Meng Li

Biography
Dr. Meng Li is a physician-scientist by training. He brings a rare combination of scientific depth and clinical development leadership, with more than a decade of experience advancing early- and late-stage oncology programs across the pharmaceutical industry. He is widely recognized for his contributions to cancer genomics, liquid biopsy, and novel therapeutics. His research has contributed to the discovery of multiple human cancer genes, including ARID1A, ARID2, MLL2, MLL3, and BCORL1. He is also an inventor of BEAMing technology, which leverages circulating tumor DNA for cancer detection, disease stratification, and monitoring of treatment response. His work has helped shape modern oncology practice, and he has published as a lead author in prestigious journals, including Science, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods, and Blood. He has also been a driving force in targeting epigenetic machinery and advancing novel immunotherapies for the treatment of human cancer.

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Talk
Targeting Epigenetics for Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment
Prifetrastat is a novel, selective catalytic inhibitor of KAT6A&B. In a phase 1/2 trial, prifetrastat in combination with fulvestrant demonstrated promising antitumor activity and an acceptable safety profile in patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer These findings establish KAT6A&B as druggable cancer targets, provide clinical proof of concept, and reveal a new therapeutic avenue.

Emerging Therapeutics Showcase:
Pfizer
Pfizer is an american multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation. Pfizer develops medicine and vaccines for immunology, oncology and general medicine.

Chiou-Tsun Tsai

Biography
Chiou-Tsun (Ray) Tsai is currently developing the immune synapse-stabilizing receptor (SSR) platform at March Biosciences, aiming to make CAR T-cell therapy effective against cancers with low or heterogeneous antigen expression, a major challenge in treating solid tumors. Before joining March Biosciences, Dr. Tsai was a faculty member at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, where he led March Biosciences-sponsored research to advance SSR. He originally developed SSR, a synthetic receptor that enhances the sensitivity of CAR T and TCR T cells to tumors with low antigen density (Nature Communications, 2026), during his postdoctoral training in Dr. Maksim Mamonkin’s laboratory from 2021 to 2024. He is also a named inventor on two published patent applications covering SSR and proliferation-controlled therapeutic cells. Dr. Tsai received training in cancer research at King’s College London and has a strong background in immunology and oncology.

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Talk
Synapse-stabilizing receptor improves CAR-mediated tumor targeting
Low or heterogeneous antigen expression limit CAR-T efficacy in solid tumors. We engineered a synapse-stabilizing receptor (SSR) to enhance CAR tumor sensitivity against antigen-low tumors. SSR arming of CAR-T improved control of heterogeneous tumors in preclinical models of human AML and liver cancer without broadening the off-tumor toxicity

Emerging Therapeutics Showcase:
March Biosciences
March Biosciences is a clinical-stage company in the cell therapy field focused on developing CAR-T cell strategies to address the most challenging cancers