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Plenary Speakers

Plenary 1, Biomarker Implementation

Claus Lindbjerg Andersen, Aarhus University Hospital, Dept of Molecular Medicine Aarhus University, Dept of Clinical Medicine, DK
https://www.moma.dk/research/colorectal-cancer

ctDNA based detection of MRD in colorectal cancer, are we ready for implementation?
Sensitive methods for minimal residual disease detection applied in the setting of postoperative risk stratification and early relapse detection may have a major impact on treatment decisions and management of cancer patients treated with curative intent. Using colorectal cancer as an example I will illustrate the promising perspectives of using circulating tumor DNA based methods for these tasks. Beyond assessing the prognostic power of postoperative ctDNA detection at landmark timepoints, I will address the added benefits of serial analysis for early relapse detection. Furthermore, I will discuss ongoing efforts to document the clinical utility of using ctDNA to guide treatment decisions and I will touch on the needs for clinical implementation.  

Biography
Professor Claus Lindbjerg Andersen is a leading cancer researcher at Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, where he directs the Danish National Center for Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA) Guided Cancer Treatment. His pioneering work focuses on the use of ctDNA as a biomarker for early cancer detection, prognosis, and monitoring, particularly in colorectal cancer. His research enables the identification of minimal residual disease and the detection of cancer recurrence after surgery, significantly improving personalized treatment strategies. Professor Andersen has been instrumental for the establishment of large-scale clinical trials such as the IMPROVE-IT2, DANISH-MRD and CIRCPAC trials, which explore ctDNA-guided cancer care. His work, published in high-impact journals, has made significant contributions to understanding the biology of tumor DNA and its clinical applications, helping transform cancer diagnostics and post-operative surveillance.

Catherine Alix-Panabieres
Professor of Oncology (PU-PH) - Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, France Visiting Professor of Oncology - University of Hamburg, Germany 1- Director of the Laboratory Rare Human Circulating Cells & Liquid Biopsy (LCCRH) at the University Medical Centre of Montpellier, France 2- CREEC/CANECEV, MIVEGEC (CREES) at the University of Montpellier, CNRS, IRD, France 3- European Liquid Biopsy Society, Europe.

The Utility of Liquid Biopsy in Immuno-Oncology: An Emphasis on Circular Tumor cells
Catherine Alix-Panabières is a Professor of Oncology and the Director of the ‘Laboratoire de Cellules Circulantes Humaines Rares et Biopsie Liquide’ (LCCRH) at Montpellier University Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine. Since 2022, she has also held the position of Professor at the University of Hamburg in Germany. A specialist in circulating tumor cell (CTC) research for 26 years, she is credited with coining the term "liquid biopsy" in 2010, in collaboration with Prof. Pantel. Professor Alix-Panabières instructs students in this subject at academic institutions in France and abroad, has organized numerous international conferences, has published over 160 scientific articles and numerous chapters in books and encyclopedias, has filed three patents and has collaborated on numerous European, American, and Asian research projects. Her most significant contribution is the demonstration of the clinical utility of CTCs in breast cancer. She has been the recipient of numerous accolades in France and abroad, including the "Gallet et Breton" prize in 2012 and the "Berthe Péan, Antoine et Claude Béclère" prize in 2023, bestowed by the Académie Nationale de Médecine. In 2022, she played a pivotal role in the cancer exhibition at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Paris), which was curated by the National Institute of Cancer (INCa). Furthermore, the esteemed journal Nature, in its December 2020 issue, acknowledged the significance of liquid biopsy as a pivotal advancement in cancer research over the past two decades and showcased the contributions of Prof. Alix-Panabières throughout her career.

Cancer-related deaths are mainly caused by metastatic spread of tumor cells from the primary lesion to distant sites via the blood circulation. Understanding the mechanisms of blood-borne tumor cell dissemination by the detection and molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of patients with cancer has opened a new era in cancer research.
However, blood is known to be a hostile environment for CTCs. Although the primary tumor presumably sheds thousands of cells into the bloodstream every day, only a very small percentage of these cells survive in the bloodstream and become detectable as CTCs in a blood sample. Within the immunological synapse, a multitude of inhibitory receptors have been identified. Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) and its ligand, PD-L1, have been one of the most prominent examples to antagonize immune escape mechanisms employed by tumor cells.
In my talk, I will define the new concept of Liquid Biopsy as well as discuss about (i) CTCPD-L1(+) plus extracellular vesicles expressing PD-L1 as important biomarkers in liquid biopsy in breast and non-small cell lung cancers as well as (ii) metastasis-competent CTCs from colon and breast cancers to discover new targetable immune checkpoint inhibitors. Indeed, these more aggressive and selected clones of CTCs have the capacity to initiate secondary tumors in distant organs; interestingly, they are not expressing PD-L1 but survived the constant immune attacks.

Plenary 2, Immunotherapy

Magnus Essand, PhD
Professor of Gene Therapy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
https://www.uu.se/en/department/immunology-genetics-and-pathology/research/cancer-immunotherapy/magnus-essand   

Novel cell and gene therapies for the treatment of cancer - The Uppsala experience
CAR-T cell therapies are successfully used for the treatment of B cell and plasma cell malignancies while for solid tumours CAR-T cell therapy is hampered by antigen heterogeneity and immune suppression within tumours. Thus, next generation CAR-T cells must be able to withstand or reduce immune suppression within tumours and induce epitope spread with activation of endogenous T cells towards neoepitopes presented by individual tumours. CAR-T cells armed with the neutrophil-activating protein (NAP) from Helicobacter Pylori can attract dendritic cells to take up and present neoantigens to naïve CD8 T cells, which will mount a second wave attack on the tumour. Clinical adaptation of CAR(NAP)-T cell production in a closed system will be discussed for one recently started CAR(NAP)-T trial for patients with B cell lymphoma and one upcoming CAR(NAP)-T trial for patient with relapse glioblastoma.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as anti-PD1 antibodies, have completely changed the way we think about and treat cancer. Although a large fraction of cancer patients is cured, most patients do not response to immune checkpoint blockade and for some cancer indications, responses are completely absent. Immune checkpoint inhibitors rely on the presence of tumour-infiltrating T cells to be effective and when such T cells are lacking, checkpoint inhibitors do not work. We have developed an AAV-based gene therapy that can target and customize tumour vessels to increase T cell infiltration into solid tumours and we are currently planning for a first-in-human trial with this conceptually new form of cancer immunotherapy.

