Professor Sir John Burn obtained a first class honours degree in human genetics and an MD with distinction from Newcastle University, where he has been Professor of Clinical Genetics since 1991. He was appointed as a consultant specialist in Newcastle in 1984 and led the regional NHS Genetics Service for 20 years.

He helped to create the Millennium landmark Centre for Life, which houses an education, and science centre alongside NHS regional genetics and fertility services and University research. He is chair of the Newcastle based DNA device company QuantuMDx Ltd. He was knighted in 2010 and chosen as one of the first 20 ‘local heroes’ to have a brass plaque on Newcastle Quayside in 2014. He is a Trustee of the European Hereditary Tumour Group, UNESCO NGO Global Variome and HUGO (the Human Genome Organisation) London. He is Vice President of HUGO international.

Former roles include founding Chair the UK Cancer Genetics Group (1997-2003) and of the International Society for Gastrointestinal Hereditary Tumours (InSiGHT 2003-5), President of the European Society of Human Genetics (2006-2007), Chair of the British Society for Genetic Medicine (2011-2013), Lead Clinician, Northern Strategic Health Authority (2010-2014), Non-executive Director NHS England (2014-2018) and Chair of Newcastle Hospitals (2017 -2023).

He leads the Cancer Prevention Programme research group at Newcastle University; CAPP2, an RCT in 16 countries, showed that aspirin reduces by half the risk of colorectal cancer in Lynch syndrome (Burn et al Lancet 2020) and resistant starch supplements reduce the risk of other LS cancers by more than half (Mathers et al Cancer Prev res 2022).

After spending 20 years at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rebbeck joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard TH Chan School in 2015 as the Vincent L. Gregory, Jr. Professor of Cancer Prevention. Professor Rebbeck serves as the director for the Zhu Family Center for Global Cancer Prevention Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and the Center for Global Health Equity at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Professor Rebbeck’s research has contributed to an understanding of the causes and prevention of cancer, with an emphasis on cancer genetics, prostate cancer disparities, and global health equity. He directs large, multicenter studies and international consortia that have identified genetic, molecular, and epidemiological factors associated with cancer risk, outcomes, and disparities. He leads the international Men of African Descent and Carcinoma of the Prostate (MADCaP) network and has led a number of consortia studying hereditary cancer risk and prevention. He also directs the NCI-funded African cancer STARS training program that supports career development for African cancer researchers and project managers. Dr. Rebbeck has mentored over 65 trainees, most of whom hold positions in academia. He has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1994.

Professor Thea Tlsty is leading a Cancer Grand Challenges Programme, and is a Professor of Pathology at the University of California(link is external), San Francisco. She has proposed work that will help understand how chronic inflammation is linked to cancer.

Inflammation is part of the body’s immune response, but its role in the transformation of healthy cells into cancer cells remains poorly understood.

Professor Tlsty’s research group, based in the US, is looking to understand what genetic, epigenetic and functional changes fuel the start and progression of cancers associated with chronic inflammation. More importantly, they are also studying the cells that compose the tissues surrounding where these cancers grow, to understand their influence on cancer development.

Recent work has indicated that signals from the cells surrounding cancers can control whether or not the cancer grows or disappears. Harnessing these signals to prevent or reverse the cancer process would be a powerful new weapon in the therapeutic arsenal. The aim is to determine whether it’s possible to reprogramme the stromal cells (those cells immediately surrounding cancer cells) rather than treating the cancer cells directly.

Professor Tlsty is leading a diverse team of experts involved in the fields of biology, physics and engineering from the US, Canada, the UK and Israel.

The results from this work could lead to new ways to detect and treat cancers caused by inflammation and develop new options to prevent cancer in high-risk patients with chronic inflammatory disease.

Julio Aguirre-Ghiso work has focused on the surprising finding that cancer patients presumed cured after primary tumor removal and therapy, can carry non-proliferating ‘dormant’ disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) for years before reactivating to form incurable metastasis. Thus, despite cancer cells carrying genetic alterations micro-environmental and epigenetic mechanisåms appear to induce tumor cell dormancy. Julio focused on understanding the biology of dormant DTCs and their reactivation, to target them and prevent relapse. Julio team led a paradigm shift that is revealing novel cancer biology. We integrated mechanisms of basic stress and mitogenic signaling, adult stem cell and micro-environmental biology and discovered that a reciprocal crosstalk between DTCs and the microenvironment regulates the inter-conversion between dormancy and proliferation. A major achievement of was discovering that a balance of p38α/β and ERK1/2 signaling regulates lineage commitment transcription factors that determine dormancy induction. We also identified retinoic acid and TGFβ2 in the microenvironment as inducers of a high p38/ERK-signaling ratio and that dormancy (quiescent phenotype) is controlled by epigenetic mechanisms driving adult stem cell quiescence. Focusing on prostate cancer we have translated our findings by using patient DTC samples and identified a “dormancy signature” enriched in dormant DTCs from patients asymptomatic for up to 18 years that predicts for longer metastasis-free periods in different cancers including prostate cancer. My lab has also designed an epigenetic reprograming therapy to induce dormancy of DTCs. We also discovered that UPR signaling could promote the survival of dormant tumor cells. I have also developed a translational program with Eli Lilly and ISMMS to identify and develop potential drugs to target dormant disease

I am a Professor of Gynaecological Oncology at the University of Oxford. I graduated from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt and completed my PhD and Gynaecological Oncology Surgical training at the University of Cambridge. I received my postdoctoral research training at the University of Cambridge and at the University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in the USA. I was appointed a Professor of Gynaecological Oncology in 2012. My research aim is to improve clinical outcomes for ovarian cancer patients through understanding the biology of ovarian cancer initiation, progression and resistance to treatment. 

Frances Balkwill is Professor of Cancer Biology at Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, and Deputy Centre Lead in the Centre for Tumour Microenvironment. She is especially interested in translating knowledge of cancer biology into new biological treatments for cancer. Much of her work focuses on the tumour microenvironment of ovarian cancer. After publishing a multi-level profile of the human ovarian cancer microenvironment, her lab developed a platform of new mouse models as well as human multi-cellular tissue culture models. They are now using these to research biological therapies that may prevent relapse and increase patient survival.  

Fran is Director of Queen Mary’s Centre of the Cell, an informal biomedical science learning centre and outreach project in East London. There have been more than 240,000 participants in Centre of the Cell activities since opening in September 2009. Together with illustrator Mic Rolph, Fran has also produced thirteen science books for children on cell and molecular biology with titles such as Enjoy Your Cells, The Egg and Sperm Race and You, Me and HIV. These books have been translated into at least twelve foreign languages with over half a million copies sold worldwide. 

Fran serves on CRUK and AIRC grant committees. She chairs the Research Advisory Committee of Prostate Cancer UK. 

