Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso, PhD

Endowed Professor of Cell Biology

Founding Director, Cancer Dormancy and Tumor Microenvironment Institute

Director, Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center

Co-Leader Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis Program

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Cyrus Ghajar, PhD

Associate Professor, Public Health Sciences Division

Associate Professor, Human Biology Division

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Diane M. Simeone, MD

Director, Pancreatic Cancer Center

Associate Director, Translational Research

Perlmutter Cancer Center

NYU Langone Health

“New platforms to drive improved survival in pancreatic cancer”

Yuliya Pylayeva-Gupta, PhD

Associate Professor, Genetics

Immunology

UNC-Chapel Hill

“Determinants of B cell fate and function in cancer”

Charles L. Sawyers, MD

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair in Human Oncology and Pathogenesis

Chair, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

“Drug resistance through lineage plasticity”

Eytan Ruppin, MD, PhD

Chief

Cancer Data Science Lab (CDSL)

Center for Cancer Research

National Cancer Institute

“Bulk and single cell transcriptomics-based precision oncology’’

Jayanta (Jay) Debnath, PhD

Distinguished Professor and Chair

Department of Pathology

UC San Francisco

“Secretory Autophagy and Tumor Desmoplasia”

Dr. Jay Debnath is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Pathology at the University of California, San Francisco. His laboratory is widely recognized for its expertise on the diverse cell biological roles of autophagy during cancer progression and metastasis.

Dr. Debnath is a board-certified pathologist, who received his MD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Medical School, completed clinical residency training in pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He completed post-doctoral research training at the Harvard Medical School Department of Cell Biology with Prof. Joan Brugge, where he became known for his studies on oncogene regulation of cell death using three-dimensional (3D) organotypic culture systems. His laboratory pursues two broad goals: 1) delineate the multifaceted roles of autophagy in adhesion independent survival in vitro as well as on breast cancer progression and metastatic disease in vivo; and 2) dissect the biochemical and in vivo physiological functions of the molecules that control autophagy (called ATGs) to ultimately exploit this process for therapeutic benefit. Recently, he has been illuminating how the autophagy pathway orchestrates secretory and exocytic functions distinct from its long-recognized roles in catabolism.

Dr. Debnath currently serves as Cancer Section Chief Editor of Autophagy, Editor of the Annual Reviews of Pathology and on the editorial board of Genes and Development. He has previously served as Chair of the Programmatic Review Panel for the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (2018) and Chair of the Tumor Cell Biology Study Section for NIH (2016-18). His major honors include: HHMI Early Career Award for Physician Scientists (2006), DOD Breast Cancer Research Program Era of Hope Scholar Award (2011), elected membership into the American Society of Clinical Investigation (2013), American Society of Cell Biology Keith Porter Mid-Career Investigator Award (2016), Ramzi Cotran Memorial Lectureship from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School (2019), and American Society of Investigative Pathology Outstanding Investigator Award (2021).

Christina (Christie) Towers, PhD

Assistant Professor

Molecular and Cell Biology

Salk Institute

“Mechanisms to Circumvent Autophagy Inhibition in Cancer”

Christina G. Towers is an Assistant Professor at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in San Diego, California. After completing her PhD at the University of Colorado, she went on to pursue her post-doctoral studies also at The University of Colorado in Dr. Andrew Thorburn’s lab. During this time, Dr. Towers developed unique CRISPR/Cas9 tools to understand the recycling process and autophagy in cancer cells. Her work uncovered novel mechanisms that cancer cells can use to adapt to and circumvent autophagy inhibition. As a post-doc, Christie was awarded a number of fellowships including the American Cancer Society Fellowship as well as the K99/R00 transition award from the NCI. Dr. Towers launched her lab at the Salk in July of 2021 and the lab is focused on taking a dive deeper into cancer cell metabolism and autophagy using optogenetics, single cell tracing, and high-resolution microscopy.

Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD

Professor, Medicine

Harvard Medical School

Professor of Medicine

Medical Oncology

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

“Immune escape in breast cancer”

Diwakar Ram Pattabiraman, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Molecular and Systems Biology

Geisel School of Medicine

Dartmouth College

Member

Norris Cotton Cancer Center

“Elucidating the implications of epithelial-mesenchymal heterogeneity in breast cancer”

J. Silvio Gutkind, PhD

Distinguished Professor and Chair

Department of Pharmacology

UC San Diego School of Medicine

Associate Director Basic Science

Moores Cancer Center

UC San Diego

“Signaling Networks in Tumor Growth and Immune Evasion: New Multimodal Precision Immunotherapiesâ€

Dr. Gutkind is a Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, and Associate Director for Basic Science at the Moores Cancer Center, University of California San Diego. He received his PhD in pharmacy and biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and after his post-doctoral training at the NIMH and NCI, he joined the NIDCR, NIH. He served as the Chief of the Oral and Pharyngeal Cancer Branch, NIDCR, NIH, since 1998 until his recruitment to UCSD in 2015. 

His research team is exploiting the emerging information on dysregulated signaling circuitries and individual genomic and molecular alterations to develop new precision therapies to prevent and treat cancer, and to identify novel multimodal strategies to enhance the response to cancer immunotherapies. His research team has pioneered the study of G proteins and G protein coupled receptors in human malignancies. As part of his translation efforts, Dr. Gutkind has led a multi institutional clinical trial establishing the benefits of treating oral cancer patients with mTOR inhibitors, and he is co-leading a new mTOR-targeting chemoprevention medicine trial in oral premalignancy. His laboratory has recently launched a new effort exploring multimodal precision immunotherapy approaches for cancer prevention and treatment.

His honors include the NIH Merit Award, the Elliot Osserman Award from the Israel Cancer Research Foundation, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Research & Hope Award, the Distinguished Scientist Award from the International Association of Dental Research (IADR), and the election as the Chair, Division of Molecular Pharmacology, American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). He was elected in 2019 to the National Academy of Medicine, recognizing his team’s translational efforts in the area of cancer signaling. He has published over 500 research articles in some of the most prestigious journals. He has supervised and mentored many junior investigators, who are now playing leadership roles in multiple institutions in the United States and abroad. In recognition of his dedication to education and mentorship, Dr. Gutkind is the 2021 recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Scholar Mentoring. 

Matt Hangauer, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of Dermatology

UC San Diego School of Medicine

“Cancer Persister Cellsâ€

Matt was born in New Jersey and grew up in Buffalo, NY. He got his start in science research while in high school working in his father’s medicinal chemistry lab at the University at Buffalo. He then attended Vanderbilt as an undergraduate and majored in chemistry, performing chemical biology research in Ned Porter’s lab. For his PhD in Chemistry, Matt attended UC Berkeley where he worked in Carolyn Bertozzi’s lab focusing on developing fluorogenic imaging reagents compatible with click chemistry. Matt did his postdoc at UCSF joint mentored by Michael McManus and Frank McCormick. During his postdoc, he first focused on a genomics project in which he surveyed the extent of transcription of the human genome and developed a catalogue of human lncRNAs. Then, shifting his focus to cancer biology, Matt discovered that cancer persister cells are vulnerable to death by ferroptosis and co-founded a company, Ferro Therapeutics, focused on developing a therapeutic approach to induce ferroptosis in tumors. Most recently, Matt began his current position as an Assistant Professor at UCSD in the fall of 2018 in the Department of Dermatology where his lab focuses on deciphering the mechanisms which underlie cancer acquired resistance to therapy.

Matt has won a variety of awards including a Goldwater scholarship (undergraduate), NDSEG fellowship (graduate), Susan G. Komen postdoctoral fellowship, Melanoma Research Alliance Young Investigator Award and V Scholar Award among others.