The 23,000 attendees at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2024 annual meeting in San Diego were rewarded again with a multitude of exciting sessions on Monday, including presentations by Nobel laureate James Allison, PhD, and new NCI Director Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD. Read further to see how Dr. Rathmell weaved a reference to Taylor Swift into her talk on the NCI and the future of cancer research.
Press Conference
The second of three scheduled press conferences for the 200 journalists covering the world’s largest cancer conference was held Monday morning and featured brief addresses by three different researchers delivering breaking news. Ajay Goel, PhD, senior author of the study and the Chair of the Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics at City of Hope spoke on “An Exosome-Based Liquid Biopsy Shows Promise for Early Detection of Pancreatic Cancer. Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, Professor of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics and Vice President and Head of Clinical Development in the Therapeutics Discovery Division at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center described the following study: “Next-Generation PARP Inhibitor (Saruparib) Demonstrates Clinical Benefit in Patients with Homologous Recombination Repair-Deficient Breast Cancer.” Scott Kopetz, MD, PhD, a Professor of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology and Associate Vice President of Translational Integration at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center outlined this study: “Adagrasib Plus Cetuximab May Provide Clinical Benefit in Patients with KRASG12C-Mutated Colorectal Cancer.” The AACR press releases for each of these efforts can be found at the links provided above. The press conference was moderated by Ryan Corcoran, MD, PhD, Physician-Investigator Mass General Hospital Cancer Center, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
Tumor Ecosystems
The opening plenary session was on “Profiling Tumor Ecosystems in Native Tissue Context” and was chaired by Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center. There were four distinguished speakers in this session. Michael Angelo, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology, Stanford Medicine, spoke on “Spatial Encoding of Immune Response and Clinical Outcome in the Breast Cancer Tumor Microenvironment.” Susan Bullman, PhD, Assistant Professor, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, gave a talk entitled “From Microniches to Single Cells: Understanding the Impact of Intratumoral Microbes on Spatial and Cellular Heterogeneity in Cancer.” Joakim Lundeberg, PhD, Head of Research Group at the Department of Gene Technology, School of Chemistry, Biotechnology, and Health based at Science for Life Laboratory, Stockholm, spoke on “Deconvoluting the Cancer Ecosystem into Its Spatial Components with a Focus on Breast and Prostate Cancer.” Peter Sorger, PhD, Professor of Systems Pharmacology and Head of the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science, Harvard Medical School, and Director/PI of the NIGMS National Center for Systems Biology: Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, spoke on “Dissecting Plasticity in Tumor Cell States and Immuno-Phenotypes in Primary Melanoma Using 3D Spatial Profiling.”
Presidential Symposium
After the opening plenary came the Presidential Symposium, which was organized by AACR President Philip Greenberg and entitled “Cancer Immunotherapy—Where Do We Go from Here?” The first speaker was Nobel laureate James Allison, PhD, Chair of the Department of Immunology, the Olga Keith Wiess Distinguished University Chair for Cancer Research, Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Research, Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform, and Director of the James P. Allison Institute at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Allison’s presentation was titled “Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Cancer Therapy: Historical Perspective, New Opportunities, and Prospects for Cures.” The following speakers included Nir Hacohen, PhD, Director of the Cell Circuits Program at the Broad Institute, on “Cancer Vaccines and Understanding and Promoting Immunogenicity,” Alexander Marson, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, UCSF School of Medicine, on “Decoding and Reprogramming T Cell Circuits with CRISPR,” and Andrea Schietinger, PhD, Immunology Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, on “Intratumoral CD4 T Cells Empowering CD8 T Cells to Eliminate Tumors.”
Minimal Residual Disease
Among the many afternoon symposia was a stimulating AACR-ASCO Joint Session on “Strategies for Detecting Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) and How to Apply It in the Clinic.” This session featured three speakers with an initial introduction by AACR President Greenberg. The third speaker was introduced by ASCOPresident Lynn Schuchter, MD, who thanked Dr. Greenberg for his efforts in organizing what she described as a “spectacular meeting.” The session’s first speaker was Luis Diaz, MD, Head, Solid Tumor Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who spoke on “Progress in MRD assessment in Solid Tumors and the Path to High Value Clinical Applications. Dr Diaz highlighted the significance of using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) as a marker for residual disease. The next talk was by Maximilian Diehn, MD, PhD, Professor of Radiation Oncology, Stanford Medicine, who described “Technical and Clinical Considerations for Assessing MRD Using Circulating Tumor DNA.” The third speaker, introduced by ASCO President Dr. Schuchter, was Angela DeMichele, MD, Co-Leader, Breast Cancer Research Program, Penn Medicine, who spoke on “Strategies to Therapeutically Target Dormant and Reactivated MRD to Prevent Cancer Recurrence: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Address by New NCI Director Kimryn Rathmell
New National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, was introduced by AACR President Greenberg and she offered some of her thoughts after just 3.5 months on the new job. She started by somewhat stunning the audience with a photo of Taylor Swift and The Eras Tour. Dr. Rathmell said there were three reasons for this. First, she herself is from Nashville and she loves Taylor Swift. Second, she quoted Taylor Swift’s comment on her tour “Wow, this experience is so amazing!” and related that to her own experience at the astounding progress of cancer research today. Third, she would talk about how an eras tour of cancer research shows that there is very much to be optimistic about. She noted that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will change everything we do and how advances in understanding the microbiome will fuel our progress. 3D mapping through space and time will offer critical insights going forward. She said we are moving into a 360-degree era in cancer research where everyone will be intimately involved and connected—patients, clinicians, physicians, researchers, the public—and progress will be accelerated. She closed her remarks by saying she is very optimistic about the future. Following her talk, Dr. Rathmell sat down for a fireside chat with Dr. Greenberg and the audience. A key topic was budget constraints and Dr. Rathmell acknowledged that it was a difficult time.
Award: AACR-Women in Cancer Research Charlotte Friend Lectureship
This award is presented to an outstanding scientist who has made meritorious contributions to the field of cancer research and who has, through leadership or by example, furthered the advancement of women in science. This year’s recipient is Dr. Elizabeth Travis. Dr. Travis is Professor in the Department of Experimental Radiation Oncology. Dr. Travis received her PhD degree in Experimental Pathology from the University of South Carolina. A distinguished biomedical researcher in the area of radiation oncology, she has been on the faculty at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center since 1982 and was promoted to Professor in 1988. Dr Travis is a pioneer in the study of pulmonary complications of cancer therapy and is widely recognized as an expert in this field. She has written or contributed to chapters on lung complications for many textbooks and has authored or co-authored more than 125 original publications. She is past-president of the Radiation Research Society, and the first radiobiologist to be elected to the Board of Directors for the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. In recognition of her seminal contributions to our understanding of radiation complications in normal tissues, she was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Radiation Oncology (FASTRO) in 2007 and as a Fellow of the Radiation Research Society in the inaugural class in 2022. In November 2007, Dr. Travis was appointed to serve as MD Anderson’s first associate vice president for women faculty programs, which became Women and Minority Faculty Inclusion in 2016 and Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in 2019. In 2009 she was awarded the Women in Medicine Leadership Development Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges for an individual and in 2012 for an organization.
by Michael D. O’Neill