Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center appoints the Catalan Josep Baselga as its new Physician-in-Chief

New York (ACN).- The Catalan doctor Josep Baselga has been appointed the new Physician-in-Chief of New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, one of the world’s most prestigious hospitals for the curing of cancer. Dr. Baselga is currently Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Associate Director of the MGH Cancer Center, and Scientific Director of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in Barcelona. He also holds a Chair of Medicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The Catalan doctor will start his new job in New York on January 1^st 2013, directing a team of 834 doctors that attends more than 123,000 patients per year. Dr. Baselga will be in charge of the hospital’s patient care delivery, medical strategic planning, and clinical and translational research programmes. He will combine it with his jobs in Barcelona, at the VHIO and the UAB.

“Memorial Sloan-Kettering is embarking on a new period of growth and development across our range of clinical programs, and in Josep Baselga we are fortunate to have recruited a leader with the vision, skill, and experience to work with us during this exciting time,” said Craig B. Thompson, the President and CEO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering. “Dr. Baselga is a dedicated clinician and a distinguished researcher. I know he will collaborate energetically and enthusiastically with his colleagues throughout this great institution to accelerate cancer discovery and help bring new and more-effective treatments to the clinic, while ensuring the highest and most humane standards in patient care” he stated.

This last Tuesday, the Catalan Government had awarded Josep Baselga with the Josep Trueta Medal for his significant contribution to the progress and improvement of healthcare. The Catalan doctor is the Scientific Director of Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), based in Barcelona. Since 2008, he holds a Chair of Medicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).

Josep Baselga studied in the Catalan capital. He graduated with a degree in medicine from the UAB in 1982, where he also got his PhD. He did residencies at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona and the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn. Dr. Baselga’s relationship with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is not new. He completed a medical fellowship in Internal Medicine and Oncology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York. Later he remained as a faculty member on the Breast/Gynecological Oncology Service from 1994 through 1996. He returned to Catalonia in 1996 to direct the Medical Oncology Department of the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, a position he held until 2010. From that year, he is the Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Associate Director of the MGH Cancer Center.

Dr. Baselga is a past president of the European Society for Medical Oncology, has served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and is the author or co-author of more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and publications. He is also a founding editor-in-chief (with Lewis C. Cantley) of the AACR’s new journal Cancer Discovery. He has received numerous awards and honours, among them ASCO’s Young Investigator and Career Development Awards and the Rosenthal Family Award from the AACR.