Professor Christof von Kalle has been director of the Department of Translational Oncology at National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) and German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) since July 2005, chairing the NCT Board of Directors.

As a physician scientist with a clinical background in hematology/oncology and more than 150 high-impact publications, Prof. von Kalle is an internationally renowned leading scientist in stem-cell research, mutation analysis, and gene transfer.

He is the president of the German Society for Gene Therapy (DG-GT) and board member of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT) as well as the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR).

Moreover, Prof. von Kalle is an elected member of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences (EACS) and spokesman of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) Network of German Cancer Aid.

At the NCT he coordinates overall NCT activities, with the primary goal of facilitating excellence in translational and clinical research. The department is home to internationally renowned research groups for stem-cell research, applied functional genomics, lymphoma research, molecular diagnostics, and gene therapy. Physician scientists are involved in clinical activities, patient care and innovative clinical trials. The department oversees the NCT Precision Oncology Program (NCT POP), providing individual patient treatment based on in-depth molecular analysis.

Prof. von Kalle has been a member of the ESMO Cancer Research Faculty Group since 2015.