Benedikt Westphalen

Member

EU Cancer Mission Board

Benedikt Westphalen studied Medicine and Molecular Biology in Hamburg, Philadelphia, New York, and Bern.

After graduating medical school, he started training in Internal Medicine at the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2008. In 2010, Dr Westphalen joined the laboratory of Timothy C. Wang at Columbia University in New York City as a postdoctoral fellow. His studies were focused on cellular plasticity and the origins of gastrointestinal malignancies.

After his postdoctoral training, he joined the department of hematology and oncology at the University of Munich, Germany, in 2013. In Munich, Dr Westphalen has focused on clinical and translational research in gastrointestinal cancers with a focus on pancreatic cancer and rare cancers. Since 2017 he heads precision oncology program at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of Munich, Germany. Since 2021, he represents the CCC Munich within the European Reference Network for rare cancers (EURACAN).

He has received research support from the German Research Foundation, the Universities of Hamburg and Munich, the German Cancer Consortium, the German Cancer Aid and young investigator awards from the AACR and GRG/AGA and serves as principal investigator and co-investigator on numerous clinical trials. Dr Westphalen has authored and co-authored more than one hundred research papers.

Dr Westphalen participated in the 2018 “ESMO Leaders Generation Programme” in 2018. He joined the ESMO Translational Research and Precision Medicine Working Group as well as the ESMO GI faculty Group in 2019. From January 2024 onwards, Dr. Westphalen chairs ESMO’s Precision Medicine Working Group. He currently serves as an officer for the German Cancer Aid (Deutsche Krebshilfe) and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Internistische Onkologie (AIO). In 2022, Dr. Westphalen was elected to join the EU Commission Mission expert group: Mission Board for Cancer. In 2024, Dr. Westphalen was nominated to join as a member of the Forum Zukunftsstrategie of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Updated: September 2024