2023 Conference DAY 2

Download your copy of the 2023 full event guide for a comprehensive view of both conference days.

8:00 am Morning Networking

8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

  • Minakshi Guha LBx Strategy Lead, Precision Medicine and Companion Diagnostics, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

Accelerating Clinical Adoption of Liquid Biopsies For Earlier Patient Access

9:00 am Patient Access to Liquid Biopsy Quality Testing

  • Cecilia Schott Vice President, Global Head Precision Diagnostics, Novartis AG

Synopsis

  • Painting a picture of the patients understanding of liquid biopsy
  • Developing a robust infrastructure; where to get tested and who pays for it?
  • Interpreting tests to ensure actionability

9:30 am Panel Discussion: Driving Widespread Adoption of Reproducible, Innovative & Clinically Validated LBx Tests to Improve Patient Access through Increased Reimbursements

  • David Yu Director, Bristol Myers Squibb
  • Cecilia Schott Vice President, Global Head Precision Diagnostics, Novartis AG
  • Amanda Acerbi Precision Medicine Global Director, Janssen

Synopsis

  • What are the challenges faced in obtaining reimbursement for LBx tests?
  • How to advise recommendations to improve reimbursement policies for LBx tests used in surveillance?
  • What role does standardization, enhanced evidence generation, and ongoing communication/collaboration between stakeholders play in achieving reimbursements?

10:00 am Morning Networking Break

Utilizing ctDNA, cfRNA, & cfDNA for Tumor Profiling to Predict Disease Progression & Identify High-Risk Patients

11:00 am Background Variability of ctDNA Levels in Plasma of Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer in the Absence of Treatment

Synopsis

  • Quantifying changes in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) can rapidly identify patients responding to therapy
  • Accurate quantification of ctDNA levels is required and it’s important to understand biological and technical variabilities in ctDNA measurements
  • The results of our analysis of technical and biological variability of ctDNA levels in pre-treatment samples from patients with advanced EGFRm NSCLC, highlighting the importance of biological variability and the stringent molecular response definition

11:30 am New Paradigm in Liquid Biopsy: Combined Cell-Free RNA (cfRNA) & DNA (cfDNA)

Synopsis

  • Increasing sensitivity and specific of liquid bx by adding cfRNA testing to cfDNA testing
  • cfRNA provides a spectrum of biomarkers that can be used for classification of the tumor, predicting prognosis, and evaluating the host immune response
  • Reliable detection of fusion genes when cfRNA is used even when the partner gene is not known

12:00 pm ctDNA in Metastatic Settings to Assess Progression & Molecular Responses for the Identification of High-Risk Patients

Synopsis

  • How ctDNA is used for progression and identifying high risk patients that will progress further than others in the metastatic setting?
  • How to implement ctDNA surrogate biomarkers in clinical trials?
  • What is the best assay to assess the molecular response in metastatic setting?
  • How to harmonize the generation of data across the industry to do meta-data analysis for on-going clinical trials and learn how to use ctDNA?

12:30 pm Lunch & Networking Break

Implementing Post-Diagnosis Longitudinal Monitoring to Evaluate Tumor Progression & Resistance for Robust Treatment Management

Chair:

  • Aadel Chaudhuri Assistant Professor, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

1:30 pm Uncovering the Clinical Utility of Chromosomal Instability from cfDNA Demonstrating Clinical Impact of Longitudinal Monitoring Pre- & Post-Surgery

  • Phillip Galbo Senior Translational Research Scientist, Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Synopsis

  • Using novel bioinformatic techniques to identify and validate the presence of chromosomal instability in cfDNA as a potential biomarker for cancer detection.
  • Longitudinal monitoring of cfDNA chromosomal instability among pre- and post-surgery samples.
  • Exploring the clinical applications of cfDNA chromosomal instability

2:00 pm Unraveling the Implications of ctDNA As a Biomarker Using Tumor-Informed MRD for Solid Tumors

Synopsis

• ctDNA is a good biomarker in MRD determination, the prognosis value of using ctDNA to determine MRD status in solid tumor had been demostrated in many clinical study.

• The sensitivity of the MRD test plays a crucial role in detecting ctDNA in patients due to the extremely low abundance of ctDNA in blood.

• brPROPHET adopts a tumor-informed personalized panel approach on MRD assessment with a limit of detection of 40 ppm, which its capabilities of prognosis prediction and monitoring therapeutic response have been shown in clinical studies on different cancer types

2:30 pm Using ctDNA to Guide Clinical Decision Making in Phase I Oncology Trials

Synopsis

  • ctDNA can be more useful than tumor tissue in identification or screening patients
  • ctDNA can be a PD biomarker as well early indicator of clinical efficacy
  • Longitudinal monitoring emerging tumor gene alterations in ctDNA can help understand resistance mechanisms and guide patient management

3:00 pm Liquid Biopsy in Post Diagnosis for Early Cancer Monitoring

Synopsis

Details to be revealed

3:30 pm Afternoon Networking Break

Harnessing Microfluidic, Methylation & Fragmentomic Strategies to Characterize Targets for Earlier Detection

Chair:

4:00 pm LBx-Based Early Detection of Heterotopic Ossification

  • Murat Karabacak Instructor at Harvard Medical School, Scientific Director of SHC Mass Spectrometry Facility, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School

Synopsis

  • There is an urgent need for screening and diagnostic technologies for trauma-associated conditions
  • High-throughput microfluidic technology enables the isolation of rare cells from blood samples as LBx
  • Rare circulating cells enable early detection of trauma-induced or genetic forms of heterotopic ossification

4:30 pm TM4SF1: An Attractive Target for Early Detection of Solid Tumors

Synopsis

  • What are the challenges associated with the low number of CTCs?
  • Why is it important to identify the CTCs before they progress into a tumor in early detection?
  • How to use Affymetrix to identify novel targets?
  • How to characterize functions of ADCs as target for liquid biopsies?
  • How to use Affymetrix to identify novel targets?

5:00 pm Strategies to Boost ctDNA MRD Sensitivity

  • Aadel Chaudhuri Assistant Professor, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Synopsis

  • Clinical data regarding sensitivity and specificity in patients
  • Novel strategies to boost sensitivity outside of blood plasma (e.g. proximal biofluids)
  • Looking at cfDNA such as methylation and fragmentomics to increase sensitivity

5:30 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks & End of the 2nd LBx Surveillance & Early Detection Summit