In This Section

Program

Please note that this meeting will take place as an in-person event in Toronto and will not live-stream content for virtual participation. The meeting content will be recorded and made available as an on-demand program after the conference. Please see the registration page for details.

All presentations are scheduled to be live, in-person presentations at the date and time specified below unless noted otherwise. Program in progress.

*-Short talk from proffered abstract

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11

Monday, December 9

Registration

2:30-7 p.m.

WELCOME AND OPENING Keynote

5:15-6 p.m.

  • Welcome from Cochairs 
  • Introduction of Keynote Speaker 
    Angela N. Koehler, The Koch Institute at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Title to be announced
    Puja Sapra, AstraZeneca, Gaithersburg, Maryland

Plenary Session 1: Innovations opening up the potential for safer therapeutic agents

6-8 p.m.

Session Chair: Philip Jones, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

  • Leveraging synthetic lethality for the development of novel cancer therapies
    Kimberly J. Briggs, Tango Therapeutics, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Synthetic Lethality: Pathways to Therapeutic Discovery 
    Daniel J. Durocher, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Toronto, Canada 
  • Title to be announced
    David Hallett, Exscientia, Oxford, United Kingdom 

Short talks selected from proffered abstracts

Opening Reception  

8-9:30 p.m.

Tuesday, December 10

Breakfast

7-8 a.m.

Plenary Session 2: Developing efficacious drugs with better combinability 

8-9:45 a.m.

Session Chair: Chudi O. Ndubaku, Paraza Pharma, Montreal, QC, Canada 

  • Paul Workman, The Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom 
  • Timothy A. Yap, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  • Preclinical Approaches to Discovery and Development of Novel Combination Therapies
    Jerome Mettetal, AstraZeneca, Waltham, Massachusetts

Short talk selected from proffered abstracts

Keynote II

9:45-10:30 a.m.

Session Chair: Chudi O. Ndubaku, Paraza Pharma, Montreal, QC, Canada 

  • Pascal Fortin, Relay Therapeutics, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Break

10:30-11 a.m.

Spotlight Session

11 a.m.-12 p.m. 

Session Chair: Angela N. Koehler, The Koch Institute at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 

Lunch on own

12-1:30 p.m.

Plenary Session 3: Engineered Nanoscale Drug Delivery Systems / Modern Formulation-Driven Approaches  

1:30-3 p.m.

  • An integrative approach to nanomedicine: leveraging new tools to advance drug delivery
    Natalie Boehnke, University of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Bioengineering Cell-based Therapeutics
    Omid Veiseh, Rice University, Houston, Texas
  • Strategies to close the translational gap for nanoscale drug delivery systems
    Joelle Straehla, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington

Break

3-3:20 p.m.

Plenary Session 4:  Drug Design and Optimization – New and emerging targets 

3:20-5:20 p.m.

  • New targets for treatment of lung cancers
    Matthew L. Meyerson, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Discovery of the dual A2A/A2B receptor antagonist MK-1088 for the treatment of solid tumors
    Duane DeMong, Merck and Co., Boston, Massachusetts
  • Mechanistic insights for the advancement of PPARG inverse agonists in muscle invasive urothelial cancer
    Jacob I. Stuckey, Flare Therapeutics, Atlanta, Georgia

Short talks selected from proffered abstracts

Break

5:20 -5:45 p.m.

Plenary Session 5: Emerging frontiers in bivalent degraders: from
screening to data-driven insights

Session organized by the AACR Cancer in Chemistry Research (CICR) Working Group 

5:45-7:30 p.m.

Session Chair: Katherine Donovan, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

  • Mikko Taipale, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  • New frontiers in glue degraders and induced proximity drug design
  • Riccardo Sabatini, Orionis Biosciences, Waltham, Massachusetts
  • New chemistries to target transcription
    Michael A. Erb, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California
  • Additional speaker to be announced

Poster Session B/Reception  

7:30-9 p.m.

Wednesday, December 11

Breakfast

7 -8 a.m.

Plenary Session 6:  Drug Design and Optimization #2 – Brain penetration  

8-10a.m.

Session Chair: Chudi O. Ndubaku, Paraza Pharma, Montreal, QC, Canada 

  • Klaus Peter Hoeflich, Nested Therapeutics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Laurent Salphati, Genentech, San Francisco, California
  • Principles for the design of brain-penetrant molecules for the treatment of CNS metastatic tumors
    Dean Kahn, Ambrosia BioSciences, Boulder, Colorado

Short talks selected from proffered abstracts

Break

10-10:20 a.m.

Keynote III 

10:20-11 a.m.

Session Chair: Angela N. Koehler, The Koch Institute at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 

  • Introduction of Keynote Speaker 
    Philip Jones, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  • Title to be announced
    Patricia J. LoRusso, Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut

Plenary Session 7:  Selective Targeting – Gross Tissue-Restricting and Local (Non-Systemic) Administration (small molecule)

11 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

  • Discovery of DYP688, a first-in-class clinical-stage PMEL17-targeted antibody drug conjugate for the treatment of GNAQ/11-mutant uveal melanoma 
    Joe Wzorek, Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Kyuoti Tsuchikama, The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas
  • William Forrester, Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts  

Closing Remarks and Departure

1 p.m.