PROGRAMME
Wednesday, 24th September 2025 Lansdowne Suite, Herbert Park Hotel
Wednesday, 24thSeptember 2025, Lansdowne Suite, Herbert Park Hotel
Registration from 08:30 6 RCPI external CPD credits
09:00 – 09:15 Welcome and Introduction – Prof John Crown, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin
EXTRA-TUMORAL BIOMARKERS AND THERAPEUTIC TARGETS
Session Chair – Prof. Sara Hurvitz, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
09:15 – 09:45 Circulating tumor DNA: Cutting-edge technology meets clinical reality
Dr. Heather Parsons, Maudslien Endowed Chair in Breast Cancer Oncology Research, Fred Hutch Cancer Centre
09:45 – 10:15 Developing epigenetic based combinatorial therapies for breast cancer
Dr. Karen Cichowski, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
10:15 – 10:45 Understanding and overcoming disseminated tumor cell immune evasion
Dr. Cyrus Ghajar, Director, Lab for the study of Metastatic Microenvironment, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
10:45 – 11:00 Coffee break
TARGETED THERAPIES I
Session Chair – Prof. Sara Hurvitz, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
11:00 – 11:30 Expanding the horizons of PROTACs in oncology: From proof-of-concept with vepdegestrant to emerging targets
Dr. Eric Masson, SVP, Experimental Medicine & Development Sciences, Arvinas
11:30 – 12:00 The next generation CDK-4 inhibitor Atirmociclib: from preclinical to clinical
Dr. Libero Santarpia, Senior Medical Director, Late Stage Development, Pfizer.
12:00 – 12:30 HER-targeting TKIs in breast cancer
Dr. Denis Collins, Dublin City University
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch
ADVANCES IN ANTIBODY DRUG CONJUGATES
Session Chair – Prof. Joe Duffy, St Vincent’s Hospital; UCD
13:30 – 14:00 Cadherin 17- a novel target for antibody drug conjugates in colorectal cancer
Dr. Neil O’Brien, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA
14:00 – 14:30 Therapeutic potential of TORL-4-500, an antibody-drug conjugate directed against delta like non-canonical notch ligand 1 (DLK1)
Dr. Martina McDermott, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
14:30 – 15:15 Identification and Validation of Novel Targets in Oncology: Biologic and Therapeutic Implications
Dr. Dennis J. Slamon, 2019 Lasker Award Winner, Director of Clinical/Translational Research, Director of the Revlon/UCLA Women’s Cancer Research Program at JCCC. Professor of Medicine, Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology.
15:15 – 15:30 Coffee break
UPDATES FROM THE CLINIC
Session Chair – Dr. Dimitrios Tryfonopoulos, Saint Savvas Anticancer Hospital, Athens
15:30 – 16:00 Targeting KRAS in pancreaticobiliary cancers: understanding genotype immunophenotype interactions
Dr. Grainne O’Kane, Pat Smullen Chair in Pancreatic Cancer, University College Dublin
16:00 – 16:30 Neoadjuvant immunotherapy for lung cancer and mesothelioma: improving survival and expanding horizons
Dr. Patrick Forde, Trinity St. James’ Cancer Institute, Dublin
16:30-17:00 Long term impact of immunotherapy on early-stage cancers: IO toxicity and beyond
Dr. Jarushka Naidoo, Beaumont Hospital & Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
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Thursday, 25th September 2025 Lansdowne Suite, Herbert Park Hotel
Registration from 08:30 6 RCPI external CPD credits
TARGETED THERAPIES II
Session Chair – Prof. Mark Pegram, Stanford University School of Medicine
09:00 – 09:30 Sensitivity and resistance to anti-HER2 antibody drug conjugates
Dr. Sarat Chandarlapaty, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering
09:30 – 10:00 Molecular evolution in metastatic breast cancer: A real world experience
Dr. Timothy Crook, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Cromwell Hospital, London
10:00 – 10:30 Update on targeting the PI3K pathway
Dr. Sara Hurvitz, Fred Hutch Cancer Centre
10:30 – 10: 45 Coffee break
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND PATHOLOGY
Session Chair – Prof. Mark Pegram, Stanford University School of Medicine
10:45 – 11:15 AI in oncology pathology: from precision grading to prognostic prediction across cancer types
Dr Donal O’Shea, CEO, Deciphex
11.15 – 11:45 AI in precision oncology: Machine learning-based radio/genomic prediction modelling in cancer
Dr Haruka Itakura, Stanford University School of Medicine
11.45 – 12:15 AI models in histopathology: The current landscape
