Josep Tabernero holds PhD and MD degrees from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. He is currently the Head of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Vall d'Hebron Hospital Campus in Barcelona, and Director of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO).
He also co-directs the VHIO Gastrointestinal and Endocrine Tumours Group and the Molecular Cancer Therapy Research Unit (UITM) and is the Principal Investigator of several Phase I pharmacodynamic studies and translation projects with molecular targeted therapies, as well as Phase II and III studies with novel chemotherapeutics.
Based on the idea that each tumour has an independent genetic identity, his group aims to boost molecular therapies targeting specific oncoproteins and accelerate more effective personalised cancer drugs for patients with genetic lesions or pathway dysregulation. One of his team's main goals is to establish new predictive markers of response to cancer therapies and to identify markers of primary (de novo) resistance and secondary treatment.
At the preclinical level, in collaboration with VHIO cancer researchers and physician-scientists, it develops new xenograft models with patient explant tumours ("xenopatients") in mice to mimic the patient's disease and study tumour development in optimal research models. It also leads research in the study of circulating biomarkers (detection and genotyping of circulating free DNA), and is dedicated to advancing the field of immuno-oncology through a broad portfolio of assays with some of the most promising targets in immune checkpoints and cytokines. By combining immune therapy with oncogenomics, his team aims to make cancer therapies more precise.
Dr. Tabernero is a member of the editorial boards of several leading journals, including Annals of Oncology, ESMO Open, Cancer Discovery e Clinical Cancer Research. He is (co-) author of approximately 450 peer-reviewed articles.
He is a past President of the Executive Board of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and served as President of ESMO 2018-2019. He is also a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and has been appointed to several Educational and Scientific Committees of the ESMO, ASCO, AACR, AACR/NCI/EORTC, ASCO Gastrointestinal and ESMO-GI/WCGIC meetings.