7th ASPIC International Congress
7th ASPIC International Congress
Europe/Lisbon (GMT)
25 June 2026
09:00 – 09:30
Official Opening
Carmen Jerónimo (ASPIC), Júlio Oliveira (IPOPorto), Vítor Veloso (LPCC-NRN)
Opening Sessions
Chair: João Barata and Sandra Casimiro
09:30 – 10:00
EACR Lecture: From Screens to Solutions: CRISPR-Guided Target Discovery and Drug Combination Design
Roderick L. Beijersbergen (NKI, The Netherlands)
10:00 – 10:30
EAU Section of Urological Research Lecture: Using liquid biopsy to personalize treatment and improve outcomes in bladder cancer
Lars Dyrskjøt (Aarhus University, DK)
10:30 – 11:00
ASEICA Lecture: Liquid biopsy in breast cancer: Clinical applications and future strategies
Rafael López (President of ASEICA, IDIS, Spain)
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break
Symposium I – Environmental and Hereditary Risk Factors
Chair: Ana-Teresa Maia and Rui Reis
11:30 – 12:00
Cancer Syndromes: Genotype–phenotype associations and the cost of complex care pathways
Carla Oliveira (i3S, Porto, Portugal)
12:00 – 12:15
Selected Oral: Systemic Reprogramming of Hematopoiesis by Colorectal Tumors
Ana Luísa Machado (i3S, Porto, Portugal)
12:15 – 12:45
Environmental risk factors for early onset colorectal cancer
Sandra Perdomo (IARC, Lyon, France)
12:45 – 13:00
Selected Oral: ADARB1 drives nuclear plasticity downstream of E-cadherin loss in Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer
Luísa Carvalho (i3S, Porto, Portugal)
13:00 – 14:00
Lunch
14:00 – 16:00
Poster Session (odd numbers) and Patients’ Advocacy Poster Walkthrough
16:00 – 16:30
Coffee break
Symposium II – Emergent Hallmarks in Cancer
Chair: Rui Henrique and Céu Figueiredo
16:30 – 17:00
Sticky situation: Bacterial-epithelial contact drives colorectal cancer and IgA pathology
Lars Vereecke (CRIG e VIB, Belgium)
17:00 – 17:15
Selected Oral: Rab27a Loss Defines an Inflammatory and Therapeutically Vulnerable Subtype of Pancreatic Cancer
Carolina Dias (i3S, Porto, Portugal)
17:15 – 17:45
Investigating the role of Dexamethasone in Medulloblastoma progression beyond its anti-inflammatory effects
Adriana Sánchez-Danés (Fundação Champalimaud, Lisbon, Portugal)
17:45 – 18:00
Selected Oral: Macrophage-driven survival pathways enable resistance to radiotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer
Ana Manuela Borges (i3S, Porto, Portugal)
18:00 – 19:00
ASPIC General Assembly and Elections
20:00
Congress Dinner
26 June 2026
09:00 – 09:30
USA-PT Initiative against Cancer (UPIC) Lecture: Sensory neurons are needed for both initiation and progression of stomach cancer
Timothy C. Wang (Columbia University, USA)
ASPIC-SPO Joint Symposium
Chair: Marta Soares (ASPIC) and Nuno Bonito (SPO)
09:30 – 10:00
Liquid biopsies as a prognostic factor – Colorectal cancer as a model
Nuno Bonito (IPO-Coimbra, Portugal)
10:00 – 10:30
Precision medicine in the treatment of lung cancer
João Moreira Pinto (OncMed HLuz, Lisboa, Portugal)
10:30 – 11:00
Prospective clinical trials of radioligand therapy in oncology (2015–2025)
James Nagarajah (Radboud University Medical Center, The Netherlands)
11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break
Symposium III – Cancer Cell Mechanisms
Chair: Celso Reis and Célia Gomes
11:30 – 12:00
Mechano-metabolic adaptations during metastatic dissemination
Vittoria Graziani (ICR, London, UK)
12:00 – 12:15
Selected Oral: Multi-matrix proteomics reveal urine-derived extracellular vesicles as an enriched source of bladder cancer-specific proteins
Catarina Lourenço (CI-IPO Porto, Portugal)
12:15 – 12:45
Lysosome exocytosis as a therapeutic target in cancer progression
Duarte Barral (NOVA Medical School, Lisbon, Portugal)
12:45 – 13:00
Selected Oral: Development of a microRNA-regulated cell death-inducing gene therapy for T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
Mafalda Duque (GIMM, Lisboa, Portugal)
13:00 – 14:00
Lunch
14:00 – 16:00
Poster Session (even numbers) and Patients’ Advocacy Poster Walkthrough
16:00 – 16:30
Coffee break
ASPIC – Porto.CCC Raquel Seruca Joint Symposium – Clinical Trials Driven by Biomarkers
Chair: Carmen Jerónimo and José Carlos Machado
16:30 – 17:00
Genomic guided platform studies: The «Basket of Baskets» approach
Irene Braña (VHIO, Spain)
17:00 – 17:15
Selected Oral: Novel CAR T formulations targeting tumor-associated glycoepitopes
Rafaela Abrantes (i3S, Porto, Portugal)
17:15 – 17:45
Delivering precision immunotherapy with MANIFEST and RISE
Jonathan Lim (The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, UK)
17:45 – 18:00
Selected Oral: Fishing for new immunotherapy compounds to boost innate-tumor rejection
Rita Fior (F.Champalimaud, Lisbon, Portugal)
18:00 – 18:30
Towards academic Point-of-Care CAR-T cell therapy in the Netherlands
Edwin Bremer (UMC Groningen, The Netherlands)
18:30 – 19:00