SPEAKERS

Dr Aitken is a Clinician Scientist, leading a research group at the University of Cambridge, UK and working as a Consultant Pathologist (board certified Attending) at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. Dr Aitken trained in Medicine at the University of Edinburgh (UK), with an intercalated BMedSci in Experimental Pathology and postgraduate MSc in Translational Medicine. She undertook a mixed experimental-computational PhD at the CRUK Cambridge Institute (Cambridge, UK), followed by an EMBO Fellowship in bioinformatics at the IRB Barcelona (Spain). She returned to Cambridge to completed her clinical residency in Histopathology as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow and subsequently NIHR Clinical Lecturer, before establishing her independent research group. Her lab uses genomic pathology, which combines molecular biology, genomics, and image analysis, to study mechanisms of mutagenesis, the genetic and epigenetic basis of carcinogenesis, and the consequences of genetic diversity on cancer evolution. Dr Aitken is funded by a CRUK Clinician Scientist Fellowship.

Owlstone Medical has developed Breath Biopsy with the goal of creating non-invasive breath tests to support early detection and precision medicine of diseases including cancer, asthma, COPD and liver disease. Our Breath Biopsy Research Products and Services are available to academic, clinical and pharma research partners who want to develop breath based diagnostics for their own applications. We work with leading academic institutions and industry leaders such as Cleveland Clinic, Astra Zeneca, J&J and GSK with over 100 published papers and posters using Owlstone’s technology. As of 2023, the company has secured over $150M of investment.

Billy received The Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal and was a winner of the 2018 MacRobert Award; he was then made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020 and an MBE in 2021. He was elected an Industrial Fellow at Trinity Hall Cambridge and Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at King’s College Cambridge in 2022.

Billy sits on the CRUK Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee and was previously a judge for the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Pioneer award and a trustee of the Linacre Institute.

Professor Kate Brain is a health psychologist and world leader in cancer early detection behavioural research. She has extensive experience in using complex interventions frameworks to optimise cancer early detection behaviour and address inequalities through innovative community-based solutions. She is UK Chair for the US/UK Multi-Cancer Early Detection Consortium Health Equity work group. Kate has been a senior member of Cancer Research UK’s Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee since 2020, and in 2023 joined the World Health Organisation’s European Code Against Cancer expert working group on communication and health literacy. She advises NHS England on the Targeted Lung Health Check programme.

Since 2015 Kate has led the strategic direction of cancer behavioural science research in Wales, with infrastructure funding spanning the Wales Cancer Research Centre and Primary and Emergency Care Research Centre, funded by Welsh Government through Health and Care Research Wales. Her research portfolio includes international studies of cancer awareness, understanding and addressing socioeconomic disparities in cancer help-seeking, lung cancer screening and smoking cessation among high-risk populations, and the impact of the pandemic on cancer attitudes and behaviours.

Kate holds a number of senior leadership roles including Screening, Prevention and Early Diagnosis Lead within the Division of Population Medicine, Associate Director of Cardiff University’s College of Biomedical and Life Sciences Population Health Research theme, and Cancer Research Strategy for Wales Senior Leadership Theme Lead for Population health-based cancer prevention and early diagnosis.

Robert Bristow completed his PhD in Medical Biophysics and Residency in Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto with post-graduate fellowships at Erasmus University Rotterdam, MD Anderson Cancer Centre and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Bristow joined the University of Manchester as Director of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre (MCRC) in August 2017 to develop a new cancer strategy. His research focusses on the prostate cancer genome and tumour microenvironment hypoxic tumour cell characterisation by understanding role of hypoxia in driving genetic instability and the changes in sporadic and hereditary (e.g. BRCA2) prostate cancer genomes during cancer aggression.

He is Principal Lead of the Manchester arm of the International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection (ACED), with an interest in signatures that predict aggression in men with sporadic and hereditary prostate cancer. Rob also sits on the Alliance Executive Board (AEB).

William L. Dahut, MD, is chief scientific officer and serves as the scientific voice of the American Cancer Society.
Dr. Dahut held leading roles at the National Cancer Institute before joining ACS. He has pioneered treatment regimens in prostate cancer and is a recognized expert in clinical trials and immunotherapy.

He received his MD from Georgetown University and completed clinical training in internal medicine at the National Naval Medical Center, followed by training in hematology and medical oncology at the Bethesda Naval Hospital and the Medicine Branch of the NCI. He is also professor of medicine at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and continues to see patients in the prostate cancer clinic at Walter Reed National Medical Military Center.

