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2023 NCI Junior Investigator Annual Meeting

Photo of the 2023 NCI Junior Investigator Meeting Planning Committee

The 2023 NCI Junior Investigator (JI) Meeting was held at the University of Pennsylvania on August 17-18, 2023. This hybrid (in person & virtual) meeting brought together junior investigators (defined as late stage graduate students, postdocs, and early career faculty) representing experimental and systems biologists, physical scientists, big data scientists, engineers, and computational modelers who build and apply novel tools to better understand cancer. 

The JI meeting provided opportunities for junior scientists to meet fellow researchers, showcase their work, foster collaborations, and generate synergy between individuals with diverse skills and shared research interests. Sessions during the meeting included a keynote lecture, panel discussions, workshops, and presentations by trainees and early-stage researchers. 

The meeting was a collaborative effort of NCI program groups: 

Documents from the Meeting

Presentation Award Winners at the Meeting

Podium Presentation Awards

  • Lindsey Fernandez, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania): Clinical combination therapy optimization through personalized mechanistic models
  • Yiling Liu (University of New South Wales): Biomimetic polymeric hydrogels at physiological stiffness reprogram melanoma cells
  • Sukrit Singh, Ph.D. (MSKCC): Biophysical parsing of cancer drug resistance using exascale supercomputing
  • Mohita Tagore, Ph.D. (MSKCC): GABAergic signaling driven regulation of the melanoma microenvironment

Poster Presentation Awards

  • Wisam Fares (University of Virginia): TGF-beta ligand processing and signaling are rewired by TGFBR3 coreceptor
  • Jane Miglo (University of Illinois Chicago): Effects of ovulatory secretions on pre-neoplastic lesions using microfluidic PREDICT platform
  • Daniel (Zongjie) Wang, Ph.D. (Northwestern University): Targeting tumor-reactive immune cells from peripheral blood for accessible cancer immunotherapy

Poster Presentations – Honorable Mentions

  • Emma Drabbe (University of Miami): Novel tissue bioreactor for retinal organoid microenvironmnental control
  • Laura Hueser (Johns Hopkins University): Aged fibroblast-derived extracellular vesicles promote melanoma progression in vitro and in vivo
  • Mouhita Humayun, Ph.D. (MIT): Investigating the role of Rho GTPases on the ability of tumor cells to extravasate during metastasis using a human microphysiological model
  • Taylor Marohl (University of Virginia): Assessing the effects of a novel mutation in proprotein convertase PCSK5 on the MCF10DCIS model of breast ductal carcinoma in sit
  • Sneha Mitra, Ph.D. (MSKCC): Role of regulatory T cells in colorectal cancer
  • Nina Steele, Ph.D. (Henry Ford Health): Therapeutic modulation of Robo4 in pancreatic cancer

Social media posts related to the NCI Junior Investigator Meeting can be found using #NCIJI2023.

There is also a LinkedIN Group related to the conference. 

DCB Contacts for the Meeting

For additional information about the 2023 NCI Junior Investigator Meeting, please contact Dr. Hannah Dueck, Dr. Eric Johnson Chavarria, or Dr. Christine Nadeau. 

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