Over the last couple of months, we introduced the people and organisations behind the STREXIT2 Project on our social media platforms. In this article, we will focus on the project’s clinical trial leader, Prof. Dr Alessandro Gronchi and the clinical trial co-leader, Dr Winan van Houdt.
Dr Alessandro Gronchi, MD, graduated with high honours from Università degli Studi di Milano in 1992. He completed his general surgery residency at San Raffaele General Hospital, Milan, with a 2-year service at Lacor University Hospital in Gulu, Uganda. In 1998, he finished a surgical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, Milan, and visited Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2002. Since 2001, he has been chief of the Sarcoma Service and since 2022 chair of the Department of Surgery at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori di Milano – National Cancer Institute, Milan. Holding the National Scientific Habilitation for full professorship, he leads the Sarcoma database, focusing on soft tissue sarcoma, desmoid-fibromatosis, and GIST, involving over 11000 patients. Dr Gronchi is actively engaged in sarcoma research, serving as Principal Investigator in various Italian and International trials. He holds leadership positions in sarcoma committees and societies globally and co-initiated the Trans-Atlantic RetroPeritoneal Sarcoma Working Group. With over 520 scientific publications (Scopus HIndex 96), he serves as Associate Editor for multiple scientific journals.
Dr Winan van Houdt is a surgical oncologist/scientist at The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, treating mainly soft tissue sarcoma and melanoma/advanced skin cancer patients. He obtained his medical degree (MD) and a Master of Science (MS) in pharmaceutical science at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He did his PhD in the lab of experimental and surgical oncology at University Medical Center Utrecht – UMC Utrecht about targeting colorectal liver metastases. He subsequently trained as a general surgeon in hospitals in Utrecht and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, after which he did a surgical oncology fellowship focusing on sarcoma in Milan, Toronto and New York. After his fellowship, he was a consultant in the sarcoma and melanoma unit at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK. In 2017 he went to the sarcoma and melanoma unit of The Netherlands Cancer Institute, where he recently received a grant from the Dutch Cancer Society to start a translational research program for sarcoma. Dr Van Houdt is the chair of the EORTC – European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer soft tissue and bone sarcoma study group since January 2024 for three years. He is involved in many clinical and translational national and international research collaborations, including the EORTC STRASS2 study examining the role of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in retroperitoneal sarcoma.