Essand obtained his PhD at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden in 1995 and his postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA. He returned to Sweden in 2000, first as an Associate Professor and from 2009 as a full Professor at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University. Essand has tutored twelve PhDs to completion of their doctoral thesis and is currently the main supervisor of four PhD students and five postdocs. He has published more than 100 original peer-reviewed scientific research articles.

Research activities in Essand’s group concern tumour immunology and immunotherapy of cancer, focusing on the development of novel therapies based on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, viral vectors, and oncolytic viruses with the ability to potentiate anti-tumour immune responses. Essand is currently sponsor’s representative for two early phase clinical trials evaluating advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) developed in his laboratory; One trial treating neuroendocrine cancer patients with an oncolytic virus; and one trial treating B-cell lymphoma patients with armed CAR-T cells. New adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapies are in the pipeline.

Ashani Weeraratna, Bloomberg Distinguished
Professor of Cancer Biology E.V. McCollum Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/faculty/3918/ashani-t-weeraratna

A Complex TIME: How the aging tumor immune microenvironment drives tumor progression
Patients 65 and older account for 69% of all new cancer diagnoses. Melanoma is a deadly disease, with chances of survival for patients with stage IV disease totaling only 27%. Systemic age-related changes- both secreted and biophysical- drive metastasis, immune cell recruitment, and changes in the vasculature. We have made the seminal discovery that aged fibroblasts secrete, or stop secreting, key molecules that affect multiple aspects of tumorigenesis. Our current investigations include: the loss of molecules that maintain ECM integrity, resulting in changes in mechanotransduction and increased metastasis; the secretion of molecules that increase resistance to targeted therapy; the secretion of macromolecules such as lipids that are taken up by melanoma cells in the aged microenvironment, affecting tumor cell metabolism; changes in the aged immune tumor microenvironment; the secretion of non-canonical Wnt molecules that affect cell signaling leading to angiogenesis, metastasis, tumor dormancy and therapy resistance. We are beginning to unravel the role of the immune microenvironment in the context of aging, and to explore age-related changes in cancers other than melanoma, specifically pancreatic cancer. We are also attempting to understand the intersectionality of systemic host factors such as biological sex and age, and how those factors compound responses to cancer therapy.

Plenary 3, Prevention

Mary Beth Terry, PhD Columbia University and Silent Spring Institute, USA
Research Field: Cancer Epidemiology and Risk Reduction
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/profile/mary-b-terry-phd

The global rise in early onset breast cancer and what the environment has to do with it.
Although most cancers are diagnosed later in life, early onset breast, and other cancers, are increasing around the world.  The relative rate of increase in early onset cancer is often much higher than later onset cancers.  Uncovering drivers of these early onset cancers is critical not only to understand the etiology of early onset cancer but also to understand the gene-environmental interactions (GXE) underlying later onset cancers as well.  This talk, using the example of breast cancer, argues that cancer epidemiology needs to revisit using large cohort studies of unrelated individuals for identifying environmental links to cancer, particularly for studying common environmental chemicals that individuals may be exposed to outside of an occupational setting.  This talk reviews lines of evidence from enriched family studies including new data from an international cohort study of breast cancer to demonstrate GXE in early onset cancer with endocrine disrupting chemicals.  A case is made for using these enriched studies to identify environmental exposures that are relevant for individuals without a family history of cancer just as family-studies have been crucial for identifying cancer genes that are relevant for all individuals with and without a cancer family history.

Ola Bratt, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/olabratt

Screening för prostate cancer: bringing trial results into practice
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancer related causes of death in Europe. Randomised screening trials have shown that screening may reduce for prostate cancer-specific mortality at least as much as screening for breast cancer and colorectal cancer do, but the diagnostic methods used in that trial led to unacceptably high rates of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. In recent years, research has shown that the use of magnetic resonance imaging of the prostate to select men with a raised serum PSA value for biopsy, combined with lesion-targeted rather than systematic biopsies, reduces overdiagnosis. These diagnostic advances and the widespread unorganised PSA testing led in 2022 the European Union Council to encourage evaluation of the feasibility of organised prostate cancer screening programmes.

In agreement with almost all other healthcare authorities, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare in 2018 recommended against a national screening programme for prostate cancer. Concerns about the resource consuming but inefficient unorganised PSA testing led did, however, lead to the introduction of regionally organised prostate cancer testing (OPT) programmes. The first two OPT programmes were launched in 2020 in two of the most populated Swedish regions. In March 2025, 17 of the 21 Swedish regions have initiated OPT and over 250,000 men have been invited. The main motives are:

 - to improve cost-effectiveness compared with the widespread unorganised PSA testing
 - to improve equity by giving every man in the target population a chance to make an informed choice
 - to gain knowledge (diagnostic and organizational)

The process of converting unorganised PSA testing to a long-term, organised programme will be described at the SCRM. An overarching theme is that communication and organisational matters are more challenging than medical decisions.