1st Young Scientist Cancer Congress (YS2C)

Professor Manel Esteller, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute

Manel Esteller graduated in Medicine from the Universidad de Barcelona in 1992, where he also obtained his Ph.D. degree specialising in molecular genetics of endometrial carcinoma, in 1996. He was an Invited Researcher at the School of Biological and Medical Sciences at the University of St. Andrews, (Scotland, UK) during which time his research interests focused on the molecular genetics of inherited breast cancer. From 1997 to 2001, Esteller was a Postdoctoral Fellow and a Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins University and School of Medicine, (Baltimore, USA) where he studied DNA methylation and human cancer. His work was decisive in establishing promoter hypermethylation of tumour suppressor genes as a common hallmark of all human tumours.

From October 2001 to September 2008 Manel Esteller was the Leader of the CNIO Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory, where his principal area of research were the alterations in DNA methylation, histone modifications and chromatin in human cancer. Dr Esteller was the Director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program (PEBC) in Barcelona (2008-2019). He is the Director of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), Chairman of Genetics in the School of Medicine of the University of Barcelona, and an ICREA Research Professor.  His current research is devoted to the establishment of the epigenome and epitranscriptome maps of normal and transformed cells, and the development of new epigenetic drugs for cancer therapy.

Author of more than 600 original publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, 24 of them categorized as “Highly Cited Paper”. Dr Esteller has the highest total impact factor and the highest number of citations (81,783) among biomedical scientists in Spain. He has an h-Index of 134 by Web of Science – Clarivate Analytics and a h-Index of 166 according to Google Scholar. Dr. Esteller is considered among the Top 0.01% of World Scientists based on Impact by both the Stanford University (METRICS) and the Web of Science Group-Clarivate Analytics. He is also a Member of numerous international scientific societies, Editorial Boards and reviewer for many journals and funding agencies. Dr Esteller is also Associate Editor for Cancer Research, The Lancet Oncology, Carcinogenesis, Genome Research and The Journal of The National Cancer Institute. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Epigenetics. He is also the director of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project for Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP) (2018-2022) of the National Cancer Institute – National Institutes of Health (NCI-NIH) in the United States (US) and the director of The International Proteogenome Consortium (ICPC) Project “Proteogenomics of B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia” (2022-2023) also by the NCI.

His work has received, among other recognitions, the Carcinogenesis Award (2005), Beckman-Coulter Award (2006), Fondazione Piemontese per la Ricerca sul Cancro (FPRC) Award (2006), Swiss Bridge Award (2006), Innovation Award from the Commonwealth of Massachussets (2007), Human Frontier Science Program Award (2007), DEbiopharm-EPFL Award (2009), Dr. Josef Steiner Cancer Research Award (2009), Lilly Foundation Preclinical Biomedical Research Award (2009), World Health Summit Award (2010), European Research Council Advanced Grant (2011), “Rey Jaime I” Research Award (2013), Severo Ochoa Award in Biomedicine (2014),  National Award in Oncology (2014), “Dr Josep Trueta Medal”, Catalan Goverment (2015), National Research Award of the Catalan Goverment (2015), Gold Medal, Parlament of Catalonia (2016), International Award of Catalonia (2016), Falcó Carlemany Award (2017), Innovation in Healthcare Oncology Award (2018), Lansdowne Lecture Award, University of Victoria, Canada (2019), Narcís Monturiol Medal, Catalan Government (2020), Elected Member of the Academia Europaea (2021) and the European Academy of Sciences (2021). In 2022, his discovery of cancer type-specific DNA hypermethylation profiles was selected as a Landmark Article in Cancer Research by the AACR and the National Cancer Act.

Doctor Olivier Delattre  MD, Ph.D (information will follow)
Director at Cancer, Hétérogénéité, Instabilité et Plasticité – U830 – Institut Curie

Doctor Francesco Iorio Ph.D
Research Group Leader at Iorio Group, Computational Biology Research Centre, Human Technopole, Milan

Francesco Iorio is a Research Group leader in the Computational Biology Research Centre of Human Technopole (the life science institute in Milan, Italy). His group works at the interface of biology, machine learning, statistics and information theory to understand and predict how genomic alterations and molecular traits from other omics contribute to pathological processes, biological circuits’ rewiring and impact therapeutic responses in human cancers and other diseases.
Their research aims to advance human health by designing algorithms, computational tools and novel analytical methods for integrating and analyzing pharmacogenomics and functional-genomics datasets to identify new therapeutic targets, biomarkers and drug repositioning opportunities.

