Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Dr. Benjamin Ebert is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the George P. Canellos, MD and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. The Ebert laboratory focuses on the molecular basis and treatment of hematologic malignancies and its non-malignant precursor conditions, with a particular focus on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and clonal hematopoiesis. The Ebert laboratory demonstrated that lenalidomide, a derivative of thalidomide, binds the CRL4-CRBN E3 ubiquitin ligase and induces degradation of specific substrates. Subsequent research has examined novel mechanisms of drug-induced protein degradation that expand the spectrum of protein substrates that can be targeted pharmacologically. Dr. Ebert received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College and a doctorate from Oxford University. He completed an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received the William Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology, the Meyenburg Prize for Cancer Research, the Sjöberg Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the Korsmeyer Award from the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Aaron Goldberg, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Dr. Aaron Goldberg is an Assistant Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. He received a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude with highest honors in History and Science from Harvard University. He earned his MD from Weill Cornell Medical College and PhD from Rockefeller University, where he studied epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation with Dr. C. David Allis. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at MSKCC under the mentorship of Dr. Martin Tallman. In his current role, Dr. Goldberg cares for leukemia patients, leads translational research projects, and serves as the principal investigator for multiple clinical trials. His research interests focus on the development of novel therapeutic approaches for acute myeloid leukemia, including combination therapies to target residual disease, as well as evaluation of real-world outcomes of current therapy and genomic predictors of response. Dr. Goldberg currently serves as a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines Panel for myelodysplastic syndromes. He has received multiple awards, including a Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and an American Society of Hematology Fellow Scholar Award in Clinical Research.

Aaron Hata, MD, PhD

Massachusetts General Hospital
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Dr. Aaron Hata is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Principal Investigator of a translational and basic research laboratory in the MGH Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research. His research focuses on understanding mechanisms of clinical acquired drug resistance in oncogene-driven lung cancers the developing novel therapeutic approaches to overcome them. Work from his group has also yielded important insights into the fundamental mechanisms that drive tumor persistence and evolution during therapy. Dr. Hata is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, an Investigator in the Ludwig Center of Harvard, and a member of the Dana-Farber Harvard Cancer Center Lung Cancer SPORE.

Adrienne Boire, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Adrienne Boire, MD, PhD is the Geoffrey Beene Junior Faculty Chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. As a neuro-oncologist, she cares for patients with metastasis to the central nervous system (CNS), with particular focus on leptomeningeal metastasis. As a scientist, she runs a laboratory-based research program focused on the biology of the leptomeningeal space. Her team employs multi-omic analysis of human samples to identify cell adaptations to the challenging microenvironment of the leptomeninges. Leveraging mouse models, the team uncovers the mechanistic implications of these discoveries to establish novel therapies for CNS malignancies.

Alan D’Andrea, MD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. D’Andrea received his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1983. He completed his residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and a fellowship in pediatric hematology-oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. He also completed a research fellowship at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he cloned the receptor for erythropoietin, the major hormone for blood production. Dr. D’Andrea joined the Dana-Farber faculty in 1990. He is currently the Fuller-American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Center for DNA Damage and Repair, and the Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Dr. D’Andrea is internationally known for his research in the area of DNA damage and DNA repair. His laboratory also investigates the pathogenesis of Fanconi Anemia, a human genetic disease characterized by a DNA repair defect, bone marrow failure, and cancer predisposition.

A recipient of numerous academic awards, Dr. D’Andrea is a former Stohlman Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a Distinguished Clinical Investigator of the Doris Duke Charitable Trust, a recipient of the E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research, a recipient of the G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Alex K. Shalek, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML, The Data Science Hub

Alex K. Shalek, PhD (pronouns: he/him/his) is the Director of the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES), the Director of the Health Innovation Hub at MIT, and the J. W. Kieckhefer Professor in IMES and the Department of Chemistry at MIT, as well as an Extramural Member of its Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.  He is also an Institute Member of the Broad Institute, a Member of the Ragon Institute, an Assistant in Immunology at MGB, and an Instructor in Health Sciences & Technology at HMS. Dr. Shalek received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in chemical physics under the guidance of Hongkun Park, and performed postdoctoral training under Hongkun Park and Aviv Regev (Broad/MIT). His lab’s research is directed towards the development and application of new approaches to elucidate cellular and molecular features that inform tissue-level function and dysfunction across the spectrum of human health and disease. Dr. Shalek and his work have received numerous honors including a NIH New Innovator Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, a Searle Scholar Award, a Pew-Stewart Scholar Award, the Avant-Garde (DP1 Pioneer) Award from the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, as well as the 2019-2020 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award at MIT and the 2020 HMS Young Mentor Award.

Alex Kentsis, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Alex Kentsis is a pediatric oncologist at MSK Kids and cancer biologist at the Sloan Kettering Institute. He directs MSK’s Tow Center for Developmental Oncology, where his research takes advantage of modern technologies to improve our understanding of the biologic causes of blood and solid tumors. Together with colleagues, he has made discoveries about new therapeutic targets in young-onset leukemias and solid tumors, mechanisms by which diverse cancers can evade new treatments, and improved strategies to overcome treatment resistance. His lab has identified new mechanisms of aberrant gene control and resistance to apoptosis in leukemias, and mechanisms of site-specific oncogenic mutations and DNA repair dependencies in developmental solid tumors. Combined with the development of new functional proteomic methods and therapeutics, his work continues to define precise molecular mechanisms that lead to rational therapeutic strategies for patients with leukemias and solid tumors. Dr. Kentsis received his AB in Biological Sciences and AM in Biochemistry from the University of Chicago, followed by MD and PhD in Biophysics from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and New York University. He completed clinical training in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and pediatric hematology and oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and joined the MSK faculty in 2013. He has been recognized with the Arceci Innovation Award from St. Baldrick’s Foundation, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Scholar Award, Pershing Square Sohn Prize, Rita Allen Foundation Scholar Award, Investigator Award from Society for Pediatric Research, and elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

Alexander Ambinder, MD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Alexander Ambinder is an Assistant Professor of Hematologic Malignancies at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. He graduated with a BA in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis. He matriculated to Emory School of Medicine and graduated Summa Cum Laude and also obtained a Masters in Public Health from the Rollins School of Public Health. He went on to train in internal medicine at the Osler Medical Training Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He went on to serve as an Assistant Chief of Service (Chief Resident). He then did his oncology and hematology fellowship training at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. He specializes in caring for patients with acute leukemias and patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Alexander Ambinder is also an active clinical investigator with a particular interest in developing MRD-adapted therapeutic paradigms.

Alexandra Bird, BS

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Alexandra Bird received her Bachelor of Science in Biology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She began her career at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2019 within the gastrointestinal cancer center trials team. As a clinical research manager, she handles the development, submission, conduct and close-out of investigator lead clinical trials at outside hospitals to ensure compliance with federal and local regulations and policies.

Alexandre Reuben, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Alexandre Reuben, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head & Neck Medical Oncology at MD Anderson, and Co-Director of the Immunology Program at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Reuben obtained his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Montreal, Canada, where he focused on the role of the MHC Ib protein HFE and its impact on MHC I antigen presentation and CD8 T cell responses. Dr. Reuben then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MD Anderson where he investigated biomarkers and mechanisms of response and resistance to therapy in melanoma, as well as genomic and immune intra- and inter-tumor heterogeneity in melanoma and lung cancer. Since 2018, Dr. Reuben has directed a research lab focused on cellular therapy of lung cancer. Dr. Reuben’s lab primarily specializes in the discovery and validation of T cell receptors (TCR) for TCR engineering of lung cancer and other solid tumors as well as on the development of novel methodologies to improve clinical responses to cell therapy.

Amir A. Jazaeri, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Jazaeri is a Professor and the Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. As the Director for the Gynecologic Cancer Immunotherapy program, he has helped to establish a broad based immune-oncology program for gynecologic cancers that includes adoptive cell therapies, intraperitoneal immunotherapies, and translational immunobiology. His other areas of research interest include understanding the basis for minimal residual disease in ovarian cancer and innovative clinical trial designs.

Amy DeZern

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Dr. Amy DeZern is a hematologist and an Associate Professor of Oncology and Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. DeZern’s primary clinical and research interests are focused on bone marrow failure disorders. She has expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of aplastic anemia (AA), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) as well as acute leukemias. All of these are disorders of clonal hematopoiesis. She is an active clinician scientist who specializes in clinical trials of diagnostics and therapeutics for these disorders. She has been the principle investigator for over 40 single-center and multicenter clinical trials in MDS and AA. These investigator-led initiatives focus is on transplant therapies in AA (including the upcoming BMT CTN upfront trial for SAA) and novel therapeutics (Phase 1-3 trials) in MDS and clonal cytopenias. Additionally, Dr. DeZern is the deputy co-chair of The National MDS Study.

Andrew Aguirre, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Andrew Aguirre, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Dr. Aguirre leads a basic and translational cancer research laboratory that studies pancreatic cancer biology and RAS signaling with the goal of developing new therapeutic strategies for patients.

Andrew Lane, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Andrew Lane, MD, PhD, is a physician in the Adult Leukemia Program and a laboratory investigator in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is co-Leader of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Leukemia Program. He is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Dr. Lane’s career goal is to bring new treatments to patients with blood cancer. His laboratory research focuses on identification of novel targets in high-risk blood cancers like AML. Dr. Lane is a Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He has received several honors including the Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research from the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Brian P. O’Dell Memorial Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the Janet D. Rowley Memorial Medical Research Award from Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation. He was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 2021. Dr. Lane received a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University, and an MD and PhD from Washington University. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowships in hematology and medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Andrew McPherson, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLabs: The Data Science Hub, Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Andrew McPherson is an Assistant Attending Computational Oncologist in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and a faculty member of Computational Oncology. Andrew’s research focuses on computational methods for analysis of single cell genomic data, with specific focus on understanding genomic instability, mutational processes, clonal evolution, and the role of the microenvironment in cancer development and progression. During his doctoral research, Dr. McPherson developed methods for cancer genome sequence analysis, including detection and characterization of genome rearrangements, and inference of clonal phylogenies. Dr. McPherson’s postdoctoral research at University of British Columbia focused on the development of computational methods and infrastructure for a novel single cell whole genome sequencing (scWGS) platform, Direct Library Preparation. During his time at MSKCC, Dr. McPherson has led efforts to establish a production implementation of scWGS via DLP within MSKCC, and support use of the platform through collaborations with investigators throughout the institute. In addition, Dr. McPherson has contributed to several large scale single cell genomics studies of Breast and Ovarian cancer.

Angela Belcher, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr, Angela Belcher, PhD is the James Mason Crafts Professor and Head of the Department of Biological Engineering. Dr. Belcher attended the University of California – Santa Barbara for her undergraduate and graduate degrees. She obtained her BS in Creative Studies in 1991 and her PhD in Chemistry in 1997, unraveling the ways in which proteins can direct the material properties of minerals. Belcher joined the MIT faculty in 2001 as Professor in the Departments of Biological Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.

Anirban Maitra, MBBS

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Dr. Maitra is a Professor of Translational Molecular Pathology and Scientific Director of the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The arc of his career over the past two decades has been defined by studying the genetics and biology of pancreatic cancer and its precursor lesions, with a particular focus on early detection and cancer interception.He is deeply committed to improving the lives of patients afflicted with this devastating disease. He is a strong believer in the power team science and mentoring.

Anupriya Singhal, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Anu Singhal is a second year clinical fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and is a post-doc in the lab of Tuomas Tammela. She is studying how KRAS inhibition alters the composition of pancreatic cancer cell states within GEMM models. Her goal to is to understand mechanisms of adaptive resistance to KRAS inhibition and how targeting of pre-treatment cell states can prevent resistance from forming.

Ashley Kiemen, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Ashley Kiemen, PhD is an Assistant Professor of pathology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2016, a master’s degree in philosophy from the London School of Economics in 2017, and conducted her PhD studies in chemical & biomolecular engineering under the guidance of Profs. Denis Wirtz and PeiHsun Wu at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, completing her degree in 2021. Prof. Kiemen’s work focuses on development of novel deep learning and image processing approaches for improving our ability to map the microanatomy, immune profile, and genetic heterogeneity of large tissues. She is particularly interested in study of the development and invasion patterns of pancreatic cancer.

Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Dr. Benjamin Ebert is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the George P. Canellos, MD and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. The Ebert laboratory focuses on the molecular basis and treatment of hematologic malignancies and its non-malignant precursor conditions, with a particular focus on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and clonal hematopoiesis. The Ebert laboratory demonstrated that lenalidomide, a derivative of thalidomide, binds the CRL4-CRBN E3 ubiquitin ligase and induces degradation of specific substrates. Subsequent research has examined novel mechanisms of drug-induced protein degradation that expand the spectrum of protein substrates that can be targeted pharmacologically. Dr. Ebert received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College and a doctorate from Oxford University. He completed an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received the William Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology, the Meyenburg Prize for Cancer Research, the Sjöberg Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the Korsmeyer Award from the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Bert Vandereydt, MS

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Bert is a PhD student in the Varanasi group at MIT. He is an expert on interfacial engineering on the micro and nano scale for living systems. Through Break Through Cancer he is currently working on developing new methods for capturing STIC lesions from freshly-collected fallopian tubes in a manner that is non-destructive and also compatible with the SEE-FIM protocol by leaving both the captured cells and tubal tissue undamaged. This can open up a range of popular techniques such as scRNA-seq and organoid culture for studying early-stage ovarian carcinogenesis.

Betty Kim, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Betty Kim, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at MD Anderson. Dr. Kim’s clinical interests include brain surgery for primary and secondary tumors. Her research focuses on the design of novel immune nanomedicine and immunotherapy strategies to engage innate immune cells.  Her lab has also developed advanced bioimaging platforms that enable the tracking and characterization of specific immune interactions within the brain, in vivo. Her research has resulted in multiple patents. Her work has been published in numerous high-impact journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Nature Nanotechnology, and Nature Biomedical Engineering.  Her research is supported by the NIH and the Department of Defense.

Bo Zhu, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Bo Zhu, PhD, is an Instructor in Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC). He earned his bachelor’s degree from Jilin University and a PhD from Fudan University, China, followed by postdoctoral training under Dr. Jianjun Zhang at MDACC. Dr. Zhu’s research focuses on early-stage lung cancer, employing advanced techniques such as single-cell RNA sequencing, Imaging Mass Cytometry, and spatial transcriptomics (including Visium HD and Xenium) to analyze specimens from human and mouse models. His ultimate goal is to unravel the mechanisms of cancer initiation and identify novel targets for lung cancer prevention.

Britta Weigelt, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer and Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Britta Weigelt is an Associate Attending Molecular Geneticist and the Director of the Gynecology Disease Management Team (DMT) Research Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Her research interests include the identification of biologically-relevant subclasses of gynecologic cancers and their driving molecular alterations. Her researchs brings together traditional pathology tissue-based techniques with genomics and functional studies, and the determination of strategies for disease-monitoring in gynecologic cancers using liquid biopsy techniques. Dr. Weigelt has made key contributions to the refinement of the molecular classification of breast cancers, and her studies have led to the identification of pathognomonic genetic alterations, including the discovery and functional characterization of a novel FHL2-GLI2 fusion gene as a driver of sclerosing stromal tumors of the ovary, and of two novel tumor suppressor genes, ATP6AP1 and ATP6AP2, which established a direct genetic link between pH regulation and tumorigenesis. Her laboratory has co-developed the first single cell DNA sequencing approach that could be applied to formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue samples and developed a novel assay and bioinformatics pipeline for the identification of BRCA1 and BRCA2 reversion mutations in cfDNA of breast and ovarian cancer. She is an author of over 240 papers and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the journals of Pathology and Modern Pathology. Dr. Weigelt’s laboratory works together with other GYN DMT members on many fronts and facilitates translational research efforts, including tissue procurement and single cell processing.

Carol Aghajanian, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Carol Aghajanian, MD, a medical oncologist and authority on gynecologic cancers, is the Chief of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. She serves as Chair of the Gynecologic Cancer Committee of NRG Oncology. She is the Principal Investigator for the MSK National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN), Lead Academic Participating Site (LAPS) grant. Her research focuses on developmental therapeutics as applied to gynecologic cancers. She has earned several awards in recognition of her work including the MSK Louise and Allston Boyer Award for Distinguished Achievement in Biomedical Research (2003), the Visionary Medical Research Honoree by the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (2012), the Michaele C. Christian Oncology Development Award, National Cancer Institute (2014), the Harry Long Multidisciplinary Award, Society of Gynecologic Oncology (2017), and the MSK Willet F. Whitmore Award for Clinical Excellence (2020). Another major contribution has been the commitment she has made to serving as a teacher and mentor for an emerging generation of medical and gynecologic oncologists at MSK and NRG Oncology. She oversees a faculty of 21 physicians at MSK and has made a tremendous effort to identify and cultivate young investigators in NRG Oncology who will develop into clinical and translational leaders. Indicative of these efforts is the fact that since 2010, she been awarded four Teaching Excellence or Master Teacher awards from medical institutions.

Caroline Chung, MD, MSc, FRCPC, CIP

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: The Data Science Hub

Dr. Chung is vice president and Chief Data Office and Director of Data Science Development and Implementation of the Institute of Data Science in Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is a clinician-scientist, associate professor in Radiation Oncology and Diagnostic Imaging with a clinical practice focused on CNS malignancies and a computational imaging lab focused on quantitative imaging and modeling to detect and characterize tumors and toxicities of treatment to enable personalized cancer treatment. Motivated by challenges observed in her own clinical and research pursuits, Dr. Chung has developed and leads institutional efforts to enable quantitative measurements for clinically impactful utilization and interpretation of data through a collaborative team science approach, including the Tumor Measurement Initiative (TMI) at MD Anderson. Internationally, Dr. Chung leads several multidisciplinary efforts to improve the generation and utilization of high quality, quantitative data to drive research and impact clinical practice, including her role as Vice Chair of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance (QIBA), Co-Chair of the Quantitative Imaging for Assessment of Response in Oncology Committee of the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine-appointed committee addressing Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital Twins. Beyond her clinical, research and administrative roles, Dr. Chung enjoys serving as an active educator and mentor with a passion to support the growth of diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM, including her role as Chair of Women in Cancer (http://www.womenincancer.org/) , a non-for-profit organization that is committed to advancing cancer care by encouraging the growth, leadership and connectivity of current and future oncologists, trainees and medical researchers.

Challice Bonifant, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Challice Bonifant, MD, PhD is a Pediatric Oncologist in the Department of Oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University. She is a member of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and the Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Pathobiology Programs in the School of Medicine. Dr. Bonifant is a graduate of Wake Forest University and received her MD and PhD in tumor biology from Georgetown University. Her general pediatric training was completed as part of the Integrated Research Pathway at Johns Hopkins with further Hematology/Oncology fellowship training at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital. Her research focus is the design and development of cellular immunotherapies as a treatment for poor-prognosis cancers.

Charles Rudin, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Charles Rudin, MD, PhD, is the Deputy Director of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, leads the Druckenmiller Center for Lung Cancer Research, and holds the Sylvia Hassenfeld Chair in Lung Cancer Research. His current research program spans basic discovery science, preclinical modeling, therapeutic target identification, first-in-human clinical testing, and leadership of definitive national and international phase 3 studies. Recognition includes the NCI Director’s Service Award, the NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Lifetime Achievement Award, and election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Charlie Whittaker, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: The Data Science Hub

Charlie Whittaker is a research scientist and leader of the Bioinformatics and Computing Core Facility in MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Charlie and his staff provides expertise in bioinformatics, statistical support and powerful computational resources to the KI community. His facility has made numerous contributions to research projects in the Koch Institute and their work is frequently recognized in publications through authorship or acknowledgements.

Whittaker received his BS in biology from University of Vermont in 1990. His PhD thesis in cell and developmental biology was performed with Douglas DeSimone at the University of Virginia. He was a post-doctoral fellow in Richard Hynes’ lab at the Center for Cancer Research at MIT where he developed an interest in bioinformatics and computing. He then contributed to the Human Genome Project as part of Chinnappa Kordira’s group at the Broad Institute. He then rejoined the Koch Institute in his current role in 2004.

Cheng-Zhong Zhang, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: The Data Science Hub

Cheng-Zhong Zhang, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is also an associate member of the Cancer program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Zhang received his PhD in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Physics from California Institute of Technology. He did postdoctoral research in single-molecule biophysics at Harvard Medical School and in cancer genomics at the Broad Institute. Zhang’s research focuses on the etiology and evolution of chromosomal aberrations during tumor development and progression. Using a combination of computational genomics and experimental biology, Zhang and collaborators have elucidated how simple cell division errors can instigate continuous chromosomal instability that both cause oncogenic alterations and contribute to therapy resistance. Zhang’s long-term goal is to determine the biological mechanisms of cancer genomic rearrangements and use genome instability as a biomarker both for early cancer detection and for new therapeutic development.

Chetan Bettegowda, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Chetan Bettegowda is the Jennison and Novak Families Professor of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Vice Chair for Research for the Department of Neurosurgery. He is a surgeon scientist whose research is focused on understanding the genetic underpinnings of central nervous system (CNS) cancers. His clinical practice is dedicated to caring for individuals with brain tumors. He and his group have discovered several of the key driver genes involved in the pathogenesis of myriad of CNS cancers. Dr. Bettegowda has also been focused on translating these genetic discoveries for translational benefit by applying them for the earlier detection of cancers. He and his group have published several of the seminal papers in liquid biopsies including a landmark study demonstrating the wide applicability of circulating tumor DNA for the detection and monitoring of cancers throughout the body. He has also published extensively on non-plasma- based diagnostics for cancer detection.

Christine M. Lovly, MD, PhD

Vanderbilt University Medical Center
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Christine M. Lovly, MD, PhD, is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine with tenure at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. Her laboratory research is directed at understanding and developing improved therapeutic strategies for specific clinically relevant molecular subsets of lung cancer. Dr. Lovly is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (class of 2017) and a member of the Editorial Board for Cancer Discovery and JCO Precision Oncology. She serves on the Scientific Leadership Boards for the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer Research (where she also serves as Scientific Leadership Board Director), the LUNGevity Foundation, and the Lung Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Lovly serves on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines panel for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and is co-chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Thoracic Translational Science Center Lung Biology Committee. She plays several roles within AACR, including being an invited member of the Science Policy and Government Affairs committee, co-chair of the AACR Tobacco Products and Cancer Subcommittee, and invited member of the AACR Lung Cancer Task Force. In April 2023, Dr. Lovly was elected to serve a three-year term on the AACR Board of Directors. Dr. Lovly has received grants from the Damon Runyon Foundation, the V Foundation, LUNGevity, Lung Cancer Research Foundation, AACR, ASCO, and NIH/NCI. In 2021, Dr. Lovly was awarded the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group Young Investigator Award. In 2022, she was awarded the GO2 Foundation Asclepios Award honoring research pioneers in the fight to end lung cancer.

Christopher Douville, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Christopher Douville, PhD finished his doctoral work under the direction of Dr. Rachel Karchin in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins. His graduate work focused on developing machine learning methods to interpret inherited and somatic genetic variation. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins under the guidance of Drs Bert Vogelstein and Ken Kinzler where his research focused on designing novel molecular diagnostics for the earlier detection of cancer. Currently, his group combines machine learning and next generation sequencing to develop improved computational algorithms and molecular diagnostics. They have successfully applied their techniques for various earlier detection applications including multi-cancer early detection in blood, early detection of CNS cancers in cerebral spinal fluid, progression of Barrett’s esophagus, and progression of extraovarian lesions to ovarian cancer.

Danielle Hammond, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Danielle Hammond, MD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leukemia, Division of Cancer Medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC). She received her M.D. degree from The University of Ottawa. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto Internal Medicine Core Residency and completed her Adult Hematology Residency at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She is board-certified with The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in both Adult Hematology and Internal Medicine and subsequently completed a Leukemia Fellowship at the MDACC, serving as Chief Leukemia Fellow 2020-2021. Dr. Hammond is a member of the MDS Section at the MDACC, likely the largest clinical MDS program of its kind in the world. She is the co-leader of the Clonal Hematopoiesis and Leukemia Prevention Clinic there, which focuses on identifying, counseling, and investigating ways to prevent progression in individuals at highest risk of developing hematologic malignancies, particularly therapy related myeloid neoplasms. Dr. Hammond’s work also focuses on the intersection of chronic inflammation and the pathogenesis of progression of myeloid malignancies. She is the recent recipient of American Society of Hematology (ASH) and American Society of Clinical Oncology Abstract Achievement Awards. Dr. Hammond also enjoys medical education writing, serving for 3 years as an editor and contributor to The Microenvironment, a Canadian Hematology Society publication, and writing for the 2020 ASH News Daily.

David A. Reardon, MD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

David Reardon, MD is the Clinical Director of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Center for Neuro-Oncology. His research efforts focus on preclinical drug development and early clinical trials including first-in-man, as well as phase I and II studies. Dr. Reardon is particularly interested in evaluating promising agents for patients with newly diagnosed as well as recurrent primary and metastatic tumors of the central nervous system. His lab has concentrated on a broad spectrum of therapeutics, including molecular inhibitors against key mediators of cell signaling pathways regulating proliferation, survival, invasion, and angiogenesis of CNS tumors, cytotoxic agents, and immunotherapeutics. Dr. Reardon’s current preclinical and clinical trial efforts focus on a range of immunotherapy reagents including novel vaccine approaches and immune checkpoint inhibitors for neuro-oncology.

David Kolin, MD, PhD

Brigham and Women’s Hospital
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Kolin is an Associate Pathologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in Chemistry at McGill University, followed by medical school and a residency in Anatomic Pathology at the University of Toronto. He completed a fellowship in Women’s and Perinatal Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His research interests include the molecular characterization of carcinomas, uterine sarcomas, and SWI/SNF-deficient tumors of the gynecologic tract.

Denis Wirtz, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Through research at the interface of physics, biology, and oncology, Wirtz has made seminal contributions in cancer cell migration, cytoskeleton biophysics, and the nascent field of mechanobiology. He has developed quantitative methods, including particle-tracking microrheology, which are widely used both in academia and industry. He has also pioneered research in cell migration in 3D settings, bacterial cell division, and high-throughput cell phenotyping. Recently, he has developed CODA, a, AI-based method to image large volumes of tissues and tumors in 3D dimensions. Denis Wirtz has founded the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoaBioTechnology (INBT). He is the Director of the NCI-funded postdoctoral training program in nanotechnology for oncology and. Director of the NCI-funded Physical Sciences-Oncology Center (PS-OC) and the Johns Hopkins Cellular Cancer Biology Imaging Cancer (CCBIR) Center. Wirtz is author and co-author of 250 peer-reviewed articles published in journals such as Science, Nature, Cell, Nature Reviews Cancer, and Nature Cell Biology. His work at Hopkins has been cited >31,000 times and has an h-index of 94. Wirtz received the NSF Career award in 1995, was named Theophilius H. Smoot Professor of Engineering and Science in 2009, fellow of the Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2007, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2009, and fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2010, and member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. Wirtz received a physics engineering degree from the Free University of Brussels in 1988, and MSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1993. Wirtz has been the Vice Provost for Research of Johns Hopkins University since 2014.

Dipanjan Chowdhury, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dipanjan Chowdhury, PhD, is the Svanberg Family Professor at Harvard Medical School and serves as the Chief of the Division of Radiation and Genome Stability in the Department of Radiation Oncology. He is also the Founder and Co-Director of the Center for BRCA and Related Genes at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Chowdhury’s research focuses on deciphering cellular response to DNA damage, particularly DNA double strand breaks, with the goals of generating strategies for personalized radio and chemotherapy and countering accidental radiation exposure. His studies were the first to show that microRNAs can functionally impact the efficacy of DNA repair in tumor cells and influence specific DNA repair pathways. His laboratory investigates fundamental questions which have recently led to the discovery of uncharacterized proteins that profoundly impact DNA repair. On the translation research side, the Chowdhury laboratory has developed a platform to use serum microRNAs as non-invasive biomarkers for various pathological conditions including early detection of ovarian cancer.

Douglas Lauffenburger, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Douglas Lauffenburger is a Ford Professor of Bioengineering in the Departments of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology at MIT. He was the founding Head of the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT, and served in that capacity 1998-2019. The Lauffenburger research program centers on systems biology approaches to cell-cell communication and cell signaling in pathophysiology, emphasizing translational application to therapeutics discovery and development in cancer, pathogen infection, and inflammatory disease. Lauffenburger has co-authored the monograph Receptors: Models for Binding, Trafficking & Signaling (Oxford Press, 1993) and co-edited the book Systems Biomedicine: Concepts and Perspectives (Elsevier Press, 2010). More than 130 doctoral students and postdoctoral associates have undertaken research education under his supervision. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science and the American Scientific Affiliation. Lauffenburger has served as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Chair of the College of Fellows of American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering, on the Advisory Council for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and as a co-author of the 2009 National Research Council report A New Biology for the 21st Century.

Duaa Al-Rawi, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Duaa Al-Rawi completed her PhD in the laboratory of Michael Yaffe at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer research where she studied the biochemical function of BRCT domains. Her experience at the Koch Institute crystallized her desire to care for cancer patients and she transitioned to medical school at Stanford University after completing her PhD. She remained at Stanford for her Internal Medicine Residency and started Medical Oncology Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2020. Her clinical focus is gynecologic malignancies where she is mentored by Dr. Carol Aghajanian. Her research is focused on modeling and detecting early invasive ovarian cancer; she is jointly mentored by Dr. Sohrab Shah and Dr. Samuel Bakhoum.

E. Antonio (Nino) Chiocca, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Chiocca is the Harvey Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and is the Chairman of Neurosurgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was previously Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at The Ohio State University Medical Center. He has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1996. He has more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, some in journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Molecular Cell, and PNAS. He has elucidated how viruses with specific gene mutations will replicate selectively in tumors with a specific defect in a tumor suppressor pathway. He has also shown how modulation of innate immunity will improve replication of these tumor-selective viruses. More recently, he has elucidated how specific microRNAs (mir128 and mir451) regulate cellular target transcripts to permit tumor cell self-renewal and invasion into brain. He has been PI of three multi-institutional clinical trials of gene and viral therapies for malignant gliomas. He has been a permanent member of NIH study sections (NCI DT and NCI P01-D clinical studies), and a member of the federal recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC/OBA) and of the NINDS Scientific Advisory Council. In 2013, he was elected Vice President of the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO). He was President of SNO from 2015-2017 and President of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery (2018-2019). He is currently the Secretary of the American Association of Neurological Surgery. He also serves on the scientific advisory board of several foundations (Sontag and American Brain Tumor Association). He received The Grass Award in 2007, the Farber Award in 2008, the Bittner Award in 2013, and the Gerlas Award in 2016. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2005), is an AAAS fellow (2005) and was also elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) in 2014. In 2018, he received the Charles B. Wilson Career Achievement Award from the CNS/AANS Section on Tumors and the Victor Levin Award for Achievement in neuro-oncology from SNO. He also has served on multiple editorial boards and is the current Tumor Section Editor for Neurosurgery and Associate Editor for Neuro-oncology. He was on the editorial board of Journal of Neurosurgery from 2005 until 2012.

Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Dr. Eileen M. O’Reilly holds the Winthrop Rockefeller Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). She serves as the Section Head for Hepatopancreaticobiliary/ Neuroendocrine Cancers, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Co-Director for Medical Initiatives at the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer and is an Attending Physician and Member at MSK and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. O’Reilly has pancreatic cancer as the major focus of her research and clinical activities. Research directions include integration of molecular and genetic-based therapies for pancreas cancer along with development of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies and identification of biomarkers for therapy selection. Dr. O’Reilly is the Principal Investigator of multiple phase I, II, III trials in pancreas cancer and is the Co-PI of the MSK Pancreas Cancer SPORE (Specialized Program of Oncology Research Excellence). Dr. O’Reilly’s is Chair of the Human Research Protection Program/IRB at MSK. She serves as the Co-Chair of the NCI Alliance Co-Operative Group Gastrointestinal Cancers Committee and is a member of the NCI Gastrointestinal Cancers Steering Committee (GISC), Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Guidelines Committee and the Board of the National Pancreas Foundation.

