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SCIENTIFIC CLINICAL TRIALS COMMITTEE
The Scientific Committee is responsible for exploring areas of unmet needs in head and neck cancer, as well as for exploring and formulating important scientific questions and developing research protocols.
MELVIN CHUA (Rad/Clin Onc, SG)
Chair
Dr Chua is a Clinician-Scientist at the NCCS and Duke-NUS Medical School, and Principal Investigator of the Precision Radiotherapeutics and Oncology Programme, Division of Medical Sciences, supported by the NMRC Clinician-Scientist Award. He is also the Head of Department and Senior Consultant for Head and Neck and Thoracic Cancers, Division of Radiation Oncology, and Director of the Data and Computational Science Core at the NCCS. His research focuses on the development of Phase II-III clinical trials in nasopharyngeal (NPC) and prostate cancers. He also runs a laboratory that is involved in data science and omics analytics that help with therapeutic and biomarker discovery for these cancer types. He serves as Associate Professor (Tenured) of Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore; Visiting Professor of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, China. His key accomplishments include: ASCO-CSCO International guidelines on the treatment of locoregionally-advanced NPC; Co-Lead investigator of the randomised controlled trial of induction gemcitabine-cisplatin in high-risk locoregionally-advanced NPC; Co-Lead investigator of the randomised controlled trial of consolidation radiotherapy in patients with metastatic NPC who manifest a good response to palliative chemotherapy. Currently, Dr Chua co-leads the Singapore NPC Large Collaborative Grant, where he leads a platform trial – RIBBON: tReatment Individualisation By eBv stratificatiOn in Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A multi-arm platform study – for locoregionally advanced NPC and recurrent-metastatic NPC. Dr Chua also received numerous honours such as SingHealth Excellence Distinguished Researcher Award (2021), Conquer Cancer Foundation ASCO Merit Award (2013, 2015, 2016), NMRC Clinician-Scientist Award (Investigator, 2017, 2021), Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists (2013), and Fellow of the Academy of Medicine Singapore (FAMS, 2021).
ANA VARGES GOMES (Med Onc, PT)
Chair
Ana Varges Gomes is an oncologist and Chair of the Board of Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve since 2020.
She served as President Portuguese Head and Neck Study Group from 2014 until 2021.
She was Secretary of EORTC Head and Neck Group from March 2018 until 2020.
She was European Head and Neck Society Medical Oncology Officer from April 2018 until March 2022.
She was a member of Scientific Committee of ESMO Head and Neck in 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2021.
She served asChair for Head and Neck for ESMO-ASIA congress 2021/2022.
She was a member of Scientific Committee of AI meets Head & Neck Oncology 2021 and 2022.
Steering Committee Member of Make Sense Campaign since 2018
She serves as PI and SI in several Phase II and III clinical trials in Head and Neck cancer.
Invited assistant of ICBAS as professor of Medicine 5th grade and promotor of several Msc in Medicine since 2015
Author and Co-author of several scientific papers in the field of Head and Neck Cancer.
VICTOR LEE (Clin Onc, HK)
Committee Member
Dr. Victor Lee is currently Chairperson cum Clinical Associate Professor of the Department of Clinical Oncology, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. He is also Assistant Dean (Assessment) of LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. He graduated in the University of Hong Kong in 2002. After post-graduate residency training in clinical oncology, he joined the Department of Clinical Oncology, Queen Mary Hospital, The University of Hong Kong as Clinical Assistant Professor in 2008. He obtained his fellowship in Royal College of Radiologists in Clinical Oncology in 2010. Afterwards, he received further specialist training in interstitial brachytherapy for head and neck cancers and sarcoma in Institut Gustave Roussy in Paris, France and novel radiation techniques like stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy in Stanford University USA. In 2013, he received further training on stereotactic body radiation therapy for liver tumors at Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Canada. More recently in 2015 he was awarded HKCR 15A Traveling Fellowship and pursued subspecialty training in image-guided brachytherapy for cervical cancer and pediatric oncology. He was also awarded Faculty Teaching Medal of LKS Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong for his excellence in medical education in 2019.
His current interests include clinical and genetic studies on nasopharyngeal cancer, head and neck cancers, lung cancers, liver cancers and gastrointestinal cancers. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles in these respects.
MANUEL WEBER (Surg, DE)
Committee Member
Manuel Weber is Senior Physician at the Department for Oral- and Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery (Head: Prof. Dr. Dr. Marco Kesting) at the University-Hospital of Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU).
