7:30 am Registration & Morning Networking Coffee

8:20 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

  • Flora Berisha Global Head of Diagnostics Partnering & Development & Precision Medicine, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicines

Illuminating the Triumphs of Liquid Biopsy & Future Directions to Empower Precision Oncology

8:30 am Harnessing Liquid Biopsies to Transform Cancer Treatment Selection, Monitoring & Early Detection & Empower Precision Treatments

Synopsis

  • Reviewing current and future liquid biopsy assay use in cancer care, including early detection and molecular residual disease
  • Discussing recent collaborative frameworks and standards for best practices in liquid biopsy assay validation
  • Enabling broad access to liquid biopsy assays and global harmonization of regulatory requirements
  • Looking at what’s on the horizon: emerging trends in liquid biopsy assay development

9:00 am Speaker to be Confirmed: Foundation Medicine

Synopsis

Introducing an Improved ctDNA Tumor Fraction Method to Add Value in Translational Research, Clinical Trials & CDx Development

  • Discussion on the value of ctDNA monitoring for research and clinical trial programs, including both early- and late-stage disease for MRD and treatment response
  • Confidence in negative results from a liquid biopsy test, now possible for wild-type biomarkers in trial enrollment
  • New data on the value of ctDNA tumor fraction in lung, breast, bladder, and kidney cancers

9:30 am Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) Panel Discussion: Creating Awareness Amongst Decision-Makers on Local & Global Disparities in Liquid Biopsy Research & Practice to Shape an Inclusive Future for Understudied Diseases

Synopsis

  • How is the potential and utilization of liquid biopsies for new indications benefitting patients from diverse backgrounds?
  • Why are certain populations underrepresented in studies harnessing liquid biopsy?
  • What is being done to overcome the historical disparities and inequalities in liquid biopsy trials?
  • How can the ED&I challenges be overcome by global and cross-sector stakeholder collaboration for liquid biopsy research?

10:00 am Guardant

10:30 am Morning Break & Speed Networking

Track A : Early Translation

Chair: Aarti Tarkar, Associate Director, Experimental Medicine Unit, GSK

Identifying Signatures & Predictive Biomarkers Using Ultrasensitive Detection for Enhanced Diagnosis & Prognosiser

11:30 am Exploring TGF-β Signature as Predictive Biomarkers for Immunotherapy for Cancer Patients

  • Jian Chen Director - Translational Research & Preclinical Development, BioAtla

Synopsis

• Exploring the key challenges in identifying biomarkers, touching on sensitivity and standardization

• Discussing best-in-practice methods of biomarker selection to capture biomarkers at an extremely sensitive level

• Reviewing successful case studies of biomarker selection

12:00 pm Bio-techne

12:30 pm New Paradigm in Liquid Biopsy: In Vivo Early Diagnosis of Multiple Diseases by Detection of Circulating Markers Directly in the Patient’s Bloodstream with Cytophone

  • Vladimir Zharov PhD, DSc, Professor, Director of Arkansas Nanomedicine Center, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Synopsis

  • Defining a new strategy for early cancer diagnosis with photoacoustic detection of rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in a large blood volume (up to 1 L) with no blood draw. 
  • Clinical validation of 1000-fold sensitivity improvement down to 1 CTC/L by precise detection of CTCs in patients with stage I-II melanoma.
  • Identification of single and clustered CTCs, cancer-induced clots, and CTC–clot emboli. 
  • Theranostics platform for real-time monitoring of personalized laser-mediated anti-CTC and anticoagulant therapy efficiency to reduce the risk of metastasis and stroke.
  • Approaches for expanding to screening, minimal residual disease, recurrence, multiple cancers, infection complications, and cardiovascular disorders (e.g., thrombosis and pulmonary embolism).   
  • Solving challenges in standardization, marker variability, motion, and skin pigmentation.  

