ABSTRACT
Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Cancer Stem Cells: Advances in Biology and
Clinical Translation, organized by Drs. Irene Oi Lin Ng, Xin Wei Wang and Dean G. Tang. The conference will
be held in Hannover, Germany from May 18 - 21, 2021.
Preponderant experimental and clinical evidence has demonstrated that pervasive cancer cell heterogeneity in
both phenotypic presentations and functional properties exists, such that a population of cancer cells with
cardinal stem cell properties (i.e., cancer stem cells) pre-exists in untreated tumors and spatiotemporally evolves
during tumor progression and therapeutic interventions. Recent studies have also revealed significant phenotypic
and functional plasticity in cancer cells, regulated by both genetic networks and epigenetic mechanisms. Both
cancer cell heterogeneity and plasticity constitute major barriers to effective and durable clinical treatments. Ever
since the revival of the cancer stem cell research