Thursday 12th, 19th and 26th October at 3pm BST / 4pm CET / 10am EDT
Early diagnosis of cancer is vital for early intervention and better patient outcomes – this webinar series explores the developments in cancer detection that can transform our ability to screen, diagnose and treat cancers with targeted medicines. The online webinar series will explore the utility of ctDNA as a biomarker, how to overcome the challenges of detection, false results and low signal to noise ratio. It will also explore the utility of rich phenotyping in practice and how multi-omics analysis can unlock the future of precision diagnosis and treatment.
This webinar series will address:
- What can we gain from utilising ctDNA as a biomarker in clinical practice?
- How are advances in PCR technologies supporting earlier detection of cancers, ideally before metastasis, when quantifiable biomarkers are scarce in bodily fluids? How can dPCR help improve sensitivity and build confidence in this type of screening?
- How can multi-omics approaches be utilised to influence clinical decision making and is this technique is cost-effective in-patient care?
Register by clicking here.
**Please note, by registering for the first webinar in the series you will automatically gain access to all subsequent webinars in the series**
Webinar 1: ctDNA as an Early Detection Biomarker
Thursday 12th October, 3pm BST / 4 pm CET / 10 am EDT
ctDNA has huge potential for use as an early-stage biomarker of cancer. This webinar will explore the challenges and solutions associated with its use in the clinic – join to learn how ctDNA can be integrated into the clinic at a large scale and used successfully in early detection of cancer.
Talk 1: Piloting and assessing the clinical utility of ctDNA testing for lung cancer in the NHS.
- Alastair Greystoke, Medical Oncologist, Newcastle’s Northern Centre for Cancer Care
Talk 2: ctDNA tests for early detection- evidence needed to enable implementation into the NHS.
- Joanna Janus, Research Programme Manager (Early Detection & Prevention), Cancer Research UK
Webinar 2: Digital PCR to Support Early Diagnostics
Thursday 19th October, 3pm BST / 4 pm CET / 10 am EDT
Digital PCR has presented itself as a solution to many challenges in early cancer detection due to its high sensitivity. This webinar will explore how digital PCR can be successful in early cancer detection, giving run-throughs and explanations of its use in the clinic.
Talk 1: Getting De-Cerntralized Testing into Routine Clinical Oncology using High-Performance Genetic Multiplexing with Digital PCR
- Martin Becker, Field Applications Scientist, Stilla Technologies
Talk 2: Applying digital PCR and measurement science to support early cancer detection and MRD: the GenomeMET project.
- Alison Devonshire, Principal Scientist (Nucleic Acid Metrology), National Measurement Laboratory
Webinar 3: Multi-Omics in Precision Diagnosis and Oncology
Thursday 26th October, 3pm BST / 4 pm CET / 10 am EDT
Multi-omics is fast becoming a valid tool in early cancer detection, constituting a potential diagnostic route that is early-stage and more representative of the molecular profile of the tumour than other techniques. Join this webinar to learn about new breakthroughs in this field, and understand challenges and solutions associated with multi-omics in cancer detection.
Talk 1: Using multi-omics to detect biomarkers in urine: a new, less invasive frontier for bladder cancer.
- Pradeep Singh Chauhan, Staff Scientist, Aadel Chaudhuri Lab, Washington University at St. Louis
Talk 2: Refining liquid biopsy: generating more information from cell-free DNA – Sponsored by biomodal.
- Tim Beech, Product Manager, biomodal
Talk 2: Using AI-guided digital pathology and multi-omics to discover biomarkers of early-stage pancreatic ductal Adenocarcinoma.
- Shalini Datta, Research Fellow, Johns Hopkins University
Register here:
Speakers
Alastair Greystoke, Medical Oncologist, Newcastle’s Northern Centre for Cancer Care
Dr Alastair Greystoke is an Honorary Medical Oncologist at Newcastle’s Northern Centre for Cancer Care specialising in lung cancer, frailty in cancer, personalised medicine and drug development. He is also a Lecturer in Medical Oncology at Newcastle University. Dr Greystoke joined Newcastle University and the Northern Centre for Cancer Care in 2014 after eight years spent at the University of Manchester’s Christie NHS Trust. He is involved in the running of the Sir Bobby Robson Early Clinical Trials Centre at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, and has a special interest in the development of new anti-cancer drugs for patients with thoracic (lung) malignancies. In addition, he is the Joint Chief Investigator of the CONCORDE platform (adding in new drugs to radical radiotherapy in NSCLC), Clinical Lead for Cancer for the Yorkshire, Hull and North East England Genomic Laboratory Hub and he leads the Pharmacodynamic Biomarker team at the Centre for Cancer Research, Newcastle University.
