Speaker 

Prof Massimo Cristofanilli MD
Director of Breast Medical Oncology, Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian; Associate Director of Precision Oncology , Meyer Cancer Center (MCC); Co-leader, MCC Breast Cancer Disease Management Team; and Scientific Director, Englander Institute of Precision Medicine (EIPM) 

Prof Cristofanilli is an accomplished board-certified medical oncologist with more than two decades of experience as physician, investigator, researcher and leader. He has demonstrated original and innovative vision in the field of molecular diagnostics, liquid biopsy, translational research and drug development. He also has an extensive background in clinical trial design and is a key thought leader in the field of metastatic and locally advanced breast cancer.

Prof Cristofanilli received his medical degree from the University “La Sapienza” in Rome with Honours where he subsequently completed his fellowship in medical oncology. He completed an Internal Medicine residency at Cabrini Medical Center in New York and a medical oncology fellowship at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he also served as Faculty in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology for more than a decade.

Prof Cristofanilli has held several leadership positions over the years, including Chair of Medical Oncology and Associate Director of Clinical Research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center and Associate Director of Translational Research at Thomas Jefferson University.

From 2015-2021, he was Professor of Medicine at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he also served as the Director of the Breast Disease Team, Director of the Robert Lurie Cancer Center OncoSET Precision Medicine Program, and Associate Director of Clinical Research.

In addition to his clinical expertise, Prof Cristofanilli’s research focuses on biomarkers of endocrine resistance in breast cancer, liquid biopsies and novel drug development. His research in the areas of novel drug development, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and ctDNA have led to improved treatments for breast cancer. He is an internationally recognised expert in the research and treatment of Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC), the most aggressive and deadly form of breast cancer.

Additionally, he is the founder and President of the IBC International Consortium (IBC-IC), globally recognised for his contributions on the detection of micrometastatic disease in breast cancer, and a key opinion leader in drug development in hormone-receptor positive metastatic breast cancer. He has co-authored more than 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts.