Disseminated cancer cell dormancy and how it has influenced our understanding of metastasis biology

Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, PhD

Endowed Professor of Cell Biology
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Founding Director 
Cancer Dormancy & Tumor Microenvironment Institute
New York, NY, USA

Aguirre-Ghiso Lab

This conference is hosted by Jean-François Côté, PhD.This conference is part of the 2022-2023 IRCM conference calendar.

In person: 
IRCM Auditorium
110, avenue des Pins O, H2W 1R7 Montreal

Online:
Zoom Link : https://zoom.us/j/95269762104
ID : 952 6976 2104
Code : 476372

IRCM conferences are set to occur under a hybrid format. However, please note that last-minute changes to online-only lectures may occur due to unforeseen circumstances. We invite you to visit this webpage again a few days before attending.

About this conference 
There is no longer a debate about the importance that the immune and non-immune microenvironments that surround cancer cells play in shaping their evolution and phenotypes. In many ways, even the notion of the tumor microenvironment, first really limited to overt primary tumors, has evolved to reveal that microenvironments are not only associated with detectable tumor masses, but can be also associated with as few as one disseminated cancer cell (DCC) in all potential target sites in a human body. However, how heterogeneity in immune and non-immune niches might affect DCC fate, including long dormancy periods before relapse, remains largely unexplored. This lecture will cover some basic definitions and concepts on DCC dormancy. Then it will cover new findings on how early and late evolved DCC interaction with lung immune niches dictates their fate and metastasis initiating efficiency. 

About Julio Aguirre-Ghiso 
Dr. Julio Aguirre-Ghiso is the Rose Falkenstein Chair in Cancer Research, an Endowed Professor of Cell Biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Founding Director of the Cancer Dormancy & Tumor Microenvironment Institute at the Montefiore Einstein Cancer Center in New York City, where he also co-directs the Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center. Over the years, his research team has led a paradigm shift, revealing novel cancer biology that diverges from the notion that cancer is perpetually proliferating. His team discovered that reciprocal crosstalk between disseminated tumor cells and the microenvironment regulates the inter-conversion between dormancy and metastasis initiation. His work also provided a mechanistic understanding of the process of early dissemination and how it contributes to dormancy and metastatic progression and how adaptive pathways allow cancer cells to persist while quiescent. He founded a new company and developed clinical trials that seek to kill dormant cancer cells and/or induce cancer cell dormancy. His research has been cited over 28,000 times.

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