
Cancer Cell Metabolism: Unique Features Inform New Therapeutic Opportunities
Thursday, May 28, 2015
There has been a resurgence of interest in understanding how metabolic pathways are altered in cancer and how these alterations can be exploited for therapeutic gain. However, because normal cells and cancer cells often require the same energy sources and metabolic pathways, designing metabolism-based cancer therapies without systemic toxicity has proven challenging. The goal of this meeting is to bring experts together to discuss recent findings suggesting that discrete metabolic pathways and activities are over-utilized in certain cancer contexts, leaving cancer cells selectively vulnerable to specific metabolic interventions. This symposium will highlight insights into tumor metabolism from leaders in the field and explore how this information is being used to design safe and effective, metabolism-targeted therapies.
*Reception to follow.
This event will also be broadcast as a webinar.
Please note: Transmission of presentations via the webinar is subject to individual consent by the speakers. Therefore, we cannot guarantee that every speaker's presentation will be broadcast in full via the webinar. To access all speakers' presentations in full, we invite you to attend the live event in New York City when possible.
Registration and Webinar Pricing
Member | $30 |
Member (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $15 |
Nonmember (Academia) | $65 |
Nonmember (Corporate) | $85 |
Nonmember (Non-profit) | $65 |
Nonmember (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $45 |
Agenda
* Presentation titles and times are subject to change.
May 28, 2015 | |
8:00 AM | Registration and Continental Breakfast |
8:30 AM | Welcome and Introductory Remarks |
8:45 AM | Keynote Lecture - Beyond Glucose and Glutamine: Some Cancer Cells Forage for Food |
9:25 AM | mTOR, Cancer Metabolism and Therapeutic Opportunities |
9:55 AM | Mitochondrial Amino Acid Metabolism and Nutrient Sensing |
10:25 AM | Coffee Break |
10:55 AM | Role of Metabolism in Supporting Cell Proliferation * The 10:55 am talk will not be broadcast as part of the live webinar. |
11:25 AM | Metabolic Regulation of Cell Fate Decisions |
11:45 AM | Networking Lunch |
12:45 PM | A Post-transcriptionally Regulated Metabolic Pathway that enables Liver Metastatic Colonization by Colon Cancer |
1:15 PM | Reversible Metabolic Changes in Human Melanoma Cells Enable Distant Metastasis |
1:35 PM | Identifying Metabolic Dependencies in Pancreatic Cancer |
2:05 PM | Cell Cycle Control of Cancer Cell Metabolism * The 2:05 pm talk will not be broadcast as part of the live webinar. |
2:35 PM | Closing Remarks |
2:50 PM | Networking Reception |
4:00 PM | Adjourn |
Speakers
Organizers
Lydia Finley, PhD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Lydia Finley is the Jack Sorrell Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Craig Thompson at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She earned her Ph.D. in the laboratory of Marcia Haigis at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on understanding how signaling events regulate intracellular metabolic pathways and how metabolites influence chromatin state and cell fate decisions.
Steven S. Gross, PhD
Weill Cornell Medical College
Steven S. Gross is Professor of Pharmacology, Director of the Center for Excellence in Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry and Director of Advanced Training in Pharmacology at the Weill Cornell Medical College. His primary research interest is in cell–cell communication, with a focus on nitric oxide (NO) and reactive molecules as mediators of cell signaling. In the late 1980s, Dr Gross and colleagues made the initial identification of L-arginine as the precursor of NO in blood vessels. They were also first to establish that NOS inhibition elevates blood pressure in animals, demonstrating that NO plays a physiological role in controlling blood pressure and vascular tone. Since then, research efforts have been directed toward elucidating the enzymes and mechanisms that regulate NO synthesis in cells. His basic studies have provided fundamental insights into the therapeutic control of NO synthesis, resulting in core technologies for the creation of ArgiNOx Inc., a biotech start-up that seeks to develop novel NO-based drugs. He is a founder and Board Director of the Nitric Oxide Society and Co-Chairs the Steering Committee of the Biomedical Pharmacology Discussion Group (BPDG) at NYAS. Dr Gross received his PhD in Biomedical Science from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
Costas Andreas Lyssiotis, PhD
Weill Cornell Medical College
Dr. Lyssiotis is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Medical School with appointments in the Departments of Physiology and Medicine. His lab studies the biochemical pathways and metabolic requirements that enable tumor survival and growth and, in particular, how this information can be used to design targeted therapies. Among his many contributions, Dr. Lyssiotis demonstrated that pancreatic cancers are addicted to glucose and glutamine and use these nutrients in previously undescribed pathways to make DNA and to generate free radical-combating antioxidants, respectively. For this work, he has been awarded a Pathway to Leadership Grant from the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, the Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and the Tri-Institutional Breakout Prize for Junior Investigators.
