Explore the Agenda
8:00 am Check-In & Badge Collection
8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
Assessing Strategies to Protect Tumor Architecture & Better Recapitulate the TME to Maximize Model Translational Success
9:00 am Overcoming the Limits of Humanized & Syngeneic Models to Better Assess Immuno-Oncology Candidates & Combination Strategies
- Discussing the feasibility challenges of humanized systems, from rebuilding balanced immune compartments to navigating cytokine driven xenoreactivity and the impact on interpreting safety and tolerability
- Spotlighting when humanized (CD34+) versus syngeneic models best capture T-cell biology, revealing where each system succeeds and falls short to model PD L1 mediated resistance, effector function enhancement and durability
- Demonstrating how combination strategies are stress tested across models, highlighting why checkpoint blockade requires pre-existing T-cell infiltration, where costimulation excels, and how model choice shapes translational confidence
9:30 am Accelerating Oncology R&D via Zero-Shot Prediction & High-Fidelity In Vivo Validation
- Bridging the gap between computational hypothesis and biological reality: Utilizing a zero-shot drug response platform to prioritize therapeutic candidates for novel drugspecimen pairs without the requirement of prior compound-specific training data
- Overcoming Temozolomide (TMZ) resistance in Glioblastoma (GBM): Demonstrating the platform's predictive accuracy in identifying effective novel combination strategies within GBM Patient-Derived Xenograft (PDX) models that exhibit established resistance to standard-of-care
- High-fidelity in vivo validation of AI-generated insights: Presenting comparative data where zero-shot predictions were stress-tested in orthotopic models to confirm accuracy, providing a robust framework for increasing translational confidence and de-risking early-stage development programs
10:00 am Optimizing & Validating 3D Vascularized Tissue Models & Organ‑on‑Chip Platforms for Oncology Drug Screening
- Showcasing the development and optimization of physiologically relevant, vascularized tumor models across bioprinted tissues and organ on chip systems, enabling controlled and reproducible cancer-endothelium interactions that recapitulate key features of the tumor microenvironment
- Demonstrating robust model validation using high content imaging and assays to generate quantitative readouts of tumor growth, invasion, and pharmacological responses, ensuring biological relevance, reproducibility, and scalability for translational research applications
- Highlighting how these platforms support mid throughput drug screening, transcriptomics guided target prioritization, and functional genomics approaches to uncover drivers of tumor aggressiveness, epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), and context dependent drug responses, thereby informing mechanism based therapeutic development
10:30 am Morning Break & Speed Networking Session
As the tumor modeling community reconnects, this valuable session will ensure you get the chance to reconnect with peers and make brand new connections! This structured networking opportunity will pair you with fellow attendees for several 3-minute introductions, ensuring you have the opportunity to meet and network with your industry colleagues.
Applications in Drug Discovery & Screening
Chaired by: Rosa Ng, Associate Director, Cell Therapy Innovation Medical & Health, Novartis
11:30 am Selecting Relevant Preclinical Models to Advance ADCs to the Clinic
- Demonstrating a translatable pharmacology approach that links model selection to clinically relevant dosing, integrating toxicity expectations, and literature-based benchmarks to make informed, evidence driven predictions about clinical development
- Spotlighting the criteria for choosing patient representative models including target expression, mutational landscape, prior treatment history, and resistance phenotypes to ensure that preclinical efficacy reflects the biology of anticipated patient populations
- Showcasing how novel payloads are evaluated across tumor models that are sensitive or resistant to standard payloads to support predictions about where novel ADCs could fit into future treatment paradigms and define a clear therapeutic differentiation space
12:00 pm Session Reserved for Hub Organoids (a part of Millipore Sigma)
Applications for Efficacy Evaluation & Biomarker Discovery
11:30 am Leveraging Patient-Derived Explant Models & Complementary Tumor Models to Supercharge ADC Development
- Demonstrating the pros and cons of explants and other applied models in developing ADCs and dissecting their translational relevance
- Highlighting strategies to implement intact patient tumor explants to retain 3D architecture and the native microenvironment
- Building a full picture for strategic ADC development by combining data from multiple models to identify biomarkers, predict patient response and empower translation to the clinic
12:00 pm Applying QSP & PBPK Modelling to Empower Translational Drug Development for Biologic Degraders
