Professor Ian Ellis is Professor of Cancer Pathology, Nottingham University and an Honorary Consultant Pathologist at the Nottingham City Hospital. He has been involved in the practice of pathology for 35 years and has an international reputation in clinical and translational research in breast disease, particularly classification and molecular pathology of breast cancer and evaluation of prognostic factors. He is author of over 700 peer reviewed scientific publications, chapters in medical textbooks and specialist textbooks in pathology and an experienced lecturer being a founder member of the faculty of the Nottingham Blamey International Breast Education Centre. His H Index is 104.
He is a Past President of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He has been Specialty Advisor to The Royal College of Pathologists, and is past Chairman of the UK National Co-ordinating Committee for Breast Pathology. He has acted as an advisor to the DoH, UICC, WHO and IARC. He is Medical Director of Source Bioscience plc. He retired from his full time University and honorary NHS consultant post at the end of August 2015, returning on a part time basis in October 2015.
He was named in 2010 as one of the top 20 most influential people in the field of breast cancer research in the world and one of just four UK scientists in the list compiled from a field of 44,000 scientists around the globe; as No 8 in the top 100 most influential laboratory medicine professionals in the World in a survey carried out by The Pathologist in 2015; and as one of the top 100 Pathologists Worldwide by The Pathologist in The Pathologist’s Power List 2018. His other awards included Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australia in 2011, The Presidents Medal, British Division of the International Academy of Pathology in 2014, NHS Clinical Excellence Award – Platinum in 2015, The Ritchie Medal by the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 2016, and first recipient of the BCRF-Larry Norton Award for Excellence in Breast Pathology by the International Society of Breast Pathology in 2018.
Prof Jane Visvader is joint head of the ACRF Cancer Biology and Stem Cells Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI). She obtained her PhD at the University of Adelaide. Following postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute and the WEHI, she took an appointment as a Harvard Medical School Instructor in Boston before she was recruited back by the prestigious Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium (VBCRC) to establish a Breast Cancer Laboratory.
Over the past two decades, Prof Visvader’s team have made important contributions to the mammary biology and breast cancer fields by isolating mammary stem cells, defining master regulators of mammary gland development and identifying genetic lesions that drive oncogenesis. In 2006, her team published a milestone study in Nature describing the successful isolation of the long-sought mouse mammary stem cell. In other work, it was revealed that breast stem cells are highly responsive to steroid hormone signalling, despite lacking hormone receptors, thus explaining the long-established epidemiological link between hormone exposure and breast cancer. Several master regulators that orchestrate cell fate decisions in the mammary gland have also been defined, providing an indispensable framework for understanding mammary lineage commitment and differentiation. Her group subsequently proved the existence of an analogous hierarchy in human breast and derived unique gene signatures for the different subpopulations. This work led to the discovery that aberrant luminal progenitors, rather than stem cells, are the transformation target in BRCA1- associated basal tumours. More recently, their extensive bank of human breast cancer xenografts has begun to serve as excellent preclinical models for testing new therapeutic drug combinations for the treatment of breast cancer.
Prof Visvader is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the recipient of a NHMRC Australia Fellowship. She has received many prestigious awards, including the Tschira Stiftung Lectureship (German Cancer Centre), the Royal Society of Victoria Medal for Excellence in Research, and the Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in Basic Science (joint award). She was also awarded the Lemberg Medal by the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2016.
Professor Ross Lawrenson, MBBS London, MD London, FRCGP, FFPH FAFPHM
Professor Ross Lawrenson is Professor of Population Health at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He is an epidemiologist and public health physician, whose main research interest is identifying ways of improving outcomes for cancer. He has worked both in the United Kingdom and in New Zealand as an academic and health services researcher. He has published a textbook on Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine and authored over 180 peer-reviewed papers. He is a former Chair of the National Screening Advisory Committee and a board member of the New Zealand Cancer Health Information Strategy and PHARMAC committees.
Professor Sarah-Jane Dawson, MBBS (Hons), FRACP, PhD (Cantab)
Professor Sarah-Jane Dawson is a clinician-scientist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre & The University of Melbourne, Australia. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Melbourne in 1998, and trained as a medical oncologist in Melbourne, Australia. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK. Following postdoctoral studies at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, she returned to Melbourne in 2014 to head the Molecular Biomarkers and Translational Genomics Laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. She also holds a joint appointment with the Centre of Cancer Research at The University of Melbourne (since 2016) and currently holds a CSL Centenary Fellowship (2018-2022). Her current research interests are focused on the development of noninvasive blood-based biomarkers ('liquid biopsies') for clinical application, including early detection, risk stratification and disease monitoring in cancer management.
Distinguished Professor Stephen Hursting, PhD, MPH
Dr Stephen Hursting is the AICR/WCRF Distinguished Professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He is also Professor at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He earned his PhD in nutritional biochemistry and MPH in nutritional epidemiology from UNC-Chapel Hill, and he completed postdoctoral training in molecular carcinogenesis and cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Prior to joining the UNC faculty in 2014, Dr Hursting was Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, the McKean-Love Endowed Chair of Nutritional, Molecular and Cellular Sciences in the UT College of Natural Sciences, and Professor of Molecular Carcinogenesis at the UT-MD Anderson Cancer Center (2005-14). He also previously served as Chief of the NCI’s Nutrition and Molecular Carcinogenesis Laboratory Section (2000-2005) and Deputy Director of the NCI’s Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (1999-2005). His research interests center on precision nutrition as applied to cancer prevention, particularly the molecular and metabolic mechanisms underlying obesity- cancer associations, and the interplay between obesity, metabolism, host genetics and cancer. Primarily using preclinical models (including human and mouse cell lines, genetically engineered mouse models of cancer, and genetically heterogeneous Collaborative Cross mice) in parallel with human studies, he is currently focusing on the molecular and metabolic changes occurring in response to lifestyle-based (dietary and physical activity); surgical (bariatric surgery), or pharmacologic manipulation of energy metabolism and cell signalling pathways. His lab is establishing that targeting growth factor signalling pathways, inflammation and the gut microbiome can reverse the procancer effects of obesity.
The scientific sessions will cover a wide range of the topics about the research on breast cancer. They include, but not limited to, the following: (A detailed programme will be updated in due course)
Epidemic & Precision Prevention
Screening & Early Detection
Breast Cancer Pathological and Molecular Stratifications
Genomics and Precision Medicine
Genetic Counselling
Targeted Therapy & Immunotherapy
Response and Resistance to Therapies
Tumour Microenvironment & Epigenetics
Cancer Stem Cells
Treatment Optimisation and Clinical Trials
Chemoradiation Therapy
Breast Reconstruction
Rehabilitation & Survivorship
Breast Cancer Biology and Novel therapeutics
Tissue Banking
Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Metastatic Breast Cancer
In addition, there will be sessions dedicated for breast cancer charitable or government organisations and support services to promote and acknowledge their support for research and those affected by breast cancer.
Our poster boards will accommodate either of the below dimensions. Poster size: A0, portrait, width x height (841 x 1189 mm, i.e. 33.1 x 46.8 in). Poster size: A0, landscape, width x height (1189 x 841 mm, 46.8 x 33.1 in).