Draft:Stefaan Van Gool

Stefaan Van Gool (born October 25, 1963) is a Belgian paediatric oncologist and researcher. From 2006 to 2016, he was a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the KU Leuven. Between 2008 and 2011, he was part of a commission of the High Health Council in Belgium. He has contributed to spread awareness through numerous scientific publications as well as by participating in television and podcast shows.

Van Gool took up studies at KU Leuven in 1981, where he completed a doctorate in 1994. His research thesis focused on the connection between cytotoxic t cells and anergy. The international Society for Paediatric Oncology honoured him with the Schweisguth Prize for trainee research in 1995 and with the SIOP Award in the following year, making him an exception as a young researcher in the latter category.

Starting 1996, Van Gool proceeded to give lectures at KU Leuven, and became a professor there in 2006. He received many national and international awards for his research, which contributed to the treatment of brain tumours and other topics. He broke new grounds in dendritic cell vaccines for children and adults with glioblastoma multiforme, treating the first patients in Europe with it in 2001. Thus, he developed the entire process from base research to patient treatment in translational medicine. Between 2000 and 2007, he was part of the Competence Network for Paediatric Oncology and Haematology of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research in Germany.

Since 2018, he is Medical Director of the practice for translational oncology at the Immune-Oncological Centre in Cologne (IOZK), where production of dendritic cell vaccines in combination with oncolytic viruses was admitted for human treatment in 2015. His work focuses on integrating individualized multimodal immunotherapy into a multiphase combined treatment strategy against cancer.

Stefaan van Gool plays violin and saxophone; he has performed together with his colleague Stefan Pfister (oncologist) and his four daughters and wife for charity concerts of the project "A Second Chance for Children with Cancer".