Dr Marc Oliva is a medical oncologist by training and clinician scientist specialising in head and neck malignancies and early drug development.  

Currently, he leads the Head and Neck Cancer Unit and is one of the Principal Investigators of the Drug Development/Phase 1 Unit at Institut Català d’Oncologia, Barcelona, Spain. He is also an associate researcher and principal investigator at Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Barcelona, Spain.

He completed his medical studies in 2011 at the University of Barcelona and his Medical Oncology training in 2017 at Bellvitge University Hospital/Institut Català d’Oncologia, Barcelona, Spain.  Additional training included a 2-year Clinical Research Fellowship in the Phase 1/Drug Development and Head and Neck Departments at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada under the mentorship of L. L. Siu and A. Spreafico and a PhD in Translational Cancer Research from the University of Barcelona in 2024.  He completed a master's degree in Medical Oncology and Clinical Haematology and postgraduate courses in immuno-oncology with the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies [FOCIS] and University of Navarra, Spain.  He is also an alumnus of the ESMO Leaders Generation Programme (2022–2024).

Dr Oliva is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), ESMO and the European Head and Neck Society (EHNS).  He is an early-career investigator and member of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Head and Neck Cancer Group, part of the Head & Neck Cancer International Group (HNCIG) and a member of the Young EHNS Task Force.  He is an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Immunology, and a peer-reviewer for Oral Oncology, European Journal of Cancer and Cancers, among others.  He joined the ESMO Educational Publications Working Group in 2025.

As an early investigator, he has been Principal Investigator on over 50 trials since 2017. As a young researcher, he has co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed articles (12 as first or corresponding author) published in journals including Annals of Oncology, Nature Communications, European Journal of Cancer, Oral Oncology and Genome Medicine.  He has obtained several international and national research grants, including the ASCO Conquer Cancer Young Investigator Award.  His major research interests are skin cancers, molecular biology, the assessment of molecular markers for tumour progression in melanoma, biochemical and immunological monitoring, targeted therapies, vaccination treatments and immunotherapy of solid tumours and combination approaches for cancer treatment.