following my training in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology at the Medical University of Vienna, I did postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School. After several years practicing clinical oncology, I joined the Department of Translational Medical Oncology in 2016 to focus on the clinical impact of comprehensive molecular and functional characterization of individual tumors in the NCT/DKTK MASTER program. I am primarily interested the discovery, development and standardization of novel biomarkers from large molecular datasets and their translation into the medical decision-making process. During the last years, we established a clinical workflow of precision oncology for rare cancer patients, demonstrating the clinical benefit of a molecularly-stratified therapeutic approach. With regard to standardization efforts in precision oncology, I participate in national and international consortia concentrating on development of guidelines for translation of biomarker-stratified precision medicine to routine clinical care. My research projects include retrospective analyses of –omic and clinical outcome data for discovery of predictive biomarkers/signatures as well as the development of T-cell-based immunotherapies in specific subtypes of soft-tissue sarcomas. I have an ongoing interest in the clinical implementation and impact evaluation of novel methodologies in precision oncology workflows, including predictive immunotherapy signatures, proteomic and epigenetic datasets.

Veronica Teleanu, MD
Medical Oncologist Clinical Translation
National Center for Tumor Diseases, Heidelberg, Germany
I am a medical oncologist at the National Center for Tumor Diseases in Heidelberg where I joined the Translational Medical Oncology Team in 2019. My areas of interest are Molecular Tumor Boards and ultra-rare sarcomas where I care for patients in the outpatient clinic of the Sarcoma Service. Together with my colleagues, I am involved in several projects focusing on identification of molecular biomarkers in rare cancers using a multi-omics approach within the frame of the NCT/DKTK MASTER program and improving interpretation of molecular data for targeted therapies recommendations.
I received my MD from the University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania and subsequently completed my training in hematology/oncology in Bucharest (RO) and at the University of Ulm in Germany, were I additionally gained expertise in cytogenetics of myeloid malignancies and served as deputy of the Cytogenetics Lab of the department.
Planning Committee:
Beth Pitel, MS, CG(ASCP)
Gordana Raca, MD, PhD, FACMG
Manuela Benary, PhD
Jason Saliba, PhD
Jane Radford, MHA, CHCP