4th INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON TUMOR EVOLUTION - MAKING THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE: SUCCESSFUL TACKLING OF DIFFICULT TARGETS IN CANCER RESEARCH AND CLINICAL DEVELOPMENT

The past decades have witnessed major advances in our understanding of cancer biology. Breakthroughs in genomic technologies, transcriptomic profiling leveraged at single cell level, functional characterization of genes boosted more recently by the advent of whole-genome CRISPR/Cas9 screens, have enhanced our identification of therapeutic targets. Unfortunately, many of the candidate genes that emerged from these studies have shown to be extremely difficult if not impossible to target. KRAS, TP53, MYC, PTEN gene alterations are only a few examples of key drivers whose therapeutic targeting have not yet entered the clinical practice, with the notable exception of the recent development of KRAC G12C inhibitors for the treatment of non small cell lung cancer. In line with this brilliant example, the of this workshop focuses on showing how to “make the impossible possible: i.e. to successfully tackle difficult targets in cancer research and clinical development”. These ambitious goals require the combination of clever and sophisticated medicinal chemistry efforts aided by advanced structural biology as well as innovative clinical trials. In this regard, clinical trials act as a critical engine for the discovery and development of new therapies undergoing a massive re-wiring in the last decade. Indeed, they shifted from traditional studies evaluating cytotoxic chemotherapy to histology-based populations conceived to be adaptively designed and biomarker-driven to evaluate precise molecular targeted and immunotherapies in selected patients subsets. Unprecedented effort has been devoted to the generation of a framework that can timely transform scientific discoveries to clinical practice through the application of innovative technologies and adaptive design methodologies.

ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE:

GENNARO CILIBERTO, FEDERICO CAPPUZZO, RITA FALCIONI, GIOVANNI BLANDINO