Matthias Ilmer is a visceral surgeon with a background in surgical oncology and a special interest in pancreatic as well as laparoscopic/robotic surgery. As an active academic surgeon/scientist, he tries to combine his clinical focus with basic and translational research in the field of cancer stem cells, the microbiome and repurposed drugs as novel anti-tumorigenic therapeutic strategies. He believes that this might shorten the time for novel concepts and improve clinical outcomes, especially for patients with a dismal prognosis such as in pancreatic cancer.