Professor Silke Gillessen is a Medical Oncologist with focus on genitourinary cancer.

She completed her training in Basel, St. Gallen, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. After returning to Switzerland, she built up the medical oncology unit for genitourinary cancer and headed the clinical research unit for oncology/haematology in Cantonal Hospital, St Gallen.

She served for two terms as president of the SAKK GU group, she chaired the EORTC Genitourinary Cancers Group, and has founded the Advanced Prostate Cancer Consensus Conference (APCCC).

Since 2018, Prof. Gillessen has been Genitourinary Cancer Systemic Therapy Research Chair at the University of Manchester and Honorary Consultant at The Christie Hospital, while continuing to work as Consultant in the Department of Oncology/Haematology at the Kantonsspital St. Gallen, Switzerland.

In January 2020 Prof. Gillessen was appointed Head of the Department of Medical Oncology, full professor at the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI) in Lugano and Director of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI) in Bellinzona, Switzerland.