Cancers evolve through deterministic genetic and epigenetic events as well as intricate interactions with the tissue microenvironment and host physiopathology. The complexity of these processes has precluded a comprehensive and integrated understanding of the key cancer cell-intrinsic and extrinsic events that enable cancer initiation, progression, and treatment resistance. Contemporary studies enabled by new experimental technologies, computational approaches, sophisticated model systems, and innovative clinical studies have begun to deconvolute this complexity. This new, exciting era in cancer biology is opening new opportunities to understand, predict, and intercept the evolution of tumors.
This 40th edition of the Biomed Conference will provide an interdisciplinary forum for researchers interested in the principles that define and dictate malignant cell fates and the contexts in which these emerge and evolve. The conference will also showcase novel technologies to study cancer cell-intrinsic and extrinsic determinants of tumor evolution (eg. multidimensional profiling, AI, genome engineering, and spatial biology), and emerging concepts for clinical translation.
Topics
• From mechanism to phenotype: emerging concepts and technologies
• Evolutionary trajectories in premalignancy and cancer
• Crosstalk within normal and malignant ecosystems
• Cellular origins and hallmarks of neoplastic identity
• Challenges and opportunities for clinical translation