Dr Michelle Monje, MD, PhD, is a professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She is recognized as an international leader in the pathophysiology of glioma, especially diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)/H3K27M-mutated diffuse midline gliomas and a pioneer in the emerging field of Cancer Neuroscience. Her clinical focus is on childhood glial malignancies and cognitive impairment after childhood cancer therapy.

Her laboratory studies neuron-glial interactions in health and disease, with a particular focus on mechanisms and consequences of neuron-glial interactions in health, glial dysfunction in cancer therapy-related cognitive impairment and neuron-glial interactions in malignant glioma. Together with these basic studies, Michelle’s research program has advanced preclinical studies of novel therapeutics for pediatric high-grade gliomas and cancer therapy-related cognitive impairment in order to translate new therapies to the clinic. She has led several of her discoveries from basic molecular work to clinical trials for children and young adults with brain tumors including a promising clinical trial of CAR T cell therapy for DIPG and diffuse midline gliomas.

Following the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, the challenge now is to decipher the information encoded within the human genetic code — including genes, regulatory controls and cellular circuitry. Such understanding is fundamental to the study of physiology in both health and disease. At the Broad Institute, his lab collaborates with other to discover and understand the genes responsible for rare genetic diseases, common diseases, and cancer; the genetic variation and evolution of the human genome; the basis of gene regulation via enhancers, long non-coding RNAs, and three-dimensional folding of the genome; the developmental trajectories of cellular differentiation; and the history of the human population.

Dr. Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD, is the Franklin Payne Professor of Pathology in Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Penn Ovarian Cancer Research Center, the Gynecologic Cancer Research Program at the Basser Center for BRCA and co-directs the Ovarian Cancer Translational Center of Excellence at the Abramson Cancer Center. His research focuses on the pathogenesis and molecular evolution of women’s cancers, with an emphasis on ovarian and endometrial carcinomas. His laboratory played a pivotal role in the identification of the fallopian tube epithelium as the origin of most high-grade serous ovarian cancers—a discovery that transformed the field and redefined prevention and early detection strategies. His group develops innovative model systems to study disease initiation, progression, and tumor–microenvironment interactions and is leading efforts to build a precancer atlas to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets for cancer interception. Dr. Drapkin trained at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and previously served on the Harvard faculty before he was recruited to the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Giovanna Mallucci is a Principal Investigator at the Altos Labs Cambridge Institute of Science.