The event, hosted by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Cura Foundation, STOQ Foundation and the Stem for Life Foundation, will convene the world’s leading scientists and physicians, patients, ethicists and leaders of faith, government officials and philanthropists to engage in powerful conversations about the latest scientific breakthroughs and hope for the future. It will unite people without prejudice to stimulate an open dialogue and utilize an interdisciplinary approach to improve human health, streamline health care delivery and optimize access globally to prevent and vanquish disease, reduce human suffering and increase the quality of life globally. Speaker: Ron DePinho

The first genetically engineered mice were created more than 40 years ago. Since then, steady improvements in the field have allowed for the generation of experimentally controllable and genetically accurate models for many human cancers. Recent technological advances in genome editing are pushing this frontier and new animal models are directly impacting precision medicine approaches by enabling the functional evaluation of larger numbers of genetic and epigenetic alterations, by providing pre-clinical and co-clinical platforms to evaluate new therapies, and by allowing for the detailed study of tumor biology that cannot be approached in cell-based systems, immunocompromised animals, or patients. While animal modeling has been a staple of the cancer biology community for decades, it is only now maturing to its fullest potential. This conference will focus on three major areas: First, it will present new approaches to generate precise and complex genetic alterations in mice and other animals to better “humanize” models and allow for in vivo studies of cancer gene function. Second, it will highlight studies to investigate fundamental mechanisms of cancer initiation and progression, including the cell of origin of tumors, their evolution, their metabolism, and their interactions with the immune system. Finally, the meeting will explore how genetically engineered animal models can help evaluate the efficacy of novel therapeutic approaches and to decipher mechanisms of therapeutic resistance. Speaker: Ron DePinho More details on Conference