Eric Winer

Biography
Eric Winer, MD, is Director of Yale Cancer Center, President and Physician-in-Chief of Smilow Cancer Hospital, Deputy Dean for Cancer Research at Yale School of Medicine, and the Alfred Gilman Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology. An internationally recognized breast cancer expert, he has led numerous clinical trials that have helped shape treatment across breast cancer subtypes. Dr. Winer served as President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) from 2022–2023 and Chair of its Board of Directors from 2023–2024. He currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Before joining Yale in 2022, he held senior leadership roles at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and was Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is an alumnus of Yale College and Yale School of Medicine.

William Oh

Biography
William K. Oh, M.D., is currently the Director of Precision Medicine at Yale Cancer Center and a Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) at Yale School of Medicine, roles he assumed in October 2024. As part of a newer initiative at Yale, he is focused on building a cohesive program inprecision cancer medicine that integrates basic and translational science,clinical trials, and Smilow Cancer Hospitals Precision Medicine Tumor Board. A central goal of his work is to increase the routine use ofmolecular and genetic testing for all cancer patients to improve outcomes. Dr. Oh is also dedicated to delivering multidisciplinary care for prostate cancer patients, a priority he has maintained for over 25 years. He has been recognized as a Top Doctor by Castle Connolly, New York Magazine, and Super Doctors. Additionally, he continues his commitment to teaching andadvancing research in the field.Previously, Dr. Oh was a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized medical oncologist withextensive experience in clinical and translational research, holding leadership roles in both academia and industry. He has authored more than 350 articles, reviews, books, and book chapters related to genitourinary cancers. Dr. Oh has conducted numerous clinical cancer trials and served in key invited roles for ASCO, ACS, and AUA. He has also held the position of Chief Medical Officer for Sema4, a genomics and health intelligence company, as well as the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Ian Krop

Biography
Dr. Krop is a medical oncologist and translational investigator focused on the development of novel molecularly targeted therapies and immunotherapies for breast cancer, and elucidating the mechanisms of resistance to these treatments. The majority of his effort is concentrated in the area of HER2-positive breast cancer. He has been a leader in the development of antibody-drug conjugates in breast cancer including trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) and trastuzumab deruxtecan.

Lee Schwamm

Biography
In this role, he leads the development of a new digital health and clinical AI strategy for the school and health system, and serves as an influential physician leader guiding the equitable and responsible governance and implementation of artificial intelligence and digital enablement in healthcare throughout the enterprise. This transformation includes on premise and cloud based high-performance computing infrastructure that supports internally and externally developed AI-enabled solutions for ambient clinical documentation, LLM-based clinical decision support, computer vision hospital inpatient smart rooms, prediction of major clinical deterioration, and a multi-purpose large medical event prediction model. Before joining Yale, Dr. Schwamm spent three decades at the Mass General Brigham (MGB) serving in senior academic and administrative leadership roles such as director of the Center for TeleHealth at Massachusetts General Hospital; System VP for Digital Patient Experience and Virtual Care, and chief digital advisor for MGB Digital, and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

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Meina Wang

Biography
Dr. Wang provides strategic leadership and oversees the programs and initiatives across a broad precision oncology portfolio, advancing Yale Cancer Center’s goal of becoming a national leader in precision medicine and ensuring that patients benefit from the most advanced, evidence-based, and personalized approaches to cancer care. Alongside her administrative leadership responsibilities, Dr. Wang’s research centers on translational oncology and precision medicine. Her work on treatment strategies for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including targeted therapies and immunotherapy, has been published in Nature Medicine, Cancer Cell, and other leading scientific journals. Her ongoing research advances precision oncology by integrating artificial intelligence and data science into clinical research, with an emphasis on translating scientific discoveries into more effective and personalized cancer care.

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Sanja Dacic

Biography
Dr. Dacic is focused on diagnostic pulmonary and molecular pathology and has been involved in numerous basic and translational research projects in lung cancer and pleural mesotheliomas that have resulted in numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles, book chapters, and reviews. Dr. Dacic served on the Editorial Board for the 5th and 6th editions of the WHO Classification of Thoracic Tumors. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals and is Deputy Editor-in- chief of Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine . She was elected to the Board of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology for a three-year term (2015-2018) . She served as president of the Pulmonary Pathology Society (2019-2022). She was Chair of the IASLC Pathology Committee (2023-2025). She is the recipient of the IASLC Mary J Matthews Pathology/Translational Research Award, which recognizes lifetime achievements in pathology and translational research in thoracic malignancies.

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Jeffrey Townsend

Biography
Jeffrey Townsend is a pioneering cancer evolution researcher whose work has established quantitative frameworks for understanding how cancers arise and evolve within the human body. His research transforms tumor genomic data into measurements of the evolutionary forces driving cancer initiation, progression, metastasis, and therapeutic response, revealing how cancer trajectories are shaped by mutation, natural selection, genetic interactions, environmental exposures, tissue context, and age. Townsend was instrumental in the founding and meteoric growth of the American Association for Cancer Research Cancer Evolution Working Group. As an inaugural Co-Chair-Elect and subsequently Co-Chair, he helped build an international community bringing evolutionary principles to cancer research and medicine and establish its scientific programming and dedicated AACR conference. His recent work connects cancer evolution with aging, investigating how somatic mutations accumulate across the lifespan and how selection changes with age—making the dynamic biology occurring within each person measurable and illuminating individual cancer risk, progression, and therapeutic vulnerabilities.

David Braun

Biography
Dr. David A. Braun is a medical oncologist, physician-scientist, and a principal investigator in the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at Yale. His NIH and DOD/DOW-funded laboratory integrates computational and experimental approaches to understand how the immune system can be used to effectively target and clear cancer cells.

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Steering the immune system to attack cancer.
New therapies that harness the bodies immune system have shown promising results, even leading to cure in some patients. But current therapies lack precision - they turn the immune system on, but do not "steer" the immune system to specifically attack cancer. We will discuss cancer vaccines as a new approach.