Speakers
The invited speakers will represent different areas, like precision-based treatments, immunotherapy, late effects, and care.
We have gathered speakers from Swedish and international universities. Our speakers are from all career levels, from PhD students to senior scientists and clinicians. Moreover, there will be a poster session where young researchers can present their most recent results.
Key note speakers
Pamela Kearns - University of Birmingham
Pamela Kearns, PhD FRCPCH, is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Paediatric Oncology at the University of Birmingham, where she was Director of the University of Birmingham’s Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit from 2011-2023 and Director of the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences from 2021-2024. Her research is focussed of drug development and innovation in the design and delivery of national and international clinical trials for childhood cancers.
She is President of the European not-for-profit organisation ‘Innovative Therapeutics in Childhood Cancer’ (ITCC) and a Founding Board member of multistakeholder platform ‘ACCELERATE’, promoting drug development for cancer in children and young people. She was President of the European Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOPE) from 2019 -2021 and served in the SIOPE Board until December 2024.
In the UK, she chairs IMPACCT (Initiative for Multi-stakeholder Partnership to Accelerate
Children’s Cancer Trials) a national initiative seeking to improve UK trial delivery for young patients with cancer. She also chairs the Research Assessment Panel for Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. She is Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees for Cancer Research UK and also Chair of the Board of Trustees for A Child of Mine, a charity dedicated to supporting bereaved parents.
Julia Challinor - University of California
Julia Challinor, RN, PhD, MS Education, MS Med Anthropology, is an associate Adjunct Professor (volunteer) at the University of California, San Francisco, USA. Julia Challinor serves as a childhood cancer and nursing consultant for projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She is a long-time member of the International Society of Paediatric Oncology and is active in multiple global pediatric oncology initiatives, including the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer.
Kirsten Ness - St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Kirsten K. Ness is a faculty member at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, serving as the principal investigator for the Human Performance Lab and co-leader of the Cancer Control and Survivorship Program. She also holds a named professorship in cancer survivorship. Her research focuses on assessing physical performance and functional impairments, as well as developing interventions in exercise, physical activity, and nutrition to prevent and improve frail health in cancer survivors. Dr. Ness has received several awards, including the 2023 Gaylord Anderson Leadership Award from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
Martin McCabe - University of Manchester
Prof McCabe’s laboratory research focuses on paediatric brain tumours and sarcomas. He is chief investigator for rEECur, a European trial into the use of chemotherapy in recurrent or refractory Ewing sarcoma. He is also chair of the National Cancer Intelligence Network’s children and young adults clinical reference group, which analyses national cancer data in children and young people, and a member of the National Cancer Research Institute clinical studies groups for brain tumours and young people's cancers.
Speakers
Magnus Essand obtained his PhD in Uppsala in 1995 and received four years of postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute, NIH in Bethesda, USA. He returned to Sweden as an Associate Professor in 2000 and became Professor in 2009.
Essand has tutored eleven PhDs to completion of their thesis and published more than 80 original peer-reviewed scientific research articles, of which he is first or senior author of more than half, and 10 peer-reviewed overview articles as first or senior author.
Linda Fogelstrand is a laboratory physician specializing in the diagnostics of hematological disorders. My main interests are leukemias, especially acute myeloid leukemia (AML). I lead a research group focused on measurable residual disease (MRD) in children and adults with AML aiming to improve patient outcomes.
Petter Brodin is a Professor and specialist physician at the Department of Women's and Children's Health at Karolinska Institutet. He leads the Pediatric Systems Immunology research group, developing new technologies to map the human immune system. His research aims to understand variations in the immune system in both healthy and diseased individuals, particularly how the immune system is shaped early in life and influenced by microbes.
To achieve this, his team develops experimental and computational tools for system-level analyses of white blood cells and their functional regulation. As a clinician at the pediatric clinic of Karolinska University Hospital, he is particularly interested in immune system development in children and its dysregulation in inflammatory diseases and cancer. He also teaches in systems immunology, computational biology, and pediatrics.
Karin Enskär is a Professor of Paediatric Nursing at the Department of Women´s and Children´s Health, combined with employment as a Specialist Nurse at Uppsala University Hospital. Her research mainly concerns: Nursing care of children with cancer, Stress and pain during medical procedures, Children as next of kin, and Child and School Health services.
Daniel Bexell is an Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Division of Translational Cancer Research at Lund University. He leads the Molecular Pediatric Oncology research group and is the principal investigator at Lund University Cancer Centre (LUCC).
His research focuses on understanding the mechanisms behind metastasis and treatment resistance in the childhood cancer neuroblastoma, as well as developing new treatment strategies for this aggressive disease. In 2023, he was awarded the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant for his work in neuroblastoma research.
Mats Heyman is a Senior Lecturer/Senior Physician at Karolinska Institutet.
Laila Hübber's research focuses on cardiovascular diseases related to cancer, cardio-oncology.
Klas Blomgren is a Professor of Paediatrics at Karolinska Institutet since 2011. He is a paediatric oncologist with a special interest in brain tumours.