Scientists and funders unite to tackle urgent projects across four deadly cancers at annual meeting.
(KIAWAH, SOUTH CAROLINA) November 5, 2023 — Today, Break Through Cancer, a collaborative medical research foundation, welcomes over 120 scientists and physicians from five leading cancer centers, as well as representatives from ARPA-H, to its annual Summit, November 5th to 8th in Kiawah, South Carolina.
The gathering arrives at an unprecedented moment for oncology, when breakthroughs in genomic technologies, machine learning, and novel therapies provide fundamentally new opportunities to make an impact on previously intractable cancers.
During the event, eight multi-institutional TeamLabs, with projects across some of the deadliest cancers—pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancers, glioblastoma, and acute myeloid leukemia—will present recent progress and push ahead with on-the-ground working sessions, assisted by members of Break Through Cancer’s Scientific Advisory Board of cancer experts from around the country.
Each TeamLab project includes senior and junior scientists from five top U.S. cancer research centers: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
What might have been competition becomes collaboration.”
— Tyler Jacks, President of Break Through Cancer
The Break Through Cancer TeamLabs operate using a model of “radical collaboration” to enable real-time data and discovery sharing, trust and willingness to critique each other’s ideas, and an urgent focus on translating discoveries for the benefit of patients. The TeamLabs are:
-Intercepting Ovarian Cancer
-Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer
-Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer (in partnership with the Lustgarten Foundation)
-Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
-Revolutionizing GBM Drug Development Through Serial Biopsies
-Eradicating Minimal Residual Disease in AML
-Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML
In addition, members of the Data Science TeamLab will present tools and analytic methods designed to maximize data-sharing and the discovery potential among the TeamLabs.
“What might have been competition becomes collaboration, what we call ‘radical collaboration,’” says Tyler Jacks, PhD, President of Break Through Cancer and Founding Director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.
“Scientists have collaborated for decades trying to solve problems in cancer, but this collaboration is really different,” says Lisa DeAngelis, Chief Physician Executive and Scott M. and Lisa G. Stuart Chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and member of Break Through Cancer’s Board of Directors. “The development of cross-institutional TeamLabs is a different kind of approach that we hope is going to yield results faster.”
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About Break Through Cancer
Break Through Cancer, founded in 2021, empowers outstanding researchers and physicians to intercept and find cures for several of the deadliest cancers by stimulating radical collaboration among the U.S.’s top cancer research institutions: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The Foundation’s Board of Directors reflects the five Break Through Cancer partner institutions, and its Scientific Advisory Board is comprised of U.S. cancer experts. The Foundation launched with an extraordinary challenge pledge of $250 million from Mr. and Mrs. William H. Goodwin, Jr. and their family, and the William Hunter Goodwin III estate.
Press contact:
Megan Scudellari
+1 800-757-9881