About the award:The SIOPE Lifetime Achievement Award is a biennial award granted to distinguished personalities for their dedication and scientific excellence in enhancing the research, treatment and cure of children with cancer in Europe. The awardee of the SIOPE Lifetime Achievement Award receives the prize during the SIOPE Society Session of every European Cancer Congress.
RECIPIENT: Professor Heribert Jürgens
Professor Heribert Jürgens, Director of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Muenster University Children’s Hospital, Germany, has over the last three decades, focused his research on sarcomas, primarily, malignant bone tumors in children and adolescents.
As Chairman of the consecutive Ewing Sarcoma Trials of the German Society of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology – GPOH – since 1980, he founded together with Professor Sir Alan Craft, Newcastle, United Kingdom in 1991 the European Ewing Sarcoma Intergroup Studies. These studies have greatly improved the treatment success rates and led to a large number of major publications, which stress the importance of intensive combination chemotherapy in Ewing sarcoma along with the combination of surgery and radiation as primary choice for local therapy.
Professor Jürgens has also served on the board and as chairmen of a number of national and international societies including GPOH and SIOP Scientific Committee, and North Rhine-Westphalia Cancer Society. For his dedication in improving day-to-day patient-oriented multiprofessional care in Pediatric Oncology, Professor Jürgens was recently awarded by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit).
Professor Jürgens officially retired in February 2015 and is now Professor emeritus at the University of Muenster, Germany.