Scientific Committee

Asim Belgaumi, Pakistan

Scientific Chair and Representative Pediatric Hematology and Oncology

Lillian Sung, Canada

Past Scientific Chair and Representatives Pediatric Hematology and Oncology

Dr. Sung joined the staff at The Hospital for Sick Children in September 2004 after completing fellowships in Haematology, Infectious Diseases and Clinical Investigation and receiving a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto. She is a Paediatric Oncologist and Clinician Scientist with an independent research program focused on supportive care for children with cancer. Her overall goal is to optimize supportive care for children with cancer, with an aim to maximize quality of life, survival and cost-effectiveness. She is the Chair of Cancer Control and Supportive Care for the Children’s Oncology Group (COG). This group oversees all studies of supportive care including studies related to symptom management and patient-reported outcomes. Her research program is currently focused on symptom screening and interventions to reduce fatigue in paediatric cancer patients. She holds a Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute Impact Grant and has previously received operating grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institutes of Health (NIH, R21). She is the Co-Principal Investigator of the COG National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program (UG1CA189955) and an NIH R25 in collaboration with the American Society of Hematology. Her clinical focus is on the inpatient care of children and adolescents with leukemia and lymphoma. She also has a major focus on research education. She has taught graduate courses for the School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto since her faculty appointment and she currently co-directs an advanced randomized trials course. In addition, she has contributed to the development of the Clinical Research Training Institute supported by the American Society of Hematology and developed a research training course in Latin America and Qatar.

Susanne Gatz, UK

Representative Pediatric Hematology and Oncology

Dr Susanne Gatz is a clinician scientist who aims to combine her clinical expertise in paediatric solid tumours with her laboratory interests and expertise into translational research into DNA repair and sarcoma to ultimately identify better treatments for children with cancer, in particular sarcomas.
Susanne joined the University of Birmingham, UK as senior clinical lecturer in Paediatric Oncology in October 2018. She is based at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit within the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences. She is involved in the paediatric cancer trial portfolio of the unit with focus on sarcomas (eg the overarching platform trial FaR-RMS for rhabdomyosarcoma patients where the University of Birmingham is the international sponsor), and is leading on taking forward novel agents in rhabdomyosarcoma within the trial setting and in particular on developing biomarkers for these agents alongside the trial. Susanne is further linking with the re-known DNA repair and genomics labs of the Institute for preclinical/translational research into sarcoma models.
For her role as honorary consultant in Paediatric Oncology Susanne is looking after patents with solid tumours at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
With regards to her expertise in DNA repair, Susanne is leading on two treatment arms within the paediatric Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer (ITCC) ESMART (NCT02813135) stratified medicine basket study; arm D is investigating the combination of the PARP inhibitor Olaparib and irinotecan in paediatric patients with either Ewing’s sarcoma or tumours with genomic alterations in the homologous recombination repair pathway and is currently in Phase II (Phase I presented at ASCO 2019 and SIOP 2019), Arm N is about to start recruitment and is investigating the combination of Olaparib with an ATR inhibitor.
Susanne is a member of several clinical committees and study groups including the UK sarcoma clinical studies group including the Young Onset Soft tissue Sarcoma and bone sarcoma subgroup, the Genomic Tumour Advisory Board of the West Midlands, UK, and the European paediatric Soft tissue sarcoma Study Group (EpSSG) Phase I/II study committee, where she is also the translational lead.

Marilyn Hockenberry, USA

Representative Nursing Group

Dr. Marilyn Hockenberry, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and the Global HOPE Director of Nursing Education.Dr. Hockenberry serves as senior editor for the Elsevier- Wong pediatric nursing textbooks that are the gold standard for pediatric nursing education throughout the world. In 2016, Dr. Hockenberry was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Research Hall of Fame.She is recognized for her research program that focuses on symptoms associated with childhood cancer treatment.

Anita Mahajan, USA

Representative Radiation Oncology Group

Dr. Mahajan Is a professor at Mayo Clinic in the Department of Radiation Oncology. She serves as the medical director of particle therapy. Before moving to Mayo Clinic she was a professor at MD Anderson Cancer Clinic in Houston. Her major interests are improving radiotherapy for pediatric patients with a special interest in proton therapy and advanced delivery techniques.

Donna Johnston

Chairman Local Organising Committee SIOP 2023, Ottawa, Canada

Donna Johnston is a Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology. She is a full Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa. She completed medical school at Queen’s University, her pediatric residency at the University of Ottawa, and her hematology/oncology fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle Washington. She is an active participant in the Children’s Oncology Group both as the site PI and as a member of the Cancer Control and Myeloid Committees. Her main areas of oncology expertise are in AML, neuro-oncology, supportive care and palliative care. She is involved clinical research, most of which involves supportive care for oncology patients.

Sharon Cox, South Africa

Representative Surgical Oncology Group

Professor Sharon Cox is the Head of Clinical Unit, Division of Paediatric Surgery, University of Cape Town and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, in Cape Town South Africa.
Sharon is currently the Africa representative on the World Federation of Associations of Paediatric Surgery (WOFAPS) executive and also serves on the International Pediatric Surgical Oncology Society (IPSO) Executive and IPSO Education Committee, and is the chair of the IPSO program committee.

Lorena Baroni

Representative Hematology Oncology

Stephen Sands, USA

Representative Paediatric Psycho Oncology

Luisa Basset

CCI Representative

Luisa Basset Salom, PhD Architect and Professor of Structural Analysis and Design at Universitat Politècnica de València, is the mother of a long-term childhood cancer survivor.

She is involved in a volunteer basis in regional, national and international patient advocacy.

She is the international representative of Federación Española de Padres de Niños con Cáncer since 2005 and serves as vicepresident of Aspanion (childhood cancer parent association based in Valencia).

Luisa is Board Secretary of Childhood Cancer International (CCI) and vicechair of CCI-Europe Committee, where she is also the head of the Capacity Development Pillar. As CCI Europe’s patient advocate she has participated directly in several EU projects such as ENCCA or JARC.

Luisa represents CCI-Europe in WECAN (Workgroup of European Cancer Patient Advocacy Networks) and since 2016 she is ePAG representative and member of the Oversight Committee of the ERN PaedCan (European Reference Network for Paediatric Oncology).