The Healthcare Think Tank focus is to learn about healthcare-related topics that impact the community, the country and even the world from the most informed presenters. This may include learning about cutting-edge new devices and technologies, legislative issues, hospital matters, practice management concerns, big data, life sciences, exploring trends and issues impacting providers and patients, and many more topics that are relevant in this very important landscape.

Luncheon Featured Speaker – Ron DePinho

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A veritable explosion of cancer models in recent years has been fueled by technological advances that have enabled the rapid generation of models of increasing complexity and relevance for human cancer. Genetically engineered mouse (GEM) models and cancer cell lines are mainstays for basic and translational cancer research; organoids and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models are allowing for a better recapitulation of cancer characteristics; and cell-based computational modeling simulates single-cell behavior in virtual tissues of cancer systems. These next-generation models have, in turn, provided key insights into all aspects of cancer biology, including elucidating the actions of stem cells and developmental pathways and the impact of lineage plasticity, understanding metastatic progression, uncovering the roles of the tumor microenvironment and immune system, exploring tumor evolution, and discovering new therapeutic approaches and mechanisms of drug sensitivity and adaptive response. This meeting will highlight recent advances in modeling cancer using mouse models, cell lines, organoids, PDX models, and computational models, focusing on their impact for advancing our understanding of cancer biology, prevention and treatment, and drug response and resistance.

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Keynote 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

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