Elana Fertig, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab(s): The Data Science Hub, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Dr. Fertig directs a hybrid computational and experimental lab in the systems biology of cancer and therapeutic response to develop a new predictive medicine paradigm in cancer. Her wet lab develops time course models of therapeutic resistance and performs single cell technology development. Her computational methods blend mathematical modeling and artificial intelligence to determine the biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of therapeutic resistance from multi-platform genomics data. These techniques have broad applicability to the analysis of clinical biospecimens, developmental biology, and neuroscience. Dr. Fertig is a Professor of Oncology and Director of the Division / Associate Cancer Center Director in Quantitative Sciences, co-Director of the Convergence Institute, and co-Director of the Single-Cell Training and Analysis Center. She has secondary appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics and Statistics, affiliations in the Institute of Computational Medicine, Center for Computational Genomics, Machine Learning, Mathematical Institute for Data Science, and the Center for Computational Biology and is a Daniel Nathans Scientific Innovator. Prior to entering the field of computational cancer biology, Dr Fertig was a NASA research fellow in numerical weather prediction.

Elias-Ramzey Karnoub, BA

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab:Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Elias-Ramzey Karnoub joined the Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue Lab and Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan Kettering in May 2021 after graduating from Rutgers University-New Brunswick where he majored in Biomathematics and Statistics. During his time as an undergraduate, he spent time working both in wet and dry labs to understand cancer hotspots and regulatory networks. Since joining MSKCC, he has been working with multiple types of sequencing technologies and their applications in pancreatic cancer. In particular, he contributes to various trials and research projects through processing and analyzing patient samples for single cell RNA sequencing as well as single cell DNA sequencing.

Emma Dyer, MS

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies, The Data Science Hub

Emma C. Dyer is a PhD student in the Harvard Biological Sciences in Public Health program studying in the laboratory of Dr. Franziska Michor at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from The University of Chicago where she studied Biological Sciences and Bioinformatics. She completed her Master’s work under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Pearson with a focus in computational pathology. Her work applied deep learning models for biomarker identification and survival prediction of patients with head and neck cancers. Currently she applies spatial statistics and deep learning methods to spatial multi-omics datasets to study tumor evolution and heterogeneity.

Eric Christenson, MD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Eric Christenson, MD, is an early career medical oncologist at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Christenson received his bachelor’s degree from Villanova University and his MD from Drexel University College of Medicine. Upon graduation, Dr. Christenson performed residency training in the Osler Internal Medicine program at Johns Hopkins. He stayed on at Johns Hopkins for Medical Oncology Fellowship training and was a chief fellow.
Dr. Christenson’s work is focused on translating basic science discoveries and clinical observations into therapeutic strategies to improve patient outcomes in pancreatic and colorectal cancer. Dr. Christenson is passionate about the conduct of trials with strong clinical and correlative endpoints. Evaluation of the clinical and correlative data from these trials will then be used to generate additional hypotheses that will be tested in preclinical models and ultimately brought back to the clinic.
Dr. Christenson and has work have received numerous awards including an ASCO Young Investigator Award, a MacMillan Pathway to Independence program awardee, MD Anderson GI spore career enhancement program awardee, and receipt of Swim Across America funding.

Erin Schenk, MD, PhD

University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Ethan Cerami, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: The Data Science Hub

Ethan Cerami, Ph.D. is the Director of the Knowledge Systems Group and Principal Scientist in the Department of Data Sciences at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Prior to joining Dana-Farber, he was the Director of Computational Biology at Blueprint Medicines, and Director of Cancer Informatics Development at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). While at MSKCC, he co-founded the cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics, and his group remains active in its continued development. He is currently the Co-PI of the Human Tumor Atlas Network (HTAN) Data Coordinating Center, Co-PI of the National Cancer Institute Cancer Immunologic Data Commons (CIDC), and the Co-PI of the DFCI MatchMiner platform for algorithmically matching patients to precision cancer medicine trials. Dr. Cerami has a MS in Computer Science from New York University and a PhD in Computational Biology from Cornell University.

Eytan M. Stein, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Eytan M. Stein, MD is the Chief of the Leukemia Service, Associate Attending Physician, Clinical Investigator, and Director of the Program for Drug Development in Leukemia on the Leukemia Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He conducts novel, phase I clinical trials of compounds that target the genetic and epigenetic basis of myeloid malignancies. Dr. Stein led the clinical studies of the IDH2 inhibitor Enasidenib and the IDH1 Inhibitor Ivosidenib in patients with relapsed and refractory AML that led to their FDA approval in 2017 and 2018, respectively. He also leads a variety of phase 1 clinical trials and serves as the lead investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering for the BEAT AML master clinical trial. His current research focuses on elucidating mechanisms of resistance to IDH inhibitors and the use of Menin inhibitors in patients with MLL-rearranged acute leukemia. His work has been published in journals such as Nature, Nature Medicine, The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Oncology, Cancer Discovery and Blood. In addition, he serves on the Editorial Boards of Blood and Leukemia and Lymphoma.

Farhad Ravandi, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Farhad Ravandi, MD, is Janiece and Stephen A. Lasher Professor of Medicine and chief of the Section of Acute Myeloid Leukemia in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston. He graduated from the University of London, UK, and undertook residency and fellowship training at Baylor College of Medicine and MDACC. During this time, he specialized in the management of hematologic malignancies and stem cell transplantation. He then moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago as director of the leukemia program and interim director of stem cell transplant program for 3 years, until he joined the MDACC Department of Leukemia in 2003. He has been board certified in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology. Dr Ravandi’s main areas of interests are therapy of acute myeloid leukemia, as well as rare leukemias, including Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia, hairy cell leukemia, and T-cell leukemias. He has authored several book chapters and many articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is a member of several professional societies, including the American Society of Hematology, American Society of Clinical Oncology, and Society of Hematologic Oncology, and is a member of the editorial boards of several journals.

Fiona Chatterjee, BA

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Fiona Chatterjee is currently a graduate student in Stefani Spranger’s lab at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, where she is studying the role of type I interferon in inducing productive immune responses against ovarian cancer. She holds a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley.

Forest White, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Forest White, PhD is the Ned C. and Janet Bemis Rice Professor of Biological Engineering in the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After receiving his PhD from Florida State University in 1997 and completing a post-doc at the University of Virginia from 1997-1999, he joined MDS Proteomics as a Senior Research Scientist and developed phosphoproteomics capabilities for the company. In July 2003 he joined the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Research in the White lab is focused on understanding how protein phosphorylation-mediated signaling networks regulate normal and pathophysiological cell biology. Specific applications include novel drug target discovery in glioblastoma and melanoma, analysis of mechanisms underlying therapeutic resistance and metastasis in cancer, and mechanisms underlying development of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as Type II diabetes. In addition to his appointment in the Department of Biological Engineering, Forest is a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Franziska Michor, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies
Dr. Michor is a Professor of Computational Biology in the Department of Data Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. Dr. Michor obtained her undergraduate training in mathematics and molecular biology from the University of Vienna, Austria, and her PhD from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Afterwards, she was awarded a fellowship from the Harvard Society of Fellows. From 2007 until 2010, she was an Assistant Professor in the Computational Biology Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Michor is the director of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Evolution. She has been the recipient of the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Alice Hamilton Award, the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, the 36th Annual AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research, and others. Dr. Michor’s laboratory investigates the evolutionary dynamics of cancer initiation, progression, response to therapy, and emergence of resistance.

Gabriel Ghiaur, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Gabriel Ghiaur, M.D., PhD. is an Associate Professor of Oncology and Medicine with a strong fundamental research interest in hematopoiesis and a clinical focus on the biology of acute leukemia and minimal residual disease. Dr. Ghiaur has received his medical degree from UMF Carol Davila, Bucharest, Romania and his Ph.D. in Molecular and Developmental Biology from University of Cincinnati under the guidance of Dr. David Williams. After completing his clinical training in hematology at Johns Hopkins, he joined the Adult Leukemia Program at Johns Hopkins. The Ghiaur Laboratory is focused on investigating how the bone marrow microenvironment controls stem biology with an eye towards better understanding of normal stem cell behavior as well as persistence of minimal residual disease in hematological malignancies. Using a combination of cell biology techniques and single cell genomic and transcriptomic tools as well as access to primary human tissue and innovative patient derived xenograft models, the Ghiaur Lab aims to develop and test clinical tools that target the bone marrow microenvironment to mitigate hematopoietic aging and to improve outcomes hematological malignancies. Dr. Ghiaur has been the recipient of various honors, including the Passano Clinician Scientist Award and the American Society of Clinical Investigator Young Physician Scientist Award and he was elected as an Ambassador Alumni of UMF Carol Davila.

Ghayas Issa, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Dr. Issa is a clinical investigator with a specialized focus on leukemia. He conducts translational research in the Departments of Leukemia and Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson. His research involves analysis of leukemia genetics in order to better understand therapeutic vulnerabilities, causes of progression and response to treatment. Through an improved understanding of leukemia underpinnings, he aims to develop safe and effective novel therapies. He is co-principal investigator of the MD Anderson Moon Shot project focused on MRD in AML. He previously trained at the laboratory of Dr. James Bradner at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and completed his fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at MD Anderson. His current clinical investigation efforts have been focused on development of menin inhibitors, a novel class of targeted therapy for acute leukemia. He is Principal Investigator on multi-institutional clinical trials of menin inhibitors including investigator-initiated studies. He is developing a precision medicine program for acute leukemias susceptible to menin inhibition including biomarker identification, MRD assay development, elucidation of response and resistance mechanisms to this novel therapy, and development of rational therapeutic combinations. He has received numerous awards including the American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator award, The Translational Research Training in Hematology Award from the American Society of Hematology and the European Hematology Association, and the Paul Calabresi Clinical Oncology Award (K12). As part of this Break Through Cancer project, Dr. Issa is leading the dual menin and BcL-2 inhibition combination clinical trial to eradicate MRD in susceptible acute leukemias.

Grace Wolczanksi, BS

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Grace is a graduate student in Stefani Spranger’s lab at the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, studying T cell responses in chemotherapy resistant ovarian cancer. She received a BS in Biological Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University.

Greg Raskind, BS

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab:The Data Science Hub

Greg Raskind is a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Rameen Beroukhim at Harvard Medical School. He works on developing computational methods to identify patterns of structural variants associated with specific genetic alterations in cancer genomes. He received his BS in biochemistry and mathematical biology with a minor in computer science from the University of Michigan.

Gregory A. Abel, MD, MPH

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Gregory A. Abel, MD, MPH is an outcomes researcher and hematologic oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). His research applies health services methods to understand the experiences of patients with cancer, and to answer questions about the effectiveness of their care. He is also interested in evaluating how intensive cancer therapy affects quality of life; developing innovations to address disparities in care; and understanding the bioethics of cancer care delivery. He primarily focusses on the hematologic malignancies, studying the impact of these diseases and their treatment from diagnosis to the end of life. He also runs DFCI’s Older Adult Hematologic Malignancy (OHM) geriatric research program and serves as Chair of the DFCI Ethics Advisory Committee.

Gurcan Gunaydin, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Gurcan Gunaydin completed his MD/PhD at Hacettepe University Cancer Institute in Ankara, Turkey, where he studied the interplay between the complex tumor microenvironment (TME) of breast cancer on the adaptive anti-tumor immune response. In the Freed-Pastor laboratory, Gurcan is leading efforts to accelerate effective TCR engineered T cells for pancreas cancer.

Hayden Bell, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Hayden Bell, PhD is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. He is also an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Dr. Bell’s career goal is to help develop precision medicine therapies for patients with high-risk hematological malignancies to improve clinical outcomes and minimize toxicities. He received a Bachelor’s degree with Honors at Lancaster University (UK), and a Master’s and PhD from Newcastle University (UK).

Ie-Ming Shih, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Shih is the Richard W. TeLinde Distinguished Professor in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics. He directs inter-departmental gynecologic disease research program and co-directs the Women’s Malignancy Program at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He is a gynecologic pathologist who has completed his residency and fellowship training at Johns Hopkins. His research focuses on exploring molecular landscapes and pathogenesis in different types of ovarian cancers, most notably their precursor lesions. He is one of leading scholars in proposing and validating the “tubal paradigm” of ovarian cancer origin, positing that ovarian cancer is not derived from ovary but from fallopian tube. His discoveries bode well for the success of a highly promising early detection test and serve as the biological rationale for clinically adopting “opportunistic salpingectomy” for ovarian cancer prevention. He is the recipient of the Rosalind Franklin Excellence in Ovarian Cancer Research Prize.

Jacqueline S. Garcia, MD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Dr. Jacqueline S. Garcia is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is a clinical/translational investigator in the Adult Leukemia Program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an attending physician at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital. She graduated from University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and completed her internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago. She next completed Hematology and Oncology Fellowship training at Stanford University. She joined the faculty of the Adult Leukemia Program at Dana-Farber in 2015. Dr. Garcia’s research focus is on the design and execution of scientifically-based early phase clinical and proof-of-concept studies in advanced myeloid malignancies, including MDS, myelofibrosis and acute myeloid leukemia. Much of her research centers on identifying novel therapeutic opportunities to leverage the anti-apoptotic pathway in chemoresistant leukemia. Her research has received support from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and Conquer Cancer Foundation.

Jairo Matthews

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Jairo Matthews is a Program Director of the MDACC leukemia tissue biorepository. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, and gained experience working in the U of M Cancer Center tissue bank for Head and Neck cancer. He later moved to Houston and has been with the Leukemia department under the guidance of Steven Kornblau for over a decade. He serves as a link between trial study managers, attending physicians, lab PIs and personnel, and leukemia sample bank personnel. He recently received an MDACC Division of Cancer Medicine award for Excellence in Clinical Research.

Jeffrey Molldrem, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Dr. Molldrem is a physician scientist and joined the Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Department of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 1997. He is a Professor of Medicine and Virginia H. Cockrell Distinguished Professor in Immunology, and Chair of the Department of Hematopoietic Biology and Malignancy. He also serves as Scientific Director of Oncology Research for Biologics and Immunotherapy Translation (ORBIT) platform and as Institute Director and Head of Evolution of Cancer, Leukemia, and Immunity Post Stem cEll transplant (ECLIPSE) platform. He received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota in 1990, trained in internal medicine at UCLA, and completed fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins. The long-term goals of his lab are to understand how adaptive immunity against hematopoietic malignancies is mediated and regulated, and to develop novel immunotherapies that target these malignancies. His laboratory has been working on T cell-mediated anti-leukemia GVL immunity for more than 25 years with continuous NIH funding. Leveraging a large longitudinal biorepository of transplant donor and recipients, his lab is studying the coevolution and clonal architecture of AML and adaptive immunity using next generation deep sequencing and multi-omic approaches.

Jennifer A. Marks, MD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Jennifer A. Marks is a Thoracic Medical Oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She received her medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, LA. She completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA, and her Medical Oncology fellowship at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. Her professional interests lie in precision medicine and biomarker identification. Her research collaborations with Caris Life Sciences have explored the molecular landscape within MET Exon 14 Skipping Mutations in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer as well as SEZ6 expression in neuroendocrine tumors. She received an Early Career Education Award at the 2022 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria, and a Conquer Cancer Merit Award at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Conference in Chicago, IL for this work. She was selected to develop a clinical protocol at the ASCO/AACR Methods in Clinical Research workshop studying sacituzumab govitecan in advanced thymoma and thymic carcinoma. She is committed to advancing personalized medicine in thoracic oncology and finding innovative solutions to scientific challenges. She remains dedicated to being a catalyst for change, improving the lives of patients worldwide through the pursuit of excellence and a patient-centered approach to oncology research and practice.

Jessica J. Lin, MD

Massachusetts General Hospital
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Jessica J. Lin, MD, is a medical oncologist and clinical and translational investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lin received her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Harvard College, and her MD from Harvard Medical School. After completing her residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital with chief residency at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital and fellowship in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare program, she joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. She has an active practice caring for patients in the Thoracic Oncology Program and the Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies. The primary focus of Dr Lin’s research is to develop novel therapeutic and biomarker strategies for patients with advanced lung cancers. As a clinical investigator, she is deeply involved in the design and conduct of clinical trials evaluating novel therapeutic agents. Her translational research efforts are dedicated to the study of resistance mechanisms and exceptional responses to targeted therapies in molecularly defined subsets of lung cancer, with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for patients living with lung cancer. Dr. Lin is an active member of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, American Association for Cancer Research, European Society for Medical Oncology, and American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Jia Wu, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Dr. Jia Wu is an Associate Professor at MD Anderson and an NIH-funded principal investigator with extensive training as a computational scientist. He earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania, and later served as an instructor at Stanford University. Dr. Wu’s lab specializes in developing and applying cutting-edge, multi-modal machine learning techniques to enhance cancer diagnosis, treatment, early detection, and prevention. His research has garnered significant support, including the prestigious Pathway to Independence Award, R01 grants from the National Cancer Institute, and funding from CPRIT.

Jian Hu, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Hu received his PhD from UNC Chapel Hill. He did his postdoctoral training with Dr. Ronald DePinho at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Cancer Biology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Jianzhu Chen

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab(s): Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Jianzhu Chen is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Chen received a Ph.D. degree in genetics from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow and then an instructor at Harvard Medical School before he joined the faculty at MIT. Dr. Chen’s research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Over the years, Dr. Chen has made significant contributions to a broad area of research in immunology, cancer research, infectious diseases, and animal models of human diseases. Recently, Dr. Chen’s research has focused on development of tumor-specific CAR-NK cells and re-programming macrophages for disease intervention, including cancer, metabolic diseases and infectious diseases.

Jin He, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Jin He, MD, PhD is a surgical oncologist specializing in treating cancers and diseases of the liver, gallbladder, biliary system, pancreas, and stomach. He performs open and minimally invasive liver and pancreas surgery, including the Whipple procedure.
He is actively involved in clinical research to improve patient outcomes. His research focuses on personalized treatment through stratifying pancreatic tumors on their molecular features. He holds several patents in anti-cancer vascular targeting agents and has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and lectured internationally. He serves on several national committees, including the NCCN panel on neuroendocrine tumors. He is the editorial board member of several surgical journals, including Annals of Surgical Oncology and Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery.

Jiping Wang, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Jiping Wang, MD, PhD is a surgical oncologist at Dana Farber and Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, an Associate Professor of Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wang obtained his PhD from University of Pittsburgh in Biostatistics and worked at National Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) as a statistician for 5 years. Dr. Wang’s main clinical focus is surgical treatment for hepatobiliary, pancreas and gastric cancer with minimally invasive approach. Dr. Wang has been involved in cancer research for more than twenty years. He was also a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) program committee and a member of the Oncology Surgery (SSO) research committee. Currently, he serves as Associate Director of Hepatobiliary Cancer Program, and Research Director at the Division of Surgical Oncology , Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Joseph D. Mancias, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Mancias is a Radiation Oncology physician-scientist who runs a laboratory studying critical aspects of pancreatic cancer biology and maintains a focused clinical practice caring for patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Dr. Mancias graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Princeton University in 2000 where he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Hecht on protein folding. As part of the Tri-Institutional Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering MD-PhD Program, he earned a PhD degree from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences in 2007 and his M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College in 2008. His graduate work in the laboratory of Jonathan Goldberg at the Sloan-Kettering Institute identified molecular mechanisms of cargo export from the endoplasmic reticulum using x-ray crystallography. His internship in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital was followed by a residency in Radiation Oncology in the combined Harvard Radiation Oncology Program completed in 2013. His postdoctoral research in the laboratories of Dr. Wade Harper in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and Dr. Alec Kimmelman in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute from 2011-2016 focused on the role of autophagy in pancreatic cancer biology. In 2016, Dr. Mancias began his independent research and clinical program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as an investigator within the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research. His research program studies the role of autophagy and therapeutic resistance in pancreatic cancer using a combination of genetic, quantitative proteomic, cell biological, and mouse modeling approaches. In particular, Dr. Mancias has developed an integrated quantitative temporal proteomics and metabolomics platform for discovery of therapeutic resistance and is using it to identify mechanisms of resistance to novel oncogenic KRAS inhibitors.

Julien Dilly, MS

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Julien is a research technician in the Aguirre lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Starting in the summer, Julien will be starting his PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard University. His research is focused on leveraging multi-omics approaches as well as patient specimens to predict biomarkers of response and resistance to KRAS targeted therapies in pancreatic cancer.

Justin F. Gainor, MD

Massachusetts General Hospital
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Justin F. Gainor, MD is the Director of the Center for Thoracic Cancers Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Director of Targeted Immunotherapy in the Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies, and Co-Leader of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. He is also an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gainor received his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University followed by his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He is an active clinical trialist and translational researcher whose work spans the paradigms of targeted therapy and cancer immunotherapy. He has published >200 scholarly works.

Kadir Akdemir, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies
Dr. Akdemir is a computational biologist in the departments of Neurosurgery and Genomic Medicine at The University fo Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His research focuses on investigating the chromatin organization and genomic instability in human cancer types.

Kai Wucherpfennig, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

The Wucherpfennig lab develops novel approaches for cancer immunotherapy by discovering resistance pathways against immune attack. They integrate studies in cancer patients with mechanistic studies to dissect the complex interplay between cancer cells and the immune system. Dr. Wucherpfennig is Chair of the Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School.

Kara Long, MD, MSc

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Kara Long is an Associate Attending and member of the Section for Ovarian Cancer Surgery on the Gynecology Service in the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and her M.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York University Medical Center and a fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she was the recipient of the Dr Michael E. Burt award for clinical excellence upon graduation in 2013. During fellowship, she received a Master in Science degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research from Weill Cornell. On completion of her clinical training, Dr. Long joined the Kelly Gynecology Oncology Service at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, but soon after was recruited back to join the Gynecology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2015.

As a member of the Section for Ovarian Cancer Surgery, Dr. Long has established herself as a busy clinician, clinical and translational researcher, and educator. She has presented nationally and internationally on hereditary ovarian cancer, risk reducing strategies, and the surgical management of advanced ovarian cancer. She has published numerous peer reviewed articles, chapters, and reviews on ovarian cancer prevention and optimizing outcomes during ovarian cancer debulking surgery. Dr Long is an active member of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society. She is the Associate Director of the Fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at Sloan Kettering and takes pride in training the next generation of Gynecologic Oncologists.

Kate McAndrews, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Kate received her BS from University of Nevada Reno in Chemical Engineering and her PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Kalluri laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her research is focused on understanding the functional role of fibroblasts in pancreatic cancer progression and therapy resistance.

Kathleen H. Burns, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer  and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Kathleen Burns received her MD and PhD in Molecular and Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine. She completed pathology residency and a hematopathology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and served as chief resident. Thereafter, Dr. Burns joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins and progressed through the academic ranks to Professor. She served as Vice Chair for Research and Programs in the Pathology Department and Director of the school-wide Physician Scientist Training Program. She was recruited to Dana-Farber as Chair of the Department of Pathology in 2020. Her honors and invited lectures include a Career Award for Medical Scientists from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Scriver Family Visiting Professorship in Genetics from McGill University, and the Daria Haust Lecturer of Pathology at Queen’s University. Her research laboratory focuses on transposable element expression and activity in cancer and on ways to use our understanding of that biology to inform new approaches for diagnosing and treating cancers.

Keith Ligon, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Ligon, MD, PhD is a principal investigator and neuropathologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. His laboratory is focused on understanding the biology of glioma treatment resistance and discovery of novel diagnostic approaches in cancer. His lab has specific expertise in analysis of patient tissue samples, patient derived models, and translational science of clinical trials.

Kelly Chien, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Kelly S. Chien, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and co-lead of the Clonal Hematopoiesis/Leukemia Prevention Clinic. She received her undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine, completed residency training at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and graduated from hematology/medical oncology fellowship at MD Anderson. Her research is focused on not only clonal hematopoiesis and leukemia prevention, but also relapsed/refractory myelodysplastic syndrome after hypomethylating agent therapy. Dr. Chien was awarded the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Conquer Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award, 2020 Waun Ki Hong Award in Clinical Investigation at MD Anderson, 2020 Kimberly Patterson Fellowship in Leukemia Research at MD Anderson, and 2022 Waun Ki Hong Award for Excellence in Team Science as part of the Clonal Hematopoiesis Team at MD Anderson.

Ken Chen, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Ken Chen, PhD, is a professor in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, the Director of Bioinformatics of Institute of Personalized Cancer Therapy at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), co-director of CPRIT single-cell genomics core. He also holds adjunct faculty position in Department of Systems Biology at MDACC and in Department of Computer Science at Rice University. He has a background in machine learning and statistical data analytics with extensive experience developing and applying computational tools to analyze large-scale high-throughput experimental data, towards detection, discovery, interpretation, modeling, and prediction. Over the past 18 years, he has led the development over 10 computational methods/tools such as BreakDancer, novoBreak (ranked #1 in DREAM 8.5 Challenges), Texomer, TransVar, Monovar, SCMER, and bindSC, which have been published in top journals such as Nature Methods, and have been widely used by computational biology, statistical genetics, single-cell, systems biology, and cancer personalized therapy communities. Meanwhile, He has been actively involved in major cancer research initiatives, such as 1000 Genomes, TCGA, ICGC, CTD2, HCA, and HTAN. His research group at MDACC is interested in developing cutting-edge data scientific capacity for quantitative characterization of cancer as a complex system and for identification of molecular targets useful for personalized diagnosis and medicine.

Kenny Yu, MBBS, PhD, FRCS

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Kenny Yu is a neurosurgeon-scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He did his residency training in the United Kingdom and obtained a PhD from the University of Manchester in glioma associated macrophages, and was awarded a National Institute of Health Research (UK) clinical lectureship and starter grant by the Academy of Medical Sciences. He was subsequently awarded the Dowager Countess Eleanor Peel Travelling Tellowship to pursue post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Peter Dirks at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. After obtaining his UK board certification, he went on to complete a research and clinical subspecialty fellowship in neurosurgical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center before joining the faculty in 2021. As a promising young investigator, he will be closely involved with the planning and execution of clinical and scientific GBM TeamLab projects for Break Through Cancer.

Kevin Kapner, MS

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab:Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Kevin studied Biochemistry and Mathematics at Tufts University, where he also earned his master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering. In the Aguirre Lab, he is involved with the creation and development of analysis strategies for bulk and single cell RNA-sequencing data, CRISPR screen data, chemical compound testing, and genomic data. He also helps organize and develop in-lab computational methods and software tools to complement experimental efforts. In the future, he hopes to pursue a PhD in biostatistics or computational biology.

Kevin Soares, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Kevin C. Soares MD is a physician-scientist, hepatopancreatobiliary surgical oncologist and Assistant Attending Surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical School. He attended the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed general surgery residency at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He then completed a dual fellowship in hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery as well as complex general surgical oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical practice focuses on diseases of the liver, pancreas, bile duct and gallbladder and implementing minimally invasive techniques in the management of these pathologies. Dr. Soares’s research focuses on combinatorial cancer immunotherapies in pancreas, liver, and bile duct cancers in order to better understand mechanisms abrogating responses to cancer immunotherapy in hepatobiliary malignancies.

Keyur P. Patel MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Keyur Pravinchandra Patel, MD, PhD, is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is board-certified in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, hematopathology, molecular genetic pathology and clinical informatics. He holds a PhD in cell biology and molecular pathogenesis.

Dr. Patel serves as the medical director of the molecular diagnostics laboratory, the director of molecular genetic pathology fellowship program and, the director of precision oncology decision support (PODS). His clinical interest includes developing innovative molecular biomarker testing for solid tumors and hematologic malignancies using next generation sequencing. These include single-gene and multi-gene approaches for diagnostic, prognostic, predictive and minimal residual disease monitoring applications including liquid biopsies.

Dr. Patel is actively involved in several national and international efforts to standardize molecular testing and, to develop guidelines for clinical applications and interpretation of variants. He has contributed to more than 280 peer-reviewed publications. He has a proven track record of developing evidence-based and sustainable molecular testing strategies including billing and reimbursement. He is passionate about training the next generation of molecular genetic pathology (MGP) experts.

Kimal Rajapakshe, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab:Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, The Data Science Hub

Kimal Rajapakshe is a Computational Scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center with a decade of experience in analyzing and integration of multi-omics data from both solid tumor and liquid biopsy. He specialized in analyzing RNA-Seq(bulk and single cell), ATAC-Seq(bulk and single cell), genomic sequencing(WES & targeted), ChIP-Seq, Methylation array, proteomics and metabolomics data.

Koichi Takahashi, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Koichi Takahashi, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Leukemia and Genomic Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Takahashi received MD degree from Niigata University in Japan and PhD degree from Kyoto University Japan. He did internal medicine residency in Toranomon Hospital, Tokyo and Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. He completed Hematology and Oncology Fellowship at MD Anderson. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology. He did research fellowship in Drs. Lynda Chin and Andrew Futreal Lab. His research focuses on studying etiology, pathogenesis and clinical phenotype of hematologic malignancies and pre-malignancies by understanding the underlying genetic underpinnings, heterogeneity and evolution through application of state-of-the-art genomics and single-cell technologies coupled with computational analytics. Dr. Takahashi is a recipient of ASH Scholar Award and LLS Scholar Award.

Kripa K. Varanasi, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Kripa K. Varanasi is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He received his B.Tech from IIT Madras, India and his SM (ME and EECS) and PhD from MIT. Prior to joining MIT as a faculty member, Profesor Varanasi was a lead researcher and project leader at the GE Global Research Center. At GE he received many awards for his work including Best Patent, Best Technology Project and Leadership Award. At MIT, the focus of his work is in understanding the physico-chemical phenomena at interfaces and developing novel materials, devices, and products that can dramatically enhance performance in energy, water, agriculture, transportation, medical, and consumer devices. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and translating technologies from lab to market. He has co-founded multiple companies including LiquiGlide, Dropwise, Infinite Cooling and Everon24. Time and Forbes Magazines have named LiquiGlide to their “Best Inventions of the Year”. His Infinite Cooling project has won first prize at DOE’s National Cleantech University Prize, first prize Rice Business Plan Competition, first prize Harvard Business School Energy & Environment Start-up, first prize at MIT-100K, first prize at MassChallenge. Professor Varanasi has received numerous awards for his work NSF Career Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, ASME Bergles-Rohsenow Heat Transfer Award, Boston Business Journal’s 40 under 40. ASME Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award for outstanding achievements in mechanical engineering, APS Milton van Dyke award, and MIT Graduate Student Council’s Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising.

Kyle Concannon, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Kyle Concannon, MD, is an instructor in the laboratory of Dr. John Heymach and a faculty member of the MD Anderson Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology Department. Dr. Concannon received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont Honors College and then spent two years working in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Haber at Massachusetts General Hospital. He then received his Medical Doctorate from the University of Vermont before training in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington where he studied small cell lung cancer in the laboratory of Dr. David MacPherson. In 2024, he graduated from the MD Anderson Medical Oncology physician-scientist training program as a recipient of the NIH T32 institutional training grant. Dr. Concannon’s work has led to many achievements and awards including the ASCO Young Investigator Award and MD Anderson’s Wuan Ki Hong Excellence in Basic Science award. He is now mentored primarily under Dr. Heymach studying therapeutic resistance in lung cancer.

Lachelle Dawn Weeks, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Dr. Lachelle D. Weeks is a hematologist and scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the division of hematologic malignancies and an Instructor of Medicine Harvard Medical School. She is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where she earned her MD and PhD degrees. She completed her medical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Internal Medicine Residency and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Hematology/Oncology Fellowship. Dr. Week performed her postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Benjamin L. Ebert where her work focused on three domains: (1) understanding the relationship between inflammatory disease phenotypes and clonal hematopoiesis; (2) developing clinically useful prognostic algorithms for CH which predict adverse clinical outcomes; and (3) clinical trials of therapeutic interventions in CH to prevent adverse malignant and non-malignant outcomes. Her work has led to the development of the clonal hematopoiesis risk score (CHRS), the first clinically validated prognostic model for CH. Dr. Weeks is also a champion of equity in hematology and has developed programming on health equity and anti-racism in medicine for the American Society of Hematology and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Weeks’s work is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Harold Amos Faculty Development Award, the Edward P. Evans Foundation and the Wood Foundation.

