Keynote Speakers
BORIS KHOLODENKO
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
& YALE UNIVERSITY
Prof. Boris Kholodenko is Professor of Systems Biology at Systems Biology Ireland and UCD Conway Institute. He is also Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, USA. Prof. Kholodenko developed the first data-driven, mechanistic model of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor signaling, Modular Response Analysis (MRA) to unravel causal, direct connections in cellular networks, and cell State Transition Assessment and Regulation (cSTAR) approach to map cell states, model cell transitions, and predict targeted interventions that convert cell fate decisions. He is the author of more than 250 publications, including papers in Nature, Cell, Science, and PNAS, and is recognized as a leader in the field of Systems Biology.​
AEDIN CULHANE
UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK
Aedín Culhane is a Professor of Biomedical Sciences (Cancer Genomics) in the UL School of Medicine. She is a computational oncologist with expertise in multi-omics data integration, statistical genomics, clinical bioinformatics and genomics in oncology. She has over 20 years’ experience in cancer genomics, of which over 15 years were in the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, USA. Her recent research focuses on algorithm development and integrative data of single cell molecular data in cancer to identify molecules that regulate and can be targeted during tumour development, progression, drug response and resistance. She is a member of the Human Cell Atlas (https://www.humancellatlas.org ) project. She is a leader in the Bioconductor (www.bioconductor.org) community, a global open source, open development software in R for genomics and an advocate for open source science.
KEVAN SHOKAT
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
SAN FRANCISCO & UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
Kevan is currently an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF and a Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley. He was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences (2010), the Institute of Medicine (2011), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011). His lab is most well-known for drugging the "undruggable" oncogene K-Ras (G12C) in 2013. K-Ras was the first human oncogene to be discovered in 1982 and remained undrugged until work from the Shokat lab at UCSF. In May of 2021 the drug sotorasib which binds to the same pocket on K-Ras (G12C) was approved for the treatment of lung cancer patients with this mutation. The field of K-Ras drug discovery is expanding quickly to hunt for drugs to target the other K-Ras mutants such as those which drive colon and pancreatic cancers which collectively represent almost 20% of all cancer patients world-wide. Kevan has been a co-founder of a number companies from their inception to public offering or acquisition: Intellikine (acquired by Takeda), Araxes (acquired by Janssen), eFFECTOR Pharmaceuticals (stock symbol: EFTR), Erasca (stock symbol: ERAS), Kura Oncology (stock symbol: KURA), and Revolution Medicines (stock symbol: RVMD). He is a co-founder of several currently private companies.
ERKUT BORAZANCI
HONOR HEALTH RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Dr. Erkut Borazanci is Deputy Directory of Oncology at HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona. Dr. Borazanci holds adjunct appointments as clinical associate professor at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and clinical assistant professor at University of Arizona. Dr. Borazanci obtained his Master of Science in molecular biology and biochemistry at Louisiana State University (LSU) Health. He completed medical school, internal medicine residency, and oncology fellowship at LSU Health Shreveport. His specialty is gastrointestinal oncology, particularly pancreatic cancer. Dr. Borazanci is the principal investigator for several clinical trials, many of which are phase I and are first in human studies. He has a strong interest in pancreatic cancer and his research has been published in Nature, JAMA Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, and the Oncologist, among others. HonorHealth Research Institute has closely worked with TGen along with several collaborators to bring new and promising agents to offer as treatment options at HonorHealth Research Institute.
