PLENARY SPEAKERS

Alberto Bardelli is Professor at the Dept. of Oncology at the University of Torino School of Medicine and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Oncology at the Candiolo Cancer Institute in Italy. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular biology from the University College London (UCL) followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in the laboratory directed by Bert Vogelstein at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Prof Bardelli and his laboratory at the Candiolo Cancer Institute have pioneered the combined use of genomics, patients’ avatars and liquid biopsies to accurately predict tumor’s response and resistance to targeted agents. Discoveries from his group led to the development of innovative diagnostic tests, and therapeutic regimens currently in clinical use for colorectal cancer patients. Prof Bardelli has authored more than 200 scientific articles of which 100 as an independent investigator (H factor 94). Prof Bardelli has been President of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) and received several awards, including the 2017 ESMO Translational Research Award. Alberto Bardelli is scientific founder of Horizon Discovery, Kither and Neophore. 

Speech Title: Inactivation of DNA repair and high dose Vitamin C boost cancer immunotherapy

Manel Esteller (Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, 1968) graduated in Medicine from the Universidad de Barcelona in 1992, where he also obtained his Ph.D. degree specialising in molecular genetics of endometrial carcinoma, in 1996. He was an Invited Researcher at the School of Biological and Medical Sciences at the University of St. Andrews, (Scotland, UK) during which time his research interests focused on the molecular genetics of inherited breast cancer. From 1997 to 2001, Esteller was a Postdoctoral Fellow and a Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins University and School of Medicine, (Baltimore, USA) where he studied DNA methylation and human cancer. His work was decisive in establishing promoter hypermethylation of tumour suppressor genes as a common hallmark of all human tumours.
From October 2001 to September 2008 Manel Esteller was the Leader of the CNIO Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory, where his principal area of research were the alterations in DNA methylation, histone modifications and chromatin in human cancer. Since October 2008 untill May 2019, Dr Esteller has been the Director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program (PEBC) of the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL) in Barcelona. He is currently Director of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), Chairman of Genetics in the School of Medicine of the University of Barcelona, and an ICREA Research Professor. His current research is devoted to the establishment of the epigenome and epitranscriptome maps of normal and transformed cells, the study of the interactions between epigenetic modifications and non-coding RNAs, and the development of new epigenetic drugs for cancer therapy.
Author of 536 original publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, 24 of them categorized as “Highly Cited Paper”. Dr Esteller has a Total Impact Factor of 5,102.677 and a Total Number of Citations of 67,375, having an h-Index of 124 by Web of Science – Clarivate Analytics. Dr. Esteller is considered among the Top 0.01% of World Scientists based on Impact by Stanford University (METRICS). He is also a Member of numerous international scientific societies, Editorial Boards and reviewer for many journals and funding agencies. Dr Esteller is also Associate Editor for Cancer Research, The Lancet Oncology, Carcinogenesis, Genome Research and The Journal of The National Cancer Institute. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Epigenetics.
His work has received, among other, the Carcinogenesis Award (2005), Beckman-Coulter Award (2006), Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro (FPRC) Award (2006), Swiss Bridge Award (2006), Innovation Award from the Commonwealth of Massachussets (2007), Human Frontier Science Program Award (2007), DEbiopharm-EPFL Award (2009), Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award (2009), Lilly Foundation Preclinical Biomedical Research Award (2009), World Health Summit Award (2010), the European Research Council Advanced Grant (2011), “Rey Jaime I” Research Award (2013), Severo Ochoa Award in Biomedicine (2014), National Award in Oncology (2014), “Dr Josep Trueta Medal” Generalitat de Catalunya, Catalan Goverment (2015), National Research Award of the Catalan Goverment (2015), Gold Medal, Parlament of Catalonia (2016), International Award of Catalonia (2016), Falcó Carlemany Award (2017), Innovation in Healthcare Oncology Award (2018), Lansdowne Lecture Award, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (2019).

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Dr Montse Sanchez-Cespedes graduated in Biology and obtained her PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the Universidad de Barcelona in Spain. From 1997 to 2001 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore-USA). From October 2004 to September 2008 she started her independent career as a junior group leader of the Lung Cancer Group at the Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO) in Madrid. Later, she moved to Barcelona to led the Genes and Cancer Group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL in Barcelona. Since 2019, she is the leader of the Cancer Genetics group at the Josep Carreras Research Institute. 

The laboratory of Dr Sanchez-Cespedes laboratory is devoted to the genetic, epigenetic and molecular study of the mechanisms that drive cancer development, specially focusing in lung cancer. Her lab uses the latest high throughput sequencing technologies to create profiles and catalogues of the recurrently altered genes in cancer. Over all these years, her group has pioneered the identification of relevant tumor suppressor such as STK11, SMARCA4 and MAX, among others, in lung cancer. She is also deeply interested in understanding the mechanisms by which the abnormal function of these genes contribute to carcinogenesis. The ultimately purpose of her research is to design novel therapeutic strategies to implement the clinical management of cancer patients. 

Dr Sanchez-Cespedes is a member of international scientific societies, editorial board member of several journal and reviewer for many journals and funding agencies. She has a list of over 100 original publications and reviews in international and peer-reviewed journals of prestige.

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Ari M. Melnick, MD, is Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology/Oncology in the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology at the Weill Cornell Medical College in NewYork City. He is chair of the Hematologic Malignancies Program of the Weill Cornell Cancer Center, Director of the Sackler Center for Biomedical and Physical Sciences at Weill Cornell. He has chaired a number of international meetings in hematology, cancer and epigenetics. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 manuscripts in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology and
the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Melnick’s research is focused on discovering transcriptional and epigenomic mechanisms that drive lymphoid and myeloid neoplasms and harnessing these mechanisms for development of novel drugs and therapeutic regimens for cancer patients. This has led him to early on apply methodologies such as HiC, etc to explore how sets of genes become coordinated during the immune response and disrupted in cancer. Dr. Melnick uses two general approaches to study these mechanisms. On the one hand his group performs focused biochemical and biological mechanistic research on specific transcriptional and epigenetic modifiers that play key roles in normal and malignant tissues. He has used this work to design novel kinds of therapeutic agents including the first rationally designed transcription factor inhibitor as well as to translate to the clinic specific targeted therapies in a more precise manner. In the second approach Dr. Melnick uses the tools of systems biology and high throughout genomics to explore how the epigenome is perturbed in human patients with disease. Along these lines he performed the first organized and comprehensive epigenome mapping in human disease. These studies have expanded to include an international network and over 3000 patients enrolled in various large-scale clinical trials.

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Elaine S Jaffe is a Senior Investigator and named NIH Distinguished Investigator at the National Cancer Institute.  She completed her medical studies at Cornell University Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Jaffe is an author of more than 700 peer reviewed articles, 150 chapters and invited reviews and more than 40 Editorials.  She was an Editor for the WHO Classification of Tumors of the Hematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues. Science Watch named her among the 10 most highly cited researchers in clinical oncology, and she was included among the 400 most highly cited researchers in Biomedical Science worldwide between 1996 and 2011.    Dr. Jaffe has held leadership positions in several major medical societies, including the American Society of Hematology, United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology and the Society for Hematopathology.  Dr. Jaffe was Chair, of the Medical Sciences Section, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  She was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2008, and in 2013 was awarded the Stratton Medal from the American Society of Hematology.  Dr Jaffe was invited to give the Henry Rappaport Memorial Lecture at the Lugano International Congress on Malignant Lymphoma in 2013.  Dr. Jaffe received the 2016 Rous Whipple Award from the American Society of Investigative Pathology.  Her clinical and investigational studies have been intertwined to enhance our understanding of the malignant lymphomas.

Speech Title: Lymphoma Diagnosis and Discovery as a Basis for Personalized Medicine

Ann Daly is Professor of Pharmacogenetics at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. She holds BA and PhD degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Dublin (Trinity College), Ireland. After several years as a postdoc at the University of Geneva, Switzerland she moved to Newcastle University where she was a founder member of the Newcastle Pharmacogenetics Research Group. Her current research is focused on the genetic susceptibility to idiosyncratic adverse drug reactions, pharmacogenetics of the human cytochromes P450 and the genetics of complex diseases, particularly liver disease. She is currently President of the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX). She is also on the editorial board of a number of journals and a Senior Editor of British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. She has published over 200 peer reviewed articles and has a H-index of 91.

