Speaker Profile
PMWC PIONEER AWARD
Ph.D., Director of Translational Genetics, Johns Hopkins U.
Biography
Nickolas Papadopoulos is a pioneer in cancer genetics and multi-cancer early detection. At Johns Hopkins, he helped define the genetic basis of hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer, now central to understanding mismatch repair defects and inherited cancer risk. He later helped lead the development of CancerSEEK, a blood-based multi-analyte test combining circulating tumor DNA mutations and protein biomarkers to detect multiple common cancers, including cancers with no routine screening option.
As a senior leader of DETECT-A, he helped move multi-cancer early detection beyond technical promise into a prospective interventional screening study in nearly 10,000 asymptomatic women. His work has helped shift liquid biopsy from tumor profiling toward earlier detection, clinical localization, and real-world implementation, a central frontier in precision oncology.
Talk
Detecting Cancer Early with Liquid Biopsy
Using liquid biopsy to detect cancer before it is clinically detected has the potential to reduce both mortality and morbidity due to cancer. Liquid biopsy allows the detection of many tumor types. Two clinical applications will be discussed, Multicancer early detection and detection of minimal residual disease.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2027 Silicon Valley
Track Chair:
Victor Velculescu, Johns Hopkins
PMWC Award Ceremony
• Rebecca Fitzgerald, University of Cambridge (Luminary)
• Mary-Claire King, University of Washington (Pioneer)
• Nickolas Papadopoulos, Johns Hopkins (Pioneer)
Featured Speakers
• Mary-Claire King, University of Washington
• Rebecca Fitzgerald, University of Cambridge
• Nickolas Papadopoulos, Johns Hopkins
• Victor Velculescu, Johns Hopkins
• Phil Castle, NIH
• Elad Ziv, UCSF
• Ash Alizadeh, Stanford
• Hamed Amini, Hepta
• Becky Taub, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals
• Trevor Pugh, University of Toronto
• Doga Gulhan, Harvard
• Pranav Rajpurkar, Harvard
• Chris Douville, Johns Hopkins
• Sylvia Katina Plevritis, UCSF
In Precision Medicine, Almost All Diseases Are Genetically Rare
A genetics-first keynote framing risk, prevention, and actionability.
The Reckoning
What the first wave of early detection got right and wrong.
The End of One Size Fits All
Risk-stratified screening, high-risk populations, and single-cancer tests.
Treating Disease at the Earliest Stage
Where detection and therapeutic interception begin to converge.
Pre-Cancer Detection & the Liver Disease Frontier
cfDNA and clinical action across the liver-disease-to-cancer continuum.
AI Across Multimodal Signals
Fragmentomics, methylation, imaging, pathology, and integration: hype versus real science.
PMWC Hall of Impact
Previous Speakers Include
Nobel laureates, technology founders, regulators, CEOs and scientific pioneers who have taken the PMWC stage.
