Yale Cancer Center Research Breakthroughs Unveiled at AACR Annual Meeting

Yale Cancer Center (YCC) experts will present at the 2025 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, which kicks off this Friday in Chicago at the McCormick Place Convention Center. As one of the largest global gatherings of cancer experts, the meeting will highlight new cancer treatments and practice-changing clinical trials from around the world.

The five-day event themed, “Unifying Cancer Science and Medicine: A Continuum of Innovation for Impact,” will feature Yale Cancer Center’s Patricia LoRusso, DO, the AACR President. Dr. LoRusso will speak during the meeting’s opening ceremony, deliver her presidential address on transforming global cancer care, and lead a special session on optimizing radiotheranostics (delivering radiation specifically to cancer cells, minimizing exposure to healthy tissues) to diagnose and treat cancer. Dr. LoRusso leads early clinical trials and cancer drug development at Yale Cancer Center and is an internationally recognized leader in trial research.

The AACR Annual Meeting will include oral and poster presentations as well as educational sessions, showcasing cutting-edge cancer science and medicine. Yale Cancer Center expert Kurt Schalper, MD, PhD and Yale's Angela Kim will also deliver presentations during two key plenary sessions on tumor-immune cell interactions and pediatric cancer, respectively.

Featured Yale Cancer Center presentations:

Sunday, April 27

• Reduction of social disparities in clinical cancer feature prediction via somatic evolutionary embedding of mutational data

Presenter: Jeffrey P. Townsend, PhD

• Aurora kinase A inhibition overcomes tolerance to pan-HER inhibitors in HPV positive Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC)

Presenter: Barbara Burtness, MD

• Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and Immuno-oncology Focused Biological Approaches

Session chair: Michael Cecchini, MD

Monday, April 28

• AACR-ASCO Joint Session: Insights in Carrier Systems, Radionuclides, and Sensitivity for Optimal Radiotheranostics/Introduction from the AACR President

Chair and Speaker: Dr. LoRusso

Tuesday, April 29

• Decoding the role of spatial tumor-immune cell interactions in cancer progression and treatment sensitivity

Plenary Session Presenter: Dr. Schalper

• NAPRT (nicotinate phosphoribosyltransferase) protein expression and epigenetic regulation in pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma as a potential biomarker for NAMPT (nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase) enzyme inhibition

Plenary Session Presenters: Angela Kim; Prateek Bhardwaj; Karlie N. Lucas; Collin D. Heer; Raffaella Morotti; Ranjini K. Sundaram; Wenyue Sun; and Juan Vasquez, MD

• FDA Center for Tobacco Products' (CTP) Priorities for Regulating Tobacco Products to Protect the Public Health in 2025

Speaker: Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, PhD

• Charting gastric cancer evolution through tumor ecosystems and metastatic pathways

Presenter: Raghav Sundar, MD, PhD

• Datopotomab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), a TROP2 directed antibody-drug conjugate, demonstrates remarkable antitumor activity in uterine serous carcinoma

Presenters: Michelle Greenman; Cem Demirkiran; Stefania Bellone; Tobias Hartwich; Blair McNamara; Victoria Ettorre; Niccolo G. Santin; Namrata Sethi; Luca Palmieri; Yang Yang-Hartwich, PhD; Katyayani Papatla, MD; Elena Ratner, MD; Alessandro D. Santin, MD

• Adoptive Cell Therapies

Speaker: Sidi Chen, PhD

• Epigenetic Regulation and Its Impact on Drug Response, Disease Pathogenesis, and Outcomes Across Pediatric and Adult Cancers

Speaker: Nita Ahuja, MD

• New insights into EGFR-driven lung adenocarcinoma

Presenter: Katerina Politi, PhD

For journalists interested in arranging interviews, please contact michael.masciadrelli@yale.edu.