The Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) is pleased to announce that Prof. Viviane Hess, Senior Physician in Oncology at the University Hospital Basel (USB) and Head of Prevention and Early Detection at the Basel Cancer League, has been elected as its new president. She will take up her post on January 1, 2026. Prof. Hess will succeed Prof. Pless, who chaires the SAKK with great commitment and expertise since 2022.

Prof. Hess has many years of diverse experience in oncological research and patient care. After studying medicine in Lausanne and Zurich and completing her clinical training in internal medicine and medical oncology, she spent time researching at renowned institutions such as the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Her research, which was supported by a research professorship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, among others, focuses on patient-centered therapy optimization, whether through new drugs or supportive measures. She is fascinated by generating research questions from clinical observations and, conversely, by quickly and optimally integrating research results into everyday clinical practice. She 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 Young Oncology Academy of the SAKK. In her clinical work as an oncologist at the USB, Prof. Hess is responsible for systemic therapies on the steering 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 prevented through screening, Prof. Hess also took over the area of prevention and early detection at the Basel Cancer League a good five years ago. With her team, she established colorectal cancer screening programs 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 multicenter trial on personalized colorectal cancer screening.

With her proven expertise, her network, and her vision for practical, independent cancer research, Prof. Hess is ideally qualified to take on the presidency of the SAKK.

We look forward to working with her and to further developing clinical cancer research in Switzerland together.