Lars A. Akslen is a professor of medicine (tumor pathology) at the University of Bergen (Bergen, Norway), a senior consultant in surgical pathology at Haukeland University Hospital, and a director of the Centre for Cancer Biomarkers CCBIO, a Norwegian Center of Excellence. Dr. Akslen is working on biomarkers of the tumor microenvironment and how these can be defined and reported on tissue specimens from human cancers, in particular breast tumors. Angiogenesis and immune responses represent the main areas of interest.
Randolph S. Watnick is a trained molecular biologist and is currently a research associate at the Vascular Biology Program, Boston Children´s Hospital (Boston, USA), and an assistant professor at the Department of Surgery, Harvard Medical School. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Watnick continued his training as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Weinberg at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Dr. Watnick is now working on mechanisms of how the tumor microenvironment promotes cancer progression, with particular focus on roles of the immune system and vascular structures.