Dr. Michael Barry's work focuses on outcomes research, which seeks to define the results of common strategies of care in terms that are most relevant to patients, particularly in terms of symptom burden and functional status. The content area of this research has been largely, but not exclusively, at the interface of primary care and urology. Using prostatic disease as a paradigm for other largely preference-driven medical problems requiring shared care between generalists and specialists, Dr. Barry has studied the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment outcomes of this common set of disorders among older men. Methods employed have included decision analysis, analysis of the operating characteristics of diagnostic tests, development and validation of disease-specific health status measurements, predictive modeling, and technology assessment. A particular theme has been to develop methods to allow patients greater participation in their medical decisions, and to measure the impact of that involvement. The results of this work have had a direct impact on the treatment of prostatic diseases in the United States and worldwide.

Dr. Barry's work focuses on outcomes research, which seeks to define the results of common strategies of care in terms that are most relevant to patients, particularly in terms of symptom burden and functional status. The content area of this research has been largely, but not exclusively, at the interface of primary care and urology. Using prostatic disease as a paradigm for other largely preference-driven medical problems requiring shared care between generalists and specialists, Dr. Barry has studied the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment outcomes of this common set of disorders among older men. Methods employed have included decision analysis, analysis of the operating characteristics of diagnostic tests, development and validation of disease-specific health status measurements, predictive modeling, and technology assessment. A particular theme has been to develop methods to allow patients greater participation in their medical decisions, and to measure the impact of that involvement. The results of this work have had a direct impact on the treatment of prostatic diseases in the United States and worldwide.

Karen Brown is director of the Leicester Cancer Research Centre and joint lead of the Leicester Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre. She established and is co-chair of the UK Therapeutic Cancer Prevention Network and represents this network on the steering group of the Cancer Prevention Europe Consortium.

Karen’s research focusses on the discovery and preclinical development of agents for the prevention of cancer in populations at increased risk. She works to optimise the translation of these therapies to the clinic where she conducts early and late phase trials. Karen is currently leading COLO-PREVENT, a world-first prevention trial platform that will investigate the ability of resveratrol, aspirin and metformin to prevent colorectal polyps in high-risk patients. This trial is funded by Cancer Research UK and will be conducted across 60 sites in England and Wales.

Karen sits on several national and international grant panels and is currently a member of the Cancer Research UK Prevention and Population Research Committee and Vice-Chair of an Expert Review Panel for this committee. She is a member of the World Cancer Research Fund International Regular Grant Programme Panel and Breast Cancer Now Grants Committee. Karen is also a former President of the United Kingdom Environmental Mutagen Society and currently sits on the committee as past-president.

Professor Karen Canfell is the inaugural Director of the Daffodil Centre, a joint venture between the University of Sydney and Cancer Council NSW. She is an epidemiologist, modeller, and a translationally-focused population health researcher. The focus of her program of research is to provide policy-makers with an evidence-base for decision making in cancer control. Her research has impacted cancer-control policy nationally and globally.

Prof Canfell has led evaluations of new cancer screening approaches for government agencies in several countries. She currently leads an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cervical Cancer Control (C4) and co-leads Compass, Australia’s largest clinical trial (76,000 women) which is the first major international experience of cervical screening in an HPV-vaccinated population. Her team’s work underpins the 2017 transition of the National Cervical Screening Program in Australia from Pap smears to 5-yearly HPV-based screening. She currently has active collaborative modelling grants from the US NIH and WHO to model cervical cancer prevention in the USA and globally, as well as active projects across cancer control. Her team first proposed the current threshold for cervical cancer elimination and performed the first modelling of elimination in any country, showing that Australia is on track to be the first country in the world to support this milestone. Her work as one of the co-leads of the WHO Cervical Cancer Elimination Modelling Consoritum on elimination for WHO was presented and discussed at the Executive Board of the World Health Assembly in 2020 and supported the formal resolution by WHO to support the cervical cancer elimination initiative, launched in late 2020.

Prof. Canfell is the CIA/Lead of the Cancer-PPP program of work, a major MRFF-funded endeavor to model cancer incidence, prevalence, and outcomes in Australia. She also initiated and co-leads the Covid-19 and Cancer Global Modelling Consortium (CCGMC.org) a collaborative endeavour to model the global impact of the pandemic on cancer prevention/risk, screening, and outcomes. She is a past keynote speaker at the World Cancer Conference and World Cancer Leader’s Summit.

She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, a past NHMRC national research excellence award-winner, and the 2021 recipient of Cancer Australia’s Jeanne Ferris Award for her contributions to gynecological cancer research.

Dr. Carson is an Associate Member and the Program Co-Leader for Health Outcomes and Behavior at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL. She is a Moffitt Distinguished Scholar and the inaugural George Edgecomb Scholar. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences in the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida. Dr. Carson completed her Bachelor’s degree at Florida State University. She later received her Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.  As an applied epidemiologist, Dr. Carson has made significant contributions to the field of obesity treatment and cancer prevention research through her population-based, bio-behavioral observational and intervention studies. Dr. Carson is currently the PI of 2 NIH-funded R01 studies investigating behavioral and biological aspects of energy balance, cancer prevention, and health disparities. She also serves as a co-investigator on Team SAMBAI, a recently funded Cancer Grand Challenges team examining cancer inequities in a global context. Dr. Carson is on the Scientific Advisory Board for the American Cancer Society VOICES Study and has published in multiple peer-reviewed journals including Obesity, Psychosomatic Medicine, and JAMA.

Andrew T. Chan, MD, MPH is a gastroenterologist, the Daniel K. Podolsky Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Chief of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Director of Epidemiology at the MGH Cancer Center. Through work spanning population epidemiology to clinical trials, Dr. Chan’s research focuses on prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers.  He is the Team Lead for the Stand Up to Cancer Gastric Cancer Interception Team, co-Team Lead for the Cancer Grand Challenges Early-Onset Cancer Team (PROSPECT), an NCI Outstanding Investigator, American Cancer Society Research Professor and member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and Association of American Physicians.

David Crosby is head of prevention and early detection research at Cancer Research UK (CRUK), a fundraising research charity and the world’s second largest non-commercial funder of cancer research, after the US government. David began life as a baby, before becoming a pharmacologist, completing a PhD studying cell signalling in platelets. He spent time in academia, lecturing in clinical pharmacology. He moved into industry, identifying and evaluating new clinical development opportunities for Linde Gas Therapeutics, the world’s largest medical gases company. He then moved into the public sector, joining the UK government research funding agency, the Medical Research Council, where he oversaw various science areas and research funding programmes (including inflammation, cardiovascular and respiratory research), leading the MRC-NIHR methodology research programme, and MRC’s strategy and investments in experimental medicine. He is now developing and implementing a new strategy and programme of research investments at CRUK which aims to accelerate progress towards earlier detection and prevention of cancer, through an integrated multidisciplinary approach, driven by equitable improvements in health outcomes. He also works part-time for the UK government, advising the Office for Life Sciences on the UK’s Cancer Mission.

Elmar Detering – ulmonology / Pulmo-oncology trained physician and 25 years of broad longstanding experience in industry. Positions in global and regional medical affairs, strategy and business development. 

Specialized in key opinion leader (KOL) management, global publication planning, global clinical study programs (ph-4, investigator initiated research, Real-World-evidence) and medical strategy for clinical phase-2, phase-3 projects. Medical expertise for regulatory, core labeling, Pharmacovigilance documents (incl risk management plans and benefit-analysis for risk-benefit assessments). 

Broad senior experience with life-cycle management for marketed projects and products cross indications. Strong capabilities in understanding deep science (e.g. gene/immune therapy) and in connecting business/market ideas and trends. Long and good intercultural global team experiences (focus China/Asia and US). Strong in connecting experts from different specialties 

- Certified medical person in accompanying palliative patients and terminal care / palliative care / medicinePulmonology / Pulmo-oncology trained physician and 25 years of broad longstanding experience in industry. Positions in global and regional medical affairs, strategy and business development. Specialized in key opinion leader (KOL) management, global publication planning, global clinical study programs (ph-4, investigator initiated research, Real-World-evidence) and medical strategy for clinical phase-2, phase-3 projects. Medical expertise for regulatory, core labeling, Pharmacovigilance documents (incl risk management plans and benefit-analysis for risk-benefit assessments). Broad senior experience with life-cycle management for marketed projects and products cross indications. Strong capabilities in understanding deep science (e.g. gene/immune therapy) and in connecting business/market ideas and trends. Long and good intercultural global team experiences (focus China/Asia and US). Strong in connecting experts from different specialties - Certified medical person in accompanying palliative patients and terminal care / palliative care / medicine.

Christina M. Dieli-Conwright is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and in the Division of Population Sciences of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She holds a secondary appointment as Associate Professor of Nutrition in the Department of Nutrition at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health. Her research is focused on examining mechanisms by which post-diagnosis exercise can impact cancer prognosis with a specific focus on biomarkers of metabolic dysregulation related to tumor growth, inflammation, gut microbiome, and body composition. She derives randomized controlled trials to test whether various types of prescriptive exercise improve cancer outcomes in individuals diagnosed with cancer, across the lifespan from adolescents and young adults to older adults. Additionally, Dr. Dieli-Conwright examines cardiometabolic diseases in underrepresented minority cancer survivors and utilizes lifestyle interventions to reduce the onset or exacerbation of comorbidities in said population. Dr. Dieli-Conwright has a history of funding from the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, Department of Defense, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, American Institute for Cancer Research, Pfizer, and foundation grants. Prior to joining DFCI in 2020, she was the Director of the Integrative Center for Oncology Research in Exercise and an Assistant Professor of Biokinesiology and Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC). She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the City of Hope National Medical Center after earning her PhD in Biokinesiology from USC.

In 1997, at age 29, Dave Dubin was surprised by his colon cancer diagnosis, despite his family history. Ten years later, following his second bout with colon cancer, he learned about his Lynch syndrome diagnosis. Now a three time cancer survivor, Dave has become a fierce advocate and public speaker for awareness, screening and genetic testing. Alongside his wife Robin, he founded the non-profit AliveandKick'n, which focuses on supporting Lynch Syndrome patients and advancing research and awareness efforts. They continue to work towards expanding outreach and education about Lynch Syndrome in the patient and clinical communities and to the general public. AliveAndKickn’s mission is to improve the lives of individuals and families affected by Lynch Syndrome and associated cancers through research, education and screening. Dave has also been in the commercial diagnostics space since 2015 and is currently Commercial Partnerships Director at Exact Sciences on the Precision Oncology team.  

I am an MD-DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, carrying out my research under the supervision of Professor Simon Leedham. Our group specialises in preclinical research into gastrointestinal cancers and inflammation settings, with a particular focus on stem cells and interaction of different tissue compartments in this setting. My own research aims to assess molecular disruption involved in the transition from pre-cancer to cancer, with the aim of finding novel approaches to apply in the pre-cancer and hereditary cancer syndrome settings. I am particularly interested in the role of the cancer stem cell as a driver of colorectal cancer establishment and development, and how this may integrate with cellular plasticity mechanisms as part of the tumour adaptive phenotype. As a medical student, I am passionate about the translation of research from bench to bedside, and integrating in vitro and in vivo research with patient samples and data in order to translate research more effectively to the clinic.

Joanne Elena, PhD, MPH, is the Scientific Director for the American Cancer Society’s Clinical and Cancer Control Research Program. In this role, she’s responsible for the research program’s development, peer review, and funded research in human populations, which spans cancer prevention, screening and early detection, cancer treatment, and survivorship. Before joining the American Cancer Society, she was a Program Director at the National Cancer Institute and was responsible for developing a research portfolio and managing several large funding initiatives in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. She holds a PhD in nutritional epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Wendy is the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Professor of Medicine at Harvard, and a medical oncologist in the Center for Gastrointestinal Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute . She co-founded and co-directs the Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, and her lab’s research focuses on the interplay between the gastrointestinal immune system and the gut microbiota in health, inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer. Wendy and her lab have identified both specific species, pathways, and metabolites produced by the microbiota that influence health and disease states.

Dr. Ginsburg is a medical oncologist and global women’s health researcher with 20 years of experience in global cancer prevention and control. Prior to joining NCI’s Center for Global Health as a Senior Advisor for Clinical Research, she held faculty positions at the University of Toronto and New York University, was a Medical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) Geneva, Switzerland and served as a Senior Visiting Scientist at the WHO’s Specialized Agency for Cancer Research (IARC). She has held competitive research grants from Grand Challenges Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. She has authored >100 peer-reviewed publications and numerous commentaries in high impact journals, and co-chairs The Lancet Commission on women, power, and cancer. In 2022 she received the Humanitarian Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). 

Dominique Guillaume MSN, AAHIVE is a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and recently completed a Global Women’s Health Fellowship with Jhpiego and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in nursing from the University of Maryland,  and her masters of science in nursing from Duke University. She has published research on HIV and cervical cancer prevention for at-risk populations locally and globally. Currently, her dissertation which is NIH-funded focuses on addressing cervical cancer disparities among Haitian immigrant women with and without HIV. She practices clinically as an HIV Clinical Lead at Park West Health System in Baltimore City. In addition, she sits on the editorial board of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and is a representative for the WHO Youth Health-Care Professional Association Workforce constituency.

Prof. Mathias Heikenwälder is a trained molecular biologist, with expertise in immunology and a strong link to translational research evoked by 10 years of work and expertise in a Pathology Institution (Clinical Pathology, University Hospital Zurich). Since October 2015 he is Department head at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg focusing on the link between chronic inflammation and cancer. Since October 2022 he is director of the M3 Research Center, University Tübingen. Prof. Heikenwälder publishes his work in high-ranking journals and has established himself as an international leader in the field of liver cancer. Mathias Heikenwälder is the third most frequently cited German-speaking researcher in the field of cell biology in the last years and was one of the Highly Cited Researchers (Cross Fields) (Web of Science Group) in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Not only have his publications been widely cited by the research community, but they have also shifted fatty liver and liver cancer research in new directions - relevant to the day-to-day management of patients with fatty liver or liver cancer.

Dr. Chanita Hughes-Halbert serves as the Associate Director for Cancer Equity. She is a nationally recognized leader in cancer prevention and minority health research. She has dedicated her career to reducing the disparities in cancer outcomes that affect patients from underrepresented communities, with a primary focus on African American communities. Among her many achievements, she has identified sociocultural, psychological, genetic and environmental determinants of cancer health disparities and translates this information into interventions to improve health equity among racially and ethnically diverse populations, as well as other medically underserved groups.For her many contributions, Hughes-Halbert was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017.

In addition to her election to the National Academy of Medicine, Hughes-Halbert received the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Control Award in 2010. President Barack Obama appointed her to the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors in 2012, and in 2014 she joined the National Advisory Council of the National Human Genome Research Institute. The American Association for Cancer Research named her chair of its Minorities in Cancer Research Council the same year, and she received the AACR Distinguished Lecture Award on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities, funded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation, in 2018. She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from Howard University after graduating summa cum laude from Hampton University.

Dr. Stephen Hursting is the AICR/WCRF Distinguished Professor of Nutrition and Cancer in the Department of Nutrition and Nutrition Research Institute at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He is also a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He earned his PhD in nutritional biochemistry and MPH in nutritional epidemiology from UNC-Chapel Hill, and completed postdoctoral training in molecular biology and cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Prior to joining the UNC faculty in 2014, Dr. Hursting was Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, the McKean-Love Endowed Chair of Nutritional, Molecular and Cellular Sciences in the UT College of Natural Sciences, and Professor of Molecular Carcinogenesis at the UT-MD Anderson Cancer Center (2005-14).  He also previously served as Chief of the NCI’s Nutrition and Molecular Carcinogenesis Laboratory Section and Deputy Director of the NCI’s Office of Preventive Oncology (1999-2005).  His research interests center on the interplay between nutrition, obesity, genetics, metabolic health, and cancer. Primarily using preclinical models (including human and mouse cell lines and organoid models, genetically engineered mouse models of obesity and/or cancer, and genetically heterogeneous Collaborative Cross mice) in parallel with human studies, his lab is currently interrogating the gene-diet interactions, molecular and metabolic changes, and anticancer effects occurring in response to lifestyle-based (diet, physical activity), surgical, or pharmacologic (incretin mimetics) manipulation of appetite, energy metabolism and/or cell signaling pathways.  

Dr. Catriona Jamieson is a leading physician-scientist who discovered missplicing, RNA hyper-editing, and splice isoform switching as mechanisms governing human cancer stem cell maintenance in selective niches. Dr. Jamieson has extensive experience in development of stem cell models and therapies, including small molecule drugs, as well as commercialization of these technologies. At the Sanford Stem Cell Institute, Dr. Jamieson and her team are examining the links between aging and systemic inflammation-related microenvironmental and macroenvironmental stressors that promote pre-cancer initiation and malignant transformation of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. As part of the NASA Integrated Space Stem Cell Orbital Research (ISSCOR) program, Dr. Jamieson has led the engineering of human hematopoietic stem cell and tumor organoid nanobioreactors and development of multi-omic and functional analytical methods to determine stem cell fitness before, during and after space flight. Dr. Jamieson received the 2017 MPN Hero’s Award, the Moores Cancer Center Rell Sunn Award in 2020, and the Top Doctor for the 10th consecutive year by Castle Connolly in 2021. She has served as a keynote speaker on stem cells and pre-cancer and was awarded the UC San Diego Academic Senate Distinguished Research Award in 2023 and will be awarded the Luminary Award, Precision Medicine World Conference, in 2024. Her visionary leadership resulted in the single largest gift in the history of UC San Diego, for $150 million from T. Denny Sanford, resulting in the creation of the Sanford Stem Cell Institute.

Rudolf Kaaks received a Master of Science in Human Nutrition & Epidemiology at the University of Wageningen in 1987, and in 1994 a PhD degree in Epidemiology. During his scientific career he worked at the International Agency for Research on Cancer(IARC), Lyon (1988-2001) where he contributed to the development of the European EPIC project, and where he led a research group on Hormones and. In 2006 Rudolf Kaaks was appointed Professor (Chair, Cancer Epidemiology) at the University of Heidelberg and head of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany. From 2009 to 2015 he was a co-initiator and member of the Board of Scientific Directors of the German National Cohort (NaKo).  In the context of prospective cohort studies, his research focus is on (i) metabolic and immune-related risk factors for cancer development, (ii) development and validation of risk stratification models and (iii) the evaluation of markers of early cancer detection and cancer risk. Since 2017, Rudolf Kaaks is also one of the co-directors of the prospective PROBASE trial on risk-adapted prostate cancer screening, as well as of two ongoing trials in Heidelberg (Germany) on lung cancer screening by low-dose computed tomography.

Dr. Karin has spent his academic career investigating stress and inflammation signaling, covering the entire gamut of experimental approaches from biochemistry and molecular cell biology to animal pathophysiology. Discovering how infection, inflammation, radiation, or environmental stressors activate AP-1, NF-κB and other transcription factors, he investigated how these findings apply to the pathogenesis of cancer, degenerative and metabolic diseases. Dr. Karin’s group has elucidated fundamental mechanisms through which inflammation and obesity promote tumor development and contribute to type II diabetes and insulin resistance. They were among the first to highlight the role of inflammation in metabolic disease. They established the mechanisms through which members of the IL-6 cytokine family control  and established the cell type specific mechanisms through which NF-κB activation via IκB kinases (IKK), which they were the first to discover, affect the pathogenesis of various cancers. These studies showed that not only innate immune cells, namely macrophages, but also adaptive immune cells, T regulatory cells and B lymphocytes, contribute to tumorigenesis. Through this work, Dr. Karin and his team contributed to the establishment of the Inflammation and Cancer field. More recently, they demonstrated the existence of immunosuppressive plasma cells and their role in negative regulation of immunosurveillance and immunotherapy. Dr. Karin’s current work is focused on HCC, CRC, and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). He established robust and accurate mouse models for studying non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)-induced HCC and chronic pancreatitis-accelerated PDAC and used them to discover how adaptive immunity controls HCC development and the role of the autophagy substrate p62 in inflammation and HCC and PDAC pathogenesis. Dr. Karin’s group discovered how activation of the p62-KEAP1-NRF2 cascade confers resistance to autophagy inhibitors and established a new PDAC and HCC therapeutic approach targeting autophagy and macropinocytosis. In addition, Dr. Karin’s team has used mouse models to study how metabolism and nutrition affect NASH and HCC development focusing on the adverse effects of fructose and alcohol intake and toxicants. 

