D’Hoore André is chair of the department of Abdominal Surgery at the University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium. He is full professor at the Faculty of Medicine and contributes to graduate and postgraduate training. He is honorary fellow of the American Society of Colorectal Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Association, the Italian Surgical Society and is a European Board Certified colorectal surgeon.

He was been honoured with a doctoris honoris causa at the Coimbra University. He is a founding member of the European Section of Coloproctology and is the founder of the surgical branch of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (S-ECCO).

His major interests is minimally invasive surgery, rectal cancer and IBD. He has contributed in 300 peer-reviewed articles and he is a co-author of several books in surgery. He has an extensive clinical practise and yearly about 350 patients undergo resectional surgery for cancer in the department. There is a dedicated program of organ sparing for rectal cancer, the department contributes to the International Watch-and-Wait Database.

He started the Towards New Standards Symposium.