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)
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)
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.