Larissa Meyer, MD, MPH

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Meyer is an Associate Professor of Gynecologic Oncology. She cares for women with gynecologic malignancies in a compassionate and coordinated fashion by providing surgical care as well as chemotherapy. Her research interests include health services research, patient reported outcomes, shared medical decision making, cancer prevention, and quality improvement. Dr. Meyer’s work focuses on innovation and implementation of practices aimed to prevent cancer and improve the quality of life of women living with gynecologic cancers.

Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab:Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor and Director of the Division of Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology in the Department of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Wood received her BS in Biology from the College of William & Mary, graduating Summa Cum Laude with membership in Phi Beta Kappa. She then went on to earn both her MD and PhD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with membership in Alpha Omega Alpha. She completed her PhD research in the laboratory of Dr. Bert Vogelstein, where she led the first whole exome sequencing studies in human cancers. Dr. Wood then went on to complete residency in Anatomic Pathology (serving as Chief Resident in her final year) and fellowship in Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Now, she leads her own translational research laboratory focused on molecular characterization of pancreatic neoplasms. Her laboratory leverages next generation sequencing to characterize genetic heterogeneity and clonal evolution in precancerous pancreatic lesions. In addition, her group employs three-dimensional organoid culture models to interrogate the molecular drivers of pancreatic cancer invasion, and they are developing tools to transform human pancreatic pathology from two to three dimensions. In addition to her research program, Dr. Wood signs out clinical specimens on the Gastrointestinal Pathology service.

Lei Zheng, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Lei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Oncology and Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Cancer Center and the Department of Oncology’s Assistant Director for Translational Research and Associate Cancer Center Director for Precision Medicine. He co-leads the precision medicine research and practice at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins and Department of Oncology. He is Director for a new Multidisciplinary Gastrointestinal Cancer Laboratories Program at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center. He is also Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Precision Medicine Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins. His clinical work is focused on multidisciplinary management for pancreatic cancer, bile duct cancer, colorectal cancer liver metastases, and gastric cancer. He is affiliated with the Tumor Immunology Program as a laboratory investigator. His primary laboratory research focus is on the identification of new targets and strategy for pancreatic cancer immunotherapies by dissecting tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer. He is considered to be one of world’s leading pancreatic cancer oncologists and researchers and one of leading experts in preclinical and clinical development of cancer immunotherapy. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Pancreatic Cancer. In 2021, he was elected into the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He served or is serving as a Councilor for Pancreatic Disorders (PAN) section of the American Gastroenterological Association Institute Council, a Member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Grant Selection Committee and Education Committee, and a Member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Program Committee. He is also chairing the China Regional Advisory Group for the AACR International Affair Committee.

Linghua Wang, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer , Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, and The Data Science Hub

 Dr. Wang is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Wang received her MD in Medicine and her PhD in Cancer Genomics and completed her postdoctoral training at Human Genome Sequencing Center, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, at Baylor College of Medicine. She was recruited to MD Anderson in 2017 and set up the Computational Biology Laboratory. Dr. Wang has significant expertise in computational biology, cancer immunogenomics, single-cell and spatial multiomics. Over the past few years, she has built a leading research program in cancer immunogenomics at MD Anderson and developed a collaborative, team-based approach to tackle cancer research. Her group has a vast experience in unraveling the heterogeneity and evolution of the complex tumor-immune ecosystems using the cutting-edge single-cell and spatial sequencing technologies, coupled with the state-of-the-art computation and modeling. Dr. Wang is the principal investigator of the CPRIT Individual Investigator Research Award and she serves as a co-Investigator for several peer-reviewed grants from NIH/NCI and U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Wang is also the recipient of the Sabin Fellow Award, two SPORE Career Enhancement Program Awards and three Institutional Research Grant Awards. She serves as the Bioinformatics Lead and project co-Leader for two MD Anderson Cancer Moon Shot Projects and she also leads/co-leads several additional single-cell studies. When she was at Baylor, Dr. Wang also contributed significantly to the NHGRI rare cancer projects, the NCI Exceptional Responder Initiative, TCGA and pan-cancer projects. Dr. Wang is a productive investigator and she has published 32 first- or senior-authored papers over the past few years. Among them, 23 were published in the top-tier or other high-impact journals. As site Lead of Data Science for the pancreatic and ovarian cancer programs funded by Break Through Cancer, Dr. Wang is extremely enthusiastic to collaborate with world-renowned leaders, talented data scientists, and the multidisciplinary research teams across five participating institutions to develop effective data science strategies to better understand, detect, and treat the most lethal cancers.

Long Yuan, MMSc

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLabs: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies, The Data Science Hub

Long Yuan, MMSc, MSE, is a researcher specializing in computational immunology. He is currently a PhD candidate in Immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is also pursuing a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE) in Computer Science at the JHU Whiting School of Engineering. He holds a Master of Medical Sciences (MMSc) in Immunology from Harvard University. His research focuses on developing computational tools for spatial multi-omics integration, with applications in cancer immunology and precision medicine.

Luciane T. Kagohara, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab(s): Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, The Data Science Hub

Dr. Luciane Kagohara is a molecular and computational biologist hybrid. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Universidade Estadual Paulista (Botucatu, Brazil) and her Ph.D. from the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center (Sao Paulo, Brazil) at the Department of Pathology. Earlier in her carrier, she focused on the identification of epigenetic and genetic cancer biomarkers. During her postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, she pursued training in bioinformatics and developed the expertise to perform combined experimental and computational research on epigenetic regulation of gene expression in acquired resistance. As a molecular biologist, she has extensive experience in experimental molecular biology and aptitude to design, optimize and execute a wide range of approaches, including single-cell, spatial transcriptomics, ATAC-seq, RNA-seq, among other molecular biology techniques. As a computational biologist, Dr. Kagohara can perform integrated analysis of genetic and epigenetic high-throughput data generated with different platforms. Her unique background is suitable for her research program which applies state-of-the-art technologies, like single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, to investigate mechanisms of resistance to different immuno-, chemo- and targeted therapies. Using single-cell and spatial technologies experimental and computational approaches to study clinical trial samples, Dr. Kagohara expects to discover molecular mechanisms and cellular interaction components of therapeutic resistance in cancers.

Lukasz Gondek, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins

TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Lukasz Gondek, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Division of Hematologic Malignancies. Dr. Gondek received his medical degree from the University of Silesia, Poland and his Ph.D. from the University of Warsaw, Poland. Following his post-doctoral training at the Cleveland Clinic, he completed residency in internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and his fellowship training in hematology at the Johns Hopkins University. His academic research focuses on cancer genomics as well as cancer stem cell biology in bone marrow failures and myeloid malignancies. His most recent work is focused on the biology and clinical consequences of clonal hematopoiesis.

Mae Pryor, BA

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Mae Pryor is a PhD student in Paula Hammond’s lab at MIT. She is investigating the design of layer-by-layer nanoparticles for targeting minimal residual disease in ovarian cancer. Mae graduated with a BA in Chemistry from Smith College.

Manuel Schuerch, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies, The Data Science Hub

Manuel Schuerch, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the Department of Data Science.

Manuel has a diverse background in Machine Learning, Statistics, and a range of biomedical applications. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Master’s in Statistics from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, followed by a PhD in Machine Learning from USI Lugano, Switzerland. Afterward, he pursued postdoctoral research at UZH and USZ Zurich, where he developed machine learning methods for personalized decision support in fields such as rheumatology, ICU care, diabetes, delirium, immunology, oncology, and solid organ transplantation. Currently, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Manuel’s research focuses on designing advanced machine learning and AI models to analyze biomedical data, particularly for cancer progression models, perturbation effects, and multi-omics cancer data integration. His technical expertise and interest span probabilistic modeling, generative time series, counterfactual treatment effect estimation, uncertainty quantification, explainable AI, and foundational AI models in biomedicine. Manuel’s work is driven by the goal of advancing AI methods for personalized medicine, with applications in oncology, organ transplantation, and beyond.

Marina Konopleva, MD, PhD

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Dr. Marina Konopleva is a Professor in the Departments of Oncology and Molecular Pharmacology at the Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center in Bronx, New York. She also serves as the Director of the Leukemia Program and the Co-Director of the Translational Blood Cancer Institute. She conducts laboratory research focusing on approaches in activating cell death, metabolic inhibitors, and immune-oncology in AML and has published over 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts. She is a scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and her research is funded by the NIH, Department of Defense, and various private foundations. Her research extends to clinical translational investigations and she has developed clinical trials based on laboratory discoveries. Dr. Konopleva has also been an active mentor to trainees including undergraduate, medical and graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows who trained under her direction in support of her various laboratory grants and projects. She leads the Leukemia SPORE at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and continues to serve as an EAB member on the DFCI SPORE in myeloid malignancies. Her clinic follows patients with hematologic malignancies, with a focus on acute leukemias (acute myeloid and acute lymphoblastic leukemia). She has additional expertise in treating patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome and chronic myeloid leukemia.

Mark Levis, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Dr. Mark Levis is a graduate of the Medical Scientist Training Program from U.C. San Francisco. He completed his residency training in internal medicine and a fellowship in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins University. He is a Professor of Oncology and the Director of the Adult Leukemia Service and Co-Director of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. His clinical expertise is focused on acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and chronic myelogenous leukemia. His broad research goals are to identify and validate novel molecular therapeutic targets in hematopoietic malignancies. His research group is interested in the identification and pre-clinical and clinical development of novel targeted therapies.

Martin Aryee, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Martin Aryee is an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, an associate professor in the Department of Data Sciences at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), and director of hematologic malignancies, biostatistics and computational biology at DFCI. He holds a secondary appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he teaches an introductory course in statistical genetics. Aryee is also a recipient of the Merkin Institute Fellowship at the Broad.

The Aryee lab develops statistical analysis methods for studying the genetic and epigenetic basis of cancer and other diseases. Most of their work has focused on improving our understanding of how aberrations in the physical and chemical structure of DNA within the nucleus are linked to cancer and other common diseases. Projects range from basic biology, to probing how DNA misfolds in cancer cells, to clinical applications aiming to develop blood tests for early detection of cancer. His lab also develops tools that aim to enable the safe translation of gene editing techniques such as CRISPR into human therapeutics.

Martin earned an M.Eng. in electronic engineering at Imperial College London, and an M.Sc. in neuroscience at King’s College London. He earned his Ph.D. in biostatistics from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Matt Vander Heiden, MD, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab:Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Matt Vander Heiden is the Director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and is the Lester Wolfe (1919) Professor of Molecular Biology at MIT. He is also a practicing medical oncologist and an Instructor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago, prior to completing clinical training and a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. His laboratory is interested in understand how metabolism influences cancer.

Maxime Meylan, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Maximilian Stahl, MD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Dr. Stahl is a member of the Adult Leukemia Group at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focus is on early phase clinical trials in myeloid malignancies including acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).

He authored and co-authored more than 60 peer reviewed publications and has presented his research in multiple national and international meetings. He has received the ASCO Conquer Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award, the ASH HONORS Award and several ASH Abstract Achievement Awards. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Leukemia & Lymphoma and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for several journals including Blood, Blood Advances, Clinical Cancer Research, the British Journal of Haematology and Haematologica.

He graduated from Hannover Medical School in Hannover, Germany. He then received his internal medicine residency training at the Yale School of Medicine where he also served as a chief medical resident. He then completed his Hematology and Oncology fellowship training at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Melanie Weigert, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Melanie Weigert, PhD is a Staff Scientist at The Institute for NanoBioTechnology and The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins working with Tom Pisanic. She received her PhD in Cancer Biology from The University of Glasgow and undertook her post-doctoral training at the University of Chicago where she explored the analysis of 5hmC and 5mC modifications on cell-free DNA to develop biomarker signatures for ovarian cancer detection. She is joining the Intercepting Ovarian Cancer (IOC) and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer (O-MRD) TeamLabs.

Mesut Unal, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab:Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Mesut Unal, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the departments of Genomic Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He received his bachelor’s degree from Middle East Technical University and his PhD from The University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on investigating the chromatin organization and genomic instability in human cancer types with DNN models.

Michael Andreeff, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Dr. Andreeff received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and additional training and faculty appointments at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York, NY, in the Departments of Pathology and Leukemia.

He has been a pioneer in flow cytometry, when he established the first flow cytometry laboratory at the University of Heidelberg and organized the first European conference on flow cytometry. After joining Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY, became head of the Leukemia Cell Biology and Hematopathology Flow Cytometry Laboratory and organized the first Clinical Cytometry and the first Molecular Cytogenetics Conferences.

For over 30 years he is Director of the NCI-sponsored Flow Cytometry and Cellular Imaging MDACC Core Facility and head of Head of “”Molecular Hematology & Therapy”” Section. He is Professor of Medicine and holds the Paul and Mary Haas Chair in Genetics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has received uninterrupted NCI funding for over 30 years, served as Principal Investigator of AML and CML P01 and CPRIT MIRA grants, and in the MDACC Leukemia, Lymphoma, Ovarian and Breast Cancer SPORE and other grants. He has published over 759 peer-reviewed papers, 5 books and 75 book chapters

Dr Andreeff’s group has worked extensively on drug resistance and stem cells in hematopoietic malignancies and in breast cancer and developed or co-developed several new therapeutic agents including the novel triterpenoids CDDO and CDDO-Me and BCL-2-, MCL-1, XIAP-, survivin-, MEK-, HDM2- and MYC targeting agents. His group has made major contributions to the understanding of micro-environment-mediated drug resistance and of MRD in TP53 mutant AML. Finally, discovered the role of bone marrow-derived multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) in tumor stroma formation and developed therapeutic strategies to alter the stromal microenvironment in solid tumors and leukemias.

Michael Hemann, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Michael Hemann, PhD is an Associate Professor of Biology at MIT, where his research has focused on the development of models of cancer evolution and therapeutic response. His group has made extensive use of mice as preclinical systems to examine therapeutic efficacy and have developed hematopoietic and solid tumor models that can effectively interrogate aspects of acquired and intrinsic drug resistance. This also involves the use of computational approaches to examine tumor heterogeneity and evolution. His work has pioneered the development of novel screening strategies to characterize the genetic determinants of drug action in relevant physiological settings. These systems are highly tractable, such that one can rapidly progress from candidate gene identification to cell-based and in vivo validation experiments. The ongoing objective of the Hemann is the development of combination therapeutic regimens that can subvert the evolution of drug resistance. Dr. Hemann received his BA from Wesleyan University. He received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and performed and performed his post-doctoral research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, include the Mette Strand Award, the Harold Weintraub Award, Helen Hay Whitney and Rita Allen Fellowships, the Latham Family Career Fellowship and the Daisy Ho Memorial Award.

Michael J. Cima, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Michael J. Cima, PhD is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has an appointment at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He earned a BsS in chemistry in 1982 (Phi Beta Kappa) and a PhD in chemical engineering in 1986, both from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Cima joined the MIT faculty in 1986 as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to full Professor in 1995. Professor Cima was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and to the National Academy of Inventors in 2016. He now holds the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering at MIT. Professor Cima is author or co-author of over three hundred peer-reviewed scientific publications, fifty US patents, and is a recognized expert in the field of medical devices and materials processing. Professor Cima is actively involved in materials and engineered systems for improvement in human health, such as treatments for cancer, metabolic diseases, trauma, and urological disorders. His research concerns advanced forming technology such as for complex macro and micro devices, colloid science, MEMS, and other micro components for medical devices that are used for drug delivery and diagnostics, high-throughput development methods for formulations of materials and, pharmaceutical formulations.

Narmen Azazmeh, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Narmen Azazmeh, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Rameen Beroukhim at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology, master’s degree in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, and PhD degree in Cancer Research and Immunology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. During her PhD, she investigated the effects of cellular senescence and senolytic therapies on skin malignancies. In the Beroukhim laboratory, Dr. Azazmeh sets out to characterize novel structural variants across cancer types including ovarian cancer, and to develop high-throughput approaches for their detection and diagnosis.

