2024 Bridge Project Symposium

Join MIT’s Koch Institute and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center for a symposium celebrating the collaborative successes from the program’s past 10+ years and exploring new partnership opportunities for future cancer research advances. The event is held in special recognition of the role of Art Gelb and the Gelb family in initiating and supporting the Bridge Project.

Talks by past and present Bridge Project teams will be followed by a catered networking and information event for potential new Bridge investigators.

Researchers and clinicians from MIT and DF/HCC are welcome. Potential applicants to the 2024 Bridge Project RFA (opening this June) are strongly encouraged to attend.

9:30 a.m. — Check in and on-site registration

10:00 a.m. — Featured presentations from past Bridge Project teams:

• Targeting minimal residual disease in acute leukemias, a collaboration between Scott Manalis of the Koch Institute and David Weinstock (now at Merck).
• Quantitative Tumor Oxygen Measurements in Cervical Cancer Patients, a collaboration between Michael Cima of the Koch Institute, Robert Cormack of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Greg Ekchian (now of Stratagen Bio).
• Developing Next-Generation Personal Neoantigen-targeting Vaccines for Treatment of Patients with Metastatic Cancer, a collaboration between Catherine Wu of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Bradley Pentelute of the Koch Institute, and Patrick Ott of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
• Translating AI lung cancer risk models into the clinic, a collaboration between Regina Barzilay of the Koch Institute and Lecia Sequist of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Massachusetts General Hospital.

11:30 a.m. — Lightning presentations from ongoing Bridge Project teams:

• Exploring alveolar macrophages as vehicles for collecting tumor DNA to improve early diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer, a collaboration between Sangeeta Bhatia of the Koch Institute, Lecia Sequist of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Viktor Adalsteinsson of the Broad Institute.
• Discovery and identification of optimized second-generation human CAR T cells for solid tumors, a collaboration between Marcela Maus of Massachusetts General Hospital and Michael Birnbaum of the Koch Institute.
• A rapidly clinically translatable, closed-loop drug delivery system to minimize pharmacokinetic variability and improve clinical outcomes, a collaboration of Douglas Rubinson of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with Giovanni Traverso and Robert Langer of MIT/the Koch Institute.

12:00 noon — Networking Event with lunch:

• For potential new Bridge Project investigators
• Tables organized by area of interest and new technologies
• Information on 2024 Bridge Project RFA
• Poster session featuring new and useful science and technologies for cancer research

Hosted in partnership with: