Alberto Sobrero has been the Head of the Medical Oncology Unit at Ospedale San Martino in Genova, Italy, since 2001. Before this, he was Associate Professor in Medical Oncology at the University of Florence and Udine.

After receiving his medical degree from the University of Genova in 1978, Prof. Sobrero took up the position of postdoctoral Associate in Medical Oncology at Yale University, Connecticut, USA. In 1983, he became Associate Research Scientist in Medical Oncology at Yale. Before returning to Genova in 1985, he completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Yale Affiliated Norwalk Hospital.

From 2002 to 2006, Professor Sobrero has been the Chairman of the Protocol Review Committee of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and has been part of the faculty of the ASCO-FECS Clinical Research courses at Flims for 7 years. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Oncology 2004-2006, has been part of the Scientific Committee of ASCO (2007-2008), the Educational Committee of ESMO (2008-2014, Chair of the GI committee 2012-2016) and was the Chair of the ESMO Nominating Committee until 2015. He is the Scientific Chair of ESMO 2017, Madrid, Spain and a member of the ESMO Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale Working Group.

His main research interests include gastrointestinal cancer treatment and design and interpretation of clinical trials in oncology.