Francisco X. Real (Paco) has been Professor of Cell Biology at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, since 2004, and he has also worked at Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), Madrid, Spain, since 2007. He obtained his MD from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1980 and his PhD in 1986. He trained in Medical Oncology at Memorial Hospital in New York where he was a Staff Physician from 1986 to 1988. He carried out his doctoral and postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Lloyd J. Old at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His work focused on the development of immunological strategies for the treatment of melanoma and epithelial cancers. In 1988, he joined the Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica, Barcelona, where he focused on the cell and molecular biology of epithelial cancers. He was also involved in setting up the Biomedical Sciences studies at Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

At CNIO, Professor Real's group has made significant contributions to the molecular mechanisms involved in pancreatic cancer and in pancreatitis and the molecular pathology and epidemiology of bladder and pancreas cancer. His work combines the use of patient samples, cultured cells, and genetically modified mice, giving a similar relevance to all of them. One important aim of the group’s work is to bring the fundamental knowledge generated in the laboratory to an improved understanding of disease and to develop improved strategies for prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of pancreatic and bladder cancer.

Professor Real has published more than 300 original papers and his work has been published in Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Communications, Nature Reviews Cancer, Gut, Gastroenterology, PNAS, JNCI, J Clin Invest, N Engl J Med, and Lancet, among others. He has received more than 29,000 citations (Google Scholar); his H index is 96. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of several institutions including the Discovery Research Committee of Cancer Research UK (London), Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers (Paris), CARPEM (Paris), Pancreatic Cancer Research UK (London), and Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (Brussels). He is an Associate Editor of Gut and Bladder Cancer. In 2015, he was President of the European Pancreatic Club.

Enrique Grande is the current Director of the Medical Oncology Program at the MD Anderson Cancer Center Madrid. Dr. Grande is focused on the research into genitourinary tumors and is actively involved in collaborating on the development of the Translational Research and Early Drug Development Unit. Dr. Grande was awarded his PhD for a pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic study of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in liver metabolism, and he holds a master’s degree in the molecular biology of cancer from the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO). A published author of more than 200 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, Dr. Grande is also the founder of the Spanish group for research on orphan and uncommon tumors (GETHI). Dr. Grande is the editor of several international journals and has been the editor of a range of books related to oncology. Dr. Grande has participated in the most recent trials in the field of genitourinary and neuroendocrine tumors that led to the approval of the new drugs we now have available.