2024 NCI Junior Investigator Annual Meeting
The 2024 NCI Junior Investigator (JI) Meeting was held both at the NIH Campus in Bethesda, MD and virtually on August 22 - 23, 2024. (with virtual option).
It 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.
Additionally, the NCI JI Meeting was a collaborative effort of NCI program groups:
- Cellular Cancer Biology Imaging Research (CCBIR)
- Cancer Systems Biology Consortium (CSBC)
- Cancer Tissue Engineering Collaborative (TEC)
- Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT)
- Information Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR)
- Metastasis Research Network (MetNet)
- Physical Sciences-Oncology Network (PS-ON)
- Synthetic Biology and Cancer (SynBio)
The goals of the JI Meeting were to provide 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.
It also emphasized two key areas crucial to early career development: engaging with patient advocates and exploring diverse career paths beyond academia.
Documents from the Meeting
Presentation Award Winners at the Meeting
Best Podium Talks
- Minjeong Kim, Ph.D. (University of Tennessee Health Science Center): Unveiling genetic complexity of lung adenocarcinoma by identifying a novel EGFR mutation signature
- Cassidy Hagan (University of Washington): Apoptotic cells promote circulating tumor cell survival and metastasis
Best Spotlight Talks
- Yuhan Qiu (Boston University): Insulin resistance increases triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) aggressiveness and brain metastasis via adipocyte-derived exosomes
- Kyle MacQuarrie, M.D., Ph.D. (Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital): Chromosome specific organizational characteristics in rhabdomyosarcoma and normal myogenic cells
- Reshma Kalyan Sundaram (University of Pennsylvania): Integrating signaling and transcription to study c-Myc induced stress response in cancerous cells
People's Choice Awards for Poster Presentations
- Rohan Panaparambil (Johns Hopkins University): Targeting lipid metabolism in breast cancer metastasis
- Michael Seen (Boston University): Plasma exosomes from type 2 diabetic patients drive expression of epithelial-to-mesenchymal (EMT)-related genes in prostate cancer models
- Joseph Fernandes (Duke University): Dynamic regulation of tumor cell competition determines targeted therapy resistance
Social Media Related to the Meeting
Social media posts related to the 2024 NCI Junior Investigator Meeting can be found using #NCIJI2024.
DCB Contacts for the Meeting
For additional information about the 2024 NCI Junior Investigator Meeting, please contact Dr. Eric Johnson Chavarria or Dr. Christine Nadeau.