Joseph M. DeSimone is the Sanjiv Sam Gambhir Professor of Translational Medicine and Chemical Engineering at Stanford. Previously, DeSimone was a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University. He is also Co-founder and former CEO (2014 - 2019) of the 3D printing company, Carbon.

DeSimone is responsible for numerous breakthroughs in his career in areas including green chemistry, polymer synthesis, medical devices, nanomedicine, and 3D printing. He has published over 350 scientific articles and holds 240 patents. In 2016 DeSimone was recognized by President Barack Obama with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He is one of only 25 individuals elected to all three branches of the U.S. National Academies (Sciences, Medicine, Engineering). DeSimone received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1986 from Ursinus College and his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1990 from Virginia Tech.

Dr Ruth Etzioni is a full member in biostatistics at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center where she holds the Rosalie and Harold Rae Brown endowed chair. She develops statistical and computer models to generate evidence for cancer policy development. Her studies have informed national prostate cancer screening recommendations and she has also led studies to appropriately estimate overdiagnosis in prostate cancer breast cancer screening., More recently she has been developing models and methods to address evidence gaps regarding the impact of new multi-cancer screening tests. Dr Etzioni is lead author of the Springer textbook, “Statistics for Health Data Science: An Organic Approach.” In 2022 she received an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute to develop models and methods for assessing the impact of novel cancer diagnostics including biomarkers and imaging tests.

My research and professional interests are in women’s health, specifically screening and diagnosis of HPV-related cancers of the female genital tract. My clinical training is as an anatomic and clinical pathologist with a subspeciality focus on gynecologic pathology. I have research experience in HPV molecular virology and self-collect implementation, including a 600+ person high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) prevalence study in rural Zimbabwe funded by the NIH Fogarty Global Health Scholar Fellowship (2016-2017). Our Zimbabwe team also conducted a study evaluating the effectiveness of mother-daughter paired community health worker led self-collect HPV strategies in Zimbabwe. In the US, I co-led an MPI study focused on a community-based cervical cancer education outreach project in the state of Wisconsin in partnership with the Milwaukee Consortium for Hmong Health to continue to expand access to cervical cancer screening and explore self-collect as an option for this community. My experience with self-collect HPV studies, gynecological pathology, and molecular virology led me to initially collaborate with Teal Health as an advisor during and after the self-collect device was created at Stanford biodesign. I now serve as the director of clinical development and research at Teal Health to help facilitate the pivotal trial towards FDA approval and develop a unique telehealth experience to engage more women in cervical cancer screening and follow-up. My overall interests and vision are to help expand options and access to screening and prevention of HPV-related diseases for underscreened populations worldwide.

Rebecca Fitzgerald OBE MACantab. MD FMedSci EMBO MAE is Professor of Cancer Prevention and Director of the Early Detection Institute at the University of Cambridge and practices medicine as Hon. Consultant in Gastroenterology and Cancer Medicine at Addenbrooke's Hospital. Rebecca also leads the Cambridge component of the CRUK International Alliance in Early Detection (ACED). The focus of her research is to investigate the steps in malignant transformation in the oesophagus and stomach and to use this information to improve clinical early detection strategies. Her work to develop and implement a non-endoscopic capsule sponge and related biomarker assaysfor detection of Barrett's oesophagus and associated dysplasia has been awarded a number of prizes including the Westminster Medal, an NHS Innovation prize and the Don Listwin Early Detection Prize. In 2022 Rebecca was awarded an OBE for services to cancer research. Rebecca has contributed to evidence reviews and policy work around screening including for the Department of Health in the UK and recently led a review of cancer screening for the European Commission that led to new screening policy for EU member states.

Angela obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge and the European Bioinformatics Institute. During her PhD she investigated the evolution of gene expression regulation during mammalian speciation and developed some of the earliest bioinformatics methods for the analysis of RNA-sequencing data. After her PhD, Angela conducted her postdoctoral research on population genomics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. During her postdoc she was awarded a Pump Priming grant by the Cambridge Cancer Centre Early Detection Programme to establish the use of menstrual fluid as a model system to track somatic mutations in normal tissues over time. Since 2018 she has led a group at the German Cancer Research Center. Her research interests are in modelling the evolution of somatic mutant clones in normal and pre-malignant tissues, with the view of developing methods for preventing and detecting cancer early.

Allan Hackshaw is Professor of Epidemiology & Medical Statistics at University College London, and Director of the Cancer Research UK & UCL Cancer Trials Centre. He has >32 years’ experience in cohort/case-control studies, large real-world data studies, phase I-III clinical trials, and systematic reviews; in several areas including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and tobacco and health. A particular focus has been on adult (especially cancer) and prenatal screening, as a key investigator on large scale studies, some of which have evaluated new screening tests and policies that later became routine practice. He is undertaking work on evaluating lung cancer screening and multicancer blood tests. He is a member of the UK National Screening Committee Adult Reference Group, and co-editor of the Journal of Medical Screening. He has published more than 200 journal articles and book chapters, and sole or first author of four textbooks.

Born and raised in Oregon and deeply involved in her personal and professional community, Dr. Tiffani Howard forms a unique bridge to connections between her extensive OHSU network (since 1992) and the people they serve throughout Oregon.

As a developmental biologist she focused on gene regulation and silencing in development of neural tube and central nervous system formation. Her ability to communicate widely with all audiences and elicit trust allows her to build strong, long lasting, bi-directional relationships which has focused her work over the years.

On an unconventional career journey Dr. Howard gained insight into how important it is for community engagement to thread through all scientific programs. As liaison between the scientists and design team for the construction of the Knight Cancer Research Building, Dr. Howard provided essential continuity throughout the project from pre-design through move-in (2014-2018) by engagement and inclusion of 450 occupants (principal investigators, lab staff, OHSU executives, and research cores) while managing scope, schedule and budget for the project.
Leveraging over 15 years of research lab experience and adept at articulating the Knight’s vision, from 2017-2018 her work influenced the directional and cultural transformation of the Knight when managing creation of new institutional Cultural Guiding Principles and 5 year scientific Strategic Plan. Subsequently she established a new cutting-edge Early Cancer Detection Clinical Trials program now recognized as top-enroller on national MCED trials and leader in creative and successful community engagement to boost diversity (4 fold increase over two years of enrollment).

She accepted the institution-wide position of Asst. Director for Community Outreach and Engagement in 2021 to increase the impact of the Comprehensive Knight Cancer Institute on its catchment area, the entire state of Oregon.

Li Li, MD, PhD, is an expert in primary care, population health and clinical translational research. He is chair of the UVA Department of Family Medicine, director of population health and co-director of the Cancer Prevention and Population Health program.

Li earned both his master's in public health and medical degree from Tongji Medical University in Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. China. He then went to the University of Southern California, where he obtained a master of science in applied biometry and a doctoral degree in preventative medicine. He also pursued a fellowship in cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute, followed by family medicine training at the University of Kentucky.

During his career, Li has established multiple cancer and population health research programs (the Cleveland Colon Screening and Risk Factors Study, the Kentucky Colon Cancer Genetic Epidemiology Study and the Zhabei Health 2020 Study). He also co-led a $3 million National Institutes of Health grant aimed to help us understand the genetic, lifestyle, and community factors that drive the significant racial disparities that exist for colorectal cancer.

Prior to arriving at UVA, Li was an assistant professor in the department of family medicine at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine and tenured as a full professor of family medicine. In addition, Li was a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and environmental health sciences.

Michael Liang, Ph.D. is a Managing General Partner with InVivium Capital. Previously, Mike spent 16 years as a Partner with Baird Capital, overseeing healthcare investments. Prior to joining Baird Capital, Mike was a healthcare investor with Advent Venture Partners (London, U.K.) and before that served in an operating role as a Director of R&D at Cortek, a spinal orthopedics company. Mike serves on the Board of Directors of Onchilles Pharma and was also previously a Board Member of Alto Neuroscience (NYSE: ANRO), GreenLight Biosciences (NASDAQ: GRNA), Interlace Medical (sold to Hologic), OncoHealth (sold to Arsenal Capital Partners), Veniti (sold to Boston Scientific), and a board observer of TomoTherapy (NASDAQ: TOMO, sold to Accuray). Mike also recently served on the Board of Directors of AiCure, Jumpcode Genomics, NeoChord and Zurex Pharma, and was a Board Observer for Saranas and Virtual Incision. Mike received a B.S. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, completed a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Stanford University, and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.