Dr. Dr. Weber graduated in medicine at the University of Regensburg in 2010 and subsequently studied dentistry at the University of Würzburg and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg until his dental degree in 2015. Since 2012, he has been working at the Department for Oral and Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery in Erlangen, Germany. In 2020 he finished his surgical training as Specialist for Oral- and Maxillofacial Surgery. One main clinical interest is the oncologic surgery of Head-and-Neck tumors with a focus on reconstructive surgery involving free soft- and hard-tissue transfer. Dr. Dr. Weber is coordinator of the Head-and-Neck tumor center of the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and a member of the interdisciplinary Center for Skull-Base-Surgery in Erlangen, Germany. His main research focus is on tumor immunology of Head-and-Neck tumors. He also supervises research projects regarding the malignant transformation of oral epithelium and is leading prospective clinical trials. An additional interest is the neoadjuvant immunotherapy of Head-and-Neck tumors. In 2021 he received the “Science Award of the German Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (DGMKG)”. Dr. Dr. Weber published numerous papers regarding Head-and-Neck oncology and is also coordinating national collaborative research projects.
PANKAJ KUMAR PANDA
Secretariat
COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP
MELVIN CHUA (Rad/Clin Onc, SG)
Chair
Dr Chua is a Clinician-Scientist at the NCCS and Duke-NUS Medical School, and Principal Investigator of the Precision Radiotherapeutics and Oncology Programme, Division of Medical Sciences, supported by the NMRC Clinician-Scientist Award. He is also the Head of Department and Senior Consultant for Head and Neck and Thoracic Cancers, Division of Radiation Oncology, and Director of the Data and Computational Science Core at the NCCS. His research focuses on the development of Phase II-III clinical trials in nasopharyngeal (NPC) and prostate cancers. He also runs a laboratory that is involved in data science and omics analytics that help with therapeutic and biomarker discovery for these cancer types. He serves as Associate Professor (Tenured) of Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore; Visiting Professor of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, China. His key accomplishments include: ASCO-CSCO International guidelines on the treatment of locoregionally-advanced NPC; Co-Lead investigator of the randomised controlled trial of induction gemcitabine-cisplatin in high-risk locoregionally-advanced NPC; Co-Lead investigator of the randomised controlled trial of consolidation radiotherapy in patients with metastatic NPC who manifest a good response to palliative chemotherapy. Currently, Dr Chua co-leads the Singapore NPC Large Collaborative Grant, where he leads a platform trial – RIBBON: tReatment Individualisation By eBv stratificatiOn in Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A multi-arm platform study – for locoregionally advanced NPC and recurrent-metastatic NPC. Dr Chua also received numerous honours such as SingHealth Excellence Distinguished Researcher Award (2021), Conquer Cancer Foundation ASCO Merit Award (2013, 2015, 2016), NMRC Clinician-Scientist Award (Investigator, 2017, 2021), Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists (2013), and Fellow of the Academy of Medicine Singapore (FAMS, 2021).
ANA VARGES GOMES (Med Onc, PT)
Chair
Ana Varges Gomes is an oncologist and Chair of the Board of Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve since 2020.
She served as President Portuguese Head and Neck Study Group from 2014 until 2021.
She was Secretary of EORTC Head and Neck Group from March 2018 until 2020.
She was European Head and Neck Society Medical Oncology Officer from April 2018 until March 2022.
She was a member of Scientific Committee of ESMO Head and Neck in 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2021.
She served asChair for Head and Neck for ESMO-ASIA congress 2021/2022.
She was a member of Scientific Committee of AI meets Head & Neck Oncology 2021 and 2022.
Steering Committee Member of Make Sense Campaign since 2018
She serves as PI and SI in several Phase II and III clinical trials in Head and Neck cancer.
Invited assistant of ICBAS as professor of Medicine 5th grade and promotor of several Msc in Medicine since 2015
Author and Co-author of several scientific papers in the field of Head and Neck Cancer.
VICTOR LEE (Clin Onc, HK)
Committee Member
Dr. Victor Lee is currently Chairperson cum Clinical Associate Professor of the Department of Clinical Oncology, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. He is also Assistant Dean (Assessment) of LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. He graduated in the University of Hong Kong in 2002. After post-graduate residency training in clinical oncology, he joined the Department of Clinical Oncology, Queen Mary Hospital, The University of Hong Kong as Clinical Assistant Professor in 2008. He obtained his fellowship in Royal College of Radiologists in Clinical Oncology in 2010. Afterwards, he received further specialist training in interstitial brachytherapy for head and neck cancers and sarcoma in Institut Gustave Roussy in Paris, France and novel radiation techniques like stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy in Stanford University USA. In 2013, he received further training on stereotactic body radiation therapy for liver tumors at Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Canada. More recently in 2015 he was awarded HKCR 15A Traveling Fellowship and pursued subspecialty training in image-guided brachytherapy for cervical cancer and pediatric oncology. He was also awarded Faculty Teaching Medal of LKS Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong for his excellence in medical education in 2019.
His current interests include clinical and genetic studies on nasopharyngeal cancer, head and neck cancers, lung cancers, liver cancers and gastrointestinal cancers. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles in these respects.
MANUEL WEBER (Surg, DE)
Committee Member
Manuel Weber is Senior Physician at the Department for Oral- and Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery (Head: Prof. Dr. Dr. Marco Kesting) at the University-Hospital of Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU).
Dr. Dr. Weber graduated in medicine at the University of Regensburg in 2010 and subsequently studied dentistry at the University of Würzburg and Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg until his dental degree in 2015. Since 2012, he has been working at the Department for Oral and Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery in Erlangen, Germany. In 2020 he finished his surgical training as Specialist for Oral- and Maxillofacial Surgery. One main clinical interest is the oncologic surgery of Head-and-Neck tumors with a focus on reconstructive surgery involving free soft- and hard-tissue transfer. Dr. Dr. Weber is coordinator of the Head-and-Neck tumor center of the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and a member of the interdisciplinary Center for Skull-Base-Surgery in Erlangen, Germany. His main research focus is on tumor immunology of Head-and-Neck tumors. He also supervises research projects regarding the malignant transformation of oral epithelium and is leading prospective clinical trials. An additional interest is the neoadjuvant immunotherapy of Head-and-Neck tumors. In 2021 he received the “Science Award of the German Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (DGMKG)”. Dr. Dr. Weber published numerous papers regarding Head-and-Neck oncology and is also coordinating national collaborative research projects.
PANKAJ KUMAR PANDA
Secretariat
Dr Panda is currently working as Senior Research Officer at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS). Dr. Panda trained in Dental Surgery at Institute of Dental Sciences, Siksha’O’Anusandhan Deemed to be University Bhubaneswar, India and did his Masters in Clinical Research from Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), Mumbai in 2016. He was working as a Medical Research Fellow at TMH (2017-18) whereby he was involved in several prospective clinical trials in surgical, medical and radiation oncology, cancer epidemiological studies and clinical audits. He has worked extensively on conducting pharmaceutical and investigator-initiated clinical trials, clinical research methodologies, regulatory affairs (Indian, US-FDA, and European Medicines Agency), bioethics and patients’ rights and safety in clinical trials. Prior to joining NCCS, Dr Panda was instrumental in setting up the Clinical Research Secretariat at South Asia’s first proton therapy facility at Apollo Hospital group’s Apollo Proton Cancer Centre (APCC) in Chennai. He successfully designed and initiated 15 prospective clinical studies on proton therapy for various sites such as head and neck cancers, brain tumours, prostate cancers, thoracic cancers, paediatric cancers, bone and soft tissue cancers, breast cancers. He is a faculty and steering committee member for the Australia and Asia-Pacific Clinical Oncology Research Development (ACORD) initiative in Australia and has been awarded the Duke Scholar fellowship for Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation (2017) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.. He has authored several national and international publications in high impact factor journals like the JAMA Oncology. He believes that providing affordable and world-class healthcare across the globe requires greater cooperation between oncology researchers and other stakeholders from low- and middle- income countries and high-income countries.
YIP PUI LAM
Secretariat
Dr. Pui Lam Yip presently serves as a Resident Physician in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore. She obtained her medical degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2014 and completed the specialist training in Clinical Oncology in Hong Kong in 2022. Dr. Yip is a Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and the Hong Kong College of Radiologists.
Dr. Yip's primary research interests include nasopharyngeal carcinoma and cancer survivorship.
MEMBERSHIP
Medical Oncology
Petr Szturz (CH)
Andy Karabajakian (FR)
Clemenec Toullec (FR)
Clinical/Radiation Oncology
Yip Pui Lam (SG)
Romelie Rieu (UK)
Ester Orlandi (IT)
Surgery
Christian Simon (CH)
Biostatistics
Tan Sze Huey (SG)