Dr. Karin is a member of the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine, USA.  He received the AACR GHA Clowes Award for Outstanding Basic Cancer Research in 2020.  Dr. Karin received his B.S. in Biology from Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv, Israel and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, CA in Molecular Biology.  He then completed Post-Doctoral Fellowships at the Fox Chase Institute for Cancer Research in Molecular Biology in Philadelphia, PA and at the University of California, San Francisco, CA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Mark Kennedy is a Senior Program Manager in the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Division at the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC). In this role, Mark is leading the creation and implementation of the first cancer early detection workplan for the Commission and the City of Boston. Currently, Mark is implementing a multi-year public-facing communication campaign to increase colorectal cancer screening rates in Boston, which was co-created with community partners and BPHC’s multidisciplinary Cancer Advisory Group. This highly localized campaign will be the foundation of a national campaign as well. Mark spent 13 years developing his knowledge of cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Before coming to BPHC, he served as Executive Director at the Massachusetts Prostate Cancer Coalition and Director of National Education and Outreach at the Prostate Health Education Network. In addition to his work at the Commission, Mark is the Boston Regional Leader for the Massachusetts Comprehensive Cancer Prevention and Control Coalition (MCCC) for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and serves on the Steering Committee. Mark also co-chairs the Community Advisory Committee for the Oncology Equity Alliance (OEA) at Boston Medical Center as well as the Community Coalition for Equity in Research (CCER), part of the Community Engagement Program at Harvard Catalyst. Mark is faculty for 'Shared Decision-Making: Essential Skills for Prostate, Lung and Breast Cancer Screening', an online CME at the Massachusetts Medical Society. Mark received his Executive MBA from Northeastern University and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses at Regis College and Emerson College. 

An active patient advocate for over 30 years - including 20 years of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in health research - I have personal experience of long-term illnesses and cancer-related end of life caring for three loved ones. 

From initially working in the voluntary sector as helpline volunteer, Trustee and then CEO, my focus shifted to Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in health research.  

As well as serving on several advisory and commissioning boards/panels, I am also involved in individual research studies (mostly cancer related).  I contribute to articles and papers, deliver workshops and lectures on PPI and present at conferences. 

Matthias Kloor is Deputy Director of the Department of Applied Tumor Biology, Institute of Pathology, at the Heidelberg University Hospital, and Clinical Cooperation Unit Applied Tumor Biology, DKFZ Heidelberg. His current activities are focused on translational programs aiming to move molecular cancer prevention in high-risk populations into the clinical reality. Research by Matthias Kloor improved the understanding of the evolutionary forces behind colorectal cancer development. The group identified novel precancerous lesions in Lynch syndrome and unraveled novel pathways of pathogenesis. The group pioneered research on cancer-preventive vaccines against shared mutational neoantigens. This research became part of the Cancer Moonshot and CAP-IT Programs of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA. Prof. Kloor is actively connected nationally and internationally in European and transcontinental translational projects. 

Wei Yi Kong, PhD, is a research associate at Mayo Clinic's Division of Epidemiology. She received her PhD in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in Communication Studies from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Dr. Kong's research leverages behavioral sciences to improve quality of cancer preventive care delivery.

Professor Ruth Langley is a medical oncologist specializing in the design and management of oncology clinical trials based at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at University College London where she leads the Cancer Group. She has worked in a number of tumour areas including colorectal, lung, prostate and gastro-oesophageal cancer coordinating a series of trials and associated translational studies.

She has a particular interest in re-purposing established medicines as cancer therapeutics, as well as cancer prevention, and is clinical Chair of the UK Therapeutic Cancer Prevention Network. A focus of her recent work has been on the therapeutic potential of aspirin as an anti-cancer agent. She is the Chief Investigator of the Add-Aspirin trial and is a co-lead of the AsCaP consortium a translational program investigating the anti-cancer effects of aspirin.

Dr. Lippman is a distinguished professor of medicine and associate vice chancellor for cancer research at UC San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine; and co-director of the Pre-Cancer Genome Atlas (PCGA). He holds an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center, and was immediate past Director of the UCSD NCI Comprehensive Moores Cancer Center and Chair, UC Cancer Consortium.

Dr. Lippman is an NIH R01-funded physician-scientist, and elected member of the prestigious Association of American Physicians (AAP). He has authored more than 300 publications in high-impact journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and The Lancet, and chapters in major medical textbooks. He has been recognized in major "Top Doctor" listing including U.S. News & World Report, and received numerous awards, including from the American Cancer Society (ACS), American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Stand up to Cancer (SU2C), and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Dr. Lippman’s early chemoprevention research, funded in part as PI of two NCI P01s and an NCI SPORE award, included large unselected NCI-intergroup randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of retinoids (n=>1,000 patients enrolled), and of selenium and vitamin E (>35,000 participants) which proved negative, and even harmful, respectively, in lung and prostate cancer prevention (Lippman et al JNCI 2001, Lippman et al JAMA 2009 & Klein et al JAMA 2011), followed by an EGFR-targeted RCT in molecularly-selected oral precancer (William et al. JAMA Oncol 2017). His recent work, funded in part as MPI of an SU2C Dream Team and two new 5-year MPI NIH awards (R01 and U01), is focused on somatic genomic copy-number alterations in precancer (Luebeck et al Nature 2023; Li et al Nature 2023), notably mapped to the short arm of chromosome 9, and immune oncology, and genomically-selected clinical trial designs, with predictive/stratification biomarkers, in high-risk/aggressive precursors to HPV-negative head and neck (e.g., William et al. PNAS 2021; Cancer 2023; Hanna et al. JAMA Oncol 2024). He was also a member of the Board of Directors for the AACR, the Association of American Cancer Institutes, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and has served as a standing member on the FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC).

Before joining UCSD in 2012, Dr. Lippman was on faculty at MD Anderson Cancer Center for 24 years, including as a tenured professor, where he held three endowed positions, and was distinguished chair of two departments, most recently the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology. He completed internship and residency training in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and fellowships in hematology and medical oncology at Stanford University and the University of Arizona. He received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and is triple-board certified in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology.

Anneke Lucassen is Professor of Genomic Medicine at the Centre for Human Genetics and director of the Centre for Personalised Medicine based at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. She trained as a physician and is an honorary consultant at Oxford’s regional genetic service. Her research combines clinical, molecular and ethico-legal expertise to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the rapid developments in genomics and to effect improved delivery of genomic services to individuals and families. 

She leads the Clinical Ethics Law and Society (CELS) research group at Oxford, has a range of relevant national roles (eg Chair of Joint Committee on Genomics in Medicine, member National Screening Committee) and co-leads the UK’s Genethics forum (www.genethicsUK.org) 

David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD is an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital.  He holds the rank of Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr Ludwig is founder of the Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) program, one of the country’s oldest and largest multidisciplinary clinics for the care of overweight children. He co-directs the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. 

For more than 25 years, Dr. Ludwig has studied the effects of diet on metabolism, body weight, and risk for chronic disease – with a special focus on low-glycemic index, low-carbohydrate, and ketogenic diets. He has made major contributions to development of the “carbohydrate-insulin model,” an alternative perspective on the pathogenesis of obesity. In addition, he conducted some of the original studies linking sugar-sweetened beverages and fast food to obesity. Described as an “obesity warrior” by Time Magazine, Dr. Ludwig has fought for fundamental policy changes to improve the food environment. 

