Professor Brugge is currently Director of the Harvard Ludwig Cancer Center and Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. She received her B.S. degree from Northwestern University, Ph.D. degree from the Baylor College of Medicine, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Colorado with Dr. Raymond Erikson. Prior to joining Harvard (Professor 1997-present, Department Chair 2004-2014), Prof. Brugge has held a professorship at the State University of New York, Stony Brook (1979- 1988), and was an HHMI Investigator/Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1989-1992). She was also Scientific Director of the biotechnology company ARIAD (1992-1997). She currently sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Allen Institute of Cell Sciences.

Prof. Brugge has received the NIH Merit Award, American Cancer Society Research Professorship, ASCB Senior Career Recognition Award, as well as elected memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine.

Christina Curtis, PhD, MSc is an Endowed Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics at Stanford University where she leads the Cancer Computational and Systems Biology group. Dr. Curtis also serves as the Director of Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Genomics, Director of Breast Cancer Translational Research and Co-Director of the Molecular Tumor Board at the Stanford Cancer Institute. Dr. Curtis’ laboratory leverages computational modeling, high-throughput molecular profiling and experimentation to develop new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. Her research has helped to redefine the molecular map of breast cancer and led to new paradigms in understanding how human tumors evolve and metastasize. Dr. Curtis’ research has been recognized by numerous awards, including those from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, STOP Cancer and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).  She received the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award in 2018 and the AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science in 2022. She is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, a Susan G. Komen Scholar and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. Dr. Curtis serves as a scientific advisor to multiple academic institutes and biotech and is a member of the AACR Board of Directors, as well as an editor for journals spanning computational biology to precision oncology.

Professor Barry Halliwell is Senior Advisor, Academic Appointments and Research Excellence, Office of the Senior Deputy President and Provost. He was a faculty member with the University of London, King’s College from 1974 to 2000 and held a prestigious Lister Institute Research fellowship. From 1995 to 1999, he was a Visiting Research Professor of Internal Medicine and Biochemistry with the University of California Davis, School of Medicine, Divisions of Cardiology and Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine. Professor Halliwell was a Visiting Professor of Biochemistry to NUS from 1998 to 2000. He was Head of the University’s Department of Biochemistry from 2000 to 2007 and was Deputy Director, Office of Life Sciences from 2001 to 2003. From 2003 to September 2008, he was Executive Director of the NUS Graduate School of Integrative Sciences and Engineering. From Mar 2006 to May 2015, he was the Deputy President (Research and Technology) at NUS. From Jun 2015 to May 2018, he was the Senior Advisor to the President at the National University of Singapore.

An internationally-acclaimed biochemist, Professor Halliwell is known especially for his seminal work on the role of free radicals and antioxidants in biological systems.

Matthew Vander Heiden is the Director of the Koch Institute at MIT, the Lester Wolfe (1919) Professor of Molecular Biology, and a member of the Broad Institute. He is a practicing oncologist and instructor in medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School. He earned his doctoral and medical degrees from the University of Chicago, where he worked in the laboratory of Craig Thompson. Vander Heiden then completed a residency in internal medicine at Boston’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital and a hematology-oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Massachusetts General Hospital. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Lewis Cantley at Harvard Medical School, where he was supported by a Mel Karmazin Fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. In 2010, Vander Heiden joined the MIT faculty. His work has been recognized by many awards including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Sciences, the AACR Gertrude B. Elion Award, the HHMI Faculty Scholar Award, and an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award. Vander Heiden serves on the scientific advisory board of Yale Cancer Center, Agios Pharmaceuticals, Aeglea Biotherapeutics, iTeos Therapeutics, Evelo Therapeutics, CyteGen, and Auron Therapeutics, of which he is also an academic founder. He is part of the investment advisory board for DROIA Venture Fund.

Professor Geoff Lindeman, a clinician-scientist, is Joint Head of the Cancer Biology and Stem Cells Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) and a medical oncologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and The Royal Melbourne Hospital.

He completed his medical training at the University of Sydney, followed by Medical Oncology training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Westmead Hospital. He carried out Ph.D. studies at WEHI before pursuing postdoctoral training in the Livingston Laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. In 1998, he was appointed to WEHI, where he and Professor Jane Visvader jointly established a Breast Cancer Laboratory. Lindeman is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and the Australian Academy of Science.

Lynne E. Maquat, PhD is the J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Chair and Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics who holds concomitant appointments in Pediatrics and in Oncology, Founding Director of the Center for RNA Biology, and Founding Chair of Graduate Women in Science at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. Maquat’s research focuses on the molecular basis of human diseases. She discovered nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) in human diseases and, subsequently, the exon-junction complex (EJC) and how the EJC marks mRNAs for quality-control “pioneer” rounds of protein synthesis. Maquat is an elected Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2006), and the National Academy of Sciences (2011) and of Medicine (2017). She was a Batsheva de Rothschild Fellow of the Israel Academy of Sciences & Humanities (2012-3), and serves as an elected member of the Council of Scientific Advisors for the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) (2022). She received the William C. Rose Award from the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (2014), a Canada Gairdner International Award (2015), the international RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award in Service (2010) and in Science (2017), the FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2018), the Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science (2017), the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences from Rockefeller University (2018), the Wolf Prize in Medicine from Isreal (2021), the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize from Harvard Medical School (2021), and the Gruber Genetics Prize from Yale University (2023). Maquat is well-known for her efforts to promote women in science.

Professor Anil K. Rustgi, MD, is the Interim Executive Vice President and Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine at Columbia University and the Director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Prof. Rustgi is a world-renowned physician-scientist and leader in the field of gastrointestinal cancers, spanning molecular pathogenesis to preclinical models to clinical studies. He is funded extensively through the NIH and maintains a clinical practice as well. He has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been designated as American Cancer Society Professor. Prof. Rustgi is a former President of the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA), Editor-in-Chief of Gastroenterology and recipient of the AGA Friedenwald Medal for lifetime achievement. He has been recognized for his teaching and mentorship activities through multiple awards.

Professor Xiao-Fan Wang is a Chinese-Americans oncologist. He is the Donald and Elizabeth Cooke Professor of Cancer Research at Duke University School of Medicine. The current research in the Wang laboratory mainly focuses on the elucidation of molecular nature and signalling mechanisms associated with the initiation of cellular senescence. In addition, they continue to study changes in tumor microenvironment that promotes tumor progression and metastasis, particularly how tumor cells interact with the immune system. Ultimately, they hope that their studies in these areas will lead to the development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of various types of human cancer.