Name: The 3rd International Electronic Conference on Cancers: New Targets for Cancer Therapies (IECC 2023)
Start: 2023-03-16T00:00:00
End: 2023-03-30T00:00:00

Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Francesco Iorio
Computational Biology Research Centre of Human Technopole

Short Bio
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 analysing 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 visualisation 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.

Dr. Travert Hart
Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA.
Department of Cancer Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA.

Short Bio
The Hart Lab at MD Anderson studies the functional genomics of cancer using a combination of high-throughput experiments and integrated computational analysis. They start with the principle of synthetic lethality, where a genomic modification to one gene (through mutation, copy number change, or silencing) causes cells to be dependent on other genes and pathways. They perform systematic, genome-scale gene knockout screens using the CRISPR-Cas9 system [Hart et al, Cell, 2015] in cancer cell lines and analyze them using BAGEL, a state-of-the-art algorithm developed in the lab [Hart et al, BMC Bioinformatics, 2016]. Finally, They integrate our analyses with other molecular data profiling the DNA, RNA, protein, and metabolic state of the cells. While in the short term They seek to match tumors with effective drugs and to identify new drug targets where current drugs are lacking, our long-term goal is a deeper understanding of the coincident sets of a biological process that cancer cells rely on for growth and metastasis, and ultimately a predictive model of response to therapies that eliminates tumors while anticipating and preventing acquired resistance.

Within the framework of these overarching goals, a wide array of tutorial projects are possible. Computational projects could include reanalysis of existing data to improve our ability to detect gene-gene and gene-drug interactions, enhancing the BAGEL algorithm to include other molecular data such as gene expression and copy number, or helping evolve BAGEL from a gene-centric to a pathway-centric model. Experimental tutorials could involve any aspect of a CRISPR genomic screen, from lentiviral library construction to large-scale tissue culture, screening, and sequencing, and ultimately to validation and characterization of specific targets using small molecule inhibitors, automated microscopy, and other proteomic and phenotypic assays.

Dr. Andrea Morandi
Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences, University of Florence, Italy

Short Bio
Andrea Morandi is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Florence. He studied Biotechnology(BSc)and Medical Biotechnology (MSc) at the University of Florence and gained is BSc in 2004 and MSc in 2006 both with honors, after a period of research on MAPK signaling in liquid and solid cancers. immediately after the MSc, Andrea started a Ph.D. on the role of
Tyrosine Kinase Receptors in breast cancer. In 2007, he moved to the Institute of Cancer Research in London in the laboratory of Prof Clare lsacke where he investigated, first as visiting Ph.D. student and then as a Worldwide Cancer Research supported postdoctoral fellow, the role of the receptor tyrosine kinase RET in response and resistance to endocrine therapy in breast cancer.
In 2013, Andrea was awarded a Fondazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro Fellowship and returned to Florence. He then obtained the Fondazione Umberto Veronesi fellowship for three consecutive calls (2016-2018) before becoming Faculty at the University of Florence.

Dr. Mariateresa Fulciniti
Department of Medical Oncology, Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA.
Harvard Medical School, USA.

Short Bio
Dr. Fulciniti received her BS/MS degree in biological sciences from the University of Calabria, Italy in 2004. She obtained a PhD in Molecular Oncology from the University of Magna Graecia, Italy in 2009, after spending two years as visiting PhD student at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA. In 2013, she became Instructor in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. She’s currently Lead Scientist in Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr Fulciniti’s research is an example of the Bench to Bedside and Bedside to Bench translational research approach. Her research focuses on identifying new druggable dependencies and developing novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of multiple myeloma and related plasma cell disorders. Specifically, her research aims at elucidating key cellular signaling pathways that contribute to the survival and proliferation of myeloma cells in the microenvironment, including immune escape, as well as the mechanisms driving intrinsic and acquired drug resistance in myeloma by integrative epigenomic and genomic parameters. She has published widely on multiple myeloma and is an ad hoc reviewer for several journals including Blood and Clinical Cancer Research.

Prof. Dr. Vasso Apostolopoulos
Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Australia

Short Bio
Vasso is the Leader of the Immunology and Translational Research Group at Victoria University Australia and the Vice-Chancellors Distinguished Fellow.

Her expertise is multi-disciplinary with extensive expertise in immunology, x-ray crystallography, medicinal chemistry, cellular biology, clinical research. She has extensive translational research expertise with development of drugs and vaccines. Vasso has undertaken research and led Programs in various capacities at Oxford University, Scripps Research Institute USA, Queensland, Canberra and in Melbourne. She was the head of the Immunology & Vaccine Unit at the Austin Research Institute and at the Burnet Institute; the Immunology Program Leader in the Centre for Chronic Disease; was the Mechanisms and Interventions in Health and Disease Program Leader at VU. In 2018-2022 she was part of the senior executive team at VicUni being the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research Partnerships.

Vasso has extensive expertise in vaccine and drug development with over 25 phase I, II, III human clinical trials of her work on cancer. Committed to the benefits of immunotherapy, Vasso has applied several immunotherapies to other diseases including for MS, T1D, drug addiction and neurodegenerative diseases. Her work is also based on understanding mechanisms and developing interventions for cancer, chronic-, infectious- and autoimmune diseases, using either vaccines, drugs, natural bio-active compounds or via physical activity. She is committed to driving her research and programs to help people age healthy. To date Vasso has published over 500 research papers and is an inventor on 20 patents.

Dr. Davide Barbagallo
Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences,
University of Catania, Catania, Italy

Short Bio
Davide Barbagallo is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at University of Catania, Italy. Davide did his PhD studies in the lab of Professor Michele Purrello, University of Catania, working on the involvement of the apoptotic machinery in the etiology of diabetes mellitus. Following this, in 2009, he started his Postdoc activity in the same lab where he focused on the study of non-coding RNA, especially microRNAs, and their involvement in diabetes mellitus and cancer. In 2010, his PhD thesis was awarded as the best in the field of complex biological systems from the Gioenian Academy. In 2017 he was awarded the Umberto Veronesi Foundation Post-doctoral fellowship and he joined Professor Jørgen Kjems’ non-coding RNA lab, University of Aarhus, Denmark, where he spent 6 months to improve his knowledge on circular RNAs (circRNAs), another class of (mostly) non-coding RNAs, recently discovered as critical regulators of gene expression. During his stay at the non-coding RNA lab, under the tutorship of Dr. Thomas Birkballe Hansen, Davide cloned the sequence of circSMARCA5 into an expression vector and showed the tumor suppressive function and mechanism of action of this circRNA in glioblastoma multiforme. In 2018, Davide got back to University of Catania, at the Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences where he has continued his work on circRNAs.