Session Abstract – PMWC 2025 Silicon Valley
Track 4
Track Chair: Kathleen Barnes, Oxford Nanopore
Speakers:
Nobel Laureate Carol Greider, UCSC
Orit Rozenblatt-Rosen, Genentech
Emily Leproust, Twist
Session: Unraveling the molecular drivers of cancer requires a comprehensive understanding of its genetic, epigenetic, and proteomic complexities. This session explores how multi-omic technologies decode these intricate layers, providing insights into cancer's initiation, growth, and progression. By integrating diverse molecular data, researchers are uncovering actionable biomarkers, identifying therapeutic targets, and paving the way for breakthroughs in precision oncology. Join leading experts as they share cutting-edge advancements and strategies to overcome challenges in translating multi-omic research into clinical impact.
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., SVP Population & Precision Health, Oxford Nanopore Tech
Biography
Dr. Kathleen C. Barnes is a genetic epidemiologist with expertise in multiple complex lung and inflammatory diseases. For 30 years her population-based studies have focused on ethnically diverse, family-based and independent populations across the Americas, summarized in 230 publications. She has led multiple international multi-omics projects and is a founding PI in the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Project. Originally at Johns Hopkins University (1993-2015) then the University of Colorado (2015-present), she has procured 150K biospecimens from her own research laboratory, and high-throughput, cutting edge multi-omics technologies. She is founding Director of the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine, was SVP of Population Genomics Health at Tempus Labs (2021-2023), and currently leads Population and Precision Health at Oxford Nanopore Technologies, focused on facilitating the transfer of precision health capabilities into clinical application.
Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Head of Cellular and Tissue Genomics & Executive Dir, Genentech
Biography
Orit Rozenblatt-Rosen, PhD, is Head of the Cell and Tissue Genomics (CTG) Department at Genentech. CTG aims to develop and apply high resolution methods to characterize cells and tissues to accelerate scientific discovery and help identify targets and next-generation biomarkers for precision medicine treatments for patients. Orit is a pioneer in single-cell genomics technologies and their application to tissues in order to better understand health and disease. Previously, she was the Scientific Director of the Klarman Cell Observatory at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she focused on deciphering cellular and tissue circuits. She also co-chairs the standards and technology working group for the Human Cell Atlas consortium.
Speaker Profile
NOBEL LAUREATE, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, UCSC
Biography
Dr. Carol Greider was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Academy recognized her for her 1984 discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that maintains the length and integrity of chromosome ends and is critical for the health and survival of all living cells and organisms. Dr. Greiders discovery of telomerase a remarkable enzyme that restores telomeres and protects them from damage catalyzed an explosion of scientific studies which, to this day, probe connections between telomerase and telomeres to human cancer and diseases of aging.Greider shares the prize with Elizabeth Blackburn, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and Jack Szostak of Harvard Medical School.