Prof. Hamid Tizhoosh, Department of Artificial Intelligence and Informatics, Mayo Clinic
12:15 – 13:15 Lunch
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM SPATIAL PROFILING OF TUMOUR TISSUES
Session Chair – Prof. Lajos Pusztai, Yale School of Medicine
13:15 – 13:45 Spatial predictors of response to neoadjuvant IO therapy-
Dr. Raza Ali, Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute
13:45 – 14:15 Single cell sequencing landscape of breast cancer
Dr. Isaac Chan, Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Centre, University of Texas Southwestern
14:15 – 14:45 Clinical validation and deployment of AI prognostic breast cancer tests
Dr. Jan Witowski, CEO and Co-Founder, Ataraxis
14:45 – 15:00 Coffee break
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
15:00 – 15:45 Mixed molecular subtypes in ER-heterogeneously positive breast cancer
Dr Lajos Pusztai, Professor of Medicine at Yale University, Scientific Co-Director of the Center for Breast Cancer at Yale Cancer Center and Co-Leader of the Yale Cancer Center Genomics Genetics and Epigenetics Program.Mixed molecular subtypes in ER-heterogeneously positive breast cancer
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AIDED DRUG DEVELOPMENT
Session Chair – Prof. Lajos Pusztai, Yale School of Medicine
15:45 – 16:15 AI tools to accelerate drug development
Dr.Melissa Davis, Head of Computational Biology,Isomorphic labs
16:15 – 16:45 Deep learning for drug discovery: Accelerating innovation from data to molecules
Dr. Steve Worland, CEO, Atomwise
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Friday 26th September 2025 Lansdowne Suite, Herbert Park Hotel
Registration from 8:30 6 RCPI external CPD credits
TUMOUR MICROENVIRONMENT I
Session Chair – Prof Robert Kerbel, University of Toronto
09:00 – 09:30 Ethnicity relevant breast cancer mapping reveals new ways of thinking about breast cancer and the tumour microenvironment
Dr. Kairbaan Hodivala Dilke, Prof of Tumour Microenvironment, Queen Mary University of London
09:30 – 10:00 Best practices in immunocompetent preclinical cancer models – and why they still matter
Dr. Kabir Khan, Sunnybrook Research Institute, University of Toronto
10:00 – 10:30 Embryonic reawakening in tumor vessels – the versican tale – When splicing choices rewrite the vascular script of cancer’
Dr. Arjan Griffioen, Professor of Experimental Oncology and Angiogenesis, Amsterdam UMC
10:30 – 10:45 Coffee break
TUMOUR MICROENVIRONMENT II
Session Chair – Prof Robert Kerbel, University of Toronto
10:45– 11:15 Bispecific antibodies targeting PD-(L)1 & VEGF-A
Dr. Claudia-Nanette Gann, Global Medical Lead, BionTech
11:15 – 11:45 PD1 blockade triggers DKK1 in CD8+ T cells: A driver of variable responses in brain metastasis
Prof. Yuval Shaked, Director of the Rappaport-Technion Integrated Cancer Center
11:45 – 12:15 Novel tumour microenvironment subtypes of glioblastoma: A framework for precision therapy
Dr. Kate Connor, Assistant Professor in Physiology, Discipline of Physiology, School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
12:15 – 13:00 From Immunotherapy to Antiangiogenic Therapy and Back: A 50 Year Journey with Many Ups and Downs, Twists and Turns (but Ending with a Big Ironic Up)
Dr. Robert Kerbel, Senior scientist, Biological Sciences, Odette Cancer Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute; Professor, Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto; Canada Research Chair in Tumour Biology, Angiogenesis and Antiangiogenic Therapy, Tier 1 (2001–2015)
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
IO THERAPIES
Session Chair: Prof. William Gallagher, University College Dublin & AICRI
14:00 – 14:30 Tebentafusp, a TCR-CD3 T cell engager, reshapes the tumour microenvironment to enhance anti-tumour T cell activity
Dr. Adel Benlahrech, Director, Translational Medicine, Immunocore
14:30 – 15:00 .Antibody-based therapeutics as I/O
Dr. Mark Pegram, Professor of Medical Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine.
15:00 – 15:30 Multiomic profiling of Early Onset Colorectal Cancer
Dr. Mary O’Reilly, PhD candidate, University College Dublin. Medical Oncology Registrar, St. Vincent’s University Hospital
15:30 – 16:00 Enhancing DNA repair and innate immunity, a novel approach to cancer chemoprevention and treatment
Dr. Ken O’Byrne, Queensland University of Technology; Princess Alexandra Hospital
Meeting ends
