In This Section

NextGen Stars

AACR Annual Meeting 2025 NextGen Stars Program

NextGen Stars Application Deadline: October 10, 2024, 5:00 p.m. ETSubmit Application

The prestigious AACR NextGen Stars program includes a competitive application process. The Annual Meeting Program Committee invites AACR Associate Members and early-career and early-stage Active members to apply for the opportunity to give a talk in a major session at the meeting.

Application Process

  • Applicants must be AACR Associate Members or Active Members who are not above the level of Assistant Professor or equivalent. Please note that you must be an AACR member in good standing (dues paid for the current year) in order to submit an application. Applicants who do not meet these criteria will not be able to apply. Nonmembers are encouraged to apply for AACR membership. You may either submit the Official AACR Membership Application online or download the application and submit it to the AACR office with the required documents. Please allow 30 days for application review and approval notification. Visit www.aacr.org/Membership or contact [email protected] with any questions. 
  • Applications consist of an extended abstract (limit 8,000 characters including spaces), a CV, and a letter of recommendation from your P.I., department head, or another mentor who is familiar with your work. Only complete applications will be considered. The application deadline is 5 p.m. ET, Thursday, October 10, 2024.  
  • Between 5 and 10 applicants will be chosen to give a talk, regardless of the number of applications received. 

Information for selected presenters

  • Selected talks will be added to existing Major Symposia and Advances sessions, based on the subject matter of the abstract. Most talks will be 15 minutes in length plus 5 minutes for discussion, but the assigned length of the talk may vary depending on the session. 
  • Applicants who are selected to give talks at the Annual Meeting will receive travel support and complimentary registration for the meeting. 

Note Regarding Regular Abstract Submission

  • The submission of an extended abstract through this NextGen Stars application process is completely separate from the submission of a regular abstract for the AACR Annual Meeting. Applicants will be notified of their status by mid-November. Those who are not selected as a NextGen Star but still wish to submit an abstract to the Annual Meeting must submit a separate abstract through the normal abstract submission process by the regular abstract deadline of Tuesday, November 26, 2024.  

Congratulations to the 2024 NextGen Stars!

Israel Canadas, PhD 

Israel Canadas, PhD 

Assistant Professor 
Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
Targeting DHX9 to trigger viral mimicry and immunotherapy responsiveness in small cell lung cancer 
Major Symposium SY46
Communication between DNA Damage and Immune Responses in Cancer
Monday, April 8, 2024

Gabriele Casirati, MD, PhD

Gabriele Casirati, MD, PhD

Research Fellow
Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts
Epitope editing enables targeted immunotherapy of acute myeloid leukemia
Advances in Hematologic Malignancies AHM04
Basic, Translational, and Clinical Advances in ALL and AML
Monday, April 8, 2024

Kathleen Houlahan, PhD

Kathleen Houlahan, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Stanford University, Stanford, California
Germline-mediated immunoediting sculpts breast cancer subtypes and metastatic proclivity
Major Symposium SY02
Understanding and Predicting Tumor Evolution
Monday, April 8, 2024

Kara N. Maxwell, MD, PhD

Kara N. Maxwell, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Distinct genomic and immunologic tumor evolution in germline TP53-driven breast cancers
Advances in the Science of Cancer Disparities ASD01
Molecular Profiling in Breast Cancer and Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Monday, April 8, 2024

Arnav Mehta, MD, PhD

Arnav Mehta, MD, PhD

Assistant in Medicine
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Dissecting and quantifying pancreatic cancer plasticity using single-cell multiomics, lineage tracing and functional genomics reveals novel mediators of therapy resistance
Advances in Organ Site Research AOS06
Impact of Tumor Heterogeneity on the Evolution of Pancreatic Cancer
Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Abhijit Parolia, MS, PhD

Abhijit Parolia, MS, PhD

Assistant Professor
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
NSD2 is a requisite subunit of the AR/FOXA1 neo-enhanceosome in promoting prostate tumorigenesis
Advances in Organ Site Research AOS07
Androgen Receptor as a Pro-Differentiation and Oncogenic Transcription Factor in Prostate Cancer
Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Olivier Saulnier, PhD

Olivier Saulnier, PhD

Junior Group Leader
Institut Curie, Paris, France
Tracing the developmental origins of group 3 medulloblastoma
Major Symposium SY27
Targeting Aberrant Transcription in Pediatric Cancer
Monday, April 8, 2024

Alison M. Taylor, PhD

Alison M. Taylor, PhD

Assistant Professor
Columbia University, New York, New York
Functional and computational approaches to uncover selection advantages of cancer aneuploidy
Advances in Technologies AT06
Next Generation Functional Genomics for Target Discovery
Monday, April 8, 2024

Claire E. Thomas, PhD, MPH

Claire E. Thomas, PhD, MPH

Postdoctoral Fellow
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington
Association between somatic microsatellite instability, hypermutation status, and specific T-cell subsets in colorectal cancer tumors
Major Symposium SY32
Crosstalk within the Tumor Ecosystem
Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Ignacio Vazquez-Garcia, PhD

Ignacio Vazquez-Garcia, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
Evolutionary dynamics of whole-genome doubling in ovarian cancer
Advances in Technologies AT04
Mutational Processes in Cancer: From Replication Stress to Complex Genomic Rearrangements
Tuesday, April 9, 2024