Trained as a Paediatric Oncologist, Gilles Vassal received his PhD in Pharmacology. He is Professor of Oncology in University Paris-Saclay. Former head of Clinical Research, he is currently heading the Pediatric Research programme at Gustave Roussy Comprehensive Cancer Center in France, a large cancer centre with 12,000 new patients annually.
For the last 20 years, Gilles Vassal dedicated his research, clinical and training activity to the development of new drugs for children and adolescents with cancer. He co-founded three European networks, an EU academic Consortium for Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer (ITCC), the European Network for Cancer research in Children and Adolescents (ENCCA) and the European Expert Paediatric Oncology Reference Network for Diagnostics and treatment (ExPO-r-Net).
Gilles Vassal is currently ITCC chair, a network that conducts a comprehensive new drug development program from the biology and preclinical evaluation to the early drug trials in 16 EU member states and Israel. He is Past-President (2013-2015) and currently Board Member of the European Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP Europe) driving the EU Paediatric Oncology Policy agenda of several topics.
He is also Chair of ACCELERATE – a multi-stakeholder international platform to accelerate innovation for children and adolescents with cancer. Created in 2015, ACCELERATE is a partnership between academia, industry, regulatory agencies (EMA and FDA) and patient advocate groups committed to improve and speed up the development of innovative therapies.
In 2020, Gilles Vassal received the 5th Annual Leonard M. Rosen Memorial Award for Policy & Advocacy, granted annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to childhood cancer policy and advocacy, recognizing the importance and unique challenges associated with the care and treatment of children with cancer.
He has authored more than 250 publications, is an expert at the European Medicine Agency and member of several Scientific Councils.