Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Cancer Epigenetics: New Mechanisms and Therapeutic Opportunities, organized by Drs. Cigall Kadoch and Christopher Vakoc. The conference will be held in Keystone, Colorado from January 26-30, 2020. The 2020 Keystone Symposia Cancer Epigenetics: New Mechanisms and Therapeutic Opportunities in conjunction with the joint conference, Gene Regulation: From Mechanisms to Disease, co-organized by Karen Adelman and Patrick Cramer, will highlight state-of-the art advances in methods, mechanistic insights, and drug discovery efforts across these interrelated fields. Furthermore, results from exome- and genome-wide sequencing efforts point toward major roles for chromatin regulatory machinery in cancer. These data emphasize the immediate need for mechanistic understanding and, in parallel, the identification of novel strategies toward therapeutic targeting for this class of cancer drivers. This conference will help to foster interactions and new connections between basic biologists focused on chromatin architecture, structure, and function with translational biologists focused on model systems for mechanistic interrogation. Participants will attend sessions that will feature the presentation of new methods and techniques in systems biology, imaging, genomics, and drug discovery approaches. Other topics will explore the roles for enhancer structure, genome organization and topology on DNA accessibility and gene expression. Finally, this conference will expose trainees across a wide range of international, interdisciplinary laboratories to cutting edge science in cancer epigenetics and related fields, hoping to further their interests and commitment to this area of biologic research The concurrent joint conference on Gene Regulation: From Mechanisms to Disease is another unique, one- of-a-kind aspect of this conference, allowing participants to attend talks in their interest areas across two closely-related disciplines. Our cancer-centered audience will have an opportunity to attend select talks as well as two joint sessions, which all the organizers have carefully considered and designed together.
Despite intensive research in cancer, effective treatment for most types of metastatic tumors remains elusive and cancer remains a leading cause of mortality worldwide. This conference will help to foster interactions and new connections between basic biologists focused on chromatin architecture, structure, and function with translational biologists focused on model systems for mechanistic interrogation. This conference will provide an ideal environment for researchers to exchange perspectives, to better understand the nature of epigenetic deregulation in cancer, and to foster new therapeutic progress.
