Victor Velculescu

Biography
Dr. Velculescu led the first genome wide sequence analysis in human cancers, identifying key genes and pathways dysregulated in tumorigenesis. He developed methods for global gene expression analyses and coined the word transcriptome" to describe the patterns that could now be obtained in cancer and other cells. These analyses identified a variety of genes not previously known to be involved in neoplasia, including PIK3CA as one of the most highly mutated genes in human cancer. His team's discoveries have led to new FDA approved therapies against PI3K and IDH1, and diagnostic tests for comprehensive tumor profiling. More recently, his group has created noninvasive machine learning liquid biopsy approaches for early detection and monitoring of cancer patients. His work has provided new paradigms for understanding human cancer that have benefited patients worldwide. He has been a Founder and CoCEO of Personal Genome Diagnostics and is Founder and CEO of Delfi Diagnostics.

Amoolya Singh

Biography
Amoolya Singh is Chief Technology Officer at DELFI Diagnostics. Previously, she was Senior Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer at GRAIL, and prior to that, she was Head of Discovery at Calico Life Sciences, where she catalyzed multiple productive collaborations between computational groups and experimental groups. Amoolya earned a PhD in computational biology and a MS in computer science at the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a BS degree in biology and computer science from Carnegie Mellon. Amoolya completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the European Molecular Biology Lab in Heidelberg, Germany in 2008 and a Computational and Life Sciences fellowship at Emory University in 2011 in comparative genomics and metagenomics, population genetics and experimental evolution.

Peter Bach

Biography
Health policy and payment expert, pulmonary physician, and lung cancer epidemiologist, Peter has devoted his career to repairing defects in the healthcare delivery system that impede access to high-quality cancer care and working to ameliorate healthcares cost crisis. His work spans seminal studies including that identification of racial gaps in lung cancer care, the development of the first lung cancer risk prediction model (the Bach model), lead authorship on multiple lung screening guidelines, and definitional work on pharmaceutical pricing and value. Peter previously served as Senior Adviser at the US Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services and mentor on many National Institutes of Health K awards. He has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars.

Klaus Pantel

Biography
Klaus Pantel is a global pioneer in liquid biopsy whose groundbreaking research established circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and micrometastases as clinically meaningful biomarkers. His work revealed how tumor cells disseminate early in cancer progression and provided the first evidence that these rare cells could guide prognosis and therapy monitoring. Pantels leadership extended beyond the lab with the founding of the European Liquid Biopsy Society, creating the infrastructure and collaborations needed to advance blood-based cancer detection worldwide. His contributions have transformed liquid biopsy from a research concept into a cornerstone of precision oncology, enabling earlier detection, real-time treatment monitoring, and more effective cancer care.

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Talk
Early detection of cancer by multimodal liquid biopsy analysis
Early detection of cancer is one of the most challenging application of liquid biopsy with overarching goal to reduce cancer mortality. Here, I will discuss the concept of a multimodal liquid biopsy encompassing the broad range of blood biomarkers including cell-free DNA, proteins, RNAs, extracellular vesicles, metabolites as well as circulating tumor and host cells as exemplified in my EU-funded project PANCAID aimed to detect pancreatic cancer at its earliest stages.

Luis Diaz

Biography
Dr. Diaz is a physician-scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His teams provided the first definitive evidence for using circulating tumor DNA as cancer biomarker for screening, monitoring, and detection of occult disease; and discovered the therapeutic link between immunotherapy and cancer genetics in patients with mismatch repair deficient tumors. This research led to the historic first pan-tumor FDA approval for any solid tumors with this genetic lesion and the first cancer study that resulted in a 100% complete response rate. He is the recipient of numerous recognitions for his work including the Waun Ki Hong Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research. He is Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Discovery and is an elected member of the Giants of Cancer Care, the AACR Fellows Academy, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the American Academy of Physicians. In 2021, Dr. Diaz was appointed by President Joseph Biden to the National Cancer Advisory Board.

Varsha Rao

Biography
Dr. Varsha Rao is the VP of Partnerships and Clinical Affairs at ClaretBio. She oversees the clinical applications of the novel next-generation sequence assays and analytical pipelines developed at ClaretBio with a main focus on evaluating the utility of cell-free DNA fragmentation patterns in cancer progression and treatment response monitoring. Before joining ClaretBio, she was a Research Scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine in Prof Michael Snyder's lab. As a part of multiple consortia such as the Integrative Personalized Omics Profiling Project, the Human Microbiome Project and the NASA Twins Study she has worked on longitudinal multiomic analyses, focusing on applying transcriptomics and liquid biopsy approaches to understand nuances of metabolic diseases, cancer, infectious disease and general health. She received her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2012.

Anne-Renee Hartman

Biography
Dr. Hartman is a leader in oncology diagnostics with over 20 years of experience developing clinical cancer tests. Leveraging her expertise across the continuum of care, from early detection to minimal residual disease monitoring, she has spearheaded pivotal trials in risk stratification, cancer screening, and cancer management during her leadership roles at Myriad Genetics and GRAIL. Driven by a passion for innovation, Dr. Hartman co founded Adela to pioneer a high performing liquid biopsy utilizing whole methylome technology. With diverse expertise in clinical development, product development and diagnostic platforms, she is translating her deep knowledge into transformative molecular approaches for early diagnosis and tailored treatment.

Daniel De Carvalho

Biography
Dr. De Carvalho is a renowned expert in cancer epigenomics. He is a pioneer in the use of cancer epigenetics combined with advanced computational approaches for developing novel liquid biopsy tools applied to cancer early detection, classification and monitoring therapy response. Dr. De Carvalho have published over 80 high profile research papers, many of those featured in prestigious scientific journals such as Science, Nature Medicine, Cancer Cell among others and was an invited speaker to over 150 talks worldwide, including such prestigious venues as the Opening plenary lecture at AACR annual meeting. For his scientific contributions, Dr. De Carvalho received numerous awards including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Early Career Award in Cancer. He received the Canada Research Chair in Cancer Epigenetics. Dr. De Carvalho founded and currently serves as CSO of Adela, a biotech company developing cell free DNA methylation liquid biopsy technology for cancer early detection, classification and monitoring therapy response.

Giordano Botta

Biography
Giordano Botta is the Co-Founder and CEO of Allelica Inc, where he drives the development and clinical implementation of multi-ancestry polygenic risk scores (PRS). Under his leadership, Allelica pioneered the first clinical multi-ancestry PRS test for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), breast and prostate cancer, now used by leading healthcare systems. He focuses on cost-effectiveness analysis to ensure the long-term sustainability of PRS tests. Botta has overseen the creation of a software engine and the integration of genomic and clinical data from over one million individuals of diverse ancestries to develop and validate PRS. His primary interest is advancing the integration of PRS for CAD and common cancers into standard medical care, improving prevention and early intervention strategies.