Scott Lowe
Scott Lowe
Scott Lowe. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Cancer Biology & Genetics Program, New York (USA)
Keynote speaker
Lecture title: Tumor Suppressor Gene Networks
The Lowe laboratory focuses on cancer biology and genetics, with a particular emphasis on understanding the roles and regulation of tumor suppressor genes. Our approach combines innovative mouse models, efficient genetic engineering approaches, and genomics to characterize tumor initiation, progression, and therapy response in a comprehensive way. One ongoing area of interest in the laboratory surrounds the p53 tumor suppressor and research aimed at understanding its tumor suppressive action and the consequences of its loss. These interests have also led us to explore the biology and mechanisms of cellular senescence, a potent tumor suppressive program that has broad ramifications for human health and disease.
Carl June
Carl June
Carl June. University of Pennsylvania, Center for Cellular Immunotherapies, Philadelphia (USA)
Keynote speaker
Lecture title: Updates with CAR T for cancer
Carl June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. He is currently Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2011, his research team published findings detailing a new therapy in which patients with refractory and relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia were treated with genetically engineered versions of their own T cells. The treatment has also now also been used with promising results to treat children with refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Dr. June’s interests include lymphocyte biology, with a major translational focus on ex vivo T-cell engineering for cancer and HIV cell based therapies.
Michal Neeman
Michal Neeman
Michal Neeman. Weizmann Institute, Department of Immunology and Regenerative Biology, Rehovot (Israel)
Keynote speaker
Lecture title: Imaging the Yin and Yang of Vascular Remodeling: Lessons from Cancer and Reproduction
The aim of Prof. Neemans and her research group is to map the regulatory network controlling the growth and function of blood and lymphatic vessels. Novel MRI tools, accompanied by advanced optical modalities, allow us to non-invasively obtain dynamic information on activity of multiple steps in the angiogenic process and thereby improves our understanding of the key regulatory elements and critical checkpoints of vascular remodeling. Identifications of these checkpoints can be used as targets for intervention, and assist in pre-clinical and clinical development of such novel targeted therapies.
Michal Bassani-Sternberg
Michal Bassani-Sternberg
Michal Bassani-Sternberg. Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne (Switzerland)
Lecture title: The immunopeptidome landscape associated with T cell infiltration, inflammation and immune-editing in lung cancer
Prof. Michal Bassani-Sternberg received her PhD degree in Biology (2010) from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. From 2012 to 2015 she was a post-doctoral researcher at the Proteomics and Signal Transduction Department, headed by Prof. Matthias Mann at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. From 2015 she has been a group leader at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Lausanne, where she is heading the Immunopeptidomics Unit that is also affiliated to the Center of Experimental Therapeutics at the Oncology Department at the CHUV. The Immunopeptidomics Unit develops and implements advanced experimental and computational mass-spectrometry based antigen discovery workflows to support development of personalized cancer immunotherapy.
Mascha Binder
Mascha Binder
Mascha Binder. University Hospital Halle, Internal Medicine IV (Hematology and Oncology), Halle (Germany)
Lecture title: Gastrointestinal immunoncology – the quest for novel combinations and biomarkers
Mascha Binder is a medical oncologist. She has a focus on tumor immunology and precision cellular therapy from applied molecular studies to investigator-initiated clinical trials.
Kevin Brindle
Kevin Brindle
Kevin Brindle. University of Cambridge, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUK), Cambridge (United Kingdom)
Lecture title: Imaging tumour metabolism with 2H- and hyperpolarized 13C-labelled substrates
The current focus of Brindle’s work is to develop novel imaging methods to detect cancer, disease progression and to monitor early tumour responses to treatment. This has included the development of MRI-based metabolic imaging techniques that can rapidly detect drug target engagement and subsequent tumour cell death. Since 2006 this has involved the use of hyperpolarized 13C-labelled substrates and more recently 2H-labelled substrates. Our work with hyperpolarized 13C MRI has translated to the clinic.
Georg Halder
Georg Halder
Georg Halder. Laboratory of Growth Control and Cancer Research (VIB-KU Leuven), Leuven (Belgium)
Lecture title: Once there was the perfect anti-cancer target YAP...
