Christoph Zielinski
President
Professor Zielinski is Director of the Vienna Cancer Center of the Vienna Hospital Association and the Medical University Vienna, Austria. He is President of the Central European Cooperative Oncology Group.
Professor Zielinski completed his medical training at the University Hospital Vienna and began his career with a position as a research fellow at the Cancer Research Center at Tufts University, Boston, USA. His recent clinical research activities cover a wide range of cancer therapies, with particular focus on clinical trials, breast and lung cancer research and treatment and development of targeted drugs. He has published env. 450 original papers and reviews in peer-review journals and many books including the “State of Oncology 2013” published together with Peter Boyle et al. by IPRI. He is member of the editorial board of numerous peer review journals. In 2013, Professor Zielinski received a “Dr. h.c.” degree from Titu Maiorescu University in Bucharest.
Professor Zielinski is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO).
Prof. Zielinski serves on a series of committees of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) including its Executive Committee in which he is a member for 2014. He was also Local Officer for the ESMO Congress 2012 in Vienna, Austria.
Tanja Cufer
Medical Head
Tanja Cufer is a medical oncologist, Professor of Oncology at the Medical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and a Senior Councillor at the University Clinic Golnik, Slovenia. Dr Čufer gained her medical degree and PhD in oncology from the University of Ljubljana and subsequently completed her fellowship at Stanford University, California, USA and The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Dr Čufer is very active in various national and international societies. She has been an ASCO member since 1996 and she has been serving as an ASCO International Affairs Committee (IAC) member since 2007. She was the chair of ASCO’s International Clinical Trials Workshops working group and also ASCO’s IAC from 2011–2012. From 1987 she has been an active member of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Breast Cancer Group and Lung Cancer Group and from 2009–2012 she chaired the EORTC Breast Cancer Group. In the period of 2006–2009 she served as a member of the EORTC board. Currently, Dr Čufer is ESO (European School of Oncology) programme coordinator for the Eastern Europe and Balkan region. She is also a member of several editorial boards and a reviewer for numerous international medical journals.
Dr Čufer’s major scientific interests are breast cancer, lung cancer and the molecular biology of cancer. She plays an active role in new drug development and academic research in oncology, and she has been the principal investigator in more than 20 multinational clinical trials. Dr Čufer received a lifetime achievement award from the Medical Chamber of Slovenia in 2011. Her professional work has resulted in almost 20 invited lectures at many prestigious oncology conferences and she is the author of more than 200 articles, books and book chapters in the field of oncology.
Christiane Thallinger
Chief Executive Officer
Specialist in Dermatology and Venerology
MBA of General Management
Christiane Thallinger is a specialist in Dermatology and Venerology and Program Director of the Extravasation and Cutaneous Side Effects in Oncology Unit at the Clinical Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine I, Medical University Vienna, Austria.
In addition, she serves as Chief Managing Officer of the Central European Cooperative Oncology Group (CECOG, www.cecog.org).
Christiane Thallinger has completed her medical training at the University Hospital Vienna and has spent a one-year sabbatical at the University of California San Diego on animal models in immunological skin diseases.
Her recent clinical research activities cover a wide range of cancer therapies, with particular focus on the management of cutaneous side effects of cancer treatments as well as the performance and administration of clinical trials within CECOG.
Finally, she is director for quality management at the Department of Medicine I at Medical University Vienna.
Dr. Thallinger has published more than 50 papers in peer-review journals.
Rupert Bartsch
Breast Cancer Tumorboard Chair
is an associate professor of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna and the Comprehensive Cancer Center Vienna, Vienna, Austria. Prior to this, he was head of the breast centre at the Elisabethinen Hospital in Linz, Austria, and from 2017 to 2018, he was based at the German Breast Group in Neu Isenburg, Germany. Rupert Bartsch has a longstanding clinical and scientific focus on breast cancer and is currently director of the Breast Cancer Program at the Department of Oncology. He has published 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, among them Annals of Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, and Lancet Oncology.
Ursula Fischer
Director Academy
Ursula Fischer, BA, joined CECOG in 2000.
Her main tasks include the organization of Skeletal Care Meetings, Consensus Conferences and EGFR Workshops. She also assists in editorial issues such as the submission of abstracts, manuscripts and poster preparations. In her function as Clinical Research Associate she closely cooperates with investigators/sites in ongoing clinical trials.
In 2017, she was promoted to the position as Director of CECOG Academy.