Dissecting Evolution and Heterogeneity of Single Cancer Cells

Cancer is a complex and dynamic biological system whereby individual cells comprise elemental units of evolutionary selection. As such, comprehensive analysis and interpretation of cancer properties require precise investigation at single cell resolution. Several fundamental questions in cancer biology remain poorly understood, including transition from pre-malignancy to tumor, clonal evolution, intra-tumor heterogeneity, tumor-stroma interaction, mechanisms for metastasis, therapeutic resistance and the immune microenvironment. These questions have been difficult to address through characterization of bulk tissue samples, which are limited to providing an average signal from a complex population of cells. Nevertheless, the field is witnessing a rapid advance in single cell omics and imaging technologies. These technologies provide a powerful approach to address these questions.

This Gordon Research Conference is the only forum dedicated to Single Cell Cancer Biology. It brings together leading researchers with different background that use single cell technologies to address a range of problems in basic cancer biology, translational, and clinical oncology. The meeting features sessions on pre-malignancies and clonal evolution, intra-tumor heterogeneity, cell-cell interactions in tumor microenvironment, technical advances in single cell protocols and computational methods for data analysis and modeling, single cell technologies in clinical practice, liquid biopsy, and single-cell multi-omics. By fostering close interactions and active discussion among practitioners from many disciplines and from both academia and industry, we aim to foster leadership for the coming decade of rapid progress in research and applications relevant to Single Cell Cancer Biology.