The 3rd Symposium on Treatment-Induced Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer

I am Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urology at Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine. I work as a surgeon, a urologic oncologist, and also a cancer researcher. I started my cancer research career studying genetic susceptibility to prostate cancer by conducting a nation-scale genome-wide association studies. During my post-doctoral fellowship at Vancouver Prostate Centre, I worked on identifying a potential target to treatment-induced neuroendocrine prostate cancer. Back in Kyoto, Japan, I expanded my research interest to cancer genomics and liquid biopsy. Currently, I am recognized as a leading Urologic surgeon scientist in Japan. Clinically, I completed a uro-oncology clinical fellowship at Department of Urologic Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Along with my research activity, I actively work as a robotic surgeon handling both DaVinci and HUGO RAS robotic surgical system.

Dr. Beltran is a medical oncologist and physician scientist focused on understanding mechanisms of treatment resistance in prostate cancer and lineage plasticity during cancer evolution. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medical Oncology in the Lank Division of Genitourinary Oncology and the Division of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at DFCI and Harvard Medical School. Her lab has specifically focused on the mechanisms underlying the development of neuroendocrine prostate cancer, an aggressive subtype of advanced prostate cancer. Dr. Beltran is also the Correlative Science Committee Chair for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology GU Committee and plays an active role in several national and international committees and programs including ASCO, ESMO, as well as team science projects such as the SU2C-PCF Dream Team and PCF SELECT. She serves as Director of Translational Research with Medical Oncology at DFCI and co-PI of the DF/HCC Prostate Cancer SPORE in Prostate Cancer. Dr. Beltran works closely with a multidisciplinary team to translate new scientific discoveries into the clinic in the form of biomarker-driven therapeutics to improve patient care

Dr. Chee Wai Chua is a PI and Professor at Clinical Stem Cell Research Center, and a Group Leader at State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine-affiliated Renji Hospital. He received his postdoctoral training and then served as an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University, where he pioneered the development of prostate and bladder organoid methodologies. He has previously served as a Laboratory Instructor in the first Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s organoid workshop, and is currently an Editorial Board Member of Cancer Letters, where he has co-edited the Special Issues on “Prostate Cancer” and “Stem Cells and Cancer”. In China, he was involved in drafting the first consensus on organoid-related clinical application, and a work report on organoid research and potential funding directions. Currently, the Chua’s group is actively investigating the regulatory mechanisms that contribute to AR independence in the prostate and establishing novel tumor models.

Dr. Collins is a Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences and Head of the Vancouver Prostate Centres Genomics Core. He has made significant contributions in genome sequencing, genome copy number variation in metastatic prostate cancer, neuroendocrine transdifferentiation, circulating prostate cancer tumor DNA, and machine learning as it relates to cancer. His current interests include the role of germline rare variants as modulators of the metastatic phenotype in PCa.

Francesco Crea (Senior Lecturer in Cancer Genetics) leads the Cancer Epigenetic lab at the Open University (UK), where it serves as Director of Research for the School of Life Health and Chemical Sciences. Dr Crea obtained his MD and PhD degrees from S. Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa). He was a visiting scientist at the National Cancer Institute-Frederick (USA) and as post-doctoral fellow at BC Cancer (Vancouver). He co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in leading oncology and urology journals. He is leading author in the first manuscript describing the efficacy of DZNeP (a Polycomb inhibitor) in prostate cancer. He received funds from Cancer Research UK, Prostate Cancer UK and UK Higher Education Research Funds. Among other recognitions, he received an ASCO Merit Award and a Michael Smith Fellowship. He is Senior Editor of the journal Epigenomics and Ambassador of the European Association for Cancer Research.

Dr. Dong received medical school training from China before coming to Canada. He completed an MSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Laval University and a PhD in Physiology at the University of Toronto. He received post-doctoral training from the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto and the Vancouver Prostate Centre, University of British Columbia. Dr. Dong’s laboratory investigates steroid receptors in collaborating with RNA splicing factors to control gene transcription and alternative RNA splicing in cells from human reproductive systems. We study how prostate cancer cells can switch off their dependency to androgens and progress into castration resistant cancers.

“Dr. Gleave is a Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Urologic Sciences at UBC, and a British Columbia Leadership Chair. He is Co-Founder and Director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, now a UBC and National Centre of Excellence. He is amongst the top cited and funded scientists in Canada, publishing over 600 papers with approximately 60,000 citations, an H-Index of 122, and attracting greater than $120M in research funding. Dr. Gleave is a surgeon-scientist whose research characterizes molecular mechanisms mediating treatment resistance in cancer and designing co-targeting strategies to improve cancer control. He patented several anti-cancer drugs and founded OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals to develop OGX-011 and OGX-427, inhibitors of cytoprotective chaperones clusterin and Hsp27 which progressed to Phase III and Phase II trials world-wide. OncoGenex was awarded Canadian Biotech Company of the Year in 2010. Dr. Gleave also recently co-founded Sitka and Sustained Therapeutics. In 2017, Dr. Gleave was appointed to the Order of Canada for his leadership role in developing new treatments for prostate cancer and for his research on mechanisms mediating treatment resistance in cancer. In 2020, he was inducted as a Fellow in the National Academy of Inventors.”

Dr. He is an experimental and computational biologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. His research focuses on cancer epigenetics and noncoding RNA in cancer. Dr. He obtained his PhD in molecular biology and bioinformatics at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2008. He then received postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University. Dr. He was recruited as a scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and assistant professor at the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto in 2013. He was promoted to senior scientist and associate professor in 2018, and professor in 2022. The He laboratory applies a variety of genomic, epigenomic experimental and computational approaches to decipher epigenetic and epitranscriptomic regulation in Cancer, focusing on three major directions: 1. Understand epigenetic and epitranscriptomic regulation in cancer development, progression, drug response and resistance. 2. Identify epigenetic and epitranscriptomic biomarkers in tumor and liquid biopsies. 3. Target cancer specific epigenetic and epitranscriptomic regulation for cancer therapy, with a focus on RNA therapy. Dr. He has authored over 100 publications at high profile journals including Nature (2016), Cell (2018, 2019), Nature Genetics (2016, 2020), Nature Cell Biology (2021) and Gastroenterology (2022). The translational research in Dr. He’s laboratory has resulted in application of clinical trials, patents and startup company. Dr. He has received many distinctions and recognitions, including the Bernard and Francine Dorval Prize from Canadian Cancer Society, a few new investigator awards from national funding agencies, as well as being named a rising star in prostate cancer research by Prostate Cancer Canada.

Elena Jachetti is group leader within the Molecular Immunology Unit at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori (INT), Milan, Italy. She obtained the PhD in 2011, at San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, studying mechanisms of tumor-mediated immune suppression in prostate cancer and other solid tumors. During her Post Doc at INT, she adapted her previous experience to study the interactions between immune cells and extracellular matrix in the tumor microenvironment.

Her current research is mainly focused on the role of stromal elements in shaping resistance to hormone therapies and neuroendocrine differentiation in prostate cancer. She is also engaged in several projects investigating the functions of the immune milieu in various types of tumors. She has received funds from the main public and private Italian agencies (Ministry of Health, Fondazione Cariplo, AIRC). She has been awarded the INT award for Young Researchers. She is associate editor for the “Journal of Translational Medicine”.

Dr. Triparna Sen is an Associate Professor, in the Department of Oncological Sciences, and the Director of the Lung Cancer PDX Platform at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. The Sen Lab investigates the biology of initiation, progression, and drug resistance of lung cancer to uncover vulnerabilities that can be therapeutically targeted. Dr. Sen has driven fundamental advances in the understanding and characterization of clinically relevant molecular subsets of lung cancer, like small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Previously, Dr. Sen identified that DNA damage response (DDR) proteins are effective therapeutic targets for small-cell lung cancer treatment and that targeting DDR promotes antitumor immunity through the activation of innate immune signaling. In her recent work, Dr. Sen identified molecular determinants and novel therapeutic targets of lineage plasticity in lung cancer, illuminating novel therapeutic resistance mechanisms and leading to better treatments.

Dr. Sen has received several prestigious awards including- AAAS Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer Research Award (2021); 40 under 40 in Cancer- Emerging Leaders Award (2020); AACR Women in Cancer Research Scholar Award; AACR Scholar-in-training Award; Jeffrey Lee Cousins fellowship and Immuno-Oncology-Young Investigator award. Dr. Sen has received independent grant funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH/NCI-R01), the Department of Defense (DoD) Lung Cancer Research Program, the Lung Cancer Research Foundation (LCRF), and The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC). Dr. Sen is a committee member of IASLC Basic and Translational Science Committee and the Career Development & Fellowship Committee.

Helen He Zhu is currently a principal investigator and professor at the State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, and Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai, China. Dr. Helen He Zhu received her Ph.D. training from the School of Medicine, University of California-San Diego and conducted her postdoctoral research at the Department of Biology, University of California-San Diego. In 2012, Dr. Zhu moved back to China and joined Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her current work focuses on 1) adult tissue stem cells from hematopoietic system and prostate in tissue development and tumorigenesis, 2) tumor microenvironment with a focus on cancer-associated fibroblasts and nerves, and 3) development of novel targeted therapy for castration-resistant and metastatic prostate cancer. She has published in various reputable journals including Nature Cancer, JCI, Nature Communications, and PNAS as the corresponding author. Prof. Helen He Zhu was selected as Shanghai Excellent Academic Leader (2021) and National Excellent Young Scholar (2020). She has served as a reviewer for several journals (e.g. Cell Stem Cell, Cell Reports, Advanced Science, EMBO molecular medicine…) and grants in the past. She is now an associate editor for Cellular Oncology.