Cancer Data Science Task Force
The Cancer Data Science Task Force brings together leading experts in data science, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to accelerate innovation across the cancer research continuum. The Task Force is dedicated to identifying and advancing priority initiatives in data science and AI/ML. Its focus areas include:
- Establishing data standards, resources, and AI/ML models
- Developing and implementing strategies for data sharing, analysis, and methods development
- Engaging key stakeholders, and developing academic and industry partnerships
- Fostering collaborative efforts
- Creating a community of data scientists
recent activity
Conferences: The inaugural AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning took place in Montreal, Canada in July 2025. This conference provided a comprehensive look at AI’s transformative role in oncology.
An upcoming AACR Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Oncology Conference, in association with the AACR Cancer Data Science Task Force, will be held on March 4-7, 2027, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Downtown SOMA, San Francisco, California.
task force members
Christina Curtis, PhD, MSc, FAACR
RZ Cao Professor of Medicine, Genetics & Biomedical Data Science Senior Vice Chair of Research, Department of Medicine
Director AI and Cancer Genomics
Stanford University
Investigator, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
Stanford, California
Elana J. Fertig, PhD
Director, Institute for Genome Sciences
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland
Benjamin Haibe-Kains, PhD
Senior Scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network
Professor, Department of Medical Biophysics,
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dana Pe’er, PhD
Chair, Program for Computational and Systems Biology
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, New York
Sohrab Shah, PhD
Chief of Computational Oncology
Nicholls-Biondi Chair in Computational Oncology, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, New York
Ido Amit, PhD
Eden and Steven Romick Professorial Chair
Department of Immunology
Weizmann Institute
Rehovot, Israel
Fabrice André, MD, PhD
Director of Research
Professor of Medical Oncology
Breast Cancer Unit
Institute Gustave Roussy
Professor of Medicine, Université Paris-Saclay
Villejuif, France
Anna D. Barker, PhD
Chief Strategy Officer
Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Jill S. Barnholtz-Sloan, PhD
Chief Administrative Officer
Associate Director for Research Administration
Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
Regina Barzilay, PhD
School of Engineering Distinguished Professor for AI and Health,
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Philippe L. Bedard, MD
Medical Oncologist
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
University Health Network
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Andrea Califano, PhD
Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology
Affiliate Member, Program for Mathematical Genomics
Columbia University
New York, New York
Caroline Chung, MD
Vice President and Chief Data and Analytics Officer
Co-Director of the Institute for Data Science in Oncology
UT MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, Texas
Francesca Demichelis, PhD
Professor, Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology, CIBIO
University of Trento
Trento, Italy
Gad A. Getz, PhD
Director, Cancer Genome Computational Analysis
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School
Director, Bioinformatics Program
Paul C. Zamecnik Chair in Oncology
Mass General Department of Pathology, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research
Boston, Massachusetts
Jeremy Goecks, PhD
Assistant Center Director, Research Informatics
Associate Member, Department of Machine Learning
Associate Member, Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Moffitt Cancer Center
Tampa, Florida
Raphael Gottardo, PhD
Founding Director
Biomedical Data Sciences Center
Professor of Biomedical Data Science
University of Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland
James R. Heath, PhD
President and Professor
Institute for Systems Biology
Seattle, Washington
Qi Jiang, PhD
Senior Vice President and Head of Oncology Biometrics
Pfizer Oncology
Bothell, Washington
Jan O. Korbel, PhD
Head of Data Science, European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Heidelberg, Germany
Jeffrey T. Leek, PhD
Vice President and Chief Data Officer
Professor, Biostatistics Program
Public Health Sciences Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Seattle, Washington
Mia A. Levy, MD, PhD
Breast Oncologist
Endeavor Health
Highland Park, Illinois
Núria López-Bigas, PhD
ICREA Research Professor
UPF Full Professor, Institut de Recerca Biomèdica (IRB Barcelona)
Barcelona, Spain
John Marioni, PhD
Senior Vice President and Head of Computational Sciences
Genentech
San Francisco, California
Koshi Mimori, MD, PhD
Professor of Surgery
Kyushu University Beppu Hospital
Beppu, Japan
Alicia Oshlack, PhD
Professor and Head of the Computational Biology Program
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Melbourne, Australia
Jorge S. Reis-Filho, MD, PhD
Chief of AI for Science Innovation
Enterprise AI Unit
AstraZeneca
New York, NY
Young Seok Ju, MD, PhD
Associate Professor
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Yu Shyr, PhD
Chair, Department of Biostatistics
Harold L. Moses Chair in Cancer Research
Director, Vanderbilt Center for Quantitative Sciences
Director, Vanderbilt Technologies for Advanced Genomics Analysis and Research Design Professor of Biostatistics, Biomedical Informatics, and Health Policy
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee
Peter K. Sorger, PhD
Otto Krayer Professor of Systems Biology
Head of the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Sciences (HiTS)
Director of Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts
Patrick Tan Boon Ooi, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Genome Institute of Singapore
Senior Vice Dean for Research at Duke-NUS Medical School
Professor, Duke University
Executive Director, Precision Health Research Singapore
Senior Scientific Advisor for Group Research, Singapore Health Services
Senior Principal Investigator, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore
Singapore
Samra Turajlic, MD, PhD
Director of Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute
Group Leader, The Francis Crick Institute
Consultant Medical Oncologist
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Manchester, United Kingdom
Eliezer M. Van Allen, MD, PhD
Chief, Division of Population Sciences
Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Associate Professor in Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts
Zemin Zhang, PhD
Professor, Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center
Peking University
Beijing, China