Dr Wolfgang Fecke is the Executive Director of the Association of European Cancer Leagues (ECL).
Wolfgang joined the Association of European Cancer Leagues as Executive Director in May 2025. He brings nearly 30 years of experience in life science research and drug discovery and leads ECL’s mission to reduce the burden of cancer across Europe.
Wolfgang obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University in New York where he investigated molecular mechanisms involved in cancer, he worked for the next 20 years as a scientist and group leader for pharmaceutical and biotech companies in Germany, the UK and Italy. Wolfgang returned to academia in 2015, supporting a translational group at the VIB in Leuven, Belgium.
In 2018, he became Director General of EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC in Berlin, the first European research infrastructure for drug discovery. Wolfgang was coordinator and work package leader of the EU-funded infrastructure projects EU-OPENSCREEN-DRIVE and ISIDORe, respectively, and Chair of the European Life Science Research Infrastructure Strategy Board. He joined the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg as Head of Science Operations in 2023, managing translational and clinical trial projects for the FightKidsCancer initiative. Wolfgang started a consultancy company in 2024 and still works as an external life science expert for the European Investment Bank (EIB, InvestEU).