Michael Baumann, a Dresden cancer specialist, will be the new scientific director of the German Cancer Research Center.
The board of trustees at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg has unanimously elected Prof. Michael Baumann as chairman and scientific director of the German Cancer Research Center. Over the past years, Michael Baumann has proven to be a successful physician, cancer researcher and science manager. He has worked as the director of Radiation Therapy at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, the Institute for Radiation Oncology at the Helmholtz-Center in Dresden-Rossendorf and the OncoRay-Center. The employment contract has been signed, allowing Michael Baumann to move to the German Cancer Research Center, that he will lead together with administrative director Prof. Josef Puchta, as of November 1, 2016.
Michael Baumann will step in as the successor to Prof. Michael Boutros, who temporarily held the office of Prof. Otmar D. Wiestler. Prof. Wiestler took over the position as President of the Helmholtz-Association in Berlin on September 1, 2015.
Prof. Michael Baumann
© Philip Benjamin/NCT Dresden
Prof. Johanna Wanka, the Federal Minister of Education and Research says: "In Michael Baumann we have gained an outstanding physician and scientist. He is the ideal person suited to combine basic and applied cancer research. Only through this approach can the successful implementation of scientific findings be made available more quickly and effectively to provide for the patients’ medical needs."
"I am very grateful for your trust. To be the scientific director of the German Cancer Research Center is a great challenge and a responsible task. It is one of the leading cancer research centers in the world. With its outstanding scientists, the German Cancer Research Center offers ideal conditions for the understanding of the biology of cancer diseases and the development of more effective preventive measures, new diagnoses and more effective therapeutic methods in confronting this widespread disease. Beyond the strengthening of our fundamental research, it is one of our central tasks for the future that new methods of treatment can be tailored to the specific needs of the individual patient and that research results can be brought more quickly to them. In order to arrive at this point, the German Cancer Research Center has entered into strategic partnerships with leading university hospitals in Germany in the area of cancer research," says Michael Baumann.
Josef Puchta, administrative director of the German Cancer Research Center, comments: "I have known Michael Baumann now for five years and have worked closely together with him at the German Cancer Consortium. I am very pleased with this excellent choice and I am happy that we have won an internationally proven cancer specialist, researcher and science manager. Michael Baumann will contribute a great deal of knowhow and I have experienced him as a dynamic person over the years. I am absolutely convinced that together we will successfully continue to shape the future development of the German Cancer Research Center.“
Michael Baumann is Professor of Radiation Oncology at the TU Dresden, Clinical Director of Radio Therapy and Radio Oncology at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus. He also is director of the Institute of Radiooncology at the Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) as well as director of the OncoRay Center for Radiation Research in Oncology. In recent years he was the driving force for today’s excellent cooperation between the cancer research locations Dresden and Heidelberg. The most recent example is the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), Dresden, in 2015 that will be built in partnership with the DKFZ as a second location in addition to Heidelberg.
CV Professor Michael Baumann
At present Michael Baumann is Professor of Radiation Oncology and Clinical Director of Radio Therapy and Radio Oncology at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus and has treated cancer patients with radiation therapy since 1990. He is the director of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Dresden, and one of two co-directors at the Institute for Radiooncology at the Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), as well as director of the OncoRay Center. Moreover he is the founding director of the University Cancer Center Dresden (UCC) and speaker of the location Dresden in the German Consort for Translational Cancer Research (DKTK).
Baumann received his doctorate as a medical doctor in 1988 in Hamburg. Until the end of 1989 he was active as a researcher at Harvard Medical School at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In 1994 following his training in radiation therapy he qualified as a radiation therapist in Hamburg. In 1995 he led radiation oncology research at the Carl Gustav Carus Medical Faculty in Dresden. His scientific focus areas lie in the development of individualized biological radiation oncology, high precision/proton therapy as well as the treatment of lung, head and throat tumors.
Baumann has published more than 350 scientific articles in medical journals. He is the editor-in-chief of the leading international Journal for Radiation Oncology, Radiation Therapy and Oncology. In 2004 Michael Baumann was elected as a member of the Leopoldina National Academy of Science. He has received a number of academic awards, including the Gerhard Hess Prize (DFG 1997), the Michael Fry Award from the American Radiation Research Association (2002), the Regaud Goldmedal of European of Radiation Oncologists (2012) and the Röntgenplakette by the city of Remscheidt (2016). Michael Bauman was president of the European Society of Radiation Therapy (ESTRO) the European Cancer Society (ECCO) and the German Society of Radiation Oncology (DEGRO).
A photo of Michael Baumann is available for download at:
http://www.dkfz.de/de/presse/pressemitteilungen/2016/bilder/Prof-Michael-Baumann.jpg
With more than 3,000 employees, the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) is Germany’s largest biomedical research institute. DKFZ scientists identify cancer risk factors, investigate how cancer progresses and develop new cancer prevention strategies. They are also developing new methods to diagnose tumors more precisely and treat cancer patients more successfully. The DKFZ's Cancer Information Service (KID) provides patients, interested citizens and experts with individual answers to questions relating to cancer.
To transfer promising approaches from cancer research to the clinic and thus improve the prognosis of cancer patients, the DKFZ cooperates with excellent research institutions and university hospitals throughout Germany:
The DKFZ is 90 percent financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and 10 percent by the state of Baden-Württemberg. The DKFZ is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers.
