Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, is full professor and Division Head of Digestive Oncology at University of Leuven (KUL) and University Hospitals Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium. He became in 2018 doctor honoris causa of the Medical University of Warsaw, Poland.

He is Member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine and president of the Belgian Foundation against Cancer.

He received several awards, amongst which were in 2019 the ESMO Award and the European Awards in Medicine for Cancer Research.

His research focuses on the development of new treatment strategies for GI cancers, incl. drug development and identification of molecular markers and diagnostic tools. He published > 606 articles in Pubmed and more than 1325 according Thomson Web of Science, leading to more than 80.500 citations and an H-factor of 128. In 2013, Capital magazine ranked him in the top 3 reputed colon cancer experts globally. Thomson Reuters ranks him in the top 1% for impact in his domain.

He co-founded ESMO GI/World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer, and is Chair of the meeting in Barcelona, Spain. He serves/served on the board or key committee of ESMO (executive board and several committees), ASCO (program committee and international affairs committee), ENET (advisory board), EORTC (executive board and chair GI Cancer group), ECCO (program committee), ESDO (president) and of the patient advocacy groups, Europacolon (medical director) and Digestive Cancers Europe (co-founder and executive board). He was chairman of the governmental colon cancer prevention task force in Flanders, Belgium and was president of Belgian Group Digestive Oncology (BGDO) from 2010 to 2016 and is now treasurer. He was president of FAPA (Familial Adenomatous Polyposis Association) until 2016 and is now vice-president of FAPA.