Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Elihu Professor of Biostatistics, Yale
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.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2027yale Silicon Valley
Davos of Precision Medicine
PMWC 2027 Program
January 27–29, 2027 · Santa Clara Convention Center
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