The Iorio Group is contributing to creating a comprehensive map of all the genetic dependencies in human cancers and developing a computational infrastructure for translating this map into guidelines for early-stage drug development and precision medicine.
They design, implement and maintain bioinformatics methods and original tools for the assessment of cancer pre-clinical models, the pre-processing, analysis and visualization of genome-editing screening data for the in-silico correction of new-technology-specific biases in such data, and the optimisation of single guide RNA libraries for pooled CRISPR-Cas9 screens and other experimental settings.
They are also interested in big-data analytics, developing biomedical predictive models based on non-biomedical data, and computationally efficient constrained randomisation strategies for testing combinatorial properties in large-scale genomic datasets and networks.

Doctor Kathryn McGinnis, Ph.D
Associate Editor, Nature Communications

Kathryn joined Nature Communications as an Associate Editor in 2021. She studied the role of steroids in brain cancer using bulk and single cell RNA-sequencing during her PhD and subsequent post-doc at the University of Leeds, UK. She previously received her BSc in Immunology at the University of Glasgow, and MSc working in industry within stem cell banking. Kathryn handles manuscripts surrounding the use of -omics technologies in cancer, particularly in the field of biomarkers of treatment response.

Gema Fuerte, MSc
Field Application Scientist Manager, Mission Bio

 
Todd Druley, MD, PhD established his career as a board-certified pediatric oncologist and tenured physician-scientist in molecular genomics at Washington University School of Medicine and St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Todd’s research program focused on improving molecular diagnostics for a variety of cancers, but specifically myeloid leukemia. He has published over 60 peer reviewed manuscripts, patented error-corrected NGS methods to improve AML MRD detection by next-generation sequencing and built clinical programs based on genetic predisposition to cancer. Prior to joining Mission Bio, he served as CMO of ArcherDX and ANGLE Biosciences since 2019.
Mission Bio is a genomic company based in San Francisco which develops and commercializes a complete cutting edge single-cell multi-omics offer which integrating genotype and phenotype, enabling researchers and clinicians to unlock single-cell biology to enable the discovery, development, and delivery of precision medicine. Tapestri platform allows Single-Cell multi-omics analysis with simultaneous detection of SNVs, CNVs, and cell-surface proteins, therefore enabling researchers to accurately characterize the mutational landscape of a population and reveal the impact of co-mutations, DNA methylation and zygosity state on cell-surface protein expression.

Professor Hervé Avet-Loiseau, MD, PhD
CRCT, IUCT-O, Toulouse

Hervé Avet-Loiseau, MD, PhD, has been Head of the Laboratory for Genomics in Myeloma at the University Hospital Center of Toulouse, France, since September 2012. Before that he was the Head of the Haematology Laboratory of the University Hospital of Nantes, France, a position he had held since 2008.

He received his medical degree with a specialization in paediatric haematology in 1990. After pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Joe Gray in San Francisco, CA, USA, he moved into the area of biological haematology in 1995 and subsequently specialized in cytogenetics. He received his PhD in 1998 and became Professor of Haematology in 2001.
Professor Hervé Avet-Loiseau is highly involved in the Intergroupe Francophone du Myélome (IFM), and as the current Chairman he leads all biological studies. Most of his research studies are based on the analysis of genetic/genomic abnormalities observed in malignant plasma cells using different technologies, including fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), gene expression profiling, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays, and next-generation sequencing (NGS).

Elodie Lallet, MSc
Key Account Manager, IntegraGen

  Elodie Lallet joined IntegraGen in 2014 as a technology development engineer, where she worked on implementing new technologies and innovative solutions. In 2020, she joined IntegraGen’s sales department, taking care of the South of France. IntegraGen, part of the OncoDNA group, is a French genomics and theranostics company specialized in precision medicine for cancer treatment. IntegraGen helps clinicians, researchers and biopharmaceutical companies analyze molecular complexity, with the mission of providing access to precision medicine for the patient.

Organizer team:

Benoît Aliaga, Ph.D; CRCT Toulouse	Chloé Bessiere, Ph.D; CRCT Toulouse	Steffen Fuchs, MD; CRCT Toulouse, Charité-University Hospital Berlin, Germany	Julie Ripoll, Ph.D; LIRMM, Montpellier
Pierre-François Roux, Ph.D; IRCM, Montpellier	Benjamin Bonnard, Ph.D; BRIC, Bordeaux	Sara Ovejero, Ph.D; IGH, Montpellier

Location :

The conference will take place at the IUCT (Institut Universitaire du Cancer de Toulouse, https://www.iuct-oncopole.fr/en/) amphitheater. The poster session and the lunch buffet will take place in proximity to the amphitheater. The apéro/icebreaker after the conference, will take place at the CRCT, first floor, which is directly accessible from the IUCT.

How access to IUCToncopole