Solange Peters, MD-PhD, achieved her MD from the Medical School at the University of Lausanne in 1998, following this she attended the Microbiology Institute at the University of Lausanne until 2002, concluding with a MD-PhD thesis on new HIV drug-resistance mechanisms.
From 2002-2006, Prof. Peters did her residency in Internal Medicine, followed by a Fellowship at the Multidisciplinary Oncology Centre at the University Hospital of Lausanne. In September 2006, she sat the ESMO Examination in Oncology and was awarded the ESMO Best European Exam result. This was shortly followed by the SSMO (Swiss Society of Medical Oncology) oral exam November 2006. In 2013, Prof. Peters received the title of Lausanne University Private Docent (PD-MER) and was appointed Professor and Head of Medical Oncology at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine in Lausanne successively in 2015 and 2016.
Prof. Peters is currently in charge of teaching and patient care in the area of medical oncology and thoracic malignancies at the Department of Oncology of Lausanne University, where she is building a translational programme in collaboration with the molecular oncology laboratories of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and the Ludwig Institute.
Prof. Peters’ main field of interest is new biomarker discovery and validation in preclinical and clinical settings. She is also strongly involved and interested in multimodality trial building for locally-advanced NSCLC as well as clinical and translational cancer immunotherapy. Her current research projects as a chair are focused on multimodality curative-intent treatment of stage III NSCLC, combined immunotherapy for the treatment of NSCLC, SCLC, thymic malignancies and mesothelioma, as well as targeted therapies in oncogene-addicted NSCLC. She acts as the local PI of lung trials opened in Lausanne Cancer Centre, focused on phase I, predictive biomarkers and NSCLC immunotherapy. In addition, she is a co-PI of several other trials.
She is active in academic trials building and organisation, as well as related databases for the ETOP (European Thoracic Oncology Platform), where she is responsible for communication, scientific coordination and member of the Foundation Council.
Prof. Solange Peters is an active member of the educational programme within ESMO. Prof. Peters is currently President (2020 – 2022) of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and a member of the ESMO Faculty for Lung and Other Thoracic Cancers. She was previously Chair of the ESMO Women for Oncology Committee, member of the ESMO E-Learning and CME Committee, elected ESMO Swiss National Representative, and was also Subject Editor for the ESMO Guidelines Working Group. She was the scientific chair of ELCC 2016 and Scientific Chair of the ESMO 2018 annual congress in Munich.
She is in parallel active in IASLC and served as a Board Member. She is a member of AACR (American Association for Cancer Research) and EORTC (European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer).
Of national organisations, Prof. Peters is Vice President of SAMO (Swiss Academy for Multidisciplinary Oncology), member of SAKK (Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research) – where she was Co-Chair of the Swiss Lung Cancer Research Group from 2010-2019, FMH (Association of Swiss Physicians) and ASMAC/VSAO (Association of Swiss Interns and Residents) and was the president of FOROME (Association Romande pour la formation continue en oncologie médicale) for 5 years.
Prof. Peters has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, served as an Associate Editor of ‘Lung Cancer’ and was the Deputy Editor of the ‘Journal of Thoracic Oncology’ (JTO), the official journal of IASLC, until 2020. She was Editor in Chief of Cancer Treatment Communications. In addition, she acts as Associate Editor for Annals of Oncology, Associate Editor for ‘Frontiers in Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs’ and Review Editor for ‘Frontiers in Thoracic Oncology’. She is the author of numerous articles in peer-reviewed publications as well as book chapters and abstracts and the Co-Editor of the book ‘Perspectives in Thoracic Oncology’ (UNI-MED), the book series ‘Progress in Tumor Research’ (Karger) as well as new therapeutic strategies in lung cancers (Springer).