Dr. Ludwig received the E.V. McCollum Award (2008) of the American Society for Nutrition, the Oded Bar-Or Award (2015) of The Obesity Society, and the Samuel J. Fomon Nutrition Award of the American Academy of Pediatrics (2019).  He has been Principal Investigator on numerous grants with 20+ years of NIH funding and has raised over $50 million in philanthropic support. He coauthored over 250 scientific articles, many in the world’s leading medical and scientific journals. He was a Contributing Writer for JAMA and presently serves as associate editor at American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He has written 3 books for the public, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Always Hungry? Conquer Cravings, Retrain Your Fat Cells, and Lose Weight Permanently (Grand Central Publishing, 2016). He appears frequently in national and international print and broadcast media. Dr. Ludwig is on sabbatical in Denmark for the 2023/2024 academic year.

Dr. Nandu M. Meshram is a dedicated oral health professional with a strong focus on oral cancer prevention and control, particularly within tribal and lower-caste rural marginalized communities. He obtained his Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) from Maharashtra University of Health Sciences and is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health and Social Policy from Washington University in St. Louis, with an expected graduation in May 2025. Dr. Meshram has been actively involved in public health, serving as the President and Founder of the ‘Society for Oral Cancer and Health’ in Bramhapuri, Maharashtra, India since 2010. In this role, he has initiated various community-based oral health programs, concentrating on oral cancer screening and education for marginalized populations. From 2017 to 2022, Dr. Meshram worked as the District Tobacco Consultant and District Programme Coordinator at the District General Hospital in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. During this time, he played a key role in implementing cancer screening and prevention programs, as well as district-level tobacco control initiatives. Dr. Meshram's dedication to health equity is also evident through his work at the Race and Opportunity Lab at Washington University, along with his participation in various training, leadership and advocacy programs at Harvard University, NCI, Johns Hopkins University, and the American Cancer Society. As a committed health activist, Dr. Meshram continues to advocate for accessible cancer care with impact on cancer control policies and practices at both local and global levels. 

Center Research in Nursing and Patient Care and the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is a 2024 Fellow, NIH’s Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, a 2023-2024 American Psychosocial Oncology Society Health Equity Scholar, and a 2022 New York Academy of Medicine Fellow. Nayak holds master’s and doctoral degrees in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Boston, with a concentration in medical sociology and health disparities. 

She is an early career investigator with expertise in qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Nayak isdedicated to reducing health disparities through the use of the Social Determinants of Health framework, exploring associations between social gradience and health disparities, both at the macro and micro levels, in order to reduce symptom burden and improve quality of life in individuals with cancer. Her program of research has two parallel tracks with a focus on tobacco and cannabis consumption by adults with cancer. She strives to develop sustainable and equitable interventions through the use of innovative technologies and methodologies.

Ana Nogal is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health investigating the interplay between diet and the gut microbiome in relation to colorectal cancer incidence and survivorship. Previously, she conducted her PhD studies at King’s College London, where she explored the role of metabolites in the interplay between gut microbiota and cardiometabolic health, with a special interest in short-chain fatty acids. Her main research interest is the design of personalized dietary approaches for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases by targeting specific gut microbiome members and metabolic products.

Samilia Obeng-Gyasi is an associate professor of surgery and an Endowed Surgical Professor in Health Equity at Ohio State University. She is a breast surgical oncologist whose practice focuses on surgery for breast cancer and benign breast diseases. Dr. Obeng-Gyasi obtained her BS in Biology with highest distinction and departmental honors from Indiana University Bloomington and her MD from The University of Michigan. She completed her general surgery residency at the Cleveland Clinic and a breast surgical oncology fellowship at Duke University. Following her residency, she pursued a master’s in public health (MPH) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, focusing on quantitative research methods due to her interest in health services research. Her work as a health services researcher emphasizes health equity, aiming to understand how ancestry, race, social determinants of health, and stress interact to influence cancer initiation, progression, and mortality.

Dr Suzanne Orchard (PhD) is the Director of the ASPREE-XT (ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly-eXTension) study, chief investigator and senior research fellow in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University (Aus). Her early career commenced at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (Parkville, Aus), where she developed expertise in the fields of cancer research, molecular biology and cell signaling, including biomarker discovery research and small molecule inhibitor trials to target oncological pathways within the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor signaling pathway. Upon moving to Monash University (2011), she established and expanded the cancer outcomes and research areas of the ASPREE-XT study, including collection of tumour tissues and associated tumour-specific data. In the role of study Director, she oversees the ASPREE-Extension (ASPREE-XT) study, which provides core infrastructure for observational follow-up of the recently completed ASPREE randomized controlled trial conducted in Australia and the US, with continued oversight of the all cancer related outcomes and associated substudies (ACES and ACTS), and dementia related outcomes. Her current research focus is to better understand the impact of cancer in older adults, and to identify possible chemoprevention agents. This includes understanding the impact of cancer, post diagnosis, on health outcomes in older adults, including cognition, functional decline and cardiovascular disease. This work has important clinical implications as the biology and epidemiology of cancer in an older adult differs to that in younger and middle population ages.

Tuya Pal is a Professor of Medicine and an Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she is also the Associate Director for Cancer Health Disparities at the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. The research efforts have a broad focus on cancer health disparities, spanning across basic and clinical services as well as health services delivery in diverse populations and healthcare settings. She currently leads multiple studies focused on genomics, etiology, outcomes, and care delivery among underserved and/or inherited cancer populations. She is also the Vice Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Genetics/Familial Guidelines Committee for Breast, Ovarian and Pancreatic Cancer; as well as the Editor-in-Chief for the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Genetics PDQ Editorial Board.

VIVIAN PAN, MS, CGC is a Senior Genetic Counselor at the University of Illinois Cancer Center and the Mile Square Health Center. She is an experienced genetic counselor with a broad and diverse background across various subspecialty areas, including cancer genetics, prenatal genetics, pediatric genetics, and general adult genetics, and has served a wide-ranging patient population. She has led and implemented multiple telehealth and precision medicine programs in various health systems, including academic centers, safety-net hospitals, community hospitals, and health maintenance organizations, focusing on increasing equitable patient access to genomic medicine. Vivian is actively involved in the Illinois Society of Genetic Professionals (ISGP), the Midwest Genetics Network (MGN), the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC), the Accreditation Council for Genetic Counseling (ACGC), and the National Society for Genetic Counselors (NSGC), serving on several committees and task forces. She was honored as the recipient of NSGC’s 2017 New Leader Award and 2021 Strategic Leader Award. Vivian is also a Section Editor for the Journal of Genetic Counseling and a Director at Large for ABGC. She is currently working on her PhD in Biomedical and Health Informatics. Her research interests include the advancement of the genetic counseling workforce, the translation of genomic advances, the impact of novel applications of genomic technology, and health disparities in precision medicine.

Dr Anisha (Patel) aka as @doctorsgetcancertoo is a general practitioner with a specialist interest in womens health and a bowel cancer survivor since 2018. Since diagnosis, she has channelled her energy into campaigning to raise public awareness of bowel cancer, other cancers, cancer screening and prevention, womens health and health conditions filled with taboo, stigma and embarrassment. She is now a speaker, health educator, writer and media doctor and her book "Everything you'd hoped you'd never need to know about Bowel cancer" was released in 2023 globally. She has taken part in a variety of health and cancer related campaigns, for the NHS, charities and ITV and works hard within a variety of media outlets to push a range of health education agendas and break down stigmas and taboos, as well as health inequalities within patient groups and health professionals.

She has a vested interest in, and experience of, talking about survivorship and life after cancer, helping others navigate through this most difficult, and often unspoken about, phase of life.

Anisha is now a lead patient advocate fro the Cancer Grand Challenge 2024 for Team PROSPECT. Website: www.dranisha.co.uk, Email: [email protected]

Dr Sara Pensa received her PhD in Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Turin, Italy. She was then awarded a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (FP7) to study mammary gland developmental pathways and their link to cancer in the laboratory of Prof Christine Watson at the Department of Pathology, Cambridge. She currently is a Senior Research Associate in Prof Walid Khaled's lab, at the Department of Pharmacology and Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge. Her research focuses on the characterisation of the early stages of breast cancer, with the aim to find better strategies for the early detection and prevention of the disease. To this end, Dr Pensa is co-leading with Prof Khaled a CRUK Biology to Prevention award to preclinically test preventative treatments for breast cancer. More broadly interested in health and research inequalities and research capacity strengthening in low- and middle- income countries, she also recently completed a MSc in Public Health with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and secured a Cambridge-Africa Alborada fund and a UKRI RE International Science Partnership Fund ODA award to build capacity for the early diagnosis of cervical cancer in Nigeria.

Dr. Mary Playdon is a nutrition and cancer epidemiologist with a background as a Registered Dietitian. She is Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology at the University of Utah, and an Investigator in the Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. She completed her PhD at the Yale University School of Public Health in a Yale/NCI Partnership Training Program in Nutrition and Cancer Epidemiology, and her postdoctoral studies at the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Metabolic Epidemiology Branch. Dr. Playdon studies the interface between diet, obesity, human metabolism, and cancer. Her research spans large-scale molecular epidemiological studies, and diet intervention trials targeting metabolic health for cancer prevention and improving outcomes in cancer survivors.

My research focuses on understanding how cells sense and respond to mechanical and compositional alterations of the extracellular matrix, specifically in the context of breast cancer. I began this work over 15 years ago as postdoctoral fellow and then Scientist in the laboratory of Patricia Keely. Currently, my laboratory is focused on defining how the organization and composition of the extracellular matrix is deposited in tumors how the ECM impacts immune infiltration and function, and how the tumor microenvironment impacts tumor cell dissemination and metastatic outgrowth. My research program integrates cell biology and advanced imaging techniques using 3D cell culture and murine tumor models to interrogate the pathophysiologic changes in the ECM of the breast tumor microenvironment to ultimately develop therapies that target these changes.

Vaughan Rees, PhD, is Director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control, and Senior Lecturer on Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Boston, MA). His research is focused on developing better programs and policies to reduce the health burden caused by tobacco use. He is especially interested in reducing tobacco use among underserved communities, including interventions to eliminate secondhand smoke exposure among people from low income and racially/ethnically diverse backgrounds. He and his team have been partnering with low-income housing providers to develop tools to help property managers assist residents make the transition to smoke-free housing. Other work focuses on drivers of tobacco product use, involving research on tobacco product design features and product messaging that promote appeal and dependence. This work has helped to shape regulatory strategies to reduce harms associated with substance use, including tobacco. Dr Rees’s training is in health psychology, with a focus on addictive behavior.

Debbie spent one integral year at Queens College, City University of New York, U.S.A on the Learning Processes Doctoral Programme, while studying for her MSc in Applied Psychology.  She obtained her PhD in 2010 and has a range of research interests including health and well-being of healthcare staff, habits and habit discontinuity, and behaviour change. Prior to her academic career, Debbie was a senior manager in the National Health Service and worked closely with a range of health and social care professionals and information managers. Deborah is currently working in a Smoking Cessation study funded by CRUK entitled, ESCAPE Digital.

Hege G. Russnes is a certified pathologist and head of Section for Experimental Pathology and research Support at Dept. of Pathology, Oslo University Hospital combined with being a research group leader at Dept. of Cancer Genetics, Institute for Cancer Research and adjunct Professor at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo. Her main research interest has been molecular analyses of breast cancer, focusing on molecular based classifications and early dissemination. From 2010 she had a post doc fellowship (18 months at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School). Her research group analyze tissue and fluids from cancer patients using multidimensional analyses including gene expression analyses, DNA and RNA sequencing and protein characterization to improve molecular based classification for prognostication, treatment prediction and more personalized follow-up (http://ous-research.no/russnes/). In recent years she has been engaged in several pan-cancer clinical trials, including the national precision medicine trial IMPRESS-Norway, where biomarker identification has been crucial. Russnes is coordinating the national Infrastructure for Precision Diagnostics – Cancer (InPreD) implementing comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) for cancer patients in Norway. The last three years she has been coordinating the national molecular tumorboard. She is also head of the National Competence Network in Precision Medicine (NorPreM).

Sharon A. Savage, M.D., is the Director of the Clinical Genetics Branch and Clinical Director of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She received her MD from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, completed residency in Pediatrics at Children’s National Medical Center, Washington, DC, and fellowship in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology in the combined NCI-Johns Hopkins program.  

Dr. Savage's internationally recognized research program combines clinical, genetic, and epidemiologic studies to advance understanding of cancer etiology and improve the lives of individuals with complex cancer-prone disorders. Her work in inherited bone marrow failure syndromes has discovered numerous new genetic etiologies, advanced understanding of telomere biology, and provided unprecedented detailed clinical phenotype studies. 

Dr. Savage created the NCI’s clinical and genetic study of Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS), often caused by germline mutations in TP53, resulting in robust quantification of cancer risk, genotype-phenotype correlations, characterization of the LFS-associated malignancies and a robust pediatric and adult cancer-screening regimen. 

Known for her emphasis on international scientific collaboration, Dr. Savage established and co-leads the LFS Exploration (LiFE) research consortium, Clinical Care Consortium of Telomere-Associated Ailments (CCCTAA) and works closely with basic scientists to connect disease mechanisms with clinical manifestations. 

Dr Shahab is Professor of Health Psychology at University College London and past President for the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco – Europe. He trained in psychology, epidemiology and neuroscience and has 20 years’ experience in addiction research, tobacco control and health psychology. Dr Shahab’s expertise spans work on novel behavioural and pharmacological smoking cessation interventions, biomarkers, tobacco product regulation and policy, digital health and tobacco and alcohol use epidemiology. Dr Shahab has collaborated with academic as well as non-academic (e.g., governmental and non-governmental) partners and to date has autho

Catherine is a final year PhD student at the University of Leicester, focusing on identification of drug repurposing opportunities and understanding mechanisms in the prevention of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

Bruno, a breast cancer cell biologist, obtained his degree in Microbial Biology and Genetics from the University of Lisbon in 2004. Following a research training year in Pavia, Italy, he pursued his PhD studies in Bilbao, Spain, focusing on estrogen's effects on human breast stem cells. In 2011, Bruno joined the University of Manchester to investigate the role of breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) in endocrine therapy resistance in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive tumours. His work demonstrated that combining inhibitors targeting BCSC-signalling pathways (e.g., STAT3, NOTCH4, IL1R1) can potentially improve treatment outcomes for patients with ER+ breast cancer by reversing BCSC-mediated resistance. Importantly, Bruno’s research provided pre-clinical data supporting the rationale for a successful multicentre phase 2 clinical trial on anti-estrogen resistant metastatic breast cancer (STEM trial, NCT02970682).

He now leads laboratory investigations on normal breast samples from breast cancer prevention clinical studies, utilizing stem cell assays, RNA, and proteins at the single-cell level. Bruno's primary focus is on deciphering the earliest molecular and cellular events that lead to aberrations in tumour-initiating cells to develop better breast cancer chemoprevention approaches for women at increased risk. He is particularly interested in studying the deregulation of hormonal activation linked to increased collagen organization and stiffness, as observed in cases of high mammographic density. Currently, Bruno is developing and characterising bona fide normal breast culture models to gain insights into the biology underlying breast cancer risk factors in women at increased risk.

Dr. Snyder received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics, and one of the major participants of the ENCODE project.

1977 B.A, Chemistry and Biology, University of Rochester, NY 1978-1982 Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, CA Advisor: Dr. Norman Davidson 1982-1986 Postdoctoral Research Stanford University School of Medicine, CA Advisor: Dr. Ronald Davis 1986-2009 Faculty Dept of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 2009-present Dept of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA

Dr. Sapna Syngal, MD, MPH is the Director of the Center for Early Detection and Interception of Solid Tumors at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Director of Strategic Planning for Prevention and Early Cancer Detection at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Director of Research in the Division of Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Leader of the Cancer Risk, Prevention, and Early Detection Program in the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has established an internationally recognized clinical, research, and educational program devoted to the genetics, early detection and prevention of cancer. 

Dr. Syngal’s research interests began in the field of inherited gastrointestinal cancers, including Lynch syndrome and inherited pancreatic cancer, where her lab has made seminal contributions to identifying new methods of identifying individuals and families at high risk of cancer and screening for cancers at their earliest stages using novel technologies and biomarkers. A related focus of her work has been to increase access to genetic testing, with a focus on increasing testing and cancer screening among disadvantaged populations. She is the developer of the PREMM models, which are widely used for risk assessment for inherited cancer, and the founder of the Lynch Syndrome Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She is the Principal Investigator of the GENERATE (GENetic Eductation, Risk Assessment and TEsting) and REGENERATE (Racial/Ethnic Equity in GENetic Education, Risk Assessment and Testing) studies which aim to reduce barriers to genetic testing faced by families affected by pancreatic cancer.

Lisa is a Co-Chair of the Patient and Public Review Panel that supports CRUK’s Prevention and Population and the Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committees. She brings lived experience of cancer as someone who lost a parent to cancer at a young age, has been a patient herself and who understands what it is like to live with the stress of surveillance, the long-term side-effects of treatment, and the spectre of secondary cancer. 

My research interests focus on cancer epidemiology, with a strong interest on describing, understanding and characterizing social and gender inequalities in cancer within the wider context of the global cancer transitions, patterns and trends of cancer. I also consider inefficiencies and potential harms in the provision of healthcare services.

Jo Waller is Professor Cancer Behavioural Science in the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London. She co-leads the Screening, Prevention and Epidemiology Unit in the Centre for Cancer Screening, Prevention and Early Diagnosis. With a background in health psychology, Jo has worked for over 20 years in the field of cancer prevention, screening and early diagnosis. Her team’s research aims to understand the acceptability, uptake and psychological impact of cancer screening. Current work focuses on novel innovations including risk-stratification, self-sampling and the use of AI, as well as new screening technologies including the capsule sponge test for oesophageal cancer and multi-cancer early detection tests. Jo works closely with the UK national screening programmes and is a member of the UK National Screening Committee’s Research and Methodology Group. 

As the Director of VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, I establish the center's vision and mission and oversee all initiatives, research, training and clinical activities. As a pulmonologist and physician-scientist, my research centers on lung cancer, health disparities and community-based health care. I am committed to developing methods to eliminate health disparities, and I will continue to focus my efforts to empower underserved patient populations, improve health care delivery and ensure equal access to cutting-edge medical treatments.

Dr. Lin Yang received her Ph.D. training at University of Cambridge, UK and postdoctoral training at Washington University School of Medicine, US. She is an epidemiologist in the Department of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Research at Alberta Health Services and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor in Departments of Oncology and Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Canada. The goal of Dr. Yang’s research program is to identify the biological and behavioural mechanisms involved in lifestyle and cancer, that can guide the design of actionable interventions, leading to sustainable cancer prevention measures.

Giles Yeo got his PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Cambridge in 1998, after which he joined the lab of Prof Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, working on the genetics of severe human obesity.  Giles Yeo is now a Professor of Molecular Neuroendocrinology and programme leader at the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit in Cambridge and his research currently focuses on the influence of genes on feeding behaviour & body-weight. In addition, he is a fellow of Wolfson College, and Honorary President of the British Dietetic Association. Giles is also a broadcaster and author, presenting science documentaries for the BBC, and hosts a podcast called ‘Dr Giles Yeo Chews The Fat’. His first book ‘Gene Eating’ was published in December 2018, and his second book ‘Why Calories Don’t Count’ came out in June 2021. Giles was appointed an MBE in the Queen’s 2020 birthday honours for services to ‘Research, Communication and Engagement’. He won the Society for Endocrinology Medal in 2022.

Dr. Neeha Zaidi is a physician scientist and a medical oncologist, caring for patients with pancreatic and colorectal cancers. Dr. Zaidi received her undergraduate degree (Magna Cum Laude) in Biology from Cornell University and earned her M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine where she graduated with Distinction in Research. During medical school, she spent a year as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Research Fellow at The Rockefeller University studying dendritic cell vaccines. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Weill Cornell and subsequently received an Intramural Research Training Award to perform a year-long post-doctoral fellowship at the Vaccine Research Center (NIAID) at the NIH. She then completed a fellowship in medical oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Zaidi joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2019. 

Dr. Zaidi’s laboratory focuses on developing novel personalized immunotherapy approaches for the treatment and prevention of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Zaidi has most recently been recognized with an ASCO Career Development Award and a NCI K08 Award