Our organisation

Our organisation

WSN Chairman of the board

Pr. Jean-Yves BLAY

Prof. Dr. Jean-Yves Blay is Professor of Medicine at the Université Claude Bernard from Lyon, France, and the President of the EORTC (European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer). He is the Chair of the French Sarcoma Group, and the Head of the national Network for Clinical management of sarcoma appointed by the French National cancer Institute (INCa). Pr. Blay has been the scientific director of the Canceropole CLARA and the National Representative for the European Society of Medical Oncology. He is currently member of the international editorial board of Lancet Oncology, European Journal of Cancer, and Bull Cancer. Pr. Blay has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles, in addition to over 200 abstracts and book chapters, with an H factor of 42 as of Jan 2011. His research interests focus on the biology of sarcomas and breast carcinomas and relation between tumour microenvironment and malignant cells with the goal of clinical applications in the fields of diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. He is also involved in clinical and biological research in the field of soft tissue sarcomas. Dr. Blay is an active member of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) and has served as member of Scientific Committees for the ESMO and AACR meetings.

Management

Every year, 20 international opinion leaders will meet twice to:

  •      Foster labelled trials
  •      Initiate and promote new trials
  •      Update information with regards to on-going trials
  •      Develop strategies and initiatives to improve lobbying activities towards Pharmaceutical Industry, Regulation Authorities, and Policy Makers

The WSN meetings will be organized during CTOS (Connective Tissue Oncology Society) and ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Annual Events.

International Clinical Research

The WSN will serve as a lever arm to push, raise and promote collaborative initiatives, multinational research projects such as European project, at the international level.

Collaborations

Beside the involvement of key international clinical research centres, the WSN will collaborate closely with every national groups and initiatives.

The ambition of the WSN is to build trials that will be implemented in large sarcoma research centers worldwide such as:

With this network, a large majority of European patients will have access to innovative treatments within their national research networks.

The WSN will use all the facilities offered by every partner of the network in order to enable the rapid development of the protocols, share methods for molecular diagnosis and a rapid activation of the different sites.