Future Leaders in Basic Cancer Research Special Symposium held at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012, 1:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m., McCormick Place West (Level 1), Room W179
This special symposium has been developed in conjunction with the leaders of the AACR to highlight outstanding early-career scientists in cancer research whose work reflects innovation, scientific independence, motivation and creativity. Nominees were required to be graduate students, medical students or residents, clinical fellows or postdoctoral fellows and institutional nomination was required for consideration. Nominees were evaluated through a competitive review process; finalists were interviewed before final decisions were made.
The AACR and the Associate Member Council are very proud to announce the speakers selected to present their work for the Future Leaders in Basic Cancer Research.
Faiyaz Notta, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Campbell Family Cancer Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Genetic origins of leukemia-initiating cells in Philadelphia positive lymphoblastic leukemia
Dr. Notta, along with his colleagues, investigates relevance of clonal genetic diversity in tumor-initiating cells in leukemia. He will review concepts of clonal evolution and cancer stem cells and their role in tumor development.
Carrie Adelman, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, London Research Institute, Cancer Research UK, South Mimms, England
HELQ helicase and the RAD51 paralogs collaborate in repair of DNA replication blocking lesions to prevent tumorigenesis
Dr. Adelman’s mouse studies have uncovered HelQ as a potentially new tumor suppressor gene. Together with colleagues, she has extended this work to further understand molecular and genetic aspects of the DNA repair pathway in replicating cells and identified a probable link between human ovarian cancer and mutations in this gene.
David A. Solomon, Ph.D.
M.D./Ph.D. Student, Lombardi Cancer Center, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC
Mutational inactivation of STAG2 causes aneuploidy in human cancer
Dr. Solomon's research has focused on the identification of new cancer genes in human tumor samples and the translation of these findings into new targeted therapies. His work has led to the identification of CDKN2C and PTPRD as important tumor suppressor genes in the brain tumor glioblastoma multiforme, as well as advancement of the small molecule cdk4/6 inhibitor PD-0332991 into a clinical trial in patients with recurrent glioblastoma. He will present on his recent discovery of recurrent somatic mutations of the STAG2 gene in multiple human tumor types and his finding of STAG2 inactivation as a genetic cause of aneuploidy in human cancer.
Michael Quante, M.D.
Clinical Fellow, II. Medizinische Klinik, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, München, Germany
Bile acid and inflammation activate gastric cardia stem cells in a mouse model of Barrett Esophagus and adenocarcinoma
Dr. Quante and colleagues generated a novel transgenic mouse model for Barrett Esophagus (BE) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) that resembles the human disease. He will demonstrate data that gastric cardia progenitor cells are activated by esophageal inflammation, and migrate into the distal esophagus where they give rise to metaplasia and dysplasia. The findings challenge the common paradigms regarding the pathogenesis of BE and EAC.