Speech Title: Genetics of drug-induced liver injury: relevance of non-HLA risk factors

Since 2007 Prof. Matthias Schwab is chair of Clinical Pharmacology at the University Tuebingen and director of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital Tuebingen and the Dr. Margarete Fischer-Bosch-Institute of Clinical Pharmacology (IKP) at Robert-Bosch-Hospital in Stuttgart, Germany.  

After the study of  medicine at the University Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany followed by fellowships in Children’s Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology with board certifications for both disciplines he has held positions at the IKP, Stuttgart, Germany and as visiting professor at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, US. In 2006 and in 2010 he declined two offers for Full Professorship and Chair for Clinical Pharmacology in Innsbruck, Austria, and Stockholm, Sweden.

Prof. Schwab’s scientific interests focus on personalized medicine and pharmacogenomics (e.g. cancer therapy) particularly related to ADME genes. In addition, his special interest lies in the consideration of the application of novel –omics technologies as well as the implementation of research findings into clinical practice. 

Throughout his career Matthias Schwab received numerous awards such as the Galenus von Pergamon Award, the Robert-Pfleger Research Award or the “Staufer-Medal” conferred by the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg. He is also Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina as well as of the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz, Germany. His scientific accomplishments result in > 400 peer reviewed publications as well as an ISI H-index of 89. Prof. Schwab is listed as Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher 2015/2016/2018/2020 in the rubric “Pharmacology and Toxicology”/”Cross Field” and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacogenetics & Genomics, and Drug Research as well as Section Editor of Genome Medicine for Pharmacogenomics & Personalized Medicine.

Speech Title: PharmacoOmics and renal cancer

Dr. Anne-Marie Caminade is Director of Research Exceptional Class at the CNRS (equivalent to Full Professor of Research), and the Head of the “Dendrimers and Heterochemistry” group (ca 20 researchers) at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination (LCC) in Toulouse France. Starting from January 1^st 2021, she is the Deputy Director of the LCC (ca 250 persons), particularly in charge of the supervision of the biology and health researches in the LCC. She is author and co-author of 488 publications in journals, 1st rank in the world for the number of publications about dendrimers (source SciFinder). She is editor of two books and co-author of 53 book chapters, co-inventor of 18 priority patents + 16 World extensions (WO), her h index is 71 (over 16,000 citations in WOS). She was the Chair of numerous international conferences, including PEMED 2018 in Paris. She was Invited Editor for several special issues in Molecules (MDPI), Coordination Chemistry Reviews, and Chemical Society Reviews (IF2019 = 42.846), where she is Advisory Editor since 2010. Her current research interest is on dendrimers (hyperbranched and perfectly defined nanometric molecules) (1993- ) and to the chemical approach of nanosciences, in particular concerning: i) Materials, nanometric modifications on the surface of materials (electrodes, nanolatexes, metallic surfaces, silica, alumina), elaboration of ultra-sensitive DNA Chips, chemical sensors; materials incorporating dendrimers (nanotubes, microcapsules, hydrogels, fibers, organic-inorganic materials, etc.), ii) Biology/nanomedicine/health (dendrimers as anti-prion, anti-HIV, anti-cancer, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory agents, for immunology, medical imaging and genetic transfection, against Uveitis, Multiple Sclerosis, psoriasis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, tuberculosis, etc.), in collaboration with biologists and medical doctors.

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Dr. Eduard Porta-Pardo obtained his degree in Biotechnology from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in 2008 and his PhD in Biomedicine from Universitat de Barcelona in 2013. Between 2013 and 2017 he was a postdoctoral associated at SBP Medical Discovery Institute (La Jolla, USA) where he worked on how to use of protein structure data to identify cancer driver genes and drug biomarkers. Between 2016 and 2018 he co-led two analysis working groups from The Cancer Genome Atlas PanCanAtlas project, on cancer driver genes and oncogenic mechanisms, and contributed to a third on the immune landscape of cancer. Between 2018 and 2019 he was a La Caixa Junior Leader Fellow at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). There he worked on how germline variants shape the immune response against tumors and on the use of polygenic scores to predict cancer risk. Since 2020 he leads the Cancer Immunogenomics laboratory at the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute. The group uses computational approaches to understand how genetic variants, both germline and somatic, interact with the tumor microenvironment, particularly with immune cells.