Nathalie Y.R. Agar, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Nathalie Y.R. Agar, PhD is the Daniel E. Ponton Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Agar’s multidisciplinary training includes a BSc in Biochemistry, PhD in Chemistry, a postdoctoral fellowship in Neurology and Neurosurgery from McGill University, and further postdoctoral training in Neurosurgery at BWH/HMS. From this unique background, she has developed distinct skills to address unmet analytical needs in the clinical environment. Her research focuses on the development and implementation of integrated biomolecular and drug imaging of tissue specimens. Her laboratory focuses on the mass spectrometry imaging of drugs and metabolism from pre-clinical animal models and clinical trial specimens to study therapeutics for brain tumors. She is also developing and validating real time mass spectrometry approaches to support surgical decision making. Her overall goals are to enable surgeons and oncologists to tailor treatment from the time of surgery, support the development of new therapeutics, and allow precision cancer care using molecular imaging with mass spectrometry approaches.

Naval Daver, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Dr. Naval Daver is an associate professor and director of the Leukemia Research Alliance Program in the Department of Leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston, TX. He is a clinical investigator with a focus on molecular and immune therapies in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myeloid disease, and is principal investigator on more than 25 ongoing institutional, national, and international clinical trials in these diseases, including multiple registration and label enabling trials.

These trials focus on developing a personalized therapy approach by targeting specific mutations or immune pathways expressed by patients with AML, evaluating novel combinations of targeted, immune, and cytotoxic agents, and identifying and overcoming mechanisms of resistance. He is especially interested in developing monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, immune checkpoint, CD47, NK and T-cell based approaches, as well as combinations of targeted and apoptotic therapies in AML, and he is leading a number of these trials at MDACC. Dr Daver has published more than 400 peer-reviewed manuscripts and is on the editorial board of numerous hematology journals. He also serves as Chair on numerous national and international meetings and educational platforms.

Neal Rosen, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Rosen trained as a physician-scientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in the laboratory of Dr. Ora Rosen, where he began his lifelong interest in intracellular signaling and the perturbation of the normal signaling network by oncoproteins. He has been studying this subject for the past 30 years where and has played a role in understanding the consequences of mutations that activated the RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK and PI3K/AKT/MTOR pathway and developing inhibitors thereof, several of which (RAF, MEK, PI3K, mTOR) are now approved for treatment of specific metastatic tumors.

Neelkanth (Neel) Bardhan, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab:Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Neelkanth Bardhan, (Neel), is a senior Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with the laboratory of Prof. Angela Belcher. From the perspective of BTC, Neel’s work focuses on designing an optical imaging system for highly sensitive detection of early precursor lesions in ovarian cancer.
Hailing from India, Neel did his undergraduate from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, India, and holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from MIT. For his doctoral work, Neel was awarded the MRS Graduate Student Gold Award, conferred by the Materials Research Society in San Francisco, 2015. During his Postdoctoral research, Neel has been a recipient of the Misrock Postdoctoral Fellowship, the RLE Translational Fellowship, and the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine’s Convergence Scholar fellowship. At the Koch Institute, Neel has worked on a Bridge Project grant, with the lab of Dr. Michael Birrer at Massachusetts General Hospital, to develop a real-time near-infrared fluorescence imaging system for guided surgery in ovarian cancer. One of his recent papers has been featured in the “Top 100 in Cancer” most downloaded papers in Scientific Reports. More recently, Neel was one of the winners of the MIT PDA Postdoctoral Symposium in 2021, and Neel’s work has been featured on various media including MIT News, 360Dx and Practical Patient Care, to name a few. Neel’s work has resulted in a strong portfolio of intellectual property, with 3 U.S. patents issued, and numerous other patent applications pending. Neel is actively involved in the scientific publication community, serving as a board member for the ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering Early Career Editorial Advisory Board, contributed invited book chapters and journal articles, served as an Editor for a Special Issue and as a Peer Reviewer for over 50 manuscripts.
Outside the lab, Neel is highly involved in issues concerning Science Policy, Diversity and Inclusiveness and Outreach. Working with the MIT Science Policy Initiative, Neel has engaged with legislators and their representatives on Capitol Hill during the Congressional Visit Days, and actively engages in outreach activities with AAAS. Neel cares deeply about creating a welcoming environment for people of all backgrounds, and is the host of the “Let’s Get to Know… Celebrating Diversity” podcast series, where he invites guests from a cross-section of the diverse community. As hobbies, Neel enjoys reading non-fiction, running along the Charles River, and performing Indian Classical music.

Nickolas Papadopoulos, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Nick Papadopoulos is the co‐discoverer of the genetic basis of the predisposition to hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer (HNPCC). He was part of the interdisciplinary team that was first to sequence all of the protein coding genes of four common human tumor types. Later identified novel mutations in chromatin remodeling genes in human cancers. Currently, he is focused in the development of clinical applications in early detection, and monitoring of cancer. He has developed sensitive methods for the detection of multiple type of cancers in liquid biopsy, including CancerSEEK. He has co-founded companies that develop diagnostics for cancer.

Nilofer Azad, MD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Azad is a Professor of Oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins (SKCCC), where she serves as Co-director of the Developmental Therapeutics Clinical Research Program and the Cancer Genetic and Epigenetic Core Research Program. After completing her fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute, she joined the SKCCC faculty and has led multiple national and international clinical trials of novel drugs for cancer patients. Dr. Azad is dedicated to translational research in drug development that will form the foundation of future clinical trials. Her work is focused on combining targeted and epigenetic therapies with other classes of agents. These preclinical studies are designed to move directly into early phase clinical trials, with strong laboratory correlates that will be used to further hone the therapeutic regimens, as a quintessential example of bench-to-bedside medicine.

Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD, is the Edward P. Evans Chair in MDS at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where he also serves as Chair of the Molecular Pharmacology Program in the Sloan Kettering Institute. His clinical areas of expertise are in myeloid malignancies, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and rare forms of leukemias including hairy cell leukemia, CMML, BPDCN, and histiocytoses. Dr. Abdel-Wahab completed his undergraduate studies and M.D. at Duke University followed by Internal Medicine residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He then joined MSK in 2007 as a Fellow in Hematology/Medical Oncology and joined as independent faculty member in 2012. Over the last ten years, his laboratory has been focused on understanding alterations in the process of RNA splicing in cancer. Motivated by the discovery of high frequency mutations in the splicing machinery in leukemias and certain solid tumors, his lab’s work has led to the development of several therapeutic approaches for these genetic subtypes of cancer which are currently in phase 1/2 clinical trials. In addition, his laboratory has performed a number of studies of molecular genetics and genomics of blood cancers more broadly and used this information to develop novel therapeutic approaches for myeloid and lymphoid hematologic cancers. He has received several honors, including the Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research from the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Joanne Levy Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement from the American Society of Hematology, and the Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research.

Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Sharma is a nationally and internationally renowned physician scientist whose research work is focused on investigating mechanisms and pathways within the immune system that facilitate tumor rejection or elicit resistance to immune checkpoint therapy. She is a Professor in the departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology, and the T.C. and Jeanette D. Hsu Endowed Chair in Cell Biology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is also the inaugural Scientific Director for the Immunotherapy Platform and the Co-director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). She received the Emil Frei III Award for Excellence in Translational Research in 2016, the Coley Award for Distinguished Research for Tumor Immunology in 2018, the Women in Science with Excellence (WISE) award in 2020, the Heath Memorial Award in 2021, and the Randall Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research in 2021. In 2006, Dr. Sharma designed and conducted the first neoadjuvant (pre-surgical) trial, also known as a window-of-opportunity trial, with immune checkpoint therapy (anti-CTLA-4, ipilimumab), which allowed her to establish safety of the neoadjuvant approach for immune checkpoint therapy as well as provide tumor tissues for translational research studies. She identified the ICOS/ICOSL pathway as a novel target for cancer immunotherapy strategies. The neoadjuvant clinical trial in 2006 was also the first trial with immune checkpoint therapy in patients with bladder cancer. The clinical data indicated that 25% of patients had significant anti-tumor responses with pathologic complete responses. These data led Dr. Sharma to conduct additional clinical trials with immune checkpoint therapy (anti-PD-1, nivolumab) for patients with bladder cancer, which enabled FDA-approval of nivolumab as treatment for patients with metastatic bladder cancer. Dr. Sharma also led the clinical trials with immune checkpoint therapy (nivolumab and nivolumab plus ipilimumab) in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC), which led to FDA-approval of these agents as treatment for patients with RCC. Dr. Sharma is the Principal Investigator for multiple immunotherapy clinical trials. Her studies have identified novel resistance mechanisms, including loss of interferon (IFN) signaling, VISTA+ immunosuppressive cells, increased EZH2 expression in T cells, TGFb signaling in bone metastases, and CD73+ myeloid cells in GBM. Her work continues to drive the development of immunotherapy strategies for the treatment of cancer patients.

Pamela Constantinou Papadopoulos, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Dr. Pamela Papadopoulos is an Associate Director, Research Planning and Development in the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research and the Moon Shots Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Papadopoulos received her B.A. in Chemistry from Vassar College and Ph.D. in Chemistry from New York University. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Bioengineering and was an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of BioSciences at Rice University. At MD Anderson, Dr. Papadopoulos is involved in several large, programmatic grants and initiatives. She applies her scientific background to provide scientific and administrative oversight to multi-PI and multidisciplinary programs.

Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Panagiotis (Panos) A Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD is Director of Translational Research and attending oncologist in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His translational research career focuses on ovarian cancer and other gynecologic malignancies with an important niche in the areas of DNA Damage and Repair and Immunotherapy. His work has focused on unraveling mechanisms of resistance to chemotherapy and targeted agents, developing the rationale and preclinical data for novel drug combinations in ovarian cancer, and on identification of novel diagnostic and predictive biomarkers of therapeutic response in gynecologic cancers as well investigating their mechanistic implication in carcinogenesis. His research efforts in this area have been supported by several Harvard-wide, industry and national sources including the Department of Defense (DOD), Ovarian Cancer Research Program (OCRP) and the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR). As a clinical researcher, he is also involved as a principal investigator (PI) and co-investigator in several gynecologic cancer clinical trials. Dr Konstantinopoulos has served as a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Clinical Oncology, is co-chair of the Dana Farber Harvard Cancer Center (DFHCC) Audit Committee and a member of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) Experimental Medicine Committee.After receiving his MD and PhD from University of Patras in Greece, Dr Konstantinopoulos completed internship and residency at State University of New York at Syracuse, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He also received a Master’s degree in Clinical Investigation from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Health Sciences and Technology.

Paula T. Hammond, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Paula T. Hammond is the Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Her research in nanomedicine encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatio-temporal control. She investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery. She is known for her work on nanoparticles to target cancer, and thin film coatings to release factors that regenerate bone and assist in wound healing. More recently, she has worked on nanomaterials systems to treat osteoarthritis and staged release systems for the delivery of vaccines. Professor Hammond was elected into the National Academy of Science in 2019, the National Academy of Engineering in 2017, the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also recently received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Margaret H. Rousseau Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Woman Chemical Engineer in 2019, and gave the Materials Research Society (MRS) David Turnbull Lectureship also in 2019. Professor Hammond has published over 330 papers, and over 20 patent applications. She is the co-founder and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of LayerBio, Inc., a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Moderna Therapeutics, and a member of the Board of Alector, Inc.

Pei-Hsun Wu

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Pei-Hsun Wu, is an Associate Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Wu received his bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University and his PhD from University of Florida in Chemical Engineering. His lab’s research is focused the development of high throughput image-based single cell analysis methods to study complex biological systems and characterize the pathobiological process of diseases. I have a broad background in biophysics and engineering, with specific training and expertise in cell mechanics, quantitative imaging analysis, molecular biology, pathology, bioinformatics, cancer biology, and instrument development.

Rachel Karchin, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, The Data Science Hub

Rachel Karchin, PhD is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopins University and is a core member of the Institute for Computational Medicine. She holds joint appointments in the Departments of Oncology and Computer Science, and is a member of the Cancer Biology Program and of the Multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cyst Team, both within the Kimmel Cancer Center. Since 2007, she has been an affiliate member for the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Karchin co-led The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) PanCan Atlas Essential Genes and Drivers Analysis Working Group (2017-2018). She received a BS in Computer Engineering (1998) and MS (2000) and PhD (2003) in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences. Her lab develops algorithms and software to analyze genomic data and interpret its impact on cancer, the immune system and tumor evolution. Karchin was the Whiting School of Engineering’s William R. Brody Faculty Scholar from 2013-2019. She was inducted as a Fellow in the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers in 2017, received the AACR Team Science Award in 2020 (TCGA) and was appointed a Distinguished Graduate Alumnus of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at University of California, Santa Cruz in 2021.

Rachel N. Grisham, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Rachel Grisham is an Associate Attending within the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is the Section Head of Ovarian Cancer Treatment and the Director of Gynecologic Medical Oncology at MSKCC Westchester. She is board certified in Medical Oncology and received her Medical Degree at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Grisham performed her Internal Medicine Internship and Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. She then came to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she served as the Chief Fellow of the Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Program. Dr. Grisham subsequently joined the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service in 2012. Her research focuses on determining the molecular drivers of ovarian cancer and the development of targeted treatment strategies for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. She has served as the principal investigator for over 25 clinical trials and serves on multiple committees within ASCO, NRG, and SGO. She is a graduate of the ASCO leadership development program, and has served on the GOG Partners Investigators Council, NRG Rare Tumor Committee, NCCN Ovarian Cancer Guidelines Committee, and the ASCO Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee.

Raghu Kalluri, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Raghu Kalluri was born in St. Louis, Missouri and received his B.S. in Chemistry and Genetics. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Kansas Medical Center and his M.D. degree from Brown University Medical School. Dr. Kalluri conducted his fellowship training at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and performed research in areas of tissue injury/repair and regeneration. From 1997 to 2012, Dr. Kalluri was a faculty Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and from 2006 served as a tenured Professor and the Chief of the Division of Matrix Biology with appointments in Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at HMS, Harvard MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and as a research fellow of the HMS Peabody Society. Since 2012, Dr. Kalluri serves as a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cancer Biology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Kalluri currently holds the Frederick F. Becker Distinguished University Chair of Cancer Research. Dr. Kalluri’s research has led to seminal discoveries in the area of tissue injury/regeneration, exosomes biology, cancer biology, and cancer metastasis. He is the recipient of several mentorship, teaching and research excellence awards, and a fellow of American Society of Clinical Investigation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and UT Ken Shine Education Academy. Dr. Kalluri has published over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Dr. Kalluri has an h-index of 125 with over 95,811 lifetime citations and Dr. Kalluri is ranked in the 0.0068% (ranked 440) of about 6.8 million scientists (covering 22 scientific fields) in the world for citation impact. Dr. Kalluri has trained 121 postdoctoral fellows, 21 graduate students, and 73 undergraduate students. Dr. Kalluri serves on science and health advisory panels in the USA and European Union, and on the editorial boards of several academic journals representing biology and medicine and serves as the Deputy Editor of Cancer Research. Dr. Kalluri’s research has resulted in several issued patents, serves as an advisor to several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and is a scientific founder of five biotechnology companies.

Rameen Beroukhim, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, The Data Science Hub, Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Beroukhim is a practicing neuro-oncologist whose research focus is to understand tumor evolution, with emphases on brain tumors and alterations in chromosome structure. This work spans computational methods development, genomic studies of human cancers, and experiments in model systems. In early work describing integrated genomic profiling of glioblastomas, he developed the Genomic Identification of Significant Targets In Cancer (GISTIC) method that is now widely used to analyze copy-number changes across a range of cancers. He has also contributed to the development of several other genomic analysis methods and has led integrated genomic profiling efforts in multiple cancer types, including pan-cancer analyses across thousands of tumors. This work has identified novel mechanisms by which cancers develop and progress, and novel cancer dependencies that have spurred the development of new cancer therapeutics.

Rebecca Stone, MD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Rebecca Stone is associate professor and division chief of gynecologic oncology for Johns Hopkins. She holds a joint appointment in the Armstrong Institute for her system wide leadership in quality and safety in surgery and clinical pathways. Rebecca also serves as the surgery lead for high value care transformation and as co-director of the Fertility Preservation Innovation Center for Hopkins. Her research portfolio spans clinical, quality improvement, and basic science investigation.

Riccardo Mezzadra, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab:  Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Riccardo Mezzadra performed his graduate work in the laboratory of Ton Schumacher in the Netherlands where he employed genetic screens to dissect some aspects of the molecular interplay between T cells and cancer cells. For his postdoctoral training he joined the laboratory of Scott Lowe, where he is currently affiliated, in order to study the interplay between cancer-cell intrinsic and cancer-cell extrinsic tumor suppression. He is involved in the project “Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer” for studying how inhibition of RAS signaling can favor an antitumoral immune response.

Rich Stone, MD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Richard Stone, MD, is the Lunder Family Chair in Leukemia and Chief of Staff at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Stone earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1981. He completed his internal medicine residency training and served as Chief Medical Resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He completed his hematology-oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber. He is also Director of Translational Research for the Leukemia Division in the Department of Medical Oncology at DFCI, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Stone is nationally recognized for his translational and clinical research concerning blood and bone marrow malignancies including acute leukemia, myeloproliferative disorders and myelodysplastic syndrome [MDS] (a bone marrow failure state that may convert to leukemia).In addition to his work at Dana-Farber, Dr. Stone is a Vice Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) MDS panel and is also a member of the NCCN AML panel. He previously served as the Chair of the Alliance Leukemia Committee, Chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Aplastic Anemia and MDS International Foundation, and the Chair of the ABIM Oncology Board. Dr. Stone has participated extensively in teaching medical students, residents, and fellows, as well as graduate medical education courses on leukemia and related disorders. He is the author of many academic papers that have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, Leukemia as well as numerous other journals. He has also served on the editorial boards of Leukemia Research, Blood and Journal of Clinical Oncology
He has had a significant leadership role in the development of five new drugs for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that were approved in the past several years.

Robert A Anders, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Robert A. Anders earned his medical and Molecular Biology graduate degrees at Mayo Medical and Graduate School. He completed his Anatomic and Clinical Pathology residence, fellowship in Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology, post-doctoral training in Immunology and Instructor of Pathology at the University of Chicago. He joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2005 as an Assistant Professor in Division of Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology and now is an Associate Professor of Pathology. He also serves as co-director of the Tumor Microenvironment Laboratory in the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Immune Cancer Therapy.
In addition to his duties as a practicing GI/Liver surgical pathologist, Dr. Anders runs an independently funded research lab that focuses on tumor immunology. His interest in Immunology developed while he studied liver immunology and regeneration while at the University of Chicago and the early years of this position at Johns Hopkins. His current interests are in tumor immunology and specifically interrogating the immune microenvironment in tumor tissue. He first began examining human tissue for the expression of PD-1 / PD-L1 in 2006, at the encouragement of his K08 mentor Dr. Lieping Chen. He continues research in human and murine cancer immunology using single and multiple color immunostaining coupled to digital image analysis.

Roberto Chiarle, MD

Boston Children’s Hospital
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Dr. Chiarle received his MD degree from the University of Torino, Italy, and is currently Professor of Pathology at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He also has appointments as Professor of Pathology at the University of Torino Medical School and as Director of the Hematopathology unit at the European Research Institute (IEO) in Milan, Italy. He has won several national and international awards, including awards from the Italian National Academy of Science, two European Research Council (ERC) grants, an AICR-UK award, several NIH grants and grants from the LUNGevity foundation, V Foundation, the Ellison Foundation, the Bridge Project and others.

One major research interest has been to study the mechanisms and pathways of tumor formation activated by the ALK oncogene, as well as the development of innovative therapies for AK-positive cancers, such as an ALK-specific cancer immunotherapy. Recently, the group has developed an ALK vaccine that instructs the immune system to recognize and eliminate ALK-positive lymphoma and lung cancer cells as well as CAR-T and TCR-T cells to target ALK+ tumors including lung cancer, lymphoma and neuroblastoma.

Roger Belizaire, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Roger Belizaire, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School with appointments at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Boston Children’s Hospital. He is an Associate Medical Director in the Division of Transfusion Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his MD and PhD in immunology from Washington University School of Medicine. He received his training in Clinical Pathology and Transfusion Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He performed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He has received funding from the American Society of Hematology, the American Cancer Society, and the NIH/NCI. Dr. Belizaire is a laboratory-based investigator in the Department of Pathology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where his research focuses on oncogenic signaling and targeted therapies in myeloid malignancies.

Ronald A. DePinho, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Ronald A. DePinho, MD is past president and distinguished university professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. His research program has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of cancer, aging and degenerative disorders, leading to clinical advances. In particular, Dr. DePinho’s research on pancreatic cancer has spanned two decades and resulted in 50 peer-reviewed papers describing his contributions to this field. Dr. DePinho is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Science, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association of the Advancement of Science, and the American Association of Cancer Research.

Ross Levine, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Ross Levine is the Deputy Physician-In-Chief, Translational Research, Memorial Hospital, at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). He is a member of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program and an Attending Physician on the Leukemia Service, the Laurence Joseph Dineen Chair in Leukemia Research and a Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Levine earned his A.B. from Harvard College and a M.D. from Johns Hopkins. He served as a Resident in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and as a Hematology-Oncology Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His laboratory focuses on elucidating the genetic basis of myeloid malignancies, to improve outcomes for patients with these disorders. His research interests include the role of JAK-STAT signaling in malignant transformation and in the effects of mutations in epigenetic modifiers in clonal hematopoiesis, MPN, and AML. His laboratory has a specific interest in translating this knowledge back to the clinic, participating in the preclinical and clinical evaluation of targeted therapies for leukemia patients. He has been honored with the Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology, a Scholar Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Boyer Award for Clinical Investigation from MSK, and a NCI Outstanding Investigator R35 Award. In 2011 he was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and in 2018 to the Association of American Physicians. He serves on the Supervisory Board of Qiagen and on the Scientific Advisory Board of C4 Therapeutics, Isoplexis, Mana Therapeutics and was on the Scientific Advisory Board of Loxo Oncology.

Ryuhjin Ahn, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Using phosphoproteomics, systems and molecular biology approaches, Ryuhjin seeks to understand the balance between pro- and anti-tumorigenic immune responses that are regulated by the interplay of microglia and brain cancer.

Sangeeta Goswami, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Sangeeta Goswami is an Assistant Professor at MD, PhD Anderson Cancer Center with a background in medical oncology and immunology. She is involved in patient care, conducting clinical trials, as well as in translational and discovery science research. Her laboratory focuses on understanding the epigenetic regulation of immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment to develop rational combinatorial strategies of immunotherapies and epigenetic modulators in a tumor-specific manner.

Sanghoon Lee, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Sanghoon Lee is an Associate Professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. Over 20 years, Dr. Lee has applied his translational research expertise toward improving and influencing care for patients, especially those with gynecologic malignancies at MD Anderson. He leads and oversees all aspects of translational study in gynecologic cancers, and further develops the translational research portfolio ensuring the acquisition of more comprehensive information from each patient in our clinical trial and non-clinical trial settings.

His main research interests focus on the investigation of the function and mechanisms of oncogenic and/or tumor-suppressive genes in immunochemotherapy sensitivity and resistance in ovarian cancer using preclinical in vitro and in vivo models. He is also interested in discovering novel small-molecule therapeutic targeting agents and explaining the mechanisms of drug resistance to immunochemotherapy in gynecologic cancers. Dr. Lee’s research also focuses on applying genome editing approaches to develop in vitro and in vivo models for use in gene therapy, cell therapy, and immunotherapy in gynecologic cancers.

Dr. Lee earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Animal Molecular Genetics from Chungnam National University in South Korea. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Gene-Environmental Biology with the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization in Lyon, France, and in Neurology and Hematology & Oncology at Harvard Medical School. In 2008, Dr. Lee began his career as a Senior Research Scientist with the Cancer Science Institute at the National University of Singapore. He joined the faculty of New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, as an Assistant Professor in both the Department of Pediatrics, Cell Biology and Anatomy in 2011. Dr. Lee joined the faculty of MD Anderson as an Assistant Professor in 2016.

Scott Manalis, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML

Scott Manalis is the David H. Koch (1962) Professor of Engineering and faculty member in the departments of biological and mechanical engineering at MIT. He currently serves as Associate Department Head in the Department of Biological Engineering. He received a BS in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a PhD in applied physics from Stanford University. Dr. Manalis is a founder of two companies (Travera and Affinity Biosensors) that utilize the suspended microchannel resonator for weighing single cells.

Scott W. Lowe, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Scott W. Lowe is Chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program in the Sloan-Kettering Institute at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and an Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Lowe received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He initiated his independent research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where his group made important contributions to the understanding of tumor suppressor gene action and the consequences of their mutation. At MSKCC, his laboratory applies mouse models, genetics, and genomics in a coordinated effort to identify cancer drivers and dependencies, with a recent emphasis on understanding how the tumor ecosystem influences tumor progression and therapy response. These efforts have revealed fundamental insights into cancer mechanisms and identified new therapeutic strategies. Dr. Lowe’s work has been recognized by several awards, including a Sidney Kimmel Scholar Award, a Rita Allen Scholar Award, the American Association for Cancer Research, the G.H.A. Clowes Award, the Paul Marks Prize, the Alfred G. Knudsen Award, and recently was named a Fellow in the American Association for Cancer Research Academy. He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine.

Shahab Sarmashghi, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab(s): The Data Science Hub, Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies
Shahab Sarmashghi, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a Research Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and HMS. He earned his BS and MS degrees from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, and his PhD from UC San Diego in Electrical Engineering. During his PhD, he developed several methods to utilize low-pass whole genome sequencing to study eukaryotic genomes. In the Beroukhim lab, Dr. Sarmashghi is interested in developing computational methods to study the biology of tumors, in particular GBM, and identify novel therapeutic targets. His main focus is on understanding positive and negative selection in cancer using somatic copy number alterations. He is also interested in studying cancer dependencies caused by loss of chromosome arms. He also works on developing new copy number calling pipelines and deploying them to the cloud.

Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Westin is an associate professor in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She focuses on developmental therapeutics and the use of biomarkers to predict response and recurrence in gynecologic malignancies. She currently serves as the Director of Early Drug Development and Phase I trials in her department and is a Co-Director of the institutional Ovarian Cancer Moonshot. Dr. Westin is currently the PI or co-PI for greater than 30 novel treatment trials in gynecologic malignancies. In addition to previously serving on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Uterine Task Force and Gynecologic Cancer Steering Committee (GCSC), she currently serves as a co-chair of the GCSC Ovarian Cancer Task Force and the NCI Ovarian Cancer Clinical Trials Planning Meeting.

Sheng Cai, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Sheng Cai, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist and Assistant Attending on the Leukemia Service within the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical areas of expertise are in hematologic malignancies, including myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemias. Dr. Cai completed his undergraduate training at Duke University and then joined the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine, where his PhD work in the laboratory of Tim Ley revealed distinct mechanisms of suppression by regulatory T cells in alloreactive and anti-tumor immune responses. He completed his internal medicine residency at Weill Cornell Medicine / New York-Presbyterian Hospital and oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he studied how leukemia cells develop resistance to targeted epigenetic therapies under the mentorship of Ross Levine. His work led to the identification of novel resistance mutations that cause leukemia cells to become resistant to the promising class of agents that inhibit the chromatin chaperone molecule Menin. He now serves as the Translational Director of the Program for Drug Development in Leukemia with a clinical interest in developing early phase trials for leukemia patients and a laboratory interest in modeling and delineating therapeutic vulnerabilities of high-risk myeloid malignancies. He has received several honors, including the Young Physician-Scientist Award from the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Holly and Gerald N. Wogan Scholar Award, an EvansMDS Young Investigator Award, the American Society of Hematology Scholar Award, the Truth 365 Young Investigator Award, and a Career Development Program Fellow Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Shengnan Huang, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Shengnan is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Belcher group of at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She is currently working on cancer detection and vaccination. Her PhD thesis focuses on early detection of ovarian cancer with NIR-II fluorescence.

Shiao-Pei Weathers, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Weathers is a neuro-oncologist with clinical research experience in primary brain tumors, specifically gliomas, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Her clinical background has afforded her the opportunity to treat a diverse primary brain tumor patient population. This exposure has provided her with a unique perspective on the integration of novel treatment strategies, both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic, in the management of patients with gliomas. She has contributed to clinical research in gliomas by acting as either PI or co-investigator for a number of clinical trials for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma and recurrent glioblastoma. Aside from developing new protocol concepts with targeted therapies, immunotherapy including cellular therapies, or other rationale combination treatment strategies, she has also been involved and served as PI in conducting research evaluating symptom burden and quality of life in patients with gliomas. In her role as a clinical researcher, she collaborates with multiple researchers from different departments to develop unique, multidisciplinary treatment approaches to improve survival and quality of life for patients with gliomas. Dr. Weathers serves as the Director of the MD Anderson Neuro-Oncology Fellowship Program, Clinical Medical Director for the Brain and Spine Center, and Director of MD Anderson’s brain tumor support group named MD Anderson BEST (Brain tumor Education and Support Together).

Shubham Pant, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Shubham Pant, MD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology with a joint appointment in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics at the The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Pant is a key opinion leader in the fields of Phase 1 (Early drug development) and pancreatic cancer. He has an expertise in targeted therapy and immunotherapy, and has co-authored numerous peer-review articles and is a Section Editor for the Handbook of Targeted Therapy and Immunotherapy. In addition, he has presented or has been coauthor on more than 100 abstracts in national and international meetings including ASCO, AACR. ESMO, ESMO GI, ASCO GI, and the NCI-EORTC-AACR (triple meeting). He is a collaborator on numerous grants including R01 grant from the National Institute of Health and serves as the Clinical Co-leader on NCI Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE). He also serves as a member of the National Cancer Institute Pancreas Task Force and helped draft the ASCO Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer Guidelines that provide evidence-based recommendations to serve as a guide for physicians. Dr. Pant has been the recipient of ASCO/AACR Workshop Methods in Clinical Cancer Research and was selected for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Leadership Development Program. He currently serves as a member on the ASCO Annual Meeting Educational Committee (GI-Non Colorectal Track).

Simon Heeke, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Dr. Heeke is the head of the Liquid Biopsy Translational Working Group and Assistant Professor in the Department of Thoracic Head & Neck Medical Oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He received his BSc and MSc degree (with distinction) in Molecular Medicine from the Medical University in Innsbruck, Austria, followed by a PhD in Cell Biology from the University Côte d’Azur in Nice, France. His research focuses on oncogene-driven lung cancer (such as with ALK, RET or EGFR alterations), lung cancer interception, small cell lung cancer subtypes and adenoid cystic carcinoma, and the development of associated tissue and liquid biopsy-based biomarkers through the integration of multimodal data and the use of machine learning methods for clinically applicable predictive models. He has contributed to >60 peer reviewed publications published in various high impact journals, including CA:A Cancer Journal, Nature, Cancer Cell, Annals of Oncology, JCO and JTO. Furthermore, he serves as co-chair of the NIH Liquid Biopsy Scientific Interest Group and co-leads the module on Novel Technological Development of the European Master’s in Molecular Pathology.

Siri Palreddy

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLabs: The Data Science Hub, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Siri Palreddy is a Clinical Research Coordinator for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and works across the Break Through Cancer TeamLabs. She recently graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, holding a BA in Biology and English.

Sohrab Shah, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer and Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Shah is the Chief of Computational Oncology in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and holds the Nicholls-Biondi Endowed Chair in Computational Oncology. He oversees a program of seven tenure-track principal investigators at MSKCC all dedicated to advancing computational biology applied to cancer research. Dr. Shah holds a PhD in computer science and his laboratory focuses on studying cancer evolution through combining advanced genomics with computational modeling. His work in this area has made fundamental advances in understanding how ovarian cancers evolve, how ovarian cancer cells interact with their immune microenvironments, and how cancer cells achieve drug resistance. His work has been published in leading scientific journals such as Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, and Nature Methods amongst others.

Sophie Webster

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: The Data Science Hub

Sophie Webster is an Associate Computational Biologist in Rameen Beroukhim’s lab at the Broad Institute and at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She currently studies mechanisms of double-strand break repair across cancer types and is developing methods to detect sequence patterns in genomic rearrangements. Sophie graduated from Harvard College in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Integrative Biology.

Sreyashi Basu, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Sreyashi Basu, PhD is a Research Group Leader at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr Basu co-directs human immune monitoring group of Immunotherapy platform at MDACC under the guidance of Drs Padmanee Sharma and James Allison. She earned her doctorate degree in Immunology and completed her postdoctoral training at University of Connecticut Health Center. Dr Basu is an innovative biomedical scientist, passionate about newer technologies and implementing them in her research. Her research experience is in immunology, neuro-immuno-oncology and autoimmunity. Dr. Basu manages a group of scientists involved with immunogenomic profiling to study the changes in immune cell phenotypes in response to therapy and to identify predictive biomarkers of therapeutic benefit. Her group identified CD73+ immunosuppressive myeloid cells as a resistance mechanism to immune checkpoint therapy in GBM.

Stefani Spranger, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Spranger, PhD pursued her scientific training at Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, Germany, first as an undergraduate in biology and then completing a PhD in immunology. She then joined the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral fellow, supported by the German Research Foundation and the Cancer Research Institute, later moving to her current position as assistant professor at the MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. She has been awarded the Howard S. (1953) and Linda B. Stern Career Development Professorship and is a Pew-Stewart Scholar. Her work seeks to elucidate the mechanisms and pathways underlying the interaction between the immune system and cancer using mouse models that recapitulate the co-evolution of tumor progression and the anti-tumor immune response. One major emphasis of her work is on dendritic cell and T cell interactions both during T cell activation in the lymph node and also in the tumor microenvironment.

Stephanie Dougan, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Stéphanie Gaillard, MD, PhD, is Director of Gynecologic Cancer Trials and Co-director of the Developmental Therapeutics and Phase I Clinical Trials Program for The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she was a faculty member at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Gaillard earned her medical degree and doctorate of philosophy in cancer biology from Duke University. She then completed her residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in medical oncology at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Gaillard specializes in the treatment of gynecologic malignancies, including ovarian, endometrial, and cervical cancers. Her work focuses on developing clinical trials that aim to improve outcomes using promising new biologic, targeted, and immune therapies in addition to standard treatment regimens. Her translational research program focuses on understanding mechanisms of resistance to therapy and the immune environment associated with gynecologic cancers. Dr. Gaillard has been honored with several awards including the Liz Tilberis Early Career Award from the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund and a Young Investigator Award from the Conquer Cancer Foundation. She was a scholar for the NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) and is a recipient of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) Foundation Scholar Investigator Award. Dr. Gaillard serves as Co-chair of the NRG Oncology Phase I subcommittee and as the SPORE representative to the NCI Gynecologic Cancer Steering Comittee. She is the primary author or co-author of numerous publications and book chapters, and has presented her research both domestically and abroad.

Stuart Levine, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab(s): Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies, The Data Science Hub

Stuart S. Levine, PhD, is the director of the MIT BioMicro Center and co-leader of the Koch Institute Integrated Genomics and Bioinformatics core facility. Dr. Levine received his bachelor’s degree from MIT and his PhD from Harvard University under the guidance of Robert Kingston, and performed postdoctoral training under Richard Young (Whitehead Institute). The Integrated Genomics and Bioinformatics core provides MIT researchers with facilities for high-throughput data-intensive genomics and bioinformatic analysis, as well as large-scale database storage, management, data mining and data modeling required to fully implement systems approaches to investigate a broad spectrum of biological problems. Dr Levine is currently president of the Northeast Regional Laboratory Staff and Core Directors, a chapter of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities.

Sujan Piya, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Sujan Piya, PhD, is a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Translational Molecular Pathology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Piya earned his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Chosun University. His research focuses on leveraging next-generation sequencing (NGS) to uncover cellular and molecular mechanisms in cancer. With a strong record of impactful publications in peer-reviewed journals, Dr. Piya combines foundational scientific exploration with applied oncology research. He specializes in assay development, project management, and quality compliance, including the design and implementation of CLIA/CAP-compliant assays essential for advancing clinical trials.

Thomas Bauer, MBA, RT(R)

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer

Mr. Bauer is the Senior Director of Patient Education and Engagement at Johns Hopkins Medicine. He was selected by the Institute of Medicine as an exemplar in the deployment of health literacy tactics addressing the 10 attributes of a health literate organization. He presented at the NASEM Roundtable discussion on “ Making the Case for Health Literacy” He has been featured in two AHRQ case studies, two VHA Blueprints and served as an advisor to the AHA Opioid Collaborative and PFAC collaboratives. He received the Eagle Award recognizing his commitment to improving health outcomes in North Carolina.

Thomas R. Pisanic II, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Thomas (Tom) Pisanic is a faculty research scientist at Johns Hopkins University whose research aims to develop molecular diagnostic strategies for early, noninvasive detection of cancer. He has 20 years of experience working in both the academic and industrial sectors, providing a uniquely broad background for the development of a diverse array of translational clinical diagnostic approaches. Over his career, he has made significant contributions in the fields of cancer epigenetics, diagnostic assay development, microfluidics and nanotechnology, and has co-authored 30 publications in these various fields. Dr. Pisanic’s current research is primarily focused on characterizing DNA methylation alterations associated with early-stage carcinogenesis and leveraging novel epigenetic analysis strategies for early and companion diagnostic applications for noninvasive detection of lung, colon, and ovarian cancers from various sample types including blood, stool, sputum, and Pap specimens. His long term research goals are aimed at developing and employing innovative multi-analyte molecular analysis techniques with advanced biostatistical and bioinformatic analyses to achieve inexpensive, clinically-practical diagnostics for the early detection of disease.

Tian-Li Wang, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer and Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Dr. Tian-Li Wang is a Professor of Pathology at The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine. She serves as the Director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory of Female Reproductive Cancer at JHU. She has been a leader or co-leader of government-funded program projects. Among them are two multi-institutional Consortium grants funded by DoD-CDMRP, focusing on ovarian cancer early diagnosis and disease prevention.

Dr. Wang received her PhD in Physiology at JHU, pursued a post-doctoral fellowship in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, and took additional training in Cancer Genetics at the Howard Hughes Medical Institutions. She is interested in contributing her diverse training experiences and background to Break Through Cancer’s research and educational endeavors.

Tobiloba Oni, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Oni joined the Whitehead Institute as a Whitehead Fellow in 2021 and is an extramural member of the Koch Institute. The Oni lab focuses on delineating and targeting the critical interface between pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells and their microenvironment to improve patient outcomes. Dr. Oni seeks to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientists from diverse backgrounds, and build collaborative networks across disciplines to solve some of the most challenging biological questions.

Tuomas Tammela, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Tammela earned his MD and PhD from the University of Helsinki, Finland, where he worked in the laboratory of Professor Kari Alitalo, studying molecular mechanisms that control blood and lymphatic vessels growth. Dr. Tammela then moved to MIT for postdoctoral training with Professor Tyler Jacks. During this time, he became interested in cellular heterogeneity in cancer and identified cancer-derived niches as drivers of stem-like cells in lung cancer . Dr. Tammela joined the Sloan Kettering Institute as an Assistant Member in the Cancer Biology & Genetics Program in 2017. The Tammela Lab studies phenotypic heterogeneity of cancer cells within pancreas and lung tumors using genetically engineered mouse models, single cell approaches, tracing and ablation of distinct tumor cell lineages, CRISPR-mediated gene regulation, and advanced imaging techniques. The overarching goal of these efforts is to discover pathways that drive distinct cellular phenotypes and to develop new therapeutic concepts aimed at reducing cellular heterogeneity in tumors. Dr. Tammela holds scholarships from the American Cancer Society, the Josie Robertson Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation and the V Foundation. He is a recipient of a Mark Foundation Emerging Leader Award, an NIH-NCI R37 MERIT Award, and an AACR Next Generation Transformative Research Award.

Victoria Gomerdinger, BS

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLabs: Targeting Minimal Residual Disease in Ovarian Cancer

Victoria Gomerdinger is a PhD student in Paula Hammond’s lab in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. She is engineering layer-by-layer nanoparticles to target ovarian cancer and immune cells for the delivery of potent therapeutics. Victoria graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering from Yale University.

Vinay K. Puduvalli, MD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Dr. Vinay K. Puduvalli is Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuro-Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Co-Director of the MD Anderson Brain Tumor Center and holds the Beau Biden Endowed Chair in Brain Cancer Research. He serves as the leader of the MD Anderson Brain Cancer Core Grant Program and as co-leader of the GBM Moonshot Project. Dr. Puduvalli’s research focuses on patient-oriented research to develop new treatments for brain malignancies using a combined approach of targeted therapies, innovative clinical trial designs, and rational combinations of anticancer agents. His clinical expertise includes care of patients with brain and spine malignancies, as well as neurological complications of cancer. His laboratory research focuses on identifying vulnerabilities in gliomas that can overcome tumor heterogeneity in order to target these with novel agents using a variety of pre-clinical models. His team has also identified novel ways to target stress response and energy metabolism in gliomas to specifically target tumor cells while sparing normal ones. In a translational context, he has led several institutional and multicenter clinical studies involving epigenetic therapies and novel targeted agents. He has served as a mentor for students, residents, fellows, junior, and senior faculty over the past 2 decades. He serves in national leadership roles in the Society of Neurooncology and has served on advisory boards, review boards, and study sections for national and international federal and industry agencies.

Vincent Lam, MD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Vincent K. Lam, MD, is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Thoracic Oncology Clinical Research Program at Johns Hopkins. His ongoing research efforts include the development of the clinical utility of liquid biopsies in cancer, biomarkers for risk stratification and therapeutic optimization, and novel immunotherapies such as T-cell therapy and vaccines.

Viviane Tabar, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Viviane Tabar, MD is the Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery and the Theresa C Feng Professor in Neurosurgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She is a neurosurgeon with expertise in brain tumors, and a scientist with a focus on stem cell biology.

Dr. Tabar’s surgical practice is focused on primary brain tumors and tumors of the skull base. Her research includes the development of cell-based therapies for neurological disorders, using human pluripotent stem cells. This portfolio includes strategies for repairing radiation and chemotherapy induced brain injury and the development of human pluripotent stem cell-derived dopamine neurons for Parkinson’s disease, currently in a Phase I clinical trial. Her lab has also studies glioma biology and has pioneered the use of human embryonic stem cell-based models of brain tumors, with a focus on histone-mutant high grade glioma in the pediatric and young adult patients. She has received several honors and awards from the International Society for Stem Cell Research, the New York Academy of Medicine and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and was elected to the membership of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Society of Neurological Surgeons. Dr. Tabar is also member of the National Academy of Medicine. She serves on the advisory board of Cell Stem Cell.

Wen Jiang, MD, PhD

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Accelerating GBM Therapies Through Serial Biopsies

Wen Jiang, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto and MD from Stanford School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer in 2018 and was recruited to UT Southwestern as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and a CPRIT Scholar. He returned to MD Anderson in 2021, where he treats patients with primary and metastatic CNS tumors. As a physician scientist, Dr. Jiang’s laboratory research aims to identify ways to promote innate immunity as a new strategy to eliminate brain cancer. Dr. Jiang’s research is supported by multiple grant funding from the NCI, NINDS, DOD, CPRIT, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Wenbin Xiao, MD, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Eradicating Measurable Residual Disease in AML, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Wenbin Xiao, MD, PhD, is an assistant Member and attending of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the MSKCC. Dr. Xiao received MD/PhD degree from Peking University and performed postdoctoral research at La Jolla Institute for Immunology. He then completed his residency training in Pathology at Case Western Reserve University and Hematopathology Fellowship training at the NCI under Elaine Jaffe before joining MSKCC as a faculty. His clinical research includes disease discovery, classification and risk stratification of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). His laboratory research focuses on the pathogenesis of RUNX1 mutations in myeloid neoplasm and the characterization of measurable residual disease (MRD) at single cell levels in AML. He is a recipient of NCI K08 award, Early Career Investigator Award from RUNX1 foundation, and Berard-Dorfman Founders Young Investigator Award from the Society for Hematopathology.

Wesley Tansey, PhD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: The Data Science Hub

Wesley Tansey, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Computational Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and in Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Tansey received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and completed his postdoctoral training at Columbia University under the guidance of Raul Rabadan and David Blei. The Tansey lab works on statistical machine learning methods to address pressing problems in cancer data science, including spatial modeling of the tumor microenvironment, biomarker detection, and combination therapy discovery. Dr. Tansey is the recipient of an R37 MERIT grant award from the National Cancer Institute.

William Freed-Pastor, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Dr. Freed-Pastor is a medical oncologist and physician-scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. The Freed-Pastor laboratory investigates the role of the immune system during pancreatic tumor development and applies these insights to develop novel therapeutic approaches that leverage the immune system for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Won Jin Ho, MD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies

Dr. Won Jin Ho is a gastrointestinal oncologist at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins who focuses on cancer immunology and tumor microenvironment research of pancreatic and hepatobiliary cancers. Dr. Ho received his B.S. and M.S. in Bioengineering from UCLA, and his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine. Dr. Ho then completed a research track internal medicine residency as NIH F32 postdoctoral fellow at Case Western Reserve University and subsequently completed his medical oncology fellowship as an AACR Immunology Research Fellow at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Ho currently co-leads the efforts in the gastrointestinal cancer research group to employ emerging high-parameter tools to empower biomarker discovery and development. Dr. Ho’s lab focuses on developing novel methodologies based on mass cytometry to determine the composition, functional states, as well as the spatial coordination of the cell types within the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Ho’s lab is also actively engaged in studies that focus on establishing novel therapeutic targets and strategies against cancer using preclinical models.

Wungki Park, MD

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Dr. Park is a medical oncologist and physician-scientist who specializes in caring for people with cancers of the pancreas and bile system. At clinic, he works as a team member of clinical experts including surgeons, radiation oncologists, gastroenterologists, interventional radiologists, pathologists, radiologists, and nurses. In the lab at David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research, he partners with cancer biologists, immunologists, and bioinformaticians to identify and develop better treatments for his patients through clinical trials. His research focuses on the resistance mechanisms to immunotherapy, tumor microenvironment, DNA damage repair, and KRAS.

Yasmine Ahmed, PhD

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: The Data Science Hub

Yasmine Ahmed, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Karchin lab. She has a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, an MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from Nile University in Egypt and a BSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from Cairo University in Egypt. Her interdisciplinary research unites Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Graph Theoretical Analysis with application in Computational and Systems Biology.

Zach Rogers, PhD

MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab: PoweRD 2 Cure ALK+ Lung Cancer

Zachary is an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow in the Love laboratory at MIT. He completed his PhD in chemical engineering at Northeastern University in 2023. His PhD research was focused on tumor hypoxia, including the development of oxygen-generating therapies to combat tumor immunosuppression and novel methods to recapitulate hypoxia in vitro. His postdoctoral work is focused on understanding cancer therapy resistance. In ALK+ lung cancer, he is applying single-cell sequencing methods to understand the biological mechanisms that lead to the emergence of drug-tolerant persister cells.

Ziyue Li, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab:Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer

Ziyue Li, PhD is a postdoctoral research fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She received her PhD degree in 2017 at Sichuan University, China. She did postdoctoral fellowships at Babraham Institute, UK, and Boston Children’s Hospital prior to joining Andrew Aguirre’s lab at DFCI. She is interested in translational studies which can benefit human health, particularly utilizing high-throughput screen and genome editing to identify druggable targets, and to improve treatments for cancer patients. Outside of the lab, Ziyue enjoys traveling and spending time with her family.

Zuzana Tothova, MD, PhD

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML

Dr. Tothova is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Associate Member of the Broad Institute, Investigator in the Department of Medical Oncology and the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and principal faculty in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Dr. Tothova received her B.A. in Biology and Chemistry from Williams College, a doctorate in Genetics from Harvard University, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School/MIT in the Health Sciences and Technology program. She completed residency training in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowship training in adult hematology and oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and MGH Cancer Center. Dr. Tothova carried out her postdoctoral work in Dr. Benjamin Ebert’s laboratory at the Broad Institute where she studied mechanisms of cohesin mutations in myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia. She started her own laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in July 2018. The primary focus of her group is investigation of the biology, genetics and treatment of myeloid malignancies, including the premalignant state of clonal hematopoiesis (CHIP), MDS and AML. In particular, Dr. Tothova’s lab aims to contribute to our understanding of the effect of chromatin organization on hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transformation in the context of different epigenetic modulators recurrently mutated in myeloid malignancies with the goal to identify novel therapeutic targets that can be translated to true patient benefit in the future. She is a recipient of multiple career development awards from the American Society of Hematology, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, RUNX1 Foundation/Alex’s Lemonade Stand, Doris Duke charitable Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the National Institutes of Health.