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Program

Please note: All times are US Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Monday January 11, 2021

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2021

Opening Keynote Address
Welcome and Introduction by Conference Cochairs Yibin Kang, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, Sheila A. Stewart, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, and Valerie M. Weaver, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
9:30-10 A.M.

Deconvoluting the tumor microenvironment to enhance immunotherapy
Jeffrey W. Pollard, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

BrEAK
10-10:15 A.M.
Plenary Session 1: The Therapy-Treated Tumor Microenvironment: Impact on the Preneoplastic versus Premetastatic Niche
Session chair: Carmen Bergom, Session Chair: Carmen Bergom, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
10:15 A.M.-12 PM

Targeting senescence heterogeneity against cancer therapy-resistance and metastases
Peter L.J. de Keizer, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Radiotherapy effects on tumor microenvironment
Silvia C. Formenti, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York

Genetic variants in the tumor microenvironment alter radiation responses in breast cancer
Carmen Bergom

Immune escape during breast tumor progression
Kornelia Polyak, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

Paclitaxel-induced collagen IV drives local invasion in the post-chemotherapy tumor microenvironment in triple-negative breast cancerꝉ
Jackson Fatherree, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts

The therapeutically inflamed tumor microenvironment drives melanoma progressionꝉ    
Andrew Bradshaw, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

break
12-12:15 p.m.
Plenary Session 2: The Organ-Specific Metastatic Niches: They Are Not All Created Equal
Rosandra N. Kaplan, National Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Research, Bethesda, Maryland
12:15-2:10 p.m.

Metastasis initiating cells and ecosystems
Joan Massagué, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Title to be announced
Rosandra N. Kaplan

Age-related stromal changes drive tumorigenesis
Sheila A. Stewart, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri

Dact1 biomolecular condensates regulate TGF-b and Wnt signaling dynamics in bone metastasis
Yibin Kang, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

The splanchnic mesenchyme during fetal development is the major source of pancreatic cancer associated fibroblasts*
Lu Han, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina

Endothelin-1 drives invadopodia and cross-talk with submesothelial matrix invasion cell through ILKꝉ
Ilenia Masi, IBPM Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, CNR National Research Council of Italy, Rome, Italy

Immune suppression established by postpartum liver involution promotes liver metastasisꝉ
Alexandra Quackenbush, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon

Break
2:10-2:25 p.m.
Plenary Session 3: The Immune Tumor Microenvironment: Blood-Derived versus Tissue-Resident
session chair: Michel DuPage, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California
2:25-4 p.m.

How opposing roles of interferon and pattern recognition receptor signaling in the TME influence immunotherapy
Andy J. Minn, Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Conventional dendritic cells as regulators of therapeutic response in pancreas cancer
David G. DeNardo, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri

Engineering precision cancer immunotherapy
Michel DuPage

STAT3 in cancer-associated fibroblasts promotes an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment in PDAC*
Julia Lefler, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina

Tumor-intrinsic gain of function p53 R172H mutation drives accumulation of neutrophils in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment that promotes resistance to immunotherapyꝉ
Despina Siolas, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, New York

NK cells from prostate cancer patients acquire a pro-angiogenic phenotype and polarize macrophages towards a M2-like/TAM subsetꝉ
Adriana Albini, IRCCS MultiMedica, Milan, Italy

Mapping the evolution of T cell states during response and resistance to adoptive cellular therapyꝉ
Pavan Bachireddy, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts

break
4-4:15 p.m.
PLENARY SESSION 4: THE TUMOR MICROENVIRONMENT DRIVES TUMOR CELL FATE
session chair: Cyrus M. Ghajar, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington
4:15-5:50 p.m.

Homeostatic hematopoietic stem cell niches control the dormancy of breast cancer DCCs in the bone marrow
Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York

Regulation of disseminated tumor cell dormancy in brain by the perivascular niche
Cyrus M. Ghajar

Niche-dependent control of tumor cell dormancy
Peter Croucher, Garvin Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia

Fibroblast plasticity driven by Prrx1 interferes the tumor cells – tumor microenvironment crosstalk towards a more aggressive pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma*
Karin Feldmann, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Stromal BCAT1 drives branched-chain ketoacid dependency in stromal-rich PDAC tumoursꝉ
Deepak Nagrath, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Pleiotrophin drives pro-metastatic immune niche within breast tumor microenvironmentꝉ
Debolina Ganguly, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas

Pharmacological blockade of platelet-CysLT1 receptor counteracts platelet protumoral action and prevents breast cancer cell metastasis to bone and lungsꝉ
Lou Saier, INSERM, Lyon, France

The prolyl isomerase PIN1 plays a critical role in fibroblast plasticity to impact pancreatic cancerꝉ
Ellen Langer, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon

Tuesday, january 12, 2021

Plenary Session 5: Systemic Drivers of Progression: Aging to Obesity
session chair: Marco Demaria, ERIBA, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
9:30-10:50 a.m.