- Empowering translational confidence by generating trustworthy assay data and ensuring these inputs are robust enough to feed mechanistic and quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) models
- Tactics to overcome uncertainty across diverse mouse models, each with unique feedback loops, resistance mechanisms and pathway wiring, by categorizing models (high-bar, low-bar, phenotype-specific) and identifying which biological features best map to the intended patient population
- Aligning on dose selection frameworks, leveraging modern models to support dose optimization, shorten trial timelines and improve the likelihood of selecting dosing strategies that deliver meaningful benefit earlier in development
12:30 pm Lunch Break
1:30 pm Developing Tumor Models to Decode Engineered SIRPα PDC Target Dependency & Overcome MMAE Resistance Across Cancer Indications
- Using CD47 KO isogenic lines across multiple cancer types to confirm that payload delivery requires eSIRPα-CD47 engagement, defining the therapeutic window and assessing activity across diverse tumor indications
- Outlining the model-selection strategy for stress-testing eSIRPα-based PDCs, covering how CD47-targeted tumor systems are engineered to elicit drug resistance
- Demonstrating that eSIRPα-siRNA conjugates silencing efflux pump genes restore MMAE sensitivity in resistant tumors, establishing proof-of-concept for combining targeted gene silencing with cytotoxic payload delivery
2:00 pm TissueSpec® Bone, Liver & Lung dECM Hydrogels for Modeling Organotropic Breast Cancer Metastasis
- Detailing the generation, optimization, and validation of tissue-specific dECM hydrogels to establish biologically relevant platforms that recapitulate key features of bone, liver, and, lung microenvironments
- Demonstrating that dECM hydrogels modeling key metastatic secondary organs (Bone, Liver and Lung; TissueSpec®) induce distinct transcriptional states in patient-derived breast cancer organoids, revealing metastatic niche-adapted tumor phenotypes that standard basement membrane matrix fails to capture
- Highlighting how tissue-specific 3D models enable more predictive drug testing and biomarker discovery in metastasisrelevant applications
1:30 pm Developing Murine Tumor Models for the Preclinical Evaluation of Bispecific Antibodies & Cell Therapies
- Building a strategic tumor model cascade across in vitro and humanized in vivo systems and discussing the predictive value of these models
- Leveraging genetically engineered mouse models to capture human relevant microenvironmental barriers, revealing resistance mechanisms that standard NSG/xenograft models fail to replicate
- Combining cross model insights to overcome durability, trafficking and translational challenges, enabling smarter molecule optimization, clearer responder profiling and more confident progression of next generation bispecifics
2:00 pm Best Practices for Animal Study Conduct
- How much study design detail is enough?
- How to easily ensure that the study plan will be followed faithfully
- How to reduce error and improve reproducibility
2:10 pm Modality-Focused Breakout Sessions & Refreshments Break
Take this opportunity to connect with peers working on similar tumor model modalities or explore cross-disciplinary insights with those from different specialisms. These informal breakout sessions are designed to help you soundboard challenges, share learnings, and build meaningful connections. It’s also a great moment to reflect on the day’s discussions and strategize your next steps. This session will take place in the conference room.
Overcoming Resistance Mechanisms & Tissue Sourcing Challenges to Advance the Predictability Power of Tumor Models
3:10 pm Session Reserved for Tempus
3:40 pm Panel Discussion: Overcoming Challenges with Access to Tissues & Patient Samples to Build Better Patient-Derived Tumor Models & Enhance Translational Success
- Highlighting why high quality, well annotated patient derived samples are essential for building tumor models that truly reflect human disease and improve translational confidence
- Delving into how collaboration between drug developers, clinicians, and model providers accelerates access to the right tissues at the right time and strengthens preclinical decision making
- Discussing practical strategies to overcome ethical, logistical, and operational barriers i tissue procurement to enhance reproducibility and boost trust in model‑derived data
4:15 pm From Treatment to Translation: Tailored PDX models from Patients Pretreated with Approved & Investigational Therapies
4:45 pm Applying Multiple Tumor Models to Empower Cell Therapy Development
- Highlighting the rationale behind selecting and combining data from organoids and humanized mouse models
- Optimizing experimental variables to align with specific therapeutic objectives, from efficacy assessment to immune profiling for CAR-T
- Discussing scenarios for when to internalize or externalize model development, showcasing an example of glioblastoma model