Cancer dormancy and therapy resistance: From models to the clinic

• (see note below under "Registration")

• R.M. Bellantone (ISS President)
• M. Biffoni (Director Oncology Dept)
• R. De Maria (Alliance Against Cancer)
• V. D'Andrea (Sapienza University)

• Ann Zeuner (ISS, Italy):Introduction to cancer dormancy
• Frank den Hollander and
  Simone Baldassarri (University of Leiden,
  The Netherlands): Mathematical aspects of dormancy for non experts
• Jochen Blath (Goethe University,
  Germany): Population dynamics with dormancy
• Short presentation: Sara Soliman
  (Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine, Italy): Overcoming drug resistance and
  persistence with PARP1 inhibitors
• Luca Magnani (The Institute of Cancer Research, UK): Breast cancer dormancy:
  A link to the past
• Simone Pompei (Istituto Fondazione di
  Oncologia Molecolare): Quantifying persister transitions in cancer cells and their implications for long-term fitness
• Short presentation: Alessandra Riggio University of Utah, Huntsman Cancer Institute, USA): A rapid autopsy program to advance our understanding of metastatic breast cancer and patients' recurrence

• Kimberly Luddy (Moffitt Cancer Center, USA): Cancer dormancy as an evolution-ary adaptation
• Short presentation: Alice Turdo (University of Palermo, Italy): Breast cancer dormancy: A silent threat in cancer progression
• Kenneth Pienta (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA): Is cancer cell dormancy really the reason we fail to cure cancer?
• Short presentation: Veronica Veschi (Sapienza University, Italy): Therapeutic targeting of SETD8, a master regulator of proliferative plasticity, induces colorectal cancer stem cells versus a low-stemness dormant state
• Matilde Todaro (University of Palermo, Italy): Unveiling clinical cancer dormancy: mechanisms and implications for drug response
• Guido Ferlazzo (University of Genua, Italy): Natural Killer lymphocytes as immunological gatekeepers of cancer cell dormancy

• Josè Javier Bravo-Cordero (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, USA): The textures of the tumor microenvironment: An integrated imaging perspective
• Sarah Amend (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA): Endocycling: a novel mechanism for cancer cell dormancy
• Short presentation: Maria Laura De Angelis (ISS, Italy): Preclinical testing of a candidate drug targeting dormant cancer cells
• Ciro Isidoro (University of Piemonte Orientale, Italy): Epigenetic modulation of autophagy to induce cancer cell dormancy
• Short presentation: Federica Francescangeli (ISS, Italy): Role of the tumor microenvironment in regulating cancer dormancy and chemoresistance

• Devrim Gözüaçik (Koç University School of Medicine, Turkey): Multi-omics analysis of cancer dormancy: From models to patients
• Matthias Birkner (University of Mainz, Germany): Stochastic spatial population models for cancer
• Short presentation: Alessandro Vici (ISS, Italy): Detection of very low-power signals by multidimensional approaches: a proposal for estimating the number of quiescent cells
• Andras Tobias (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary): Dormancy in stochastic population dynamics: from competition models to cancer modelling
• Dario Spanò (University of Warwick, England): Making intractable dormancy tractable

Coffee Break* (4:30 pm)

Cluster Session B (5:30 pm)*
(discussion groups):
From theory to practice: Operationalizing cancer dormancy

* At Globus Hotel

Cocktail and Social Dinner (7:30 pm) at the Ministry of Aeronautics

Session 5 (9:00 am - 10:45 am):
Understanding and targeting dormant/chemoresistant cancer stem cells – Chairs: C. Isidoro, S. Amend

• Ilio Vitale (Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine, Italy): Harnessing chromosomal instability to overcome chemoresistance in cancer stem cells
• Elena Petricci (University of Siena, Italy): Targeting dormant cancer stem cells through virtual screening of targeted compounds
• Short presentation: Maria Ruggirello (University of Siena, Italy): Anti-Cripto Antibody-Drug Conjugates: a novel strategy to target cells awakening from tumor dormancy
• Pietro Pichierri (ISS, Italy): When bad proteins make good things: leveraging the potential of DNA endonucleases to trick chemoresistance of cancer cells
• Short presentation: Paola Verachi (ISS, Italy): Quiescence as a weapon: the effects of fenretinide in preclinical cancer models

• Joel Brown (Moffitt Cancer Center, USA): The Ecology and Evolution of Cancer Dormancy
• Emma Hammarlund (University of Lund, Sweden): The Essential Role of Stress in Evolution and its Link to Cancer Resistance
• Short presentation: Manuel Esser (University of Bonn, Germany): The Toolbox of Adaptive Dynamics: Micro-, Meso- and Macroscopic Views on Evolution
• Gabriella Minchiotti (National Research Council, Italy): Stem cell self-organization in development and cancer: Insights from normal and neoplastic stem cell dormancy
• Alessandro Giuliani (ISS, Italy): The guardians of stability are the same that initiate revolutions: the peculiar character of dormancy-associated gene expression dynamics

Discussion and closing remarks, award for the best short presentation and lunch break (1:10 pm)

End of the meeting (2:30 pm)