New top management at SAKK
The Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) is pleased to announce Prof. Dr. med. Viviane Hess, Head of Oncology at the University Hospital Basel (USB) and Head of Prevention and Early Detection at the Basel Cancer League, as its new President. She will take office on January 1, 2026. Prof. Hess will succeed Prof. Pless, who has chaired the SAKK with great commitment and expertise since 2022.
Prof. Hess has many years of varied experience in oncology research and patient care. After studying medicine in Lausanne and Zurich and completing further clinical training in internal medicine and medical oncology, she completed research stays at renowned institutions such as the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The focus of her research, which is supported by a research professorship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, is on patient-centered therapy optimization, be it through new drugs or supportive measures. She is fascinated by generating research questions from clinical observations and, conversely, integrating research findings quickly and optimally into everyday clinical practice. She also shares this enthusiasm with the next generation of academic talent, both in research and teaching at the University of Basel and in various mentoring programs such as the SAKK Young Oncology Academy. In her clinical work as an oncologist at the USB, Prof. Hess is responsible for systemic therapies in the management committees of the Center for Neuroendocrine Tumors and the Abdominal Tumor Center. Not least because she sees many advanced cancers there that could have been avoided through screening, Prof. Hess also took over the area of screening and early detection at the Basel Cancer League a good five years ago. Together with her team, she set up colorectal cancer screening programmes for a population of around 500,000 people in four cantons and, together with the University of Lausanne, is leading the first Swiss-wide, randomized multi-centre study on personalized colorectal cancer screening.
With her proven expertise, her network and her vision for practical, independent cancer research, Prof. Hess has the ideal qualifications for the presidency of SAKK.
We are very much looking forward to working together and jointly developing clinical cancer research in Switzerland.