Jelle P. Ruurda

Prof. dr. Jelle P. Ruurda 

Professor in minimally invasive, oncological and (upper) gastro-intestinal surgery, and staff surgeon in UMC Utrecht.

Since the beginning of my career in surgery, I have been devoting every day to performing, investigating, implementing and promoting robotic minimally invasive and oncological upper-gastrointestinal surgery both clinically as in research.

In the last 20 years, I have performed and supervised almost 20 clinical trials and research projects, which have led to 280 publications in prestigious scientific, international, peer-reviewed journals, such as Journal of Clinical Oncology, JAMA surgery, Annals of Surgery and British Journal of Surgery. From the start of my PhD, which was one of the first in robotic surgery worldwide, my research focus has been on minimally invasive and robotic surgery and its application to upper-gastrointestinal surgery.

In my research for esophageal and gastric cancer, I have focused on imaging techniques for diagnostics and re-staging to evaluate treatment, on improving quality of life and reducing complication rates and on fast-track recovery and postoperative rehabilitation after surgery. In relation to the current proposal, I’m the founder of the Dutch biobank for esophageal and gastric cancer patients, which holds both blood and tissue samples of patients undergoing treatment, and dedicate my research efforts to defining the patient groups that benefit most from surgical treatment.

Also, I’m active in the Dutch surgical society, as chairman of the committee for science and innovation and as the chairman of the Dutch robotic surgery group. Next to this I’m the chair of the scientific committee of UGIRA (upper GI robotics association) and also a member of the educational committee of that organization.