Speakers

Keynote speakers

John Carpten, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer

City of Hope

Dr. John D. Carpten currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer for the City of Hope, where he also serves as Director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center and Director of Beckman Research Institute. Prior to his current appointment, he served as Professor and Chair for the Department of Translational Genomics, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA. From 2003-2015, he served as Professor and Deputy Director of Basic Sciences at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), Phoenix, AZ. Dr. Carpten attended Lane College, a Historically Black College, in Jackson, TN where he completed his B.S. degree in Biology in 1988. He received his PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the Ohio State University in 1994. After completing his postdoctoral fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the NIH, Bethesda, MD in 1999, he was promoted to the tenure track at NHGRI in 1999. 

Dr. Carpten’s expertise spans a very broad range of research disciplines including genome science, tumor profiling, cancer cell biology, functional genomics, health disparities, and precision medicine. The primary goal of Dr. Carpten’s research program is to discover molecular alterations in cancer and to translate these findings into new approaches for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. In support of this goal, his program is actively involved in the development and application of cutting-edge technologies and novel bioinformatics approaches for discovery research. He has been a pioneer in understanding the genetic and biological factors influencing the disproportionate incidence and mortality rates in underserved populations for a variety of cancer types including prostate cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, multiple myeloma, and pediatric cancers. Dr. Carpten has co-authored over 200 peer reviewed publications in scientific journals that include Science, Nature, Nature Genetics, Cancer Cell, Cancer Research, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, and the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Dr. Carpten has been honored with numerous awards. He was named a Science Trailblazer by Spectrum Magazine in 2006, and was awarded Susan G. Komen Distinguished Lectureship on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in 2014 for his untiring work in ensuring that all people are equally represented in science and innovative healthcare. Dr. Carpten was also awarded the 2018 AACR MICR Jane Cooke Wright Lectureship for his outstanding research in cancer disparities and his efforts in developing the careers of minority scientists. In 2019, he serves as Program Committee Chair for the AACR Annual Conference in Atlanta, GA, which included over 21,500 international participants. In 2021 he was inducted into the AACR Fellows of the Academy, and also became a member of the AACR Board of Directors. He also currently serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Stand Up To Cancer, and a member of the Board of Directors for Tower Cancer Research Foundation, and as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Break Through Cancer Foundation. In 2021, Dr. Carpten received a presidential appointment to serve as Chair for the National Cancer Advisory Board. 

Melissa Davis, Ph.D.

Director of the Institute of Translational Genomic Medicine

Morehouse School of Medicine

Dr. Melissa B. Davis is the newly appointed Director of the Institute of Translational Genomic Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine, and Distinguished Investigator with the Georgia Research Alliance. She also serves as Scientific Director of the International Center for the Study of Breast Cancer Subtypes (ICSBCS), (Interim) Director of Health Equity for the Englander Institute of Precision Medicine and Associate Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology in the Department of Surgery and at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, NY. She is also a Cancer Ethnicity Scholar, co leading the PolyEthnic-1000 project at New York Genome Center.  

Dr. Davis received her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of Georgia (Athens, GA, USA) where she completed groundbreaking work on developmental functions of steroid signaling in model organisms. She completed postdoctoral training in Functional Genomics and Systems Biology at Yale School of Medicine (Human Genetics) and the University of Chicago (Human Genetics and Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology). Here work involved key elements of the ModENCODE project, showing the genome-wide and tissue-specific dynamics of hormone receptor binding, establishing the dynamics of these functions on a cellular level. Her postdoctoral training in Cancer Health Disparities at University of Chicago at the Interdisciplinary Center for Health Disparities, led the current trajectory of her work to uncover the biological determinants of cancer health disparities and how they intersect with marginalization of minoritized population.  

Dr. Davis’s has published groundbreaking findings that established a new lens to study associations of biological factors in cancer outcomes as related to genetic ancestry. Specifically, she has discovered links between African ancestry and tumor burdens that have a disproportionate burden in people across the African diaspora. Dr. Davis is a pioneer in the field of “disparities genomics,” with specific focus in breast cancer expanding into prostate and gynecological cancers in recent years. Her current findings involve utilizing quantified ancestry to unravel genetic vs environmental influences in tumor biology among race/ethnic groups, including epigenetic cell signaling and immunological responses in the tumor microenvironment and systemic immune regulation. These novel opportunities to develop precision medicine applications in minority populations, are part of a concerted effort to increase knowledge of genomic profiles of underrepresented minoritized and under-represented cancer patients. Her work is a prime example of how inclusion of diverse ethnic groups can empower research designs for discovery of novel or unique tumor biology.  

Presenters