Benedikt Westphalen studied Medicine and Molecular Biology in Hamburg, Philadelphia, New York and Bern.
After graduating from medical school, he started training in Internal Medicine at the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2008. In 2010, Dr Westphalen joined the laboratory of Timothy C. Wang at Columbia University in New York City as a postdoctoral fellow. His studies were focused on cellular plasticity and the origins of gastrointestinal malignancies.
After his postdoctoral training, he joined the department of haematology and oncology at the University of Munich, Germany, in 2013. In Munich, Dr Westphalen has focused on clinical and translational research in pancreatic cancer and early phase clinical trials. Since 2017 he heads the “Molecular Diagnostics and Therapy Programme” and the “Molecular Tumour Board” at the University of Munich, Germany. Furthermore, he serves as the medical lead for early phase clinical trials in medical oncology.
He has received research support from the German Research Foundation, the Universities of Hamburg and Munich and young investigator awards from the AACR and GRG/AGA. Dr Westphalen has authored and co-authored more than forty-five research papers.
Dr Westphalen joined ESMO in 2017 and was a participant in the “ESMO Leaders Generation Programme” in 2018. He joined the ESMO Translational Research and Precision Medicine Working Group as well as the ESMO GI faculty Group in 2019.