Date of birth: 10/02/1944

BIOGRAPHY

Jan Vermorken is a Dutch medical oncologist who spent most of his career in Belgium as Professor of Oncology and head of the Department of Medical Oncology at the University of Antwerp. He retired from that position in 2009, but continued to work in a consultant capacity. He made important contributions to defining and improving the role of medical oncology in multidisciplinary treatment, particularly in the field of head and neck and gynaecological cancers. He also dedicated a significant amount of time to teaching, professional training and continuing medical education, with a strong emphasis on multidisciplinary practice.

Vermorken trained in internal medicine at University Hospital of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (VUmc), becoming a board-certified specialist in 1975. During this period, he worked under Lopez Cardoso, one of the first generation of internists to become strongly involved in oncology. Vermorken’s interest and commitment to oncology was further sparked by the appointment of Bob Pinedo as the first Professor of Oncology at VUmc in 1979. Pinedo was one of the pioneers of medical oncology in Europe, and founded a department of medical oncology at VUmc with a strong translational approach.

Pinedo showed Vermorken the importance of interaction between the clinic and the lab. He also introduced Vermorken to platinum-based drugs, which Pinedo had brought over from the US to treat a patient with testicular cancer – the first use of that drug anywhere in Europe.

At Pinedo’s suggestion, Vermorken went on to do his PhD in the pharmacology of platinum drugs, which he completed in 1986. By that time, the drug was exciting interest for its efficacy in ovarian and squamous cell head and neck cancers. This set Vermorken up for a medical oncology career that focused heavily on gynaecological and head and neck cancers.

In 1997 Vermorken was appointed Professor of Oncology and head of the Department of Medical Oncology at the University Hospital Antwerp, in Belgium. He remained in that post until his retirement in 2009, after which he continued there in consultant capacity. Throughout his career, he was very active in research and professional education, with a particular interest in teaching the principles of multidisciplinary working to young oncologists, as a leading faculty member in the European School of Oncology.

Much of his clinical research activity was done within the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). He joined the EORTC Gynaecological Cancer Group in 1980 and served as chairman of that group between 1983 and 1989. In 1985, he joined the EORTC Head and Neck Cancer Group, taking on the post of secretary of the group between 1995 and 2006 and chairing it between 2006 and 2009.

During this period he led practice-changing trials which showed the benefits of adding a taxane to cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil induction chemotherapy for patients with advanced squamous head and neck cancers, and adding cetuximab – the first targeted therapy used in this cancer – to treat patients with platinum-resistant recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer.

Vermorken also led one of the early trials into vaccinating patients with resected colon cancers in the adjuvant setting using vaccines derived from their own cancer cells to reduce the risk of recurrence. Though the trial, published in January 1999, showed significant benefit, interest in that “active specific immunotherapy” strategy waned due to what Vermorken described “a combination of logistics, complicated procedure, [and] financial hurdles.” He insisted however that the trial showed proof of concept, and showed that “the immunological response in the body to tumour cells is absolutely of importance.”

It would take a further 20 years, the development of mRNA vaccine technology, and proof of its feasibility and safety during the Covid pandemic, before interest in cancer vaccines revived in a major way. When it did, one of the first trials off the block, focused on an adjuvant colorectal cancer setting, very similar to the one used in Vermorken’s trial that had shown such promise two decades earlier.