Track B : Clinical Development & Commercialization

Chair: Pashtoon Kasi, Director, Colon Cancer & Precision Medicine Research, Weill Cornell Medicine

Leveraging Combination Therapies to Predict Response for Optimized Treatment Regimens

11:30 am Unveiling the Impact of Liquid Biopsy Combination Therapies on Resistance to Cancer Treatments to Aid the Selection of Combination Regimens with Best-In-Class Therapies

Synopsis

  •  Characterization of resistance alterations obtained from targeted therapy
  • Using liquid biopsies to study clonal and sub-clonal evolution
  • Identify biomarkers that predict synergy (one therapy affecting the other), to aid the selection of optimal combination regimens

12:00 pm Angle

12:30 pm Building a ctDNA-Based Model to Predict Survival & Outperform Radiographic Imaging for Differentiating between Chemo-Immunotherapy Combinations in Early Phase Clinical Trials

  • Zoe June Assaf Principal Scientist, Data Science Group, Oncology Biomarker Development Department, Genentech

Synopsis

• Assessing ctDNA across longitudinal time points in a randomized Ph III study comparing chemotherapy-immunotherapy combinations

• Using machine learning in a training/testing framework to jointly model multiple ctDNA metrics to predict overall survival

• Validating model utility for identifying high-risk patients in an external validation cohort with a different ctDNA assay

• Demonstrating model utility in clinical drug development as an early endpoint to detect differences in overall survival between treatment arms

1:00 pm Lunch & Networking Break

Spearheading Machine Learning & Multiplexing to Evaluate Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) & Rare Cancers for Early Disease Detection

2:30 pm What is the Future of Multiplexed Precision Therapy Including Trogocytosed Immune Cells?

  • Jean François Rossi Professor Emeritus of Hematology University Montpellier - Consultant, Institute of Cancer Avignon-Provence France (UNICANCER)

Synopsis

• How the evaluation of minimal residual disease may influence a medical decision in hematological malignancies?

• Place of trogocytosed NK in the diagnosis and follow-up of rare malignant lymphomas

3:00 pm Exploring the Potential of Liquid Biopsy to Make a Machine Leaning Approach to Target Homologous Recombination Deficiencies in B-Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas with the Novel Anti-Tumor Small Molecule LP-284

Synopsis

• Investigating the utility of liquid biopsy techniques in identifying Homologous Recombination Deficiencies (HRD) in B-Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas as a non-invasive diagnostic approach

• Leveraging machine learning algorithms to analyze liquid biopsy data for the personalized targeting of HRD-positive B-Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma patients with the novel anti-tumor small molecule LP-284

• Combining liquid biopsy, machine learning, and LP-284 to advance precision medicine by tailoring therapeutic strategies for improved outcomes in B-Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma patients with HRD

Benchmarking Surrogate Endpoints in Phase I-III Clinical Trials to Assess Molecular Response & Enhance Clinical Utility

2:30 pm Incorporating Robust Endpoints in Clinical Trials through Careful Trial Design for Treatment Response Assessment

  • Pashtoon Kasi Director - Colon Cancer Research, Weill Cornell Medicine

Synopsis

• Addressing phase I-III design strategy that integrates liquid biopsy

• Discussing the clinical utility of different endpoints in trials

• Understanding how endpoints enable patient stratification

• Examining the impact of having robust endpoints on treatment response options and decisions

3:00 pm Utility & Shortcomings of Leveraging ctDNA to Assess Molecular Patterns of Responders in an Early Prostate Cancer Clinical Trial

Synopsis

• Advantages of utilizing liquid biopsy for molecular profiling

• Challenges in assessing specific classes of gene alterations

• Current unmet needs in a nascent technology

3:30 pm Afternoon Networking Break

3:45 pm
Bridging Discovery & Translation for Clinical Biomarker Validation to Drive Wide-Spread Clinical Implementation

  • Flora Berisha Global Head of Diagnostics Partnering & Development & Precision Medicine, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicines

4:30 pm Tempus

5:00 pm Linking Biomarker Discovery & Clinical Validation to Verify Biomarker Candidates for Cost-Effective Clinical Implementation

  • Vladimir Jankovic Senior Director - Precision Medicine, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc

Synopsis

  • How to reduce the mismatch between the large number of biomarker candidates and the paucity of reliable assays and validation studies?
  • What are the requirements for liquid biopsies to verify biomarkers before moving into the clinic?
  • What new technologies and systems have been proposed and validated to verify biomarker candidates? 

5:30 pm Oxford BioDynamics

6:00 pm Addressing Challenges in Global Clinical Validation of Liquid Biopsies to Broaden Adoption of Robust Surrogate Endpoints for Improved Clinical Implementations

  • Qu Zhang Director, Clinical Biomarkers in Immuno-Oncology, GSK

6:30 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks

  • Flora Berisha Global Head of Diagnostics Partnering & Development & Precision Medicine, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicines