Organiser and Speaker Biographies

Arkaitz Carracedo, CIC bioGUNE, Bilbao, Spain

The career of Arkaitz Carracedo is based on answering and contributing to a fundamental question: what are the characteristics of the tumour cells that differentiate them from normal cells, and how can we use this knowledge to develop patient stratification strategies and innovative therapies?

His research group focuses on deciphering the essential requirements of cancer cells, with special emphasis on translating their findings from bench to bedside. To define the genuine features of cancer cells, they focus on the signalling and metabolic alterations in tumours.

Through a multidisciplinary approach with increasing complexity, his lab works on bioinformatics, cell lines and primary cultures (using cell and molecular biology technologies), mouse models of prostate cancer that are faithful to the human disease, and the analysis of human specimens through prospective and retrospective studies.

Arkaitz Carracedo established his line of research in CIC bioGUNE in late 2010, first as a Ramón y Cajal researcher and since 2011 as Ikerbasque Research Professor. Since 2012, he has been Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country. He has corresponded publications in Nature, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Communications and Cancer Research, and has influenced the field of cancer metabolism with relevant scientific reviews and the organization of internationally recognized congresses. This, in turn, has granted him a variety of awards and recognitions, as well as research funding from key national and international agents, ranging from foundations such as the AECC to the European Research Council with 3 ERC projects.

Mariangela Russo, University of Torino, Italy

Mariangela Russo is an Assistant Professor of the department of Oncology at University of Turin, in Italy.

Her scientific career started with a Master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology in Naples (Italy) and a II level Master specialization in Cancer Pharmacy and Pharmacology at University of Milan (italy). After her PhD in Complex Systems for Life Sciences in the biotechnology company Horizon Discovery in Cambridge (UK), where she learned how to exploit cell engineering and pharmacological high-throughput screening to characterize oncogenic mutants and their role in response to clinical treatments, she came back to Italy.

Dr Russo’s research is focused on the characterization of tumor heterogeneity and clonal evolution, and their impact on the clinical outcome of cancer patients.  Her studies provided insights into strategies that could be used to overcome the emergence of drug resistance. 

She recently led the discovery of previously unappreciated features of cancer cells by providing further insights on how tumor cells survive hostile environments generated by targeted agents, thus offering novel potential opportunities for therapeutic interventions and prevention of tumor recurrence.

Sankari Nagarajan, University of Manchester, UK

Dr. Nagarajan works on translational epigenetics, investigating the transcriptional regulation of disease progression in aggressive breast cancers. By obtaining a prestigious and competitive PhD scholarship from German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), she did her PhD in the University of Goettingen, Germany. Her successful PhD research on an epigenetic reader protein BRD4 in ER+ breast cancers introduced the possibility of using Bromodomain and Extraterminal domain-containing protein (BET) inhibitors as a therapeutic strategy against breast cancers. This body of work resulted in being awarded best PhD from her graduate program, Göttingen Graduate Center for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences. 

As a Research associate, she worked with Prof. Jason Carroll, CRUK Cambridge Instiutute. Using genome-wide CRISPR-based drug resistance screens and functional genomic approaches (ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, RNA-seq), she investigated a novel role for the SWI/SNF chromatin remodelling complex, and its subunit ARID1A in controlling endocrine treatment response. As a result of her achievements, she got promoted as a Senior Research Associate at CRUK Cambridge Institute. Then, she moved to Manchester to start her first PI position in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Function. Sankari is awarded a Career Establishment award by the charity Cancer Research UK for establishing her lab and a Breast cancer Now project grant. Sankari is actively involved in patient engagement activities. She is also a scientific advisory board member for the Lobular Breast Cancer UK Charity. 

Arianna Baggiolini, Institute of Oncology Research, Switzerland

Dr. Arianna Baggiolini is a Group Leader at the Institute of Oncology Research (IOR), part of the Bellinzona Institutes of Science (BIOS+), and an Assistant Professor at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Switzerland.

Arianna studies melanoma, one of the most aggressive skin cancers, because of its high metastatic potential. She is interested in defining how developmental programs are reactivated during the acquisition of a malignant state and how they regulate tumor formation and progression.  Her laboratory combines in vivo models and human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-based technologies to address how malignancy is regulated cell-intrinsically and depending on the microenvironment.

Arianna was elected Leading Edge Fellow, Gerry Fellow of the Gerry Metastasis and Tumor Ecosystems Center (GMTEC) at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and she is a Tri-Institutional Breakout Price and SNSF Starting grant awardee. 

María Muñoz Caffarel, Biogipuzkoa Health Research Centre, Spain

Maria works as a Principal Investigator (Ikerbasque Research Associate) in Biogipuzkoa Health Research Institute, San Sebastian, Spain, where she leads the Breast Cancer Group since 2020. Her research is focused on the role of inflammatory cytokines in breast cancer progression, in order to design new immunotherapies. Maria got her PhD in Madrid, Spain (Universidad Complutense) and spent 5,5 years as a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge (UK).

She is a Member of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) Early Career Researchers’s council.  Maria is also President of Biogipuzkoa Gender Equality Committee and enjoys participating in outreach and science dissemination activities with cancer patients’ charities and the general public.

Elisa Oricchio, EPFL Switzerland, Lausanne, Switzerland

Elisa Oricchio is the Director of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) and a professor at EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland). She received her Ph.D. in 2008 and did her post-doctoral training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she gained expertise in cancer genomics, genetic manipulation of transgenic animal models, and pre-clinical treatment studies.

Currently, her research focuses on cancer genomics, 3D chromatin organization, and B-cell malignancies. Throughout her career, she has identified oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes as new therapeutic targets or as biomarkers to better classify cancer patients. She has integrated linear cancer genomic analyses with tridimensional analyses of the genome to better understand tumor development and evolution.

Her work has been recognized with the EACR Translation Research Award, the Prix 
Leenaards for Translation Research, the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientist by the New York Academy of Science, the Lorini Award for Italian Scientist in Cancer Research. She is a board member of the European Association of Cancer Research (EACR), which is the major association for cancer research in Europe.

Karin de Visser, NKI Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Prof. dr. Karin E. de Visser obtained her PhD at the Division of Immunology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam in the field of tumor immunotherapy.

From 2003-2005 she worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. dr. Lisa Coussens at the University of California, San Francisco, where she developed an active interest in the interplay between the adaptive and innate immune system during cancer development. In 2005 she joined the laboratory of Prof. dr. Jos Jonkers at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, where she expanded her research direction into the field of inflammation and breast cancer, using conditional mouse models.

Currently she is senior group leader at the Division of Tumor Biology & Immunology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, alongside her appointment as group leader at Oncode Institute and as full professor of Experimental Immunobiology of Cancer at Leiden University Medical Center. The overall goal of her research is to understand by which mechanisms the immune system influences metastatic breast cancer.

Her research group identified how mammary tumors induce a systemic inflammatory response that facilitates metastasis formation (Coffelt et al. Nature 2015), how the genetic make-up of breast cancer dictates systemic pro-metastatic inflammation (Wellenstein et al. Nature 2019) and how eosinophils contribute to immunotherapy response of breast cancer (Blomberg et al. Cancer Cell 2023). Through mechanistic understanding of the crosstalk between the immune system and cancer she aims to contribute to the design of novel immunomodulatory strategies to fight metastatic breast cancer.

Karin de Visser received an ERC consolidator grant in 2014 and a prestigious NWO-VICI grant in 2019, she is recipient of the 2015 Metastasis Research Prize of the Beug Foundation, and in 2021 she was elected as EMBO member. More information can be found here: https://www.nki.nl/divisions/tumor-biology-immunology/de-visser-k-group/

Manuel Valiente, CNIO, Spain

Manuel Valiente is the Head of the Brain Metastasis Group at CNIO (2015-present). He investigates the biology of brain metastasis in order to challenge this unmet clinical need using his background in Neuroscience (PhD, Instituto de Neurociencias, 2005-2009) and Cancer Biology (Postdoc, MSKCC, 2010-2014).  

Specifically, his laboratory studies novel brain metastasis mediators, characterizes the metastasis-associated microenvironment, designs better experimental models and explores novel methods to target brain metastasis, including the frequent impact on brain activity. All these aims consider the brain environment as a critical component to understand the biology of this progression of cancer. 

Dr. Valiente has co-founded the first National Network of Brain Metastasis (RENACER) in Spain, which is allowing his team to speed up the translation of laboratory findings to the clinic. 

His contributions to brain metastasis research have been recognized with the Banco Sabadell Award, ASPIRE Award, ERC CoG, EMBO YIP, CLIP Award, Beug Foundation’s Prize for Metastasis Research, Bristol-Myers Squibb-MRA Young Investigator Award among others. 

He is the Chair of the Scientific Committee of the European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO), Board Member of the Metastasis Research Society (MRS) and ESMO faculty member (CNS Tumours faculty group).

Tim Hardingham, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Tim Hardingham is Emeritus Professor in the Wellcome Centre for Cell-Matrix Research at University of Manchester.

Tim has a PhD and DSc from University of Bristol and was for many years Head of Biochemistry at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London. Tim’s research focussed on molecular mechanisms in joint diseases and later moved into areas of tissue regeneration and stem cell biology. In this area he headed UK Centre for Tissue Engineering in Manchester (2001-2007). In his career he was awarded Colworth Medal of Biochemical Society, Roussel International Prize for basic research in Osteoarthritis and Carol Nachman Prize for Rheumatology. 

Tim contributes to New Academics Programs in Manchester on writing research grants. He has sat on many UK grant panels including MRC Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board, Arthritis Research UK (including as Chair), NC3Rs (Reduction, Refinement and Replacement of animals in research) and Royal Society Innovation and Fellowship Panels. He has also participated in Europe on EC funding and in the USA NIH study section on tissue engineering and bioengineering research partnerships and on a NASA/ESA Panel on projects on microgravity in biology for the international space station. 

Victoria Forster, Women's College Hospital, Toronto, Canada

Dr. Vicky Forster is a researcher, patient advocate and freelance health and science communicator. She currently works as the lead of patient and community engagement at Women's College Hospital in downtown Toronto, Canada and prior to that she was a postdoctoral research scientist specialising in organoid modelling of pediatric cancer.

As a 28-year survivor of childhood leukemia, Dr. Forster has always been a passionate advocate for better, kinder treatment for children with cancer as well as greater focus on cancer survivorship care and research. She is an award-winning science communicator and healthcare writer with outlets including The Times, The Guardian, Forbes and the AACR. She also lectures and runs workshops on science communication for scientists. She is a TED fellow, delivering her main stage talk on patient engagement and was featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in Europe in 2017 for her patient advocacy and science communication efforts.

Dr. Forster will talk about the importance of science communication in cancer research as well as discussing social media and personal branding.

Gisou van der Goot, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne / EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

Gisou van der Goot is the Head of the Laboratory of Cell and Membrane Biology at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in the School of Life Sciences of which she was the Dean from 2014 to 2020. She is now the Vice-President for Responsible Transformation.

Before joining EPFL, she was Group Leader at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and subsequently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the same university.

She studied engineering at the Ecole Centrale de Paris, then did a PhD in Molecular Biophysics at the Nuclear Energy Research Center, Saclay, France, followed by a postdoc at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. She obtained an EMBO Young Investigator award in 2001, a Howard Hughes International Scholar award in 2005 and the Swiss Prix Marcel Benoist in 2009, the same year she was elected EMBO member (European Molecular Biology Organisation). In 2012, she obtained the EPFL wide best teacher award, and in 2019 the Life Sciences best teacher award.

She is a leader in the fields of molecular and cellular understanding of bacterial toxins, the organization of mammalian membranes, and in organelle biology. She is one of the few experts worldwide of a key protein post-translational modification, S-acylation. Finally, she is the world expert of the molecular mechanisms Hyaline Fibromatosis Syndrome, a rare and severe pediatric genetic disease.

Professor van der Goot is or has been member of many scientific boards such as the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Council for Science and Technology, the European Research Council (ERC), the Louis Jeantet Foundation or the Bettencourt-Schuller Foundation.

Victoria Sanz-Moreno, ICR, London, UK

Victoria Sanz-Moreno received a degree in chemistry and later in biochemistry (University of Oviedo, Spain) followed by a PhD in chemical sciences studying Ras-MAPK signalling (University of Cantabria). She then joined Professor Chris Marshall’s lab at The Institute of Cancer Research in London as a Marie Curie Intra-European Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2008, she received the Applied Biosystems and EACR 40th Anniversary Research Award for her work on Rho GTPase signalling during cancer dissemination.

In 2011, Victoria started her independent group and received a CRUK Career Development Fellowship at King's College London to study transcriptional programs driving metastasis. In 2015, she was highly commended as CRUK Communications and Brand Ambassador. In 2017, she was awarded the BSCB Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award Medal and she received a CRUK Senior Fellowship to study the role of Rho kinase in cancer progression and therapy responses. In 2017-2018, she was featured by Journal of Cell Science as “Cell Scientist to Watch” and by Journal of Cell Biology for her work on Rho GTPases.

In 2018, Victoria joined Barts Cancer Institute (Queen Mary University of London) as Professor of Cancer Cell Biology to study how cytoskeletal dynamics in metastatic cancer cells alter the tumour microenvironment. In 2021, she was elected to be part of “Ruta de las Cientificas”- an App celebrating the achievements of 9 women in STEM. In 2022 she received the Estela Medrano Memorial Award from the Society for Melanoma Research, the VP Award for Research Excellence from Queen Mary's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and the Research Impact Award at Barts Cancer Institute.

In September 2023, Victoria’s lab moved to the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research. Combining cell biology, OMICs, mouse models, patient material and digital pathology, Victoria’s lab works on understanding how cytoskeletal dynamics in cancer cells control local invasion, dissemination, survival and outgrowth at the secondary site. Her lab is interested in deciphering how metastatic cancer cells interact with their microenvironment while evading anti-cancer therapies while the ultimate goal is to find anti-metastasis therapies.

She is passionate about science communication and promoting diversity in science.

Maurizio Scaltriti, AstraZeneca, Gaithersburg, USA

Maurizio Scaltriti is a translational researcher working in the field of experimental therapeutics. After his PhD in molecular biology at the University of Modena (Italy), he moved to Barcelona (Spain) for a postdoc in José Baselga’s laboratory. In 2010, he moved to Boston to be appointed Instructor of Medicine at the Mass General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and in 2013 he was recruited at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as an Assistant Professor. In 2016 he was promoted Associate Professor and built a laboratory that worked back to back with physicians of the Early Drug Development Service. The main focus of his team was the identification of novel mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapy and to provide insights to better select patients who are more likely to benefit from specific treatments. 

During the past 17 years, Dr Scaltriti focused his research upon understanding how the selective pressure imposed by targeted therapy modifies the evolution of drug resistance in breast cancer. He discovered that truncated forms of HER2, lacking the extracellular domain, limit the activity of the FDA- approved anti-HER2 antibody trastuzumab. Moreover, he found that amplification and/or overexpression of cyclin E negatively correlates with clinical response to trastuzumab-based therapy. Concurrently, he proposed new therapeutic strategies to overcome or delay the emergence of such resistance. One example is dual HER2 blockade using trastuzumab and lapatinib in combination, showing superior results compared to single-agent therapy both in preclinical models and in the clinical setting. Moreover, he discovered that, among the HER2-positive tumors, there is a subset that is more dependent on HER2 for survival and is exquisitely sensitive to anti-HER2 therapy.

In the field of PI3K inhibitors, Dr. Scaltriti proposed that PI3K blockade can be combined with PARP inhibition in triple negative breast cancer models or with mTORC1 inhibitors or anti-endocrine therapy in PIK3CA-mutant models to achieve synergistic antitumor activity. Moreover, he contributed to the discovery that sustained mTOR activity can limit the efficacy of PI3Kα-specific inhibitors in both head and neck and breast cancers, and that mTORC1 activity can be sustained also in a PI3K-independent manner via activation of either the EGFR-PKC axis or the PDK1-SGK1 signaling. He also demonstrated that progressive loss of PTEN expression leads to acquired resistance to PI3Kα-specific inhibition in breast cancer. More recently, he co-led a seven-year long project that resulted in the discovery that ~15% of PIK3CA mutant breast cancers carry two distinct PIK3CA mutations in the same. Importantly, Dr. Scaltriti uncovered that dual PIK3CA mutant tumors have hyperactive PI3K pathway and are exquisitely sensitive to the antitumor activity of specific PI3K inhibitors. 

In 2016, Dr. Scaltriti was promoted Associate Director of Translational Science of the Center for Molecular-Based Therapy and he broadened his research interests in the characterization of actionable genomic alterations found in solid tumors and in studying novel drug delivery platforms. Examples of these studies are the discovery that convergent mechanisms activating the MAPK pathway in NTRK-fused solid tumors can result in resistance to 1st- and 2nd- generation TRK inhibitors and that HER2 altered lung tumors respond to antibody-drug conjugates in combination with irreversible HER2 inhibitors.

In October 2020 Maurizio moved to industry and was appointed VP for Translational Medicine in the Early Oncology Department of AstraZeneca. In this new role, Maurizio leads a team of ⁓150 people and contributes to the development of new compounds and the design of innovative clinical trials. 

Dr Scaltriti is internationally recognized as an opinion leader in targeted therapy and translational science. His missions is also to bring cutting edge treatments to the real world, to render novel efficacious treatments accessible to every patient.

Gavin Lucas, TPM Science, Barcelona, Spain

I am a scientist with 13 years experience as a biomedical researcher in population genetics, and a solid track-record as a publishing scientist on national, European and international research projects. 

Since 2008, I have worked as a scientific editor and consultant, and have helped publish over five hundred original scientific articles for dozens of institutes in diverse fields, as well as many competitive funding proposals under national, European and International funding programs. 

I also have extensive experience as a trainer in scientific writing and other transferable skills for researchers. With my team at TPM, we now provide transferrable skills training, manuscript review, and grants consultancy services for researchers at research institutes, universities, European research networks, and private companies.