In This Section

Program

All Times are Pacific Time (PT)

Beginning at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 17, and continuing all day Saturday, April 18, 2026, a program of Educational Sessions and Methods Workshops will be presented. Access to the Educational Program is included in your meeting registration. The program on Saturday will conclude with the Discovery Science Plenary Session titled, The Next Frontier in Minimal Residual Disease: Solid Tumors (4:15-6:15 p.m.). The Opening Ceremony and the Opening Plenary Session will take place on Sunday morning, April 19. The meeting will conclude at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 22.

The 2026 Program in Progress follows:

Plenary Sessions

Saturday, April 18, 2026
Discovery Science Plenary
The Next Frontier in Minimal Residual Disease: Solid Tumors 
Chair: Maximilian Diehn, Stanford University, Stanford, California

  • Aaron N. Hata, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Dan Landau, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
  • Jean-Christophe W. Marine, VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology, Leuven, Belgium
  • Jeanne Tie, Peter MacCallum Cancer Center, Melbourne, Australia

Sunday, April 19, 2026
Opening Plenary Session
Precision, Partnership, Purpose:
Advancing Cancer Science to Save Lives Globally
Cochairs: Paul S. Mischel, Stanford University, Stanford, California; Alice T. Shaw, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

  • Carl H. June, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Georg E. Winter, CeMM – Research Center for Molecular Medicine, Vienna, Austria        
  • Regina Barzilay, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Charles L. Sawyers, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Monday, April 20, 2026
AI Revolution in Cancer Research
Chair: Jakob Nicholas Kather, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

  • Jure Leskovec, Stanford University, Stanford, California
  • Faisal Mahmood, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Suchi Saria, Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Bo Wang, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Early-onset Cancers: Why Are More Young Adults Getting Cancer?
Chair: Andrew T. Chan, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

  • Ludmil B. Alexandrov, UC San Diego, San Diego, California
  • Andrew T. Chan
  • Pepper Schedin, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon
  • Hyuna Sung, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Georgia

Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Innovative Treatment Modalities: Shaping the Future of Oncology
Chair: Katy Rezvani, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

  • Raffaele Colombo, Zymeworks, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • Angela Coxon, Amgen Oncology, Thousand Oaks, California
  • John B.A.G. Haanen, Netherland Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Martin G. Pomper, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, Maryland

AACR Annual Meeting 2026 Highlights
Cochairs: Paul S. Mischel, Stanford University, Stanford, California; Alice T. Shaw, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts
Speakers to be announced

Presidential Select Symposium

Monday, April 20, 2026
Targeting Stage 0: Precision-Based Prevention
Chair: Raymond N. Dubois, MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, Charleston, South Carolina

  • Introduction: Lillian L. Siu, UHN Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • Sir John Burn, Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom
  • Mary (Nora) L. Disis, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
  • Joann G. Elmore, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California
  • Sharon Plon, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas

Panelists to be announced

Educational Sessions

3D Cell Imaging and Cancer
Chair: Peter Karl Sorger, DFCI/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

Academic Entrepreneurship: Getting Your Discovery to Patients, Part 1 – Liftoff
Chair: Michael A. Caligiuri, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, California

Advancing Implementation Science in Cancer Prevention and Control
Chair: Jennifer Tsui, Keck School of Medicine of USC, Los Angeles, California

AI in Biomarker Discovery and Drug Development
Chair: Jakob Nikolas Kather, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

Beyond Cardiotoxicity: How Cardiovascular Disease and Systemic Risk Factors Drive Tumorigenesis
Chair: Javid J. Moslehi, UCSF School of Medicine, San Francisco, California

Beyond Sex: The Y Chromosome in Cancer
Chair: Dan Theodorescu, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California

Biology, Mechanisms, and Models of Cachexia
Chair: Teresa A. Zimmers, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, Portland, Oregon

Biomarkers to Assess Favorable Effects of Diet, Dietary Supplements, and Lifestyle
Chair: Karen H. Vousden, The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

Cancer Metabolism as a Therapeutic Frontier
Chair: Ping-Chih Ho, UNIL University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

CART Therapy: Transforming the Landscape of Adult and Pediatric Blood Cancers
Chair: Stephen Gottschalk, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee

Chemistry to the Clinic Part 1 of 4: Next-Level Conjugates: Transforming Targeted Therapies
Chair: Xueqing Wang, AbbVie Inc., San Carlos, California

