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Euan Stronach

Senior Investigator, GlaxoSmithKline

Euan gained a first class honours in Molecular Biology followed by a PhD in Medical Genetics from the University of Aberdeen.

In 2000 he joined Prof Hani Gabra and his team at the, then Imperial Cancer Research Fund now Cancer Research UK, unit in Edinburgh as a postdoctoral fellow.

From there he moved to Imperial College in 2003 where he ran the Molecular Therapy Lab within the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre. 

Since 2015 he is a Senior Investigator at GlaxoSmithKline.

Eaun is a Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London.


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joined 11 years, 6 months ago

Ioannis Pandis

Research Associate, Imperial College London

Dr Ioannis Pandis received a Ph.D. degree in Biological Chemistry from the BSRC “Al. Fleming” Institute in Athens, Greee in 2012.

From 2012, he has been working as a research associate at Imperial College. He is in the Discovery Science Group working on the European Innovatice Medicine Initiative (IMI), eTRIKs project, which is aimed at developing a translational information and knowledge management systems.

His personal interest is the development of bioinformatic applications enabling applied biomedical research, with a particular focus on genome regulation analysis.


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joined 11 years, 6 months ago

Jaume Reventos

Director, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), University of Barcelona, Spain

Dr Jaume Reventós is the director of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (Idibell) of the University of Barcelona.

He is the co-founder of Transbiomed and was previously head of the Research Unit in Biomedicine and Translational Oncology at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR).

Reventós founded the VHIR spin-off Transbiomed in 2007 alongside Andreas Doll, Miguel Abal and Raimon Forés. In 2013, the company developed a test for early diagnosis of prostate cancer and began research into biomarkers for ovarian cancer.


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joined 11 years, 6 months ago

Ugo Cavallaro

Principal Investigator, European Institute of Oncology

Dr Cavallaro is a cell biologist and molecular oncologist interested in the biological mechanisms that underlie cancer development.

With his research group he discovered a novel interaction between the adhesion molecule NCAM and the receptor tyrosine kinase FGFR, introducing the paradigm that a growth factor receptor can be activated by a non-canonical ligand such as an adhesion molecule (Francavilla et al., J Cell Sci, 2007, and J Cell Biol, 2009).

His group also discovered that the NCAM/FGFR interaction plays a causal role in ovarian cancer, where it also emerged as a potential therapeutic target in preclinical models (Zecchini et al., EMBO Mol Med, 2011).

Another adhesion molecule that is intensively studied in his lab is L1, originally described as a neural adhesion molecule. They reported that L1 is expressed in specific lineages of the hematopoietic compartment, where it regulates immune cell motility and trafficking (Maddaluno et al., J Exp Med, 2009). Furthermore, his group reported that L1 plays a dual, cell context-dependent role in ovarian cancer (Zecchini et al, Cancer Res, 2008).

More recently, his research group became interested in the novel, unexpected role of adhesion molecules in tumor angiogenesis and vascular maturation. These observations led them to propose novel therapeutic target for anti-angiogenic treatments.

He is actively addressing these scientific issues in preclinical models and clinical samples of specific tumor types, such as pancreatic and ovarian carcinoma.

Another area of intense research in his group is the identification and characterisation of ovarian cancer stem cells, namely an elusive subset of transformed cells that is is thought to drive cancer development, dissemination, recurrence and chemoresistance.

Finally, they are actively pursuing the definition of novel ovarian cancer biomarkers and potential targets, combining cutting edge technologies with the use of clinically relevant specimens, taking advantage of a close collaboration with IEO gynecological oncologists


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joined 11 years, 6 months ago

David Bowtell

Head, Cancer Genomics and Genetics Program, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia

Professor Bowtell is the Head of the Cancer Genomics and Genetics Program at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and PI for the Australian Ovarian Cancer Study (AOCS).

Professor Bowtell is one of Australia’s leading ovarian cancer and human molecular genetics researchers.

He was Director of Research at Peter Mac for the last decade, returning to fulltime research in 2010 to lead the ovarian cancer arm of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) $27 million involvement in the International Cancer Genomics Consortium, a world-wide effort aimed at mapping all the significant mutations in common cancers.

 Professor Bowtell heads the Australian Ovarian Cancer Study, a nationally collaborative project involving over 2000 women with ovarian cancer and one of the largest cohort studies of ovarian cancer in the world.

He is a molecular biologist and his lab focuses on the genomic analysis of ovarian cancer, with a focus on primary and acquired drug resistance. His lab is also funded from Cancer Australia and the US DoD to investigate high-risk BRCA mutations in women with ovarian cancer.


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joined 11 years, 6 months ago

Maria Paola Costi

Full Professor in Medicinal Chemistry, Department of Life Science, University of Modena, Italy

Professor Maria Paola Costi is a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Modena in Italy.

In the past 15 years she has been teaching 10 different subject within Analytical Chemistry, Medicinal chemistry and Drug Design in the Faculty of Pharmacy. She also taught at the School of Doctorate in Health Science, teaching topics related to System biology approaches to drug discovery, Chemical space sorting and Medicinal chemistry in parasitology.

Professor Costi is responsible for the Laboratory of Drug Discovery of Enzyme Inhibitors of the Department of Pharmaceutical Science at University of Modena. The most of her work is focused on drug development of compounds directed to the folate pathways in different organisms, in particular in the area of anticancers and antinfectives. Another fundamental field of research is on beta-lactamase inhibitors discovery.

Recently she become involved in translational research in drug discovery in ovarian cancer. She is the co-Founder and scientific board member of the European network for translational research in ovarian cance (EUTROC).

She is also active in the technological transfer field: she is the co-Founder of the research-based biotech Tyodck Pharma, a university spin-off company and and is scientific responsible of EU projects in the area.

Professor Costi has published over 180 scientific works including papers on international journals, congress presentations, books chapters and patents. She is an external reviewer for different National and International Agencies and Scientific Journals, grant award peer reviewer.


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joined 11 years, 6 months ago

Robert Zeillinger

Associate Professor and Founder and Head, Molecular Oncology Group, Dep. of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medical University of Vienna

Professor Robert Zeillinger is an Associate Professor at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Gynecology and Gynecological Oncology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Vienna.

A graduate in biochemistry, Professor Zeillinger is also the founder and the head of the Molecular Oncology Group at The Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Medical University of Vienna. The main objectives of the group's research are understanding gynaecological cancers at molecular levels, improving diagnosis and prognosis and defining novel therapeutic targets.

The interdisciplinary group is engaged in various national and international organizations and networks (e.g. TOC – Tumor Bank Ovarian Cancer; EUTROC – European Network for Translational Research in Ovarian Cancer; OCTIPS – Ovarian Cancer Therapy Innovative Models; OVCAD – Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis; Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft – Cluster Translational Oncology).


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joined 11 years, 6 months ago

Yike Guo

Professor of Computing Science

Yike Guo is a Professor of Computing Science in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London. He leads the Discovery Science Group in the department, as well as being the founding Director of the Data Science Institute at Imperial College.

Professor Guo also holds the position of CTO of the tranSMART Foundation, a global open source community using and developing data sharing and analytics technology for translational medicine.

Professor Guo received a first-class honours degree in Computing Science from Tsinghua University, China, in 1985 and received his PhD in Computational Logic from Imperial College in 1993 under the supervision of Professor John Darlington.

He founded InforSense, a healthcare intelligence company, and served as CEO for several years before the company's merger with IDBS, a global advanced R&D software provider, in 2009. He has been working on technology and platforms for scientific data analysis since the mid-1990s, where his research focuses on knowledge discovery, data mining and large-scale data management.

He has contributed to numerous major research projects including: the UK EPSRC platform project, Discovery Net; the Wellcome Trust-funded Biological Atlas of Insulin Resistance (BAIR); and the European Commission U-BIOPRED project. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) eTRIKS project, a €23M project that is building a cloud-based informatics platform, in which tranSMART is a core component for clinico-genomic medical research, and co-Investigator of Digital City Exchange, a £5.9M research programme exploring ways to digitally link utilities and services within smart cities.

Professor Guo has published over 200 articles, papers and reports. Projects he has contributed to have been internationally recognised, including winning the “Most Innovative Data Intensive Application Award” at the Supercomputing 2002 conference for Discovery Net, and the Bio-IT World "Best Practices Award" for U-BIOPRED in 2014. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society.


