Tumors and Tumor-like Lesions of the Hepatobiliary Tract

Professor Arthur Zimmermann is an internationally known specialist in hepatobiliary tumor pathology. After his training as pathologist at the University of Berne, he worked in basic research for several years, focusing on tumor cell growth regulation, tumor cell locomotion and protein kinase signaling. As acting director of the Institute of Pathology of the University of Berne (more than 150 persons work in diagnostics, basic research and student teaching), he implemented the most modern methods of cell biology and genome studies. Professor Zimmermann analyzed more than 20’000 liver specimens, detected several new tumor entities, and was an author or coauthor of more than 500 publications in this field. Furthermore, he was one of the editors of the very successful book Pediatric Liver Tumor (Pediatric Oncology Series Book, Springer, 2011).As chapter author, he participated in several well-known books, including Blumgart’s Surgery of the Liver and Biliary tract, the Oxford Textbook of Oncology (2nd ed., Oxford Univ.Press, 2002), Felix Lee’s Liver Cancer : New Research (Nova Publishers, 2006), Bleyer and Barr’s Cancer in Adolescents and Young Adults (Springer, 2007), Rodes’s Textbook of Hepatology (Blackwell, 2007), the WHO Classification of Tumors of the Digestive System (2010 edition), Saxena’s Practical Hepatic Pathology (Elsevier, 2011 ), and Pizo and Poplack’s Principles and Practice of Pediatric Oncology ( Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, 2011 ). Professor Zimmermann developed the world pathology review center for the multinational SIOPEL liver cancer treatment studies. Together with COG, SIOPEL is the largest Study Group for liver cancer in children, and many hundreds of patients are currently taken care of worldwide. In his function as head of the review and consulting center, Professor Zimmermann developed a new classification of pediatric liver tumors (the SIOPEL Classification).