About the Award: Professor van den Bent receives the ECCO Clinical Research Award in recognition of his contribution to the integration of translational research and clinical practice in the field of cancer.  

Recipient: Martin van den Bent

After completing his training as a neurologist Martin J. van den Bent joined in 1992 the Neuro-Oncology Unit of Erasmus MC Cancer Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands. With chemotherapy of brain tumours still in its infancy, he developed in the following years a successful program on medical treatment of primary brain tumours. In 2002 he became the head of the Neuro-Oncology unit, which in 2013 was integrated with the Neurosurgery program on brain tumours into the Brain Tumor Center at Erasmus MC Cancer Center. In 2007 he became professor of Neuro-Oncology at Erasmus University. He has been the principle investigator of a large number of international multicentre phase II and III trials on both high and low grade glial tumours, most of which were conducted through the EORTC Brain Tumour Group. Many of these trials included translational research focusing on the identification of prognostic and predictive molecular parameters of outcome to treatment, and which were key in the establishment of the standard of care of diffuse glioma. After being the EORTC Brain Tumour Group secretary from 1996-2002 he served  for 6 years as the chair of this internationally well recognized group. Between 2013 and 2016 he was the chair of the EORTC Clinical Research Division, and he is currently the Treasurer of the EORTC Board. He has established and co-chaired four editions of the bi-annual EORTC-EANO-ESMO educational course on brain tumours, and was between 2001 and 2003 the chair of the Dutch Neuro-Oncology Working group. Prof van den Bent has published widely both on the treatment of primary brain tumours and on neurological complications of systemic cancers. He wrote many chapters in textbooks on neuro-oncology, and is one of the coordinating members of the Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology (RANO) group revising the endpoints and response criteria of trials in neuro-oncology. Prof van den Bent is married, has three children and one cat.