Interactive Discussions

Engage in in-depth discussions with industry experts and your peers about the progress, trends, and challenges you face in your research!

Interactive discussion groups play an integral role in networking with potential collaborators. They provide an opportunity to share examples from your work, vet ideas with peers, and be part of a group problem-solving endeavor.

Tuesday, August 25

5:45 pm Interactive Discussions (IN-PERSON ONLY)
Interactive Discussions are informal, moderated discussions, allowing participants to exchange ideas and experiences and develop future collaborations around a focused topic. Each discussion will be led by a facilitator who keeps the discussion on track and the group engaged. To get the most out of this format, please come prepared to share examples from your work, be a part of a collective, problem-solving session, and participate in active idea sharing.

TABLE: AI Is a New Dx Team Member: How Do We Think about Training, Credentialing, and Onboarding?
Caroline Popper, MD, JD, MPH, Co-Founder & President, Diagnostics & Medical Devices, Popper & Co.
For diagnostics, we will define Generative, Agentic, and General AI and HITL. We will integrate 3 fundamental diagnostic concepts: pre-analytical, analytical, and post-analytical error. These concepts apply to AI in the validation, avoidance of bias, credentialing, monitoring for drift, and clinical adoption of AI output. This will enable us to understand when laboratorians, clinicians, and patients need to be skilled or reskilled to work with the new AI team members.

This round table will discuss:

What new skills will various stakeholders need to develop?
What do people perceive as the greatest opportunities? Risks?
Where will we be in 2030?

TABLE: NCI SBIR Development Center: $200M+ in Annual Non-Dilutive Funding and Commercialization Resources for Cancer Technologies
Linda K. Zane, PhD, Program Director, SBIR Development Center, National Cancer Institute

NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding ($700K–$2.5M+) for technology development and commercialization
SBIR/STTR Training and Entrepreneurship Program (STEP): Application assistance and entrepreneurship training (NIH I-Corps™) for first-time SBIR/STTR applicants
Commercialization support, including regulatory strategy, reimbursement, intellectual property (IP), and business development resources
Access to potential investors, industry mentors, and strategic partners
Additional NCI resources, including Academic-Industry Partnerships (AIP), NCI Experimental Therapeutics (NExT), PREVENT, Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT), and Frederick National Laboratory support and services

TABLE: Before the Assay: Pre-Analytical Considerations That Make or Break Early Cancer Detection
Lokesh Agrawal, PhD, Chief (Acting), Biorepositories & Biospecimen Research, NIH NCI
Christos Patriotis, PhD, Program Director, Cancer Biomarkers Research Group, NIH NCI
Early cancer detection assays, whether targeting a single cancer or multiple cancers simultaneously, are only as reliable as the biospecimens that feed them. This roundtable brings together experts from NCI, industry, academia, and clinical settings to examine the pre-analytical variables that pose the greatest risk to assay sensitivity and specificity across the full spectrum of cancer biomarkers, including cfDNA, cfRNA, extracellular vesicles, proteins, lipids, and metabolites. Drawing on NCI's published Evidence-Based Best Practices (BEBPs) and the latest research in biospecimen standardization, participants will discuss how the field can move toward analyte-specific standard operating procedures, mandatory metadata frameworks, and earlier lock-down of specimen requirements to accelerate the path from discovery to a clinical-grade assay.

Key Discussion Topics:

Which pre-analytical variables pose the greatest risk to early detection signals?
One SOP or many?
What metadata should be mandatory for early detection biospecimens?
When should assay developers lock down specimen requirements?
NCI Evidence-Based Best Practices: What's available and what gaps remain?

TABLE: Rising Incidence of Young-Onset Cancers (YOC): Elucidating Causes and Strategies for Interception
Sam Hanash, MD, PhD, Director, Red & Charline McCombs Institute; Evelyn & Sol Rubenstein Distinguished Chair, Cancer Prevention; Professor, Clinical Cancer Prevention-Research, Translational Molecular Pathology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
The occurrence of YOC is rising at a concerning rate. What can we do to better understand what factors are contributing to this trend? MCEDs tests are unlikely to have much impact among individuals who are below the age thresholds for general population screening. How can we predict an individual’s risk of cancer to identify those who would cost-effectively be screened at a younger age?