Chemistry to the Clinic Part 2 of 4: Beyond Inhibition: The Next Frontier in Proximity-Inducing Therapies
Chair: Michael A. Erb, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California

Chemistry to the Clinic Part 3 of 4: Advancing the Horizon: Novel Targets and Modalities
Chair: Aimee Usera, Delphia Therapeutics, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Chemistry to the Clinic Part 4 of 4: From Transcript to Protein: New Frontiers in Drug Discovery
Chair: Ryan Potts, Amgen R&D, Thousand Oaks, California

Chromosomal Instability in Cancer: From Mechanism to Therapy and Clinical Translation
Chair: Samuel F. Bakhoum, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, Hanover, New Hampshire

Clinical and Molecular Phenotyping of Cancer Cachexia
Chair: Marcus DaSilva Goncalves, NYU Langone Health, New York, New York

Comparison of Solid and Liquid Tumors
Chair: Hugues De Thé, Institute Universitaire de France, Paris, France

Decoding Tumor Evolution through the Human Tumor Atlas Network: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective
Chair: Alan Hunter Shain, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, California

Dose Optimization in Early-Phase Oncology Trials: Implementing the Vision of FDA’s Project Optimus
Chair: Gideon Blumenthal, Merck, Kenilworth, New Jersey

Engineered NK Cells: From Innate Immunity to Clinical Innovation
Chair: Eric Vivier, Centre d’Immunologie INSERM, Marseille, France

Epistasis and Evolution: How Genetic Interactions Shape Cancer Trajectories
Chair: Jeffrey Peter Townsend, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Extracellular Matrix Remodeling in the Tumor Microenvironment and Distant Niches
Chair: Mario Paolo Colombo, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy

Fibroblast Dynamics: How Heterogeneity Shapes the Tumor Microenvironment
Chair: Stephanie K. Dougan, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

Foundation Models and Multimodal AI for Cancer Research
Chair: Charlotte Bunne, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

GLP-1 Pathways in Cancer: Mechanisms, Risks, and Therapeutic Opportunities
Chair: Jiang Bian, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana

Health and Risk Communication: Crafting Population Health Messages for Diverse Audiences to Enhance Decision-Making
Chair: Anita Y. Kinney, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey

Hematological Malignancies: Undruggable Targets and New Frontiers
Chair: Faith E. Davies, NYU Langone Health Perlmutter Cancer Center, New York, New York

How KRAS Inhibitors Got to the Clinic: From Discovery to Patient Benefit
Chair: Frank McCormick, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, California

Identification and Management of Reduced Penetrance High-risk Cancer Gene Variants
Chair: Alvaro N. Monteiro, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida

Innovations in Translating Social and Structural Determinants of Health Across Population, Community, and Basic Cancer Research
Chair: Adana A.M. Llanos, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, New York

Intratumoral Drug Responses
Chair: Oliver Jonas, Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Macrophages as Therapeutic Gatekeepers: From Biology to Clinical Application
Chair: Jennifer L. Guerriero, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Mapping Neural-Immune Circuits: Spatial Multi-Omics in the Tumor Microenvironment
Chair: Moran Amit, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Mechanotransduction in Tumor Development, Metastasis, and Therapy Resistance
Chair: Jing Yang, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California

Metastatic Organotropism: Clues from Primary Tumors and Metastatic Niches
Chair: Massimo Loda, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York

Multi-modal Platforms for Early Cancer Detection
Chair: Kara N. Maxwell, Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

New Insights from TCGA: Whole-Genome Sequencing Data Released
Chair: Gad Getz, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts

New Technologies in the Metabolism of Cancer
Chair: Matthew G. Vander Heiden, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Next Generation Engineering of Immune Effectors
Chair: H. Trent Spencer, Emory Winship Cancer Institute, Atlanta, Georgia

Next Generation Extracellular Vesicles and Particles as Biomarkers, Targets, and Deliverables
Chair: David C. Lyden, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York

Overcoming Mutational Resistance with Novel Binders or Orthogonal Pathways
Chair: Kevan M. Shokat, UCSF – University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California

Pathobiology of Sarcomas: Emerging Technologies
Chair: Miguel N. Rivera, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Pre-Clinical and Clinical Advances in Detecting and Targeting the Pre-Metastatic Niche
Chair: Ilaria Malanchi, The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

