Rosetrees Interdisciplinary workshop: Metastasis

1 and 2 November 2021
Online, Via Zoom webinar

In collaboration with:

Image courtesy of Jorge Almagro, Adult Stem Cell Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute.

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Workshop Overview

The contribution of physics and biology to understanding cancer is long-standing and increasingly well-recognised. Recent major strategic initiatives, including the National Institutes of Health “Physical Sciences in Oncology”, and Cancer Research UK Multidisciplinary award scheme, reflect this increasing recognition and are intended to strengthen collaboration between the physical sciences and biological research communities in order to better address the “Grand Challenges” in cancer research.
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This  workshop, funded by the Rosetrees Trust through the Physics of Medicine network, will bring together clinicians, biologists and physicists to show-case successful existing collaborations and promote engagement, new ideas and collaborations aimed at addressing one important aspect of cancer, metastasis.

Who should attend?

We invite participation by academic, industrial and clinical research scientists who are interested in the central goal of generating new collaborative research interactions at the physical/life sciences interface focused on this subject area. 

Programme

Please note, all times are in UK time (GMT)

Day One	1 November
10.00	Welcome and Introduction ​Steve Smye (University of Leeds) and Matt Kaiser (Cancer Research UK)
Session 1	Clinical challenges: understanding how and where cancer spreads, chaired by Steve Smye (University of Leeds)
10.10	Keynote: Setting the grand challenge Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke (Cancer Research UK Barts Centre & QMUL) 'What governs metastasis: where, when and who'   ​
10.40	Samra Turajilic (Francis Crick Institute) 'Insights into metastatic competence from human studies'
11.00	Harriet Wikman (Institute of Tumour Biology, Hamburg) 'Using liquid biopsies to understand metastasis'
11.20	Roberto Vendramin (UCL) 'Cancer Evolution: Darwin and Beyond’
11.40	Panel Q&A
12.10	Lunch with option to network on the Wonder platform (links provided within the meeting)
13.10	Keynote: Robert Gatenby (Moffitt Cancer Center, USA) 'Harnessing evolutionary dynamics to control and cure metastatic cancers'
13.40	Q and A
Session 2	​Impact of cellular shape, Chaired by Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke (Cancer Research UK Barts Centre & QMUL)
13.50	Helen Matthews (University of Sheffield) ‘The control of cell shape and mechanics during cancer cell division’
​14.10	Jody Rosenblatt (KCL) 'The role of mechanical cell extrusion in maintaining equilibrium in the epithelium'
​14.30	​Vicky Sanz-Moreno (QMUL)  'The actomyosin cytoskeleton as a therapeutic target in cancer'​
​14.50	Panel Q&A
15.30	End of Day one
Day Two	2 November​​
​Session 3	​​Migration, Chaired by Jamie Hobbs (University of Sheffield)
9.30	Julia Yeomans (Oxford University) 'The dynamics of collective cell motility'
9.50	​Caterina La Porta (University of Milan) 'Phase transitions in cell migration'
10.10	​Robert Insall (Glasgow University) 'Why do cancer cells spread? A multidisciplinary approach to chemotactic information'
​10.30	​Refreshment Break
10.50	Ilaria Malanchi (Francis Crick Institute) 'The organised chaos of the metastatic environment'
​11.10	Patrick Caswell (Manchester) 'Matrix assembly in the ovarian cancer metastatic niche​'
11.30	Panel Q&A​
12.00	Lunch with option to network on the Wonder platform (links provided within the meeting) ​
Session 4	Modelling, Chaired by Robert Insall (Glasgow University) ​
13.00	Mihaela Lorger, (Leeds) 'Pre-clinical models of brain metastases; what do they tell us?'
13.20	Trevor Graham (Cancer Research UK Barts Centre & QMUL) 'Mathematical modelling to understand the role of clonal selection in metastasis'
13.40	Víctor M. Pérez García (University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain) 'What can we learn about metastasis from allometric scaling laws?'
14.00	Refreshment Break
14.10	Erik Sahai (Francis Crick Institute) 'Models to predict treatment failure /progression/ metastasis formation'
​14.30	Michael Hinczewski  (Case Western Reserve University, USA) 'Enhancing adaptive therapies by using techniques from quantum physics'
14.50	Panel Q&A
15.20	​Open and Emerging Questions from the workshop What are the “big questions”?

Workshop Publication

Interdisciplinary approaches to metastasis - https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(22)01287-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2589004222012871%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Workshop Recordings