Please note: this is a draft agenda and subject to changes.
Stuart & Molly Sloan Precision Oncology Institute Liquid Biopsy Symposium
Organized in sponsorship with Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium
Co-hosted by Gavin Ha, PhD, Associate Professor, Herbold Computational Biology Program, Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutch and Heather Parsons, MD, MPH, Program Head, Breast Oncology Program, Associate Professor, Clinical Research Division, and Maudslien Endowed Chair in Breast Cancer Precision Oncology Research, Fred Hutch.
Opening Remarks
Gavin Ha, PhD and Heather Parsons, MD, MPH
Welcome and introduction
12:30 p.m. - 12:40 a.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Session 1 | Decoding Liquid Biopsy: Biology, Technologies & Computational Innovation
Moderated by: Gavin Ha, PhD
Sunitha Nagrath, PhD
Keynote
Talk on method's developmen and CTC's. Talk description to follow.
12:40 p.m. - 01:15 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Kevin Cheung, MD
Bootstrap reconstruction of latent CTC dynamics
CTCs and CTC clusters are rare entities that are laborious to collect but highly prognostic. This talk describes methods for rapid, low-cost approximation of longitudinal CTC dynamics, leveraging the concept of the idealized latent.
01:15 p.m. - 01:35 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Mohamed Adil, PhD
Talk Title TBD
Talk on cfDNA methylation and gene expression. Talk description to follow.
01:35 p.m. - 01:55 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Robert D. Patton, PhD
Decoding functional tumor biology from cell-free DNA
Understanding a tumor’s molecular phenotype and therapeutic vulnerabilities requires information beyond its mutations. In this talk, Dr. Patton will trace the development of computational methods that interpret cell-free DNA fragmentation patterns, progressing from nucleosome profiling and tumor phenotype inference to deep learning–based prediction of tumor gene expression. Examples across cancer types will illustrate their potential to support minimally invasive characterization and monitoring of tumor biology.
01:55 p.m. - 02:15 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Mid-Afternoon Break
Break
Snacks and Refreshments Available
02:15 p.m. – 02:25 p.m.
Weintraub Building Great Hall
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Session 2 | From Biomarker to Bedside: Clinical Translation of Liquid Biopsy
Moderated by: Patrick McDeed, PhD
Alex Wyatt, DPhil
Keynote: ctDNA kinetics as an intermediate trial endpoint
This talk will examine (1) data supporting early on-treatment changes in ctDNA fraction as an accurate therapy response biomarker in patients with metastatic cancers, (2) unknowns and data gaps that currently limit widespread clinical adoption of ctDNA kinetics as a biomarker, and (3) efforts to develop ctDNA kinetics as an intermediate or surrogate endpoint for early phase clinical trials.
02:25 p.m. - 03:00 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Bill Grady, MD
Talk Title TBD
Talk on early detection. Talk description to follow.
03:00 p.m. - 03:20 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Colin Pritchard, MD, PhD
Talk Title TBD
Talk on clinical applications, assay development. Talk description to follow.
03:20 p.m. - 03:40 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Erin E Crotty, MD
Talk Title TBD
Talk on liquid biopsy beyond cfDNA - CSF. Talk description to follow.
03:40 p.m. - 04:00 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Late Afternoon Break
Break
Refreshments Available
04:10 p.m. – 04:10 p.m.
Weintraub Building Great Hall
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Session 3 | From Prevention to Recurrence: Liquid Biopsy Across the Cancer Care Continuum
Moderated by: Heather Parsons, MD, MPH
Jonine D. Figueroa, PhD MPH
Keynote: Advancing Liquid Biopsy Studies in Ghanaian Breast Cancer Patients: From Circulating Tumor DNA to EM-seq Methylation Profiling
Liquid biopsy approaches have the potential to expand molecular characterization of breast cancer in settings where access to tumor tissue and advanced diagnostic testing may be limited. Building on the Ghana Breast Health Study, this presentation will highlight work demonstrating that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is readily detectable in plasma from Ghanaian breast cancer patients and that genomic features identified in ctDNA point to aggressive molecular phenotypes. More recent cell-free DNA analyses and EM-seq data are investigating epigenomic and methylation signals that may provide complementary information about tumor biology. These studies illustrate both the scientific opportunities and potential value of liquid biopsy approaches for studying aggressive breast cancer in resource-limited settings.
04:10 p.m. - 04:45 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Ruth Eztioni, PhD
Liquid biopsy for early cancer detection: What to know and what to ask in a new era of cancer screening
In this presentation, Dr. Etzioni will review metrics for and data on cancer screening efficacy with a focus on multi-cancer early detection tests. She will touch on the challenges of evaluating these tests in a timely fashion and highlight the information that will be needed to determine whether they are ready for population screening.
04:45 p.m. - 05:05 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Petros Grivas, MD, PhD, FASCO
Talk Title TBD
Talk on MRD & clinical trials. Talk description to follow.
05:05 p.m. - 05:25 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Symposium Close & Receptions
Gavin Ha, PhD and Heather Parsons, MD, MPH
Closing remarks
05:25 p.m. - 05:30 p.m.
Pelton Auditorium, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Reception
Hors d'oeuvres and beverages with symposium speakers and attendees
05:30 p.m. - 06:15 p.m.
Double Helix Cafe, Weintraub Building
Fred Hutch Cancer Center