Radiotheranostics: Nuts and Bolts
Chair: Kayvan R. Keshari, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Scarsdale, New York

Reprogramming the Host: Tumor–Host Metabolic Crosstalk as a Therapeutic Frontier
Chair: Ayelet Erez, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Say What? Communicating Science to Everyone
Chair: Kristen Dahlgren, Cancer Vaccine Coalition, Middlebury, Vermont

Senescence in Cancer: Identifying, Measuring, and Targeting a Double-Edged Sword
Chair: Marcus Ruscetti, UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts

Small Patients, Big Data: Making Precision Medicine Work in Pediatric Cancer
Chair: Sarah K. Tasian, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Targeted Alpha- and Beta-Emitter Radiopharmaceuticals: Multidisciplinary Precision Radiation Medicine
Chair: Zachary S. Morris, University of Wisconsin Madison School of Medicine & Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin

Taste and Smell in Cancer: Undervalued Drivers of Nutrition and Patient Impact
Chair: Valentina Parma, Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Dark Side of Cancer Therapies: Therapy-Induced Comorbidities Across the Lifespan
Chair: Sheila A. Stewart, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri

Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy for Non-Immunologists Session: Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy – Back to Basics
Chair: Greg M. Delgoffe, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Unraveling the Role of Extrachromosomal DNA in Cancer Evolution and Therapy Response
Chair: Paul S. Mischel, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

Wearables and Digital Biomarkers for Cancer Interception
Chair: Peter Kuhn, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California

When Tumors Act Like Viruses: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Frontiers
Chair: Israel Canadas, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Methods Workshops

AI in Cancer Care: Practical Applications Transforming Oncology
Chair: Caroline Chung, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Bayesian and Model-Assisted Designs for Early-Phase Clinical Trials – Simplicity Meets Efficiency
Chair: Ying Yuan, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Bridging the Gap: Multilevel Strategies to Expand Access to Cancer Clinical Trials
Chair: Electra D. Paskett, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Clinical Trial Design Workshop: Real World Evidence in Clinical Trial Design
Chair: Peter J. O’Dwyer, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Deep Learning in Digital Pathology: From Morphology to Multimodal Biomarkers
Chair: Alexander T. Pearson, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

The AACR Project GENIE® Data Model: A Foundation for Scalable, Structured Data Collection to Support the Precision Oncology Revolution
Chair: Jeremy L. Warner, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

Using Multiplex Assays of Variant Effects (MAVEs) in Clinical Oncology Practice
Chair: Fergus J. Couch, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Rochester, Minnesota

Advances in Diagnostics and Therapeutics

Advances in Minimal Residual Disease Detection via Circulating Tumor DNA
Chair: Viktor Adalsteinsson, Broad Institute, Acton, Massachusetts

Claudin-Targeted Therapies: From Tight Junction Biology to Next-Generation Precision Oncology
Chair: Kohei Shitara, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Chiba, Japan

El Camino de la Pediatría: Finding Our Way Through the Chasm of Pediatric Oncology Drug Development
Chair: Samuel C. Blackman, Day One Biopharmaceuticals, Eastsound, Washington

Induced Proximity Pharmacology: Degraders and Beyond
Chair: Michelle R. Arkin, UCSF – University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California

New Advances in Bispecific Antibody Development
Chair: William R. Sellers, Broad Institute, Brookline, Massachusetts

Next-Generation Radioligand Therapy
Chair: Julie L. Sutcliffe, UC Davis, Windsor, California

Optimizing Efficacy While Limiting Toxicity in Immunotherapy for Cancer Treatment
Chair: Michael Dougan, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Resistance to Antibody Drug Conjugates
Chair: Sarat Chandarlapaty, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in CAR T-Cell Therapy
Chair: Robert R. Jenq, City of Hope, New York, New York

Synthetic Lethality in Oncology: Progress Made, Pitfalls Encountered, and the Path Forward
Chair: Timothy A. Yap, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Targeted Therapy Frontiers in Microsatellite-Stable Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
Chair: Paulo Hoff, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Unveiling Peritoneal Metastasis: From Immune-Genomic Biology to Multimodal Therapies
Chair: Sun Young Rha, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Advances in Early Detection and Interception

Cancer Detection and Interception Across Tumor Types: Addressing Modifiable Risk Factors for Early Action
Chair: Adriana Albini, IEO – European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy

Non-invasive Early Detection of Single-Site Cancers
Chair: Diane M. Simeone, Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, San Diego, California

Silent Lesions, Dynamic Niches: Harnessing the Stroma to Prevent Cancer Initiation
Chair: Edna Cukierman, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Advances in Hematologic Malignancies

Epigenetics in Hematologic Malignancies
Chair: Steven Josefowicz, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York

Population Sciences for Hematological Malignancies
Chair: Wendy Cozen, UC Irvine, Los Angeles, California

Spatial Technologies for Hematological Malignancies
Chair: Mamiko Sakata-Yanagimoto, University of Tsukuba, Tokyo, Japan

Advances in Organ Site Research

Advances in Bladder Cancer Research and Treatment
Chair: Bishoy Faltas, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York

Advances in Glioblastoma Research and Treatment
Chair: Mario L. Suva, Massachusetts General Hospital, Newton, Massachusetts

Advances in Head and Neck Cancers
Chair: Barbara A. Burtness, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut

Advances in Melanoma Research and Treatment
Chair: Antoni Ribas, UCLA – University of California Los Angeles, Santa Monica, California

Advances in Pancreatic Cancer Research and Treatment
Chair: Anirban Maitra, NYU Langone Health Perlmutter Cancer Center, New York, New York

Advances in Understanding Disseminated Tumor Cells: An Emerging Opportunity to Prevent Lethal Breast Cancer?
Chair: Lewis A Chodosh, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Advances in Upper GI Cancers: Gastric and Esophageal
Chair: Suet Yi Leung, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Biology and Therapeutic Targeting of HIF2a in Renal Cell Carcinoma
Chair: Brian I. Rini, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, Tennessee

Latest Advances in Translational Research from the 2025 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
Cochairs: Carlos L. Arteaga, UT Southwestern Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dallas, Texas, and Charles M. Perou, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Neuroendocrine and Small Cell Lung Cancers
Chair: Lauren Averett Byers, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Precision Liver Cancer Care Across the Continuum: From Prevention to Therapy
Chair: Valerie Chew, Duke – NUS Medical School, Singapore

Prostate Cancer: Basic to Clinical Advances
Chair: Arul M. Chinnaiyan, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Reframing Gynecologic Cancer Prevention: The Fallopian Tube, STIC Lesions, and Emerging Advances in Ovarian and Endometrial Cancers
Chair: Rebecca L. Stone, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

The Role of Colibactin and Other Microbial Metabolites in Colorectal Cancer
Chair: Lars Vereecke, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

Advances in Population Sciences

Multi-kingdom Microbial Determinants of Cancer
Chair: Long H. Nguyen, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Translating Epidemiology to the Clinic: Aspirin for the Prevention and Treatment of Colorectal Cancer
Chair: Omer H. Yilmaz, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts

ZNA and Cancer: How Characteristics of Patient Zip Codes and Neighborhoods Drive Cancer Burden
Chair: Trang VoPham, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington

Advances in Prevention Research

Cancer Predisposition Syndromes
Chair: Jennifer Rubin Grandis, UCSF – University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California

HPV Vaccination and Self-Sampling for Cervical Cancer Prevention and Early Detection Globally and in Underserved Settings
Chair: Carmen E. Guerra, Perelman School of Med. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Precision Screening: Opportunities to Enhance the Benefits of Cancer Screening
Chair: Christopher I. Li, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington

Advances in the Science of Cancer Disparities

Addressing Cancer Mortality in Areas of Persistent Poverty
Chair: Rulla M. Tamimi, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York

Precision for all: Harnessing Multi-omic Technologies to Eliminate Cancer Inequalities
Chair: Yaw Bediako, Yemaachi Biotech, Inc., Accra, Ghana

Advances in Survivorship Research

Cancer Cachexia: Tumor Signals, Systemic Impact, and Translational Opportunities
Chair: Tobias Janowitz, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York

Early-Onset Cancers: Interventions, Survivorship, and Living with Advanced Disease
Chair: David B. Solit, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Advances in Technologies

Agentic AI as the Cancer Researcher: Autonomous Discovery in Oncology
Chair: Marinka Zitnik, Broad Institute of Mit and Harvard, Boston, Massachusetts

Agentic AI as the Oncologist: Clinical Decision Support and Human-AI Collaboration
Chair: Renato Umeton, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee

AI-Based Tissue Biomarkers in Cancer: Multimodal AI Across Scales
Chair: Benjamin Haibe-Kains, UHN Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Next-Gen Tools for ADCs: Defining Biomarkers of Response through Technological Innovation
Chair: Barbara Pistilli, Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France

Shaping the Future of AI: The Role of Pathology in the Development of Foundational Models
Chair: Jeroen van der Laak, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

Single Cell Multi-omic Technologies to Delineate Genotype-Phenotype Relationships in Cancer
Chair: Nicholas E. Navin, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Using AI and Spatial Transcriptomics Data to Predict Spatial Gene Expression from Histopathology Slides
Chair: Eytan Ruppin, Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, California

Major Symposia

AACR-Bayard D. Clarkson Symposium on Plasticity and Cancer Progression: Mechanisms and Consequences
Chair: Lynne-Marie Postovit, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Advancing Patient-Centered Clinical Trials: Bringing Trials to Patients and Patients to Trials
Chair: Roy S. Herbst, Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut

Beyond Chromosomes: Mechanisms, Consequences, and Therapeutic Opportunities of Extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA)
Chair: Anton G Henssen, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany

Beyond Genetics: How Environment, Lifestyle, and Stress Shape Cancer Risk, Control, and Treatment Response
Chair: Khadijah A. Mitchell, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Cancer Vaccines: The Next Frontier of Immunotherapy? A Renaissance?
Chair: Vinod P. Balachandran, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Chromatin, Epigenetics, and Cancer
Chair: Charles W.M. Roberts, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee

Clonal Hematopoiesis: Aging and Drivers of Blood Cancer and Solid Tumors
Chair: Jyoti Nangalia, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Decoding Cancer’s Complex Ecosystem: The Pathology of Tumor Microenvironment and Heterogeneity
Chair: Hoifung Poon, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington

DNA Damage Response and Synthetic Lethality in Cancer
Chair: Alan D. D’Andrea, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

Does Adherence to Oral Cancer Therapy Matter?
Chair: Smita Bhatia, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama

Exploiting Cancer Evolution for Clinical Impact
Chair: Carlo C. Maley, Arizona State University Biodesign Institute, Tempe, Arizona

Glues and Heterobifunctionals as Novel Therapeutics
Chair: Benjamin F. Cravatt, The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, California

Harnessing the Power of the Immune System: Turning Cold Tumors Hot
Chair: Thomas Frank Gajewski, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Human Cancer Models: From Patient-Derived Systems to Clinical Translation
Chair: Pier Paolo Claudio, University of Mississippi, Ridgeland, Mississippi

Immunometabolism Impacting Immunotherapy
Chair: Greg M. Delgoffe, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Immunotherapy and DNA Repair
Chair: Alberto Bardelli, IFOM/University of Turin, Turin, Italy

Inflammaging and Cancer: Mechanistic Insights and Therapeutic Opportunities
Chair: Olga A. Anczukow-Camarda, The Jackson Laboratory, Farmington, Connecticut

Interplay between Genetics and Environment
Chair: Nuria Lopez-Bigas, Institute for Research in Biomedicine – IRB Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Mechanisms of Immune Evasion
Chair: E. John Wherry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Metabolic Reprogramming in Metastasis: Nucleotide Pathways as Drivers and Therapeutic Targets
Chair: Raul Mostoslavsky, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Minorities in Cancer Research Scientific Symposium: Ancestry-Informed Precision Oncology – Integrating Genomic Diversity into Cancer Prevention and Treatment
Cochairs: Melissa B. Davis, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, and Electron Kebebew, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

Mitochondrial Transfer Networks in Cancer Progression
Chair: Yosuke Togashi, Kinki University Faculty of Medicine, Osaka-Sayama, Japan

Neural-Immune Crosstalk in Cancer
Chair: Tak W. Mak, UHN Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Off-the-Shelf Cell Therapies for Cancer and Beyond
Chair: Franco Locatelli, Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

Pediatric Brain Tumors: Biology to Therapy
Chair: Richard J. Gilbertson, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Programmed Cell Death: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Opportunities
Chair: Kristopher A. Sarosiek, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts

Radioligand Therapy: Immunity and Biological Mechanisms
Chair: David R. Piwnica-Worms, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

RAS Inhibitors, Mechanisms of Resistance, and Drug Combinations
Chair: Channing J. Der, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

RNA Biology in Cancer
Chair: Paul Boutz, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York

Signaling Pathways in Cancer
Chair: Benjamin G. Neel, NYU Langone Health Perlmutter Cancer Center, New York, New York

Spatial and Single-Cell Omics at Scale: Technologies for Decoding Cancer Ecosystems
Chair: Fei Chen, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Structural Insights to Cancer Biology and Therapy
Chair: Charalampos Babis Kalodimos, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee

Synthetic Biology Approaches to Cancer and Immune Cell Therapy
Chair: Michel Sadelain, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

The Biology and Burden of Stress: From Societal Challenges to Cellular Responses
Chair: Mikala Egeblad, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Lutherville-Timonium, Maryland

The Epitranscriptome in Cancer: Modifying RNA to Shape the Future of Oncology
Chair: Lucia Altucci, Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Naples, Italy

The Necrotic Tumor Microenvironment as an Instigator of Metastatic Aggression and Immuno-evasion
Chair: Kevin J. Cheung, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington

The role of mRNA translation reprogramming in cancer
Chair: Ivan Topisirovic, McGill University Lady Davis Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Therapy-Induced Microenvironmental Reprogramming and Macroenvironmental Pathophysiological Changes
Chair: Neta Erez, Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Therapy-Induced Mutagenesis in Normal Tissues of Children: A Link to Late Effects?
Chair: Ruben van Boxtel, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Tumor-secreted Factors: The Next Hallmark of Cancer?
Chair: Ashani T. Weeraratna, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

Understanding the Impact of Mechanobiology on Tumor Evolution
Chair: Valerie M. Weaver, UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, California

Where Expedited Pathways, Innovation, Safety, and Patient Access Collide: A KRAS Case Study
Cochairs: Elizabeth M. Jaffee, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, Maryland, and Timothy A. Yap, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

Forums

Big Pharma, Small Biotech, or Academic Drug Discovery and Development: Optimizing Interactions
Chair: Susan M. Galbraith, AstraZeneca Oncology, Gaithersburg, Maryland

Cell Therapy at a Crossroads: Exploring the Evolving Landscape between Autologous, Allogeneic, and In Vivo Engineering
Chair: Christine E. Brown, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, California

Centering Hope: How Patient Voices Are Shaping Tomorrow’s Cancer Science
Cochairs: Kristen Dahlgren, Cancer Vaccine Coalition, Middlebury, Vermont, and Anjee Davis, Fight Colorectal Cancer, Alexandria, Virginia

Leveraging Novel Technologies and Knowledge Bases to Optimize Success in Clinical Trials
Chair: Eliezer M. Van Allen, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

Multicancer Early Detection (MCED): Where We Are and How We Realize the Hope
Chair: Nickolas Papadopoulos, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, Maryland

Science of Community Outreach and Engagement: Navigating Change and Maintaining Impact
Chair: Kim F. Rhoads, VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, Richmond, Virginia

Special Sessions

AACR-ASCO Joint Session: Next Generation of CAR T-Cell Therapies
Cochairs: Lillian L. Siu, UHN Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Eric J. Small, UCSF, San Francisco, California

AACR-JCA Joint Session: Lung Cancer in Never-Smokers
Cochairs: Maria Teresa Landi, NCI-DCEG (Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics), Bethesda, Maryland, and Takashi Kohno, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan

AI in Cancer Research and Care: What We’ve Learned and What Comes Next
Cochairs: Jakob Nikolas Kather, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany, and Benjamin Haibe-Kains, UHN Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The Making of Cancer: From Cellular Events to Systemic Disease – Breakthrough Discoveries from Cancer Grand Challenges
Chair: Charles Swanton, The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

New Drugs on the Horizon: Part 1
Cochairs: Lori S. Friedman, ORIC Pharmaceuticals, South San Francisco, California, and Lawrence G. Hamann, Interdict Bio, San Francisco, California

New Drugs on the Horizon: Part 2
Cochairs: Danette L Daniels, Foghorn Therapeutics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Monica Schenone, Pfizer, Inc., New York, New York

New Drugs on the Horizon: Part 3
Cochairs: Katrina L Jackson, C4 Therapeutics, Watertown, Massachusetts, and Daniel Seungduk La, Triana Biomedicines, Lexington, Massachusetts