Prof. Halder and his team are using the mouse and the fruit fly Drosophila as genetic model systems to study organ growth control, regeneration, and the development of cancer. His team contributed to the discovery of the Hippo pathway, a conserved growth control pathway that is often deregulated in broad range of different cancers. Halder and his group now use mouse models for liver cancer and Drosophila genetics to address questions of how normal cells evolve into cancer cells and how targeting the Hippo pathway can aid in cancer treatment.
Thomas Deffieux
Thomas Deffieux
Thomas Deffieux. Inserm, Physics for Medicine Paris Lab, Paris (France)
Lecture title: Microvascular and functional ultrasound neuro imaging
Thomas Deffieux is a research scientist from Inserm (the french NIH) working at Physics for Medicine Paris. He investigates new ultrasound imaging modalities from physics to image and clinical applications such as functional ultrasound imaging of the brain and its applications, new ultrasound probe geometries for 3D ultrafast imaging, and ultrasound-based biomarkers for liver steatosis.
Markus G. Manz
Markus G. Manz
Markus G. Manz. University Hospital Zurich, Clinic for Medical Oncology and Hematology, Zurich (Switzerland)
Lecture title: Combinatorial Adaptor-Mediated CAR T-Cell Targeting of Cancer
M.G. Manz studied medicine, obtained his doctoral degree and completed his medical training in internal medicine, hematology and oncology at the University of Tubingen in Germany. He conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University Medical School, and subsequently established his own research group at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, Switzerland. In parallel, he worked as an attending physician at the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland. Since 2009, M.G. Manz is Professor of Hematology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Zurich and director of the division of hematology at the University Hospital Zurich. In 2017 he became director of the department for Medical Oncology and Hematology at the University Hospital of Zurich. He also chairs the Leukemia-, Lymhoma-, and Myeloma-Center. Since 2020 he is chair of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Zurich. Currently he is also acting president of the Swiss Society of Hematology. His clinically and laboratory research focuses on healthy hematopoiesis in the context of aging and inflammation, as well as on hematopoietic malignancies and the improvement of respective treatment options, with a special focus on novel immunotherapeutic approaches. M.G. Manz received several prestigious research awards, and he advises on national and international organizations for the promotion of cancer research.
Anna Obenauf
Anna Obenauf
Anna Obenauf. Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna (Austria)
Lecture title: Towards mechanism-based combination therapies: Understanding tumor evolution during therapy response and resistance
Anna Obenauf, PhD, is a group leader at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna. Her lab aims to identify novel therapeutic approaches and mechanism-based therapeutic combinations for metastatic cancers and works at the interface between mechanistic biology and clinically relevant problems. The Obenauf lab is supported by an ERC Starting Grant, the Alex's Lemonade Stand Crazy 8 program, and the European Commission, among others. In 2019 she was elected a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, in 2021 she was selected as a member of the EMBO YIP program, and in 2022 she received the AAAS Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer Research Award.
Ioanna Pavlaki
Ioanna Pavlaki
Ioanna Pavlaki Nature Cancer, Associate Editor, Berlin (GER)
Lecture title: The insider’s guide to Nature Cancer
Ioanna Pavlaki is an Associate Editor at Nature Cancer. She completed her PhD in Molecular Medicine with focus on breast cancer at the University of Essex (UK). She then carried out postdoctoral work at the University of Bath (UK) studying lncRNA biology and chromatin architecture. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in R-loop biology at the Institute of Molecular Biology (Mainz, Germany). She joined Nature Cancer in 2021 and handles manuscripts in areas including molecular biology, genetics and epigenetics, targeted therapy and resistance and drug discovery.
Johannes Zuber
Johannes Zuber
Johannes Zuber. Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna (Austria)
Lecture title: A MAPK-controlled transcriptional repressor constrains T-cell mediated anti-tumor immunity
Johannes Zuber is a Senior Group Leader at the Research Institute for Molecular Pathology (IMP) and Adjunct Professor at the Medical University in Vienna. His lab develops and applies functional-genetic approaches (advanced CRISPR- and RNAi-based screens, chemical-genetic protein degradation, time-resolved transcriptomics) to identify and mechanistically study dependencies in cancer and tumor-associated immune cells. In ongoing projects, the lab is applying these tools to decipher the regulation and function of oncogenic transcription factors and to explore rational combination therapies.