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Dr. Elemento is a tenured full professor at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Director of the Caryl and Israel Englander Institute for Precision Medicine (EIPM; https://eipm.weill.cornell.edu/) since 2017. The EIPM is fundamentally multidisciplinary and draws its ~60 faculty members from nearly all basic and clinical departments at WCM. The Englander Institute’s mission is to use genomics, AI and other technologies to bring highly personalized medicine to patients at NewYork Presbyterian Hospital and foster patient-centered basic and clinical research in the areas of genomics, systems biology, AI and data science. Dr. Elemento is funded by numerous NIH grants, Foundation grants, NIH contracts and industry alliances (Eli Lilly, Janssen). He has published over 280 papers in the area of precision medicine, genomics, computational biology, systems biology and drug discovery. He has led the development of novel clinical (CLIA) genomics assays including whole-exome sequencing offered to patients at WCM/NYPH and is currently leading a large multi-disease effort to bring WGS into clinical practice at WCM/NYP. He has received several external and internal awards and recognition e.g., NSF CAREER award and Opening Plenary Speaker at AACR in 2020. Dr. Elemento has mentored numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who went on to have successful careers in academia and industry. Two of his students were named “Forbes 30 under 30” while in his lab. Dr. Elemento co-founded two venture capital-funded companies: Volastra Therapeutics (with Lew Cantley, Sam Bakhoum) and OneThree Biotech (with Neel Madhukar). He serves on the scientific advisory board of Volastra, OneThree Biotech as well as of Owkin, Freenome, and several other companies.

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I received my clinical training in the Medical School and Children’s Hospital of Fudan University, during which I practiced in the only clinic specialized in IEIs in Shanghai. I decided to extend my work to research after my clinical training and joined the research team lead by Dr. Helen Su at the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow. With the team, I discovered a new IEI caused by DOCK8 deficiency. More importantly, I discovered a new signaling pathway that controls cell migration and integrity in 3D tissues, which highlights the importance of tissue-specific immunity. In 2018, I join the Casanova lab, where I intend to develop a research team focusing on IEIs that lead to severe respiratory viral infections. Most recently, I focus my research on patients with life-threatening COVID-19, and contributed to the discovery of IEIs and autoantibodies in the type I IFN immunity.

Speech Title: Inborn errors of type I IFN immunity in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

MD-PhD Student, in pediatrics and immunology. Currently working in the laboratory of Jean-Laurent Casanova on the genetic and immunological predisposition to life-threatening COVID-19 and other severe viral infections. 

Speech Title: Auto-antibodies against type I interferons in patients with life-threatening COVID-19.

María José Alonso’s lab has pioneered numerous discoveries in the field of Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology and nanomedicine. She has coordinated several research consortia financed by the WHO, the Gates Foundation and the European Commission. She is the author of 290 scientific contributions with more than 30,000 cites (H factor 75/93). Because of the quality of her scientific articles she has been among the TOP TEN in Pharmacology (Times Higher Education international ranking, 2010). Recently, she become part of the “Power List” of the most influential researchers in the field of Biopharmaceuticals (The Medicine Maker, 2020)

She has also been very active transferring her knowledge and discoveries to industry. She is the inventor of 22 patent families, most of them licensed to industry and she has been part of 3 start-up ventures.

She has served to the Release Society (CRS) for 15 years and she has been President of the CRS (2017-19). She is also Editor-in-Chief of the Drug Delivery and Translational Research, an official journal of the CRS, and she is part of the editorial board of 12 journals. 

She has received 33 awards, among them the ”Research and Education Excellence Medal” granted by the Spanish Government, the “Jaime I Award”, the General Council of Pharmacy Medal, and other awards granted by scientific organizations, such as the ”Marie Junot Award” of the APGI, the “Founders Award”, the “Outstanding Service Award” and the “Women in Sciences Award” of the CRS. She was also recently awarded by the AIM-HI Women’s Venture Competition program born out of the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR). 

She is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and a Fellow of the Controlled Release Society, a member of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Spain (RANF), the Royal Academy of Sciences of Galicia, the Royal Academy of Pharmacy in Galicia and a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium and also a member of the US National Academy of Medicine (NAM).

She was the Vice-rector of Research and Innovation of the USC (2006-10).

Speech Title: Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology and Precision Nanomedicine: New Oncological Treatments