AACR D3: The ‘Global One-stop Conference’ for Drug Discovery and Development
The road from laboratory discovery to lifesaving cancer treatment is paved by many hands. There are the scientists who uncover and translate fundamental insights into therapeutics, the clinical trialists who evaluate these in patients, the patient advocates who offer their valuable perspectives, the venture capitalists who invest in promising strategies, and the regulatory agencies who evaluate and approve new treatments.
Too often, these diverse sectors remain siloed, but an upcoming conference from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will foster transformative, cross-sector collaborations by convening experts across the drug development pipeline.
In doing so, the inaugural AACR Drug Discovery and Development (AACR D3) meeting aims to reshape the future of oncology therapeutics.
The conference, which will take place July 21-24 in Boston, has been organized by four leaders in drug discovery and development:
- Lillian L. Siu, MD, FAACR, codirector of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Canada;
- Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, PhD (hc), FAACR, chief of experimental therapeutics at Yale School of Medicine;
- Keith T. Flaherty, MD, FAACR, director of clinical research at Massachusetts General Cancer Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School; and
- Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, vice president and head of clinical development in the Therapeutics Discovery Division at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
With invited speakers from academia, traditional pharma, biopharma, biotech, regulatory agencies, and venture capital, the meeting provides a unique opportunity to interact with and hear perspectives from all relevant stakeholders, said Flaherty, who is the President of AACR.
“This will be the only place where you can have a collective conversation that otherwise you [would] break up into one-on-one discussions through all of your professional interactions,” he said.
“AACR D3 is going to be the global one-stop conference for drug discovery and drug development,” added Yap, a member of the AACR Board of Directors and editor-in-chief of the AACR journal Clinical Cancer Research.
What to Expect at AACR D3
Underscoring the importance of both preclinical and clinical contributions to drug development, there will be an educational session highlighting the journey of multiple drugs from discovery to treatment, including the menin inhibitor ziftomenib, the HER2 inhibitor zongertinib, and the TROP-targeted ADC datopotamab deruxtecan. Another educational session will reflect on the global nature of modern oncology drug development.
The meeting’s main program will cover a wide range of drug classes:
- protein degraders, such as RAS degraders, RIPTACs, and proximity-inducing approaches;
- drug conjugates, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and radioconjugated antibodies, plus ways to optimize payload delivery;
- chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy enhancements, such as in vivo generation and armored CAR T cells;
- immune checkpoint inhibitors;
- multispecifics;
- radionucleotides;
- synthetic lethality targets beyond the DNA damage response; and,
- therapeutics against epigenetic targets and transcription factors.
The potential of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to advance drug discovery and development will be explored. In addition, experts will discuss the applications of circulating tumor DNA and other biomarkers for developing drugs and for identifying determinants of treatment response and resistance.
Sessions will also examine the multifaceted challenges facing drug discovery, which include obstacles in biology, chemistry, and the clinic.
“The time is now to have a meeting such as this,” said LoRusso, who served as 2024-2025 AACR President. “Drug discovery and development are exploding in terms of the number of drugs, the way we develop drugs, the globalness of drug development.”
In addition to conventional meeting sessions, the conference will also feature innovative, interactive session formats and networking opportunities.
“AACR D3 is a meeting that you’ve never been [to] before,” said Siu, who is AACR Immediate Past President. “You’re not going to want to miss this.”
AACR Drug Discovery and Development (AACR D3) will take place July 21-24 in Boston. Advance registration is available until June 10.