Sonya Dougal, PhD
The New York Academy of Sciences
Keynote Speaker
Craig B. Thompson, MD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Craig B. Thompson, MD is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Dr. Thompson is a board-certified internist and medical oncologist with extensive research experience in cancer, immunology, and translational medicine. His current research focuses on the regulation of cellular metabolism during cell growth/differentiation and on the role that metabolic changes play in the origin and progression of cancer. Dr. Thompson is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Medical Advisory Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Speakers
John Blenis, PhD
Weill Cornell Medical College
Dr. John Blenis is the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Professor of Cancer Research and Professor of Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He completed his B.A. degree (1977) at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, his Ph.D. (1983) at Michigan State University, Michigan, USA, and his postdoctoral research at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (1983-1987). Dr. Blenis was an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University (1987-1989), and then Assistant, Associate and Tenured Professor of Cell Biology from 1989-2014 at Harvard Medical School before moving his laboratory to the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College. The major objectives of his research are to define and characterize the molecular basis of cellular signaling with a focus on the Ras-ERK-RSK and PI3K-mTOR-S6K1 pathways, and how these signaling systems contribute to the normal and disease-associated physiology with a focus on cancer. These studies have and continue to reveal several current and future therapeutic targets and biomarkers for cancer therapy.
Selina Chen-Kiang, PhD
Weill Cornell Medical College
Selina Chen-Kiang, PhD, is Professor of Pathology and Professor of Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis at the Weill Cornell Medical College. She obtained her PhD in Human Genetics and Development from Columbia University and completed post-doctoral training in molecular biology at The Rockefeller University. Her work focuses on cell cycle control of B cell immunity and malignancies. She pioneered the concept of reprogramming cancer cells by cell cycle control, which has led to the development of the first mechanism-based combination cell cycle therapy in human cancer by her team. Her current interests include cell cycle control of therapeutic targeting of PI3K and BTK, as well as metabolism and drug resistance in lymphoma and myeloma. Dr. Chen- Kiang has served on various advisory boards and is the recipient of many awards, including an Inaugural Specialized Center for Research Award in myeloma and the Researcher of the Year Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Lydia Finley, PhD
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Lydia Finley is the Jack Sorrell Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Craig Thompson at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She earned her Ph.D. in the laboratory of Marcia Haigis at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on understanding how signaling events regulate intracellular metabolic pathways and how metabolites influence chromatin state and cell fate decisions.
Alec Kimmelman, MD, PhD
Harvard Medical School
Dr. Kimmelman is currently an Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. He completed his undergraduate education at Cornell University and received his MD/PhD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NY. After graduating, he completed residency training at the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program and performed his post-doctoral studies in the laboratory of Ronald A. DePinho at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where he identified novel genes that are important in the invasive and metastatic phenotype of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Kimmelman has been studying Ras oncogenes for more than 15 years. His lab is focused on pancreatic cancer and his recent work involves the study of the Kras-dependent deregulation of metabolic pathways in the disease and its relation to therapeutic resistance. Indeed, the Kimmelman lab has been at the forefront of defining the metabolic landscape of pancreatic cancer. His group first identified that pancreatic cancers require Kras for tumor maintenance through its control of cellular metabolism. Additionally, their work has uncovered that pancreatic cancers are addicted to autophagy for continued growth and this has motivated the development of multiple clinical trials, including two clinical trials at the Dana-Farber Harvard Cancer Center for the treatment of pancreatic cancer patients. Dr. Kimmelman is also currently an attending Radiation Oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Womens Hospital specializing in Gastrointestinal Malignancies and is the Director of Preclinical Therapeutics of the small animal microirradiator facility. Dr. Kimmelman is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Ruth Leff Siegal Award from Columbia University for excellence in pancreatic cancer research.