Cellular senescence in cancer therapy: Friend or foe?
Marco Demaria

Age Against the Machine: How the aging tumor microenvironment governs tumor progression
Ashani T. Weeraratna, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland

Linking obesity-associated inflammation with cancer metastasis
Daniela Quail, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Endocrine-exocrine signaling is a driver of obesity-associated pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomaꝉ
Mandar Muzumdar, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

break
10:50-11:05 A.m.
PLENARY SESSION 6: TUMOR PROGRESSION: MECHANO-SIGNALING AND CONTROL
session chair: Claudia Fischbach-Teschl,Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
11:05 a.m.-1:15 p.m.

Collagen mineralization and its role in breast cancer bone metastasis
Claudia Fischbach-Teschl

Mechanics, multinucleation, and EMT
Celeste M. Nelson, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Leader cell function in tumor collective invasion
Gregory D. Longmore, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri

Tension dependent immune modulation and tumor metastasis 
Valerie M. Weaver, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California

NetrinG1’s pro-tumor role on stroma-derived extracellular vesicles in pancreatic cancer*
Kristopher Raghavan, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The dynamic tumor microenvironment: Oncostreams are self-organizing structures that modulate glioma progression and treatment*
Andrea Comba, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Extracellular matrix stiffness regulates cellular response to anticancer drugs in breast and lung cancer cellsꝉ
Atul Bharde, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India

Overcoming chemotherapy resistance in triple negative breast cancer via targeting lysyl oxidase (LOX)ꝉ
Ozgur Sahin, University of South Carolina, College of Pharmacy, Columbia, South Carolina

Mechanosurveillance eliminates disseminated cancer cells by sensing their mechanical complianceꝉ
Ekrem Emrah Er, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

ECM mechanical and metabolic architecture during early ductal invasions: Integrating in silico modeling, histology-based machine learning and mechanobiologyꝉ
Katarzyna Rejniak, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida

Break
1:15-1:30 p.m.
Plenary Session 7: The Systemic Tumor Microenvironment
session chair: Emily Shizhen Wang, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California
1:30-3:15 p.m.

TIME and Age: Impact of age on the tumor immune microenvironment and response to therapy
Sandra S. McAllister, Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Tumor exosome and exomere biomarkers for early cancer detection
David C. Lyden, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York

Local and systemic effects of cancer-cell-secreted extracellular miRNA
Emily Shizhen Wang

Infiltration of TRPV1+ nerves influences the ovarian cancer immune landscape*
Hunter Reavis, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Lymph node colonization promotes distant tumor metastasis through the induction of systemic tumor-specific immunosuppression*
Nathan Reticker-Flynn, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

The perivascular niche protects ALK+ lymphoma cells from ALK inhibition through the CCL19/21-CCR7 axisꝉ
Claudia Voena, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

The synaptic protein netrin G1 ligand (NGL-1) modulates the immunosuppressive environment in pancreatic cancerꝉ
Débora Vendramini Costa, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Cancer associated fibroblasts in the tumor microenvironment maintain ovarian cancer stem cells through non-canonical Wnt5a signalingꝉ
Yiming Fang, Indiana University School of Medicine, Bloomington, Indiana

break
3:15-3:30 p.m.
Plenary Session 8: Longitudinal Monitoring of the Elusive Tumor Cells
session chair: Matthew F. Krummel, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
3:30-4:35 p.m.

Activating a collaborative innate-adaptive immune response to control metastasis
Mikala Egeblad, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York

The tumor microenvironment in 5 dimensions
Matthew F. Krummel

Tumor-cell-intrinsic transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of EGFR underlies the heterogeneity of immune infiltration and response to immunotherapy in pancreatic cancer*     
Jinyang Li, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Targeting AXL favors an anti-tumorigenic tumor microenvironment that enhances immunotherapy responses by decreasing HIF-1a levels in cancer cellsꝉ
Marie-Anne Goyette, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

The AML microenvironment catalyzes a step-wise evolution to gilteritinib resistanceꝉ
Sunil Joshi, Oregon Health and Sciences University Knight Cancer Institute, Portland, Oregon

Break
4:35-4:50 p.m.
Closing keynote address
Introduction and Closing by Conference Cochairs Yibin Kang, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, Sheila A. Stewart, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Misssouri, and Valerie M. Weaver, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
4:50-5:20 p.m.

Cancer and aging: Rival demons?
Judith Campisi, Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, California

*Short talk from proffered abstract
ꝉLightning talk from proffered abstract, not eligible for CME credit