In This Section

Program

Please note that this meeting will take place as an in-person event in Boston 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.

CME credit is available for in-person attendance for the designated sessions. On-demand presentations are not eligible for CME.

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 

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17

Monday, NOVEMBER 18

Tuesday, NOVEMBER 19

Wednesday, NOVEMBER 20

Sunday, November 17

REGISTRATION

4-8 p.m.

Welcome and Introduction

5:30-6:15 p.m.

  • Mikala Egeblad, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Neta Erez, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • Sergei Grivennikov, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
  • Ilaria Malanchi, The Francis Crick Institute, London, England

Opening Keynote Address

6:15-7 p.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

  • Introduction of keynote speaker
  • 6:20 p.m. | A complex TiME: how the aging tumor immune microenvironment drives tumor progression
    Ashani T. Weeraratna, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

Lightning Talks

7-7:30 p.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

Session Chair: Sergei Grivennikov, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California

  • Amelie  Daugherty-Lopes, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
  • Jin Suk Park, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • Katherine Cummins, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Stanislav Drapela, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa, Florida
  • Xueqian Zhuang, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • Lucie Malbeteau, Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto, Canada
  • Nil Grunberg, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
  • Maxwell Hamilton, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
  • Ryan Roberts, Nationwide Children’s Hospital/The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
  • Jiayu Ye, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri

POSTER SESSION A AND RECEPTION

7:30-9 p.m. | Staffordshire

Monday, November 18

Continental Breakfast

7-8 a.m. | St. George’s CD


Breakfast Career Development Roundtables

7-8 a.m. | St. George AB

Attendance to each of the Career Roundtables will be on a first-come, first-served basis and no pre-registration is required.

Roundtable Topics:

  • NCI—opportunities, priorities, challenges
  • Navigating your academic career path in basic science
  • Science is a team effort: Making collaborative research work for you
  • Building effective mentor-mentee relationships
  • Meet the AACR editors

Plenary Session 1: Organ-Specific Microenvironments and Metastasis

8-10 a.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

Session Chair: Andrew White, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and Jan Kitajewski, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

  • 8 a.m. | Understanding and overcoming the numbers game that underlies disseminated tumor cell immune evasion
    Cyrus M.  Ghajar, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington
  • 8:30 a.m. | An immunomodulatory crosstalk between cancer cells and the hepatic microenvironment underlies mutant estrogen receptor-driven breast cancer-to-liver metastasis*
    Sunny Das, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • 8:45 a.m. | Cancer induced tissue regeneration and metastasis
    Ilaria Malanchi, The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom
  • 9:15 a.m. | Dissecting plasticity during colorectal cancer metastasis
    Karuna Ganesh, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • 9:45 a.m. | Lymph node colonization reprograms lymphocyte responses to generate systemic tolerance and promote distant metastasis*
    Nathan Reticker-Flynn, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Break

10-10:30 a.m.

Plenary Session 2: Systemic Macroenvironment and Metastasis: Effects of Aging and Stress

10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

Session Chairs: Xue-Yan He, Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, and Neta Erez, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

  • 10:30 a.m. | Title to be announced
    Mikala Egeblad, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
  • 11 a.m. | Understanding the immune macroenvironment to improve outcomes for older breast cancer patients
    Sandra S. McAllister, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  • 11:30 a.m. | Sex-dependent changes in the aged melanoma tumor microenvironment influence metastasis and therapeutic responses*
    Yash Chhabra, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 11:45p.m. | Respiratory virus infections promote metastatic outgrowth through alterations in immune landscapes
    James V. DeGregori, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado
  • 12: 15 p.m. | Age-induced chronic accumulation of glucocorticoids drives therapy resistance in lung cancer*
    Devesh Raizada , Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida

Lunch on Own

12:30-2:30 p.m.

Plenary Session 3: The Metabolic Microenvironment, including Immune Metabolism

2:30-4:30 p.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

Session Chair: Hubert Pakula Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York and Subhamoy Dasgupta, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York

  • 2:30 p.m. | Microbes and cytokines regulating tumor microenvironment and metastasis 
    Sergei Grivennikov, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
  • 3 p.m. | Urinary tract infection-induced host response promotes mammary tumorigenesis via TIMP-dependent stromal activation and expansion of tumor initiating basal-luminal cells*
    Camila O. Dos Santos, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Laurel Hollow, New York
  • 3:15 p.m. | Modulating amino acid cross talk between cancer and the host to improve diagnosis and therapy
    Ayelet Erez, Weizman Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
  • 3:45 p.m. | Arginine dependent immuno-metabolic reprogramming by metabolic enzyme PFKFB4 underpins breast tumor immune tolerance*
    Subhamoy Dasgupta, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York
  • 4 p.m. | Metabolic networks in the tumor microenvironment 
    Costas Lyssiotis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Break

4:30-5 p.m. | Essex Foyer

Plenary Session 4: Metabolic Macroenvironment: Obesity and Cancer Cachexia

5-7 p.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

Session Chair: Jason Pitarresi, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts and Sabina Sangaletti, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy

  • 5 p.m. | Intratumoral immune cells and their role in cancer cachexia
    Marcus DaSilva Gonsalves, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
  • 5:30 p.m. | Pancreatic cancer cachexia is mediated by tumor-derived PTHrP*
    Jason R. Pitarresi, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Holden, Massachusetts
  • 5:45 p.m. | Understanding how diet changes specific metabolic pathways that impair anti-tumor immunity
    Lydia Lynch, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
  • 6:15 p.m. | Cross-talk between metastatic cells and host systems: Neutrophil metabolic adaptation, immune profiling, and systemic metabolic shifts in tumor progression and cachexia*
    Blanca Majem, Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), Barcelona, Spain
  • 6:30 p.m. | Targeting cachexia in metastatic disease
    Swarnali Acharya, Columbia University, New York, New York

Lightning Talks

7-7:30 p.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

Session Chair: Ilaria Malanchi, The Francis Crick Institute, London, England

  • Jaye Gardiner, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Katarzyna Chojnacka, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
  • Ailen Garcia-Santillan, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia
  • Kelly Kersten, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, California
  • Jennifer Loza, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

POSTER SESSION b AND RECEPTION

7:15 pm-8:45 pm | Staffordshire

Tuesday, November 19

Continental Breakfast

7-8 a.m. | St. George’s CD

Breakfast Career Development Roundtables

7 am -8 am | St. George AB

Attendance to each of the Career Roundtables will be on a first-come, first-served basis and no pre-registration is required.

Roundtable Topics:

  • Coping with rejection and burnout in science
  • Lab management: Balancing success and failure while promoting equity and inclusion in your career and teams
  • Navigating challenges and opportunities for women in research
  • Career transitions in industry
  • Meet the AACR editors

Plenary Session 5: Stromal Changes as Tissue Becomes Tumor: The Expanding Functions of TME Components

8-10:15 a.m. | CME-Eligible | Essex

Session Chair: Marcus Ruscetti, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts and Donna Senger McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

  • 8 a.m. | Stromal and immune plasticity shape the metastatic microenvironment
    Neta Erez, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • 8:30 a.m. | Unraveling pancreatic tumor defenses: inside the stromal orchestra with the HOST-Factor
    Edna Cukierman, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 9 a.m. | FMRP upregulation in cancer: Implicating FMRP-expressing cancer-associated fibroblasts in immune evasion
    Simge Yucel, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 9:15 a.m. | Stromal beta3 integrin in cancer progression: Converging stories, and relevance to
    ethnic diversity
    Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke, Cancer Research UK, London, United Kingdom
  • 9:45 a.m. | TRPV1+ sensory innervation as a novel driver of ovarian cancer progression*
    Matthew Knarr, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 10 a.m. | Vascular control of metastasis
    Hellmut G. Augustin, Heidelberg University & German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) Heidelberg, Germany

BREAK

10:30-11 a.m.

Plenary Session 6: Multicellular Interactions within Tumor Immune Microenvironments

10:45 a.m-12:45 p.m. | CME-Eligible | Essex

Session Chairs: Eleonora Dondossola, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas and Veronique Giroux Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

  • 11 a.m. | Inflammation and cancer: From basic mechanisms to therapeutic targets
    Lisa Coussens, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon
  • 11:30 a.m. | Efferocytic macrophage promotes pancreatic cancer liver metastasis*
    Yuliana Astuti, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, England
  • 11:45 p.m. | Determinants of B cell fate and function in cancer
    Yuliya Pylayeva-Gupta, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
  • 12:15 p.m. | KRAS mutation-specific effects on the tumor immune microenvironment drive tumor progression in pancreatic cancer*
    Despina Siolas, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
  • 12:30 p.m. | Regulation of EMT tumor states by stromal cells
    Cedric Blanpain, Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium 

Lunch on own

1-2:30 p.m.

Plenary Session 7: Inflammation, the Immune Microenvironment, and the Systemic Interface

2:30-4:30 p.m. | CME-Eligible | Essex

Session Chairs: Mikala Egeblad, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, Virginia and Kelly Kersten Sanford Children’s Health Research Center, San Diego, California

  • 2:30 p.m. | Deciphering the mechanisms of neutrophil immune response in bone metastatic prostate cancer
    Leah M. Cook, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
  • 3 p.m. | Senescent cells promote prostate cancer immune suppression and progression that can be reversed by senolytic therapy*
    Marcus Ruscetti, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts
  • 3:15 p.m. | Degradation of extracellular trap DNA sustains anti-tumor immune responses in breast cancer*
    Sabina Sangaletti, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy
  • 3:30 p.m. | A vagal sensory-to-sympathetic axis restrains anti-tumor immunity*
    Chengcheng Jin, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 3:45 p.m. | Dissecting how breast tumours hijack myelopoiesis to promote metastasis
    Karin E. de Visser, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • 4:15 p.m. | DNA associated with EVs is uniquely chromatinized and prevents metastasis by enhancing anti-tumor immunity*
    Inbal Wortzel, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York

LIGHTNING TALKS

4:30-5 p.m. | CME Eligible | Essex

Session Chairs: Neta Erez, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

  • Zhenghan Wang , Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • Xiao Han, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Young Sun Lee, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • Dakota Okwuone, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas
  • Sumedha Pareek, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  • Chia-Hsin Hsu, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
  • Emma Wrenn, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington

POSTER SESSION c AND RECEPTION

5-6:30 p.m. | Staffordshire

Wednesday, November 20

Continental Breakfast

7-8 a.m. | St. George’s CD

Plenary Session 8: Microbiome and Immune Therapy

8-10:15 a.m. | CME-Eligible | Essex

Session Chairs: Chengcheng Jin University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Sergei Grivennikov, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California

  • 8 a.m. | Mapping tumor-infiltrating microbes: Their role in modulating the tumor microenvironment from microniches to single Cells
    Susan Bullman, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  • 8:30 a.m. | Adiponectin inhibits high-fat diet feeding-induced tumor growth through restoration of anti-tumor activity of exhausted-CD8+ T cells*
    Kem Nguyen, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Korea [R]
  • 8:45 a.m. | Sepsis-induced inflammation alters natural killer cell-mediated surveillance of liver metastasis*
    Nicole Sivetz, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Laurel Hollow, New York
  • 9 a.m. | Targeting the gut microbiome for cancer immunotherapy
    Giorgio Trinchieri, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
  • 9:30 a.m. | Early changes to the colon tumor microenvironment during benign-to-malignant transition*
    Peter M.K. Westcott, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Laurel Hollow, New York

Short talks from highly rated abstracts

BREAK

9:45-10:15 a.m. | Essex Foyer

Plenary Session 9: Therapy-induced Changes in Organ-specific Microenvironment and Therapeutic Strategies for Targeting the TME

10:15 a.m-12:30 p.m. | CME-Eligible | Essex

Session Chair: Michael Feigin Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York, and Ilaria Malanchi, The Francis Crick Institute, London, England

  • 10:15a.m. | Targeting cancer in an extreme microenvironment
    Adrienne Boire, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  • 10:45 a.m. | Anti-metastatic immunotherapy discovery using ex vivo lung tissue cultures and high-throughput single-cell chemical transcriptomics*
    Chris McGinnis, Stanford University, Stanford, California
  • 11 a.m. | Age-related stromal changes drive breast cancer tumor progression
    Sheila A. Stewart, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
  • 11:30 a.m. | Implicit order, disease, and cancer 
    Garry P. Nolan, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California [R]
  • 12 p.m. | Inflammation-induced mechanotransduction is necessary and sufficient to create pre-cancerous squamous lung metaplasias and necessary to drive progression to dysplasia*
    Thea Tisty, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California

CLOSING REMARKS

12:15 p.m. | Essex

  • Ilaria Malanchi, The Francis Crick Institute, London, England