Joanna Janus, Research Programme Manager (Early Detection & Prevention), Cancer Research UK
Dr Joanna Janus joined Cancer Research UK in February 2023 after almost 4 years as a Policy Analyst (Biomedical Science) at the PHG Foundation. She gained her PhD from the Queen Mary University of London in 2019 where she was working on the role of the PI3K pathway in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).
Isaac Garcia-Mullaris, Staff Scientist, The Breast Cancer Now Toby Robbins Research Centre,, The Institute of Cancer Research
Dr. Garcia-Murillas joined Nick Turner’s Molecular Oncology group at the ICR in 2010, initially to work on G Protein-Coupled receptors in breast cancer. Since 2010, Dr Garcia-Murillas has increasingly focused on translational research in breast cancer. He has led and developed work on the use of novel approaches, including Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and digital PCR (dPCR) to study circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) from “liquid biopsies”. Currently his research interests focus in the detection and tracking of structural variants, including gene amplifications and deletions, and mutations, primarily in breast cancer, but also in lung and Head and Neck cancers. To date, he continues to work on investigating how ctDNA can be best exploited as a potential biomarker for relapse and prediction of response to targeted treatment in breast cancer.
Alison Devonshire, Principal Scientist (Nucleic Acid Metrology), National Measurement Laboratory
Following undergraduate degree, I worked as a clinical research associate implementing Phase II and III trials, before studying for my PhD in the transcriptional regulation of genes involved in metabolic diseases at the University of Surrey. For the last 10 years, I have worked in the Molecular and Cell Biology group at LGC, which holds the role of UK National Measurement Laboratory and Designated Institute for chemical and bio-measurements. I specialize in the application of nucleic acid measurements in clinical diagnostics and cellular analysis and am currently working on projects developing single cell-based approaches and standardizing measurements of cancer biomarkers.
Pradeep Singh Chauhan, Staff Scientist, Aadel Chaudhuri Lab, Washington University at St. Louis
I am originally from India and most recently in Belgium. I am a biomedical researcher with experience in the field of oncology, genomics and virology. I am a versatile scientist, and am interested in improving ctDNA detection through laboratory-based optimization. During my free time I love traveling and cooking food.
Tim Beech, Product Manager, biomodal
Tim Beech is product manager at biomodal. As technical liaison for research and development and commercial teams, Tim focuses on product development roadmaps to help drive innovations that will benefit the life science community. His multidisciplinary skill set and knowledge base serve to provide user-focused products to the market that are critical to delivering greater insights into multiomics. Tim studied Biomedical Sciences at University College London, concentrating on Neurodegenerative diseases, Genetics, and more. Prior to joining biomodal, he held research-focused positions in the NGS platform developer space and in a biotech CRO.
Shalini Datta, Research Fellow, Johns Hopkins University
Shalini obtained her MS in Biochemistry from the University of Calcutta. During her PhD research, she focused on quantitative aspects of unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia and GWAS at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Having always been interested in cancer genomics research, after graduation with her PhD, Shalini served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Prof. Jessica Zucman-Rossi’s lab in INSERM (Paris, France), where she studied the role of AAV2 insertional mutagenesis in the hepatocellular carcinoma development. Shalini then returned to India and independently worked on genomics of stomach cancer in Indian patients as a Ramanujan Fellow at Indian Statistical institute, Kolkata. Shalini joined the Wood Lab in January of 2022 with projects related to multi-omics analysis of precancerous and cancerous lesions of pancreas.
Martin Becker, Field Applications Scientist, Stilla Technologies
Dr Martin Becker has extensive experience in digital PCR and PCR-based assays. He has a background in plant biology and has specialized in plant biotechnology, GMO detection, and Gene Editing in crops. Dr Becker completed his bachelor's, master's and PhD at Leibniz Universität Hannover Institute of Plant Nutrition, Germany. He then progressed on to postdoctoral researcher at IPK Gatersleben and was later promoted to postdoctoral research scientist. He has worked in his current role at Stilla Technologies since July 2021.
