In This Section

Program

Please note that this meeting will take place as an in-person event in Vancouver and will not live-stream content for virtual participation. The meeting content will be recorded and made available as an on-demand program after the conference. Please see the registration page for details.

All presentations are scheduled to be live, in-person presentations at the date and time specified below unless noted otherwise. Program in progress.

*-Short talk from proffered abstract

[R] – Remote Presentation

Saturday, July 18

SUNDAY, JULY 19

MONDAY, JULY 20

Saturday, July 18

REGISTRATION

3-8 p.m.

WELCOME AND OPENING Keynote

5-6:15 p.m.

  • 5 p.m. | Welcome from Cochairs
    Andrew Futreal, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  • 5:10 p.m. | Keynote
    Radical collaboration for rare cancers
    Jesse Boehm, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • 5:45 p.m. | From pathognomonic mutation discovery to generalizable impact: rapid translation or arrested development    
    David Huntsman, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Break

6:15-6:30 p.m.

Panel Discussion: Rare Cancers, Broad Insights: Translating Niche Discoveries into Universal Oncology Advances

6:30-7:30 p.m.

  • Panelists:
    Andy Futreal, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
    David Huntsman, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
    Jesse Boehm, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Opening Reception

7:30-9:30 p.m.

Sunday, July 19

Breakfast

7-8:30 a.m.

Special Session: AACR Project GENIE®: Powering Rare Cancer Research Through A Real-world Clinico-genomic Registry

7:15-8:15 a.m.

  • 7:15-7:30 a.m. | An overview of AACR Project GENIE®
  • 7:30-7:45 a.m.| AACR Project GENIE® rare cancer research use cases
    Shawn M. Sweeney, American Association for Cancer Research, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 7:45-8:15 a.m. | Discussion/Q&A

Plenary Session 1: Genomic Drivers of Rare Cancers – Discovery and Translation

8:30-10:15 a.m.

Session Chair: To be announced

  • 8:35 a.m. | DICER1-related tumor predisposition: genotypes, phenotypes and mechanisms
    William Foulkes, McGill, Montreal, QC, Canada 
  • 8:55 a.m. | How to understand and defeat even rare cancers: Lessons from the patient-scientist partnership to defeat fibrolamellar carcinoma
    Sanford Simon, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York
  • 9:15 a.m. | Drugging intrinsically-disordered transcription factor oncoproteins in childhood sarcoma
    Charles Keller, Children’s Cancer Therapy Development Institute, Hillsboro, Oregon
  • 9:35 a.m. | Discussion/Q&A

Break

10-10:15 a.m.

Plenary Session 2: Navigating Genomic and Epigenomic Complexity in Rare Cancers

10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

Session Chair: Patrick Tan, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore

  • 10:35 a.m. | Gastric pre-malignancy: When is rare not rare?
    Patrick Tan
  • 10:55 a.m. | Chromatin and cancer: From mechanisms to emerging therapies
    Charles Roberts, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee
  • 11:15 a.m. | Chromatin reorganization in chronic active Epstein–Barr virus disease and extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma
    Atsushi Kaneda, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan 
  • 11:35 a.m. | Discussion/ Q&A

Lunch on Own

12:15-2 p.m.

Plenary Session 3: From Bench to Bioinformatics: Advanced Modeling of Rare Cancers

2-4 p.m.

Session Chair: Taran Gujral, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington

  • 2:05 p.m. | Eliminating “luck” – learning from rare cancer patients to improve outcomes
    Andrew Futreal, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 
  • 2:25 p.m. | Mechanisms of resistance to kinase inhibitors in kinase fusion-driven infantile gliomas
    Eric Holland, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington 
  • 2:45 p.m. | Making agentic AI work for rare cancers
    Bissan Al-Lazikani, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 
  • 3:05 p.m. | Functional precision oncology in rare cancers: From biobank to drug discovery
    Taran Gujral
  • 3:25 p.m. | Discussion/Q&A

Break

4-4:15 p.m.

Plenary Session 4: Diagnostic Challenges and Novel Classification Strategies in Rare Cancers

4:15-6:15 p.m.

Session Chair: Brooke E. Howitt, Stanford University, Stanford, California

  • 4:20 p.m. | Challenges and updates in the classification of uterine mesenchymal tumors
    Brooke E. Howitt
  • 4:40 p.m. | Using DNA methylation to identify and classify rare cancers
    David Capper, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany 
  • 5 p.m. | Cancer pathology: Rare just ain’t as rare as it used to be
    Alexander J. Lazar, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  • 5:20 p.m. | Therapeutic targeting of NUP98-rearranged acute leukemia
    Charles G. Mullighan, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee
  • 5:40 p.m. | Discussion/Q&A

Break

6:15-6:30 p.m.

Proffered Talks Session

6:30-7:30 p.m

Poster Session & Reception

7:30-9:30 p.m.

Monday, July 20

Breakfast

7-8 a.m.

Special Session: Ultra-Rare Cancer Treatment Advancement (ULTRA) Program a New Public Private Partnership to Drive Development of Innovative Therapies

7:15-8:15 a.m.

  • Katherine (Kat) Lambertson, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, Centreville, Virginia 

Plenary Session 5: Harnessing Immunotherapy for Rare Cancers: Progress and Pitfalls

8:30-10 a.m.

Session Chair: Sandra P. D’Angelo, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

  • 8:35 a.m. | Immunotherapy for sarcoma
    Sandra P. D’Angelo
  • 8:45 a.m. | Immunotherapy lessons learned from non-UV exposed melanomas: running (away from) hot and cold
    Alexander N. Shoustari, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • 9:05 a.m. | Immune targeting of a currently ‘undruggable’ driver in fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma
    Mark Yarchoan, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
  • 9:25 a.m. | Discussion/Q&A

Break

10-10:15 a.m.

Plenary Session 6: Breaking New Ground: Emerging Therapeutic Strategies for Rare Cancers

10:15–11:45 a.m.

Session Chair: Paul Huang, The Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom

  • 10:05 a.m. | Decoding the sarcoma proteome to unlock new therapies and biomarkers
    Paul Huang
  • 10:25 a.m. | Turning the tide: How we doubled the survival of patients with renal medullary carcinoma
    Pavlos Msaouel, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  • 10:45 a.m. | Targeting adaptive stress response for rare cancer precision medicine
    Gayathri Devi, Hollings Cancer Center, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina
  • 11:05 a.m. | Discussion/Q&A

Break

11:45 a.m.-12 p.m.

Plenary Session 7: Innovative Clinical Trial Design for Rare Cancers

12–1 p.m.

Session Chair: Razelle Kurzrock, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

  • 12:05 p.m. | On the right TRACK: Operationalizing a national, patient-centric, fully remote precision trial offering comprehensive genomic profiling and a molecular tumor board for rare cancers
    Jim Palma, TargetCancer Foundation, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • 12:25 p.m. | Development of the first treatment FDA approved for women with low grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC)
    Rachel N. Grisham, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 
  • 12:45 p.m. | Precision oncology and the N-of-1 revolution: Rare cancers as a paradigm
    Razelle Kurzrock
  • 1:05 p.m. | Discussion/Q&A

Closing Remarks & Departure

1:45 p.m.

  • Taran Gujral, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington