Rolf Issels

Rolf Issels (born 25 April 1948 in Mönchengladbach, Germany) is a medical oncologist and biochemist. He performed the first regional hyperthermia in combination with chemotherapy in 1986. From 1978 to 2014, he worked clinically at the LMU Hospital in Munich (Medical Clinic III/Campus Großhadern) and was head of a clinical cooperation group of the Helmholtz Centre Munich. Since 2018, he has been working as a senior consultant at the Medical Clinic III.
==Education and career==
Issels studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and biochemistry at the Karl Eberhard University in Tübingen. He received his doctorate degree in 1977 with a haematological dissertation (Influence of T cell activity in chronic lymphatic leukaemia by various forms of therapy). In 1980, he received his diploma in biochemistry summa cum laude in Tübingen with a thesis about superoxide dismutase in lymphoma cells.
Instead of starting a career in holistic tumour therapy in the private clinic of his father, Josef Issels, he decided to do a comprehensive residency in internal medicine with a focus on medical oncology at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. In 1978, he began his internal medicine training with a focus on haematology and oncology.
With a scholarship from the German Cancer Aid (1980-82), Issels began experimental studies on sarcoma cells and heat shock as a Harvard Research Fellow in the laboratory of Herman D. Suit, Director of Radiation Therapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
After returning to Munich, Issels became a senior physician at the LMU's Medical Clinic III. He opened the first hyperthermia unit in 1986 with financial support from the Free State of Bavaria. The necessary human resources and technical equipment for this project were granted by the German Cancer Aid. In 1996, he was appointed professor and, shortly thereafter, head of a clinical cooperation group at Helmholtz Zentrum München. In 2011, he took over as head of the newly founded Sarcoma Center (SarKUM) at the LMU.
==Achievements==
On July 10, 1986, Issels performed the world's first regional hyperthermia with systemic chemotherapy without complications on a 36-year-old female patient with extensive pelvic sarcoma at the Großhadern Hospital. From July 1986 to July 1989, a tumour response rate of 37% was achieved in a phase II study in a total of 40 therapy-resistant sarcoma patients, whereby the temperature measured in the tumour significantly distinguished the responders from the non-responders. For the publication of these results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Issels was awarded the annual German Cancer Prize of the German Cancer Society in 1991.
The subsequent randomised, multicentre phase III EORTC-ESHO 95 study in Europe of 341 high-risk soft tissue sarcomas showed a significant survival benefit for patients who received a combination of regional hyperthermia with chemotherapy before and after surgery. The results led to the inclusion of regional hyperthermia in the treatment guidelines for sarcomas and to reimbursement of treatment costs by health insurance companies. The analyses of the immune infiltrates in the patients showed a significant increase in tumour-infiltrating immune cells with simultaneous suppression of immunosuppressive factors.
Therefore, there is major interest in a possible combination of hyperthermia with checkpoint inhibitors and/or tumour vaccination, in which he and his colleagues see a possibility for the future, as "cold tumours" represent the greatest hurdle to treatment success in the field of current immuno-oncology.
In addition to his clinical research, Issels has been involved in biochemical studies on the induction of heat shock proteins since 1982 and, since 1992, in the immunological significance of stress proteins for the immune response against cancer in a research group funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
In 2018, Issels was appointed Senior Consultant by Michael von Bergwelt, Head of the Department of Internal Medicine III.
==Awards==
* 1991: German Cancer Award of the German Cancer Society
* 2002: ESHO Merits Award of the European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology
* 2010: Science Award of the Working Group of Internal Oncology for the clinical part
* 2011: First Thaddeus Samulski Lectureship at Duke University Medical Center
* 2011: Spinoza Chair Award of the University Amsterdam Medical Center
* 2013: Honorary President of ESHO and Chair of the Clinical Committee
* 2014: J. Eugene Robinson Award of the American Society for Thermal Medicine (STM)
* 2019: Elected as a member of the Cell Stress Society International (CSSI)
* 2021: George M. Hahn Award of the American Society for Thermal Medicine (STM)
Category:1948 births
Category:People from Mönchengladbach
Category:German people
Category:Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni