Cancer Grand Challenges Conference: extrachromosomal DNA

This conference is being organised by a dedicated steering committee, chaired by:

Dr Paul Mischel

Meet the committee members below.

This first edition of the Cancer Grand Challenges Conference Series aims to convene researchers from diverse backgrounds, from bench to bedside, across and beyond the ecDNA field, to provide an interdisciplinary forum to stimulate discussion around emerging concepts, open questions, what we need to do to answer them, and the future for this exciting field. The tools, datasets, pioneering technologies, and experimental models have now matured to an extent that the field is ripe for innovation as new investigators enter the field. The purpose of this meeting, in addition to sharing cutting edge science, is to further enhance and build upon an open, collaborative, and inclusive community that will advance the science rapidly for the benefit of patients.

Starting from the basic mechanisms of formation, maintenance and function, touching on transcription, replication and inheritance, and discussing where ecDNAs hijack existing processes and where they’ve put new mechanisms in place. Moving to how ecDNAs are involved in different cancers, and their implications for understanding tumour initiation, progression, evolution and resistance to treatment. The conference will also showcase novel technologies to generate, manipulate and study ecDNAs in human and animal tissues, bioinformatic tools to detect ecDNAs, as well as chemical probes as tools to understand and target ecDNA.

• Vineet Bafna, University of California San Diego 
• Kathleen Burns, Harvard University
• Howard Chang, Stanford University 
• James Chen, UT Southwestern Medical Center 
• Isidro Cortés-Ciriano, EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute
• Ben Cravatt, Scripps Research
• Anton Henssen, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine; Charite Berlin
• Maite Huarte, CIMA University of Navarro
• Mariam Jamal-Hanjani, UCL
• Peter Ly, UT Southwestern Medical Center
• Paul Mischel, Stanford University
• Florent Mouliere, Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute 
• Birgitte Regenberg, University of Copenhagen
• Martine Roussel, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
• Yardena Samuels, Weizmann Institute of Science
• Charlie Swanton, The Francis Crick Institute / University College London
• Matthew Vander Heiden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
• Andrea Ventura, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 

More to be announced.

Topics will include: 

Registration is now open and will close on 5 May 2025. We encourage you to register early to secure your place, as capacity is limited. 

Please note that registration for this conference is a two-step process:

1. Through Eventbrite, you will select a ticket and provide your first name, last name, email address and payment. At this point, your registration is still pending
2. You will receive an email from Eventbrite containing a link to your tickets and a form with additional questions. Within this form you will have an opportunity to submit an abstract if you wish. Once you have filled out this form, your registration will be complete

Fees

Registration includes VAT, a light breakfast, networking lunch and coffee breaks on all days, and a welcome reception on Wednesday 11 June. See fees below:

*These prices do not include Eventbrite's ticketing fee. 

Register via Eventbrite below.

We are now accepting abstract submissions from those who wish to speak or present a poster at the conference. The deadline is 23:00 GMT on 14 March, 2025. 

You will have the opportunity to submit your abstract at the point of registration via Eventbrite, after you have provided your first name, last name, email address and payment.

Please note that it is not required to submit an abstract to attend the conference.

Abstract evaluation will start after the deadline and may take up to three weeks to complete depending on the number of submissions we receive. Acceptance notifications will go out promptly after that via email. We appreciate your patience.