Christian Metallo, PhD
University of California, San Diego
Christian Metallo joined the University of California, San Diego in 2011 and is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering. He received his bachelor’s in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 before joining Merck Research Laboratories to conduct bioprocess engineering research. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2008 and was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Christian was the recipient of the Biomedical Engineering Society Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award in 2012 and is a 2013 Searle Scholar.
Elena Piskounova , PhD
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dr. Elena Piskounova is a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Sean J Morrison at Children’s Research Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her research is focused on understanding the metabolic requirements and adaptations that occur in cancer cells during distinct steps of the metastatic cascade, using a clinically relevant model of melanoma. Through this work, she aims to uncover and validate novel therapeutic targets specific for metastatic disease. Prior to joining the Morrison lab, Dr. Piskounova completed her PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, where she studied the molecular mechanisms that mediated posttranscriptional processing of the let-7 family of microRNAs by the Lin28 oncoproteins. She obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, UK.
Sohail Tavazoie, MD, PhD
The Rockefeller University
Dr. Tavazoie received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, his PhD from Harvard University and his MD from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Following a residency and internship in internal medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as a clinical fellow in 2005 and became a research fellow in medical oncology in 2006. He joined Rockefeller as an assistant professor in 2009 and was named associate professor in 2015. In 2009, Dr. Tavazoie was the recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and a combined American Society of Clinical Oncology and American Association for Cancer Research Young Investigator Award. He was also named a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, a Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research Scholar and a Department of Defense Era of Hope Scholar. Dr. Tavazoie was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and is an attending medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Matthew G. Vander Heiden, MD, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Matthew Vander Heiden is the Eisen and Chang Associate Professor in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an Instructor of Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Vander Heiden received his MD and PhD degree from the University of Chicago. He also completed clinical training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Dana-Farber Cancer Institute prior to completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School.
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Abstracts
Beyond Glucose and Glutamine: Some Cancer Cells Forage for Food
Craig B. Thompson, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
mTOR, Cancer Metabolism and Therapeutic Opportunities
John Blenis, PhD1
Coauthors: Sang Gyun Kim, PhD1, Sanguine Byun, PhD2, Jing Li, PhD1, Andy Choo, PhD1, Alfredo Csibi, PhD1, Gina Lee, PhD1, Sam Lee, PhD2
1 Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Department of Pharmacology, Belfer Research Building, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY
2 Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA
Mitochondrial Amino Acid Metabolism and Nutrient Sensing
Christian Metallo, PhD, University of California, San Diego
Role of Metabolism in Supporting Cell Proliferation
Matthew G. Vander Heiden, MD, PhD, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Metabolic Regulation of Cell Fate Decisions
Lydia W.S. Finley, PhD1
Coauthors: Bryce W. Carey, PhD2, C. David Allis, PhD2 and Craig B. Thompson, MD1
1 Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, United States
2 The Rockefeller University, New York, New York, United States
A Post-transcriptionally Regulated Metabolic Pathway that enables Liver Metastatic Colonization by Colon Cancer
Sohail Tavazoie, MD, PhD, Associate Professor and Head, Laboratory of Systems Cancer Biology
Jiamin Loo & Alexander Nguyen, Graduate Students
Rockefeller University
Reversible Metabolic Changes in Human Melanoma Cells Enable Distant Metastasis
Elena Piskounova, PhD1
Coauthors: Michalis Agathocleous, PhD1, Sara E. Mann1, Zeping Hu, PhD1, Zhiyu Zhao, PhD1, A. Marilyn Leitch, MD2, Timothy M. Johnson, MD3, Ralph J. DeBerardinis, MD, PhD1, Sean J. Morrison, PhD1,2
1 Children’s Research Institute at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States
2 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States
3 Department of Dermatology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Identifying Metabolic Dependencies in Pancreatic Cancer
Alec Kimmelman, MD, PhD, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA USA
Cell Cycle Control of Cancer Cell Metabolism
Selina Chen-Kiang, PhD
Coauthors: Maurizio DiLiberto, PhD, Peter Martin, MD, Jihye Paik, PhD, Costas Lyssiotis, PhD, Qiuying Chen, PhD, Priyanka Vijay, BS, Xiangao Huang, PhD, Olivier Elemento, PhD, Christopher Mason, PhD, Timothy McGraw, PhD, Steven Gross, PhD, John P. Leonard, MD, Lewis Cantley, PhD
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