Dr. Giancarlo Marra is an assistant professor and staff urologist at the Molinette Hospital, University of Turin, Italy. He trained in several different countries at renowned institutions, including King’s College Hospital and Guy’s Hospital, London, England, as well as the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, and Tenon Hospital, both in Paris, France.
Dr. Marra’s main expertise are in the field of uro-oncology, with a dedicated focus on prostate cancer, including minimally invasive surgical robotic treatments and focal therapy.
Dr. Marra has published more than 120 peer-reviewed publications and is an active reviewer for the major urological journals. He is member of several national and international research groups including the EAU YAU prostate cancer working group, the EAU-ESU group on imaging, focal therapy and pathology, and the Italian Committee for Good Clinical Practice – prostate cancer guidelines section. Dr. Marra has received several prizes for his research, among the latest are the best EUSP Clinical Scholar Award in 2022, and ‘Best Paper published in the field of robotic surgery’ in European Urology in 2023. Dr. Marra has been a presenter and an invited speaker at national and international congresses in Europe, China, and the US.
Assoc. Prof. Pawel Rajwa is an assistant professor at the Dept. of Urology, Medical University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. With an M.D., Ph.D., and habilitation from the same institution, he focuses his research on urologic oncology, in particular prostate cancer.
After completing medical school, Assoc. Prof. Rajwa trained abroad in several prestigious institutions including a long-term research fellowship at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.
Assoc. Prof. Rajwa has published and co-authored over 180 articles, including first-author papers in European Urology, Nature Reviews Urology, European Urology Oncology and Journal of Urology.
Assoc. Prof. Rajwa is a member of the EAU YAU Prostate Cancer Working Group. He is actively involved in PIONEER Big Data study, and he is a principal investigator of the OLIGOMET registry supported by the EAU Research Foundation.
He is the General Secretary for the Polish Association of Urology Main Scientific Congresses, and Urologic Oncology Section Editor for the Central European Journal of Urology – the journal of the Polish Urological Association.
Assoc. Prof. Rajwa has received several awards – He was the winner of the 1st Research Award 2023 of “POLITICS”, a top-selling Polish weekly-published news magazine in Poland, and he received the Best Fellow Research Award at the Medical University of Vienna.
Dr. Claudia Kesch is a Professor and Staff Urologist in the Dept. of Urology at the University Hospital Essen, Germany. She completed her medical training in urology at the University Hospitals of Heidelberg and Essen, before further advancing her expertise in uro-oncology.
Dr. Kesch undertook a two-year clinical and research fellowship at the Dept. of Urologic Sciences & Vancouver Prostate Centre, University of British Columbia, and additionally completed a six-month fellowship in minimally invasive and robotic surgery at the Clinique La Croix du Sud in Toulouse, France.
Dr. Kesch has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is an active reviewer for several major urological journals. She serves as a member of the EAU-YAU Prostate Cancer Working Group, the AUA International Research Group, and as a Deputy Chair of the Medical Ethics Committee at the University of Essen. She is also part of the Scientific Advisory Board for the German journal Aktuelle Urologie.
Dr. Kesch has received the prestigious Alavi-Mandell Award from the Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) twice. She was also honoured with the European Urology Oncology – Top Ten Reviewers of the Year Award in 2022.
Her current research focuses on prostate cancer theranostics, with particular interest in the mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to 177Lu-PSMA. Dr. Kesch is also leading an Investigator-Initiated Trial (IIT) exploring the potential of neoadjuvant intra-arterial administration of 177Lu-PSMA.
Dr. Jennifer Le Guévelou is a radiation oncologist in Tours, France, and is a member of the YAU prostate group.
Her training included a residency in Normandy, France, where she developed an expertise in protontherapy and brachytherapy. She completed a fellowship in Geneva, under the guidance of Prof. Thomas Zilli, where she contributed to research on combined hyperthermia and prostate cancer radiotherapy, as well as the role of SBRT in the management of renal cell carcinoma.
Her primary interest is in genito-urinary oncology, and especially the management of prostate at both an early and metastatic stage. In recent years, her research has focused on optimisation of treatment planning for prostate cancer radiotherapy through the development of several novel approaches, including urinary-organ-at risk sparing and dose-escalation to the dominant intraprostatic lesion (DIL). She is currently the leader of the phase III trial ORION, supported by the GETUG group, assessing the role of dose-escalation on the DIL for patients with high-risk prostate cancer. She is also one of the co-leaders of the prospective meta-analysis FLAMENCO, that will include both Hypoflame3.0, Hypofocal SBRT and ORION trials.
She is also a researcher in head and neck oncology, focusing on both early detection strategies, reduction of toxicity following radiotherapy, and implementation of SBRT in specific disease settings. Last but not least, her interest includes the management of cancer occurring during pregnancy.