Professor Sir John Burn obtained a first class honours degree in human genetics and an MD with distinction from Newcastle University, where he has been Professor of Clinical Genetics since 1991. He was appointed as a consultant specialist in Newcastle in 1984 and led the regional NHS Genetics Service for 20 years.

He helped to create the Millennium landmark Centre for Life, which houses an education, and science centre alongside NHS regional genetics and fertility services and University research. He is chair of the Newcastle based DNA device company QuantuMDx Ltd. He was knighted in 2010 and chosen as one of the first 20 ‘local heroes’ to have a brass plaque on Newcastle Quayside in 2014. He is a Trustee of the European Hereditary Tumour Group, UNESCO NGO Global Variome and HUGO (the Human Genome Organisation) London. He is Vice President of HUGO international.

Former roles include founding Chair the UK Cancer Genetics Group (1997-2003) and of the International Society for Gastrointestinal Hereditary Tumours (InSiGHT 2003-5), President of the European Society of Human Genetics (2006-2007), Chair of the British Society for Genetic Medicine (2011-2013), Lead Clinician, Northern Strategic Health Authority (2010-2014), Non-executive Director NHS England (2014-2018) and Chair of Newcastle Hospitals (2017 -2023).

He leads the Cancer Prevention Programme research group at Newcastle University; CAPP2, an RCT in 16 countries, showed that aspirin reduces by half the risk of colorectal cancer in Lynch syndrome (Burn et al Lancet 2020) and resistant starch supplements reduce the risk of other LS cancers by more than half (Mathers et al Cancer Prev res 2022).

After spending 20 years at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rebbeck joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard TH Chan School in 2015 as the Vincent L. Gregory, Jr. Professor of Cancer Prevention. Professor Rebbeck serves as the director for the Zhu Family Center for Global Cancer Prevention Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and the Center for Global Health Equity at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Professor Rebbeck’s research has contributed to an understanding of the causes and prevention of cancer, with an emphasis on cancer genetics, prostate cancer disparities, and global health equity. He directs large, multicenter studies and international consortia that have identified genetic, molecular, and epidemiological factors associated with cancer risk, outcomes, and disparities. He leads the international Men of African Descent and Carcinoma of the Prostate (MADCaP) network and has led a number of consortia studying hereditary cancer risk and prevention. He also directs the NCI-funded African cancer STARS training program that supports career development for African cancer researchers and project managers. Dr. Rebbeck has mentored over 65 trainees, most of whom hold positions in academia. He has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1994.

Professor Thea Tlsty is leading a Cancer Grand Challenges Programme, and is a Professor of Pathology at the University of California(link is external), San Francisco. She has proposed work that will help understand how chronic inflammation is linked to cancer.

Inflammation is part of the body’s immune response, but its role in the transformation of healthy cells into cancer cells remains poorly understood.

Professor Tlsty’s research group, based in the US, is looking to understand what genetic, epigenetic and functional changes fuel the start and progression of cancers associated with chronic inflammation. More importantly, they are also studying the cells that compose the tissues surrounding where these cancers grow, to understand their influence on cancer development.

Recent work has indicated that signals from the cells surrounding cancers can control whether or not the cancer grows or disappears. Harnessing these signals to prevent or reverse the cancer process would be a powerful new weapon in the therapeutic arsenal. The aim is to determine whether it’s possible to reprogramme the stromal cells (those cells immediately surrounding cancer cells) rather than treating the cancer cells directly.

Professor Tlsty is leading a diverse team of experts involved in the fields of biology, physics and engineering from the US, Canada, the UK and Israel.

The results from this work could lead to new ways to detect and treat cancers caused by inflammation and develop new options to prevent cancer in high-risk patients with chronic inflammatory disease.

Professor Karen Canfell is the inaugural Director of the Daffodil Centre, a joint venture between the University of Sydney and Cancer Council NSW. She is an epidemiologist, modeller, and a translationally-focused population health researcher. The focus of her program of research is to provide policy-makers with an evidence-base for decision making in cancer control. Her research has impacted cancer-control policy nationally and globally.

Prof Canfell has led evaluations of new cancer screening approaches for government agencies in several countries. She currently leads an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cervical Cancer Control (C4) and co-leads Compass, Australia’s largest clinical trial (76,000 women) which is the first major international experience of cervical screening in an HPV-vaccinated population. Her team’s work underpins the 2017 transition of the National Cervical Screening Program in Australia from Pap smears to 5-yearly HPV-based screening. She currently has active collaborative modelling grants from the US NIH and WHO to model cervical cancer prevention in the USA and globally, as well as active projects across cancer control. Her team first proposed the current threshold for cervical cancer elimination and performed the first modelling of elimination in any country, showing that Australia is on track to be the first country in the world to support this milestone. Her work as one of the co-leads of the WHO Cervical Cancer Elimination Modelling Consoritum on elimination for WHO was presented and discussed at the Executive Board of the World Health Assembly in 2020 and supported the formal resolution by WHO to support the cervical cancer elimination initiative, launched in late 2020.

Prof. Canfell is the CIA/Lead of the Cancer-PPP program of work, a major MRFF-funded endeavor to model cancer incidence, prevalence, and outcomes in Australia. She also initiated and co-leads the Covid-19 and Cancer Global Modelling Consortium (CCGMC.org) a collaborative endeavour to model the global impact of the pandemic on cancer prevention/risk, screening, and outcomes. She is a past keynote speaker at the World Cancer Conference and World Cancer Leader’s Summit.

She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, a past NHMRC national research excellence award-winner, and the 2021 recipient of Cancer Australia’s Jeanne Ferris Award for her contributions to gynecological cancer research.

Dr. Panigrahy was accepted into medical school at Boston University at age 17. He trained in surgery with Dr. Roger Jenkins, who performed the first liver transplant in New England. Over the past decade, Dr. Panigrahy led angiogenesis and cancer animal modeling in the Judah Folkman laboratory. Dr. Panigrahy joined the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 2013, and in 2014 was appointed Assistant Professor of Pathology and currently has a laboratory in the Center for Vascular Biology Research.

Dr. Panigrahy was accepted into medical school at Boston University at age 17. He trained in surgery with Dr. Roger Jenkins, who performed the first liver transplant in New England. Over the past decade, Dr. Panigrahy led angiogenesis and cancer animal modeling in the Judah Folkman laboratory. Dr. Panigrahy joined the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 2013, and in 2014 was appointed Assistant Professor of Pathology and currently has a laboratory in the Center for Vascular Biology Research.

Dr. Snyder received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics, and one of the major participants of the ENCODE project.

1977 B.A, Chemistry and Biology, University of Rochester, NY 1978-1982 Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, CA Advisor: Dr. Norman Davidson 1982-1986 Postdoctoral Research Stanford University School of Medicine, CA Advisor: Dr. Ronald Davis 1986-2009 Faculty Dept of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 2009-present Dept of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA

As the Director of VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, I establish the center's vision and mission and oversee all initiatives, research, training and clinical activities. As a pulmonologist and physician-scientist, my research centers on lung cancer, health disparities and community-based health care. I am committed to developing methods to eliminate health disparities, and I will continue to focus my efforts to empower underserved patient populations, improve health care delivery and ensure equal access to cutting-edge medical treatments.