March 5th, 2025
| 08:00 a.m. – 09:45 a.m. |
Registration |
| 09:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | Welcome Congress Chairs and AEK Chair |
| 10:00 a.m – 11:30 a.m. | Symposium 1: Metastatic cancer progression Chair: Christoph Klein (Regensburg, Germany) |
| 10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. | Early Dissemination and Cancer Cell Dormancy: Rethinking Metastasis Biology Julio Aguirre-Ghiso (New York, USA) |
| 10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. | Coordinate regulation of metastasis by cancer cell state and intercellular interactions Andrew Ewald (Baltimore, USA) |
| 11:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Local immunosuppression of tumor-draining lymph nodes via fibroblast-monocyte axis drives metastasis Greta Mattavelli (Würzburg, Germany) |
| 11:15 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Intracellular Enclosure of Intestinal Bacteria in Colorectal Cancer Cells Drives Liver Metastasis Formation Reinhild Feuerstein (Freiburg, Germany) |
| 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Lunch Break |
| 12:30 p.m. – 02:00 p.m. | Symposium 2: Metabolism Chair: Thomas Brabletz (Erlangen, Germany) |
| 12:30 p.m. – 01:00 p.m. | Targeting metabolic liabilities in cancer metastasis Alpaslan Tasdogan (Essen, Germany) |
| 01:00 p.m. – 01:30 p.m. | Mechanobiology of metastasis Victoria Sanz-Moreno (London, UK) |
| 01:30 p.m. – 01:45 p.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Selenoprotein O drives melanoma metastasis and modulates mitochondrial complex II activity Luiza Martins Nascentes Melo (Essen, Germany) |
| 01:45 p.m. – 02:00 p.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Lipid Metabolism as Mediator between Microbiota and Cancer: Fatty acid synthesis is crucial for colorectal cancer and regulated by the gut microbiome Florian Jokisch (Munich, Germany) |
| 02:00 p.m. – 02:30 p.m. | Poster Flash Talk |
| 02:30 p.m. – 04:30 p.m. | Coffee Break and Poster Session 1 |
| 04:30 p.m. – 06:00 p.m. | Symposium 3: Metastatic niche and tumor-stroma interaction Chair: Peter Friedl (Nijmegen, Netherlands) |
| 04:30 p.m. – 05:00 p.m. | A vascular perspective on immunosurveillance in cancer Gabriele Bergers (Leuven, Belgium) |
| 05:00 p.m. – 05:30 p.m. | Using Spatial Omics towards mechanistic understanding and targeting of Cancer phenotypes Nikolaus Rajewsky (Berlin, Germany) |
| 05:30 p.m. – 05:45 p.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Zeb1-mediated control of the PUFA/MUFA ratio in EMT-associated ferroptosis sensitivity Annemarie Schwab (Erlangen, Germany) |
| 05:45 p.m. – 06:00 p.m. | Fluid shear stress enhances metastatic potential and rapidly alters metabolism of circulating tumor cells Amanda Pope (Iowa City, USA) |
| 06:00 p.m. – 06:45 p.m. | Keynote talk |
| Modulating ferroptosis for disease prevention Marcus Conrad (Munich, Germany) |
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| 07:00 p.m. | Welcome Reception |
March 6th, 2025
| 09:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. |
Symposium 4: Genetic evolution and epigenetic plasticity Chair: Christian Reinhardt (Essen, Germany) |
| 09:00 a.m. – 09:30 a.m. | Targeting RNA modifications in cancer Michaela Frye (Heidelberg, Germany) |
| 09:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | Intravital microscopy of the fate of cells carrying mutations in cancer driver genes Jacco van Rheenen (Amsterdam, Netherlands) |
| 10:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Metastasis founder cells activate immunosuppression early in human melanoma metastatic colonization Melanie Werner-Klein (Regensburg, Germany) |
| 10:15 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Pancreatic cancer patient-derived organoids capture therapy response and tumor evolution Johann Gout (Ulm, Germany) |
| 10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. |
Coffee Break |
| 11:00 a.m – 12:30 a.m. | Symposium 5: Immune-cancer interactions during metastasis Chair: Uta E. Höpken (Berlin, Germany) |
| 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | Immune regulation of cancer dormancy one site at a time Ana Luisa Correia (Lisbon, Portugal) |
| 11:30 a.m. – 12:00 a.m. | What is ‘relative scarcity’ and how might it guide how we treat dormant cancers? Cyrus Ghajar (Seattle, USA) |
| 12:00 a.m. – 12:15 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Optimizing Natural Killer (NK) cell-mediated attack by cell death sensitization Meike Vogler (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) |
| 12:15 a.m. – 12:30 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Liver-X-receptor agonism promotes anti-tumor immunity by enhancing T cell activation Benjamin Ostendorf (Berlin, Germany) |
| 12:30 a.m. – 01:30 p.m. | Lunch Break |
| 01:30 p.m. – 03:00 p.m. | Symposium 6: Resistance and novel targeting concepts Chair: Lisa Wiesmüller (Ulm, Germany) |
| 01:30 p.m. – 02:00 p.m. | Unlocking immunity: Decoding and reprogramming the immune-evasive tumor microenvironment Anna Obenauf (Vienna, Austria) |
| 02:00 p.m. – 02:30 p.m. | Neural regulation of brain tumors Frank Winkler (Heidelberg, Germany) |
| 02:30 p.m. – 02:45 p.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Tumor Microenvironmental dTMP as a Mechanism of Collective Tumor Growth Paolo Ceppi (Odense, Denmark) |
| 02:45 p.m. – 03:00 p.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Exploiting novel ultralong target residence time p38α inhibitors for reprogramming and stabilizing senescent cancer cells Daniel Dauch (Tübingen, Germany) |
| 03:00 p.m. – 03:30 p.m. | Poster Flash Talk |
| 03:30 p.m. – 05:30 p.m. | Coffee Break and Poster Session 2 |
| 05:30 p.m. – 06:15 p.m. | Keynote talk |
| Modeling metastatic breast cancer to advance therapeutic strategies Alana Welm (Salt Lake City, USA) |
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| 06:15 p.m. – 07:45 p.m. | AEK Member Assembly |
| 08:15 p.m. | Social Get-Together |
March 7th, 2025
| 09:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. |
Symposium 7: Detection of systemic cancer Chair: Rainer Engers (Neuss, Germany) |
| 09:00 a.m. – 09:30 a.m. | Liquid Biopsy: From Discovery to Clinical Implementation Klaus Pantel (Hamburg, Germany) |
| 09:30 a.m. – 09:45 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Genomic profiling with the novel single-cell IMPACT assay reveals clinically actionable mutations and opportunities for precision oncology treatment in CTC of metastatic breast cancer patients. Zbigniew Czyz (Regensburg, Germany) |
| 09:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Mass cytometric detection of homologous recombination proficiency in circulating tumor cells to predict chemoresistance of metastatic breast cancer patients Kerstin Pfister (Ulm, Germany) |
| 10:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. | Abstract Short Talk: Mechanical challenges define the efficiency of the early organ colonization by tumor cells Anna Mukha (Nijmegen, Netherlands) |
| 10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. |
Coffee Break |
| 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | Poster Awards |
| 11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. | Keynote talk |
| The systemic effects of extracellular vesicles and particles in the metastatic setting David Lyden (New York, USA) |
Subject to change without notice. Last Changes: February 19th, 2025.