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joined 11 years, 7 months ago

David Huntsman

Professor, Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of British Columbia

Dr. David Huntsman is a Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynaecology at The University of British Columbia (UBC) and is the Dr. Chew Wei Memorial Professor of Gynaelcologic Oncology. He is a a Staff Pathologist at the BC Cancer Agency (BCCA), and a Consulting Pathologist at the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH).

Dr. Huntsman is currently the Director of the BC multidisciplinary ovarian cancer research team (OvCaRe), Medical Director of the Centre for Translational and Applied Genomics (CTAG) at the BCCA, and co-Director of the Genetic Pathology Evaluation Centre (GPEC) at the Jack Bell Research Centre, VGH.

Dr. Huntsman research has led to development of predictive and prognostic tissue based cancer biomarkers for ovarian cancer and a wide variety of other tumour types. His team created a blueprint for subtype specific ovarian cancer control and have been leaders in the application of novel genomics technologies to ovarian cancer. As collaboration is critical in his field, Dr. Huntsman happily leads and engages in a wide number of multidisciplinary research groups. Most recently he has been working on the creation of broad based personalized medicine initiative for British Columbia.

He is the leader of the TFRI sponsored program grant to study the genomes of rare cancers and to translate discoveries made into biomarkers and treatment opportunities. This team hopes to both improve the management of a cluster of rare cancers and develop strategies and ideas that will have broader clinical impact.


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Since the early 1970s, there's been significant progress in the survival rates of some cancers, in particular testicular, skin, breast, and prostate cancers where the 10-year survival rates in the UK have increased, on average from 46% to 86%.

However, the UK still lags comparable European countries in cancer survival, and for some cancers, particularly lung, esophagus, pancreas and brain, the 10-year survival rates are only about 10% or less.

Late diagnosis
In Britain 50% of cancer patients are diagnosed late. This is the result of GPs misdiagnosing, and patient's reluctance to visit their doctors.

In his book, Malignant, Stanford University professor S Lochlann Jain suggests cancer diagnosis is missed in young adults because, "doctors often work under the misguided assumption that cancer is a disease of older people." For example, 80% of lung cancers are diagnosed at advanced stages.

Cancer survival rates are expected to improve as technology, and self-education develop. This is expected to reduce the role of primary care doctors, increase patient-centered healthcare, and reduce late diagnosis.
 
British stiff-upper-lip
In emerging countries, cancer patients present late because of a lack of education and money. In the UK, where medicine is free at the point of care, the British stiff-upper-lip is often the cause of late diagnosis.
 
A 2013 comparative study published in the British Journal of Cancer found that there was little difference in the awareness of cancer symptoms among patients, yet the British were less likely to act on them. It concluded that the traditional British 'stiff-upper-lip' means cancer patients are dying unnecessarily because they don't want to waste their GP's time with their symptoms or are too embarrassed to seek help.

 

Genomic medicine
A number of studies suggest that doctor-patient relationships are sub-optimal and based on asymmetry of information.
 
Such relationships will change when patients have access to information on their own DNA. Genomic medicine is a game-changer because of its potential to personalize patient care.
 
It only takes a few hours to sequence a person's genome, and costs are low and falling. A recent survey suggests that 81% of all US patients would like to have their genome sequenced. Eventually, this will mean that most people will have their genome sequenced so they can be properly cared for if they get sick.

Already some scientists and clinicians have started taking advantage of genomic sequencing, to tailor their approaches to individual differences.  In this personalized, patient-centred healthcare environment, primary care doctors are less important, and patients more important.  As this transformation occurs, early cancer diagnosis and survival rates are expected to rise.    
Technology driven patient-centered health
Increasingly, patients are employing the expanding array of mHealth apps to diagnose and treat their own ailments and this will increase as the technology develops and prices fall.

For example, patients have started using mHealth apps to measure activity, and changes in their vital signs and bodily functions. Current devices clipped to a finger can measure heart rates, and blood oxygen levels and these data can be transmitted to smartphones. Increasingly consumers will use these tools rather than visit primary care clinics.

Takeaways
Technological developments, self-education, and consumers' increased access to their health records, will help to correct the imbalance in information that now exists between doctors and patients.

As this happens, cancers will be diagnosed earlier, primary care centres will disappear, hospitals will exist only for intensive care, and sick patients with long-term chronic illnesses will be monitored and managed remotely from home.
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