Speakers

The following speakers were selected for their profound leadership and accomplishments in the areas of cancer biology and neuroscience research.

Dr. Amor Vegas' laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory studies cellular senescence, which is a stress response program that is triggered in damaged cells and leads to their elimination by the immune system. If uncleared, the accumulation of senescent cells generates a chronic pro-inflammatory microenvironment that conduces to aging and age-related pathologies, including tumor development. Dr. Amor Vegas seeks to understand how the immune system recognizes and targets these cells in physiological conditions and how senescent cells evade immune clearance in disease. She seeks to leverage her findings to develop immune-based therapeutic approaches to target senescent cells in aging and age-related pathologies.

Dr. Bamidele is a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in biomedical science. He has mentored many trainees from diverse backgrounds who self-identified as underrepresented minorities. His research laboratory at Mayo Clinic in immunometabolism and mucosal immunity aims to understand the cellular metabolic mechanisms that reinvigorate the pathogenic functions of adaptive immune cells during immune-mediated disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease. Specifically, he is investigating how various CD4 T lymphocytes develop and perpetuate chronic inflammation through alterations to metabolism, organelle physiology and cell-to-cell communication, with the therapeutic goal of immune and tissue homeostatic balance.

Dr. Bharti's areas of research are molecular chaperones and epigenetics. As director of the National Eye Institute's Intramural Research Program, he oversees 21 research labs and six core facilities. His lab at the National Eye Institute recently began testing autologous, iPSC-derived retinal pigment epithelum patches in age-related macular degeneration patients. He is co-developing a dual RPE/photoreceptor cell therapy with Opsis Therapeutics.

Dr. Lucio Boschen De Souza is driven by a passion for understanding the complexities of the role of dopamine in neurodegenerative disorders. Her research at Mayo Clinic focuses on advancing the understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative disorders by employing multidisciplinary and innovative mechanistic investigations of disease-modifying invasive and noninvasive neuromodulation strategies using cellular and animal models of neurodegeneration. She is particularly dedicated to elucidating the neuroprotective potential of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus as a disease-modifying strategy for Parkinson’s disease. Additionally, Dr. Lucio Boschen De Souza's research delves into the role of senescence in synucleinopathies, exploring senolytic strategies for disorders like Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia.

Dr. Chisolm is an independent research scholar at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases who is characterizing the role of a poorly defined factor, Paxbp1, in T-cell differentiation. This research project provides new insights into how Paxbp1 mechanistically influences cellular programming decisions in the immune system. Dr. Chisolm's main research goal is to study the molecular mechanisms by which external cues regulate T-cell differentiation. Many external cues are important in regulating T-cell differentiation gene programs, including but not limited to cytokines, T cell receptor signaling, and metabolism. She is interested in understanding how these different cues are responsible for promoting cellular programming decisions at the epigenetic level to fine-tune an appropriate immune response.

Dr. Escobar-Hoyos's work at Yale School of Medicine addresses the long-standing question of how the most common co-occurring mutations in human cancers cooperate to cause tumors. She hopes to identify a meaningful therapeutic opportunity. Her research focuses on understanding how aberrant RNA splicing contributes to the maintenance, establishment and impairment of anti-tumor immune response in tumors. Also, she aims to test a novel developed therapy called Splicing-Hit Oligonucleotide Therapy, which corrects the RNA splicing errors selectively killing PDAC and LUAD cells of genetically engineered mouse models to recapitulate the human PDAC background and validate findings.

Dr. Ramn's research group at Tufts University School of Medicine is deciphering the cellular mechanisms regulating protein quality control. She is interested in the evolutionarily conserved and essential p97 AAA-ATPase, also known as VCP, and how it modulates PQC. Her group has pursued characterizing how the cellular proteome is affected by the loss of individual p97 adaptors using multiplexed quantitative proteomics of adaptor knockout cell lines generated by CRISPR gene editing. These findings open up a new area of research to investigate these new functions, address what mechanisms regulate p97-adaptor binding and determine how this is altered in a cell-type-specific manner. A new area of research in her lab is developing iPSC-derived, cell-based models of p97 disease.

Dr. Razidlo has made advancements in the cell biology of invasive migration, with a primary focus on pancreatic cancer metastasis. New research directions include investigating the intersection of metastasis and metabolism, with a goal to understand the metabolic drivers and vulnerabilities of invading tumor cells. Dr. Razidlo's research team at Mayo Clinic takes a cell biology-based approach to studying metabolism, with a focus on metabolic organelles, including mitochondria, lysosomes, and lipid droplets, and their contributions to tumor cell invasion. Her team uses a range of complementary approaches, including biochemistry, cell biology, in vitro and in vivo models, and patient datasets.