RCSI President Gerald O’Sullivan has been elected President Elect of the European Surgical Association (ESA) at its recent Annual meeting held in Venice.

Professor O’Sullivan, whose term in office as President of RCSI concludes in June, will take up his office as President of ESA in April next year. He will succeed the current President, Professor Janos Kiss of Hungary.

The European Surgical Association was founded in 1993 and is one of the European's most prestigious surgical organisations. Its members include prominent surgeons from Europe’s leading academic medical institutions. The primary mission of the Association is to be one of the premier organisations for surgical science and to provide a continental forum for presenting the developing state of the art and science of general and sub-specialty surgery and the elevation of the standards of the medical and surgical profession.

A graduate of the National University of Ireland Cork (NUIC), Professor O’Sullivan was appointed consultant surgeon at the Mercy University Hospital, Cork in 1985 following surgical residencies in Ireland and the US. Professor O’Sullivan has been a Fellow of RCSI since 1980 and was elected member of Council in 1998. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) Glasgow. A renowned surgeon and researcher, he was appointed Chair in the Department of Surgery at NUIC in 1999 and is currently Director in Chief of the Cork Cancer Research Centre (CCRC), an independently funded, multi disciplinary organisation which investigates mechanisms that may be applied towards the prevention of cancer development and the control of cancer spread. 

He has pioneered the development of three new treatments for cancer from the laboratory through to early clinical trial. He has developed several new surgical innovations and techniques which have been applied to minimally invasive and gastrointestinal surgery. He is co-holder of eight patents, several of which have been commercialised by the University Industrial Programme. His current research interests include the biological behaviour of upper gastrointestinal cancers and the development of novel delivery systems and targets of anti-cancer therapies and the optimisation of anti-cancer chemotherapeutics.

A distinguished academic and clinician, Professor O’Sullivan has authored and co-authored over 200 papers, ranging from the innovation of surgical techniques to novel oncological therapeutics and was one of the early pioneers in discovery and development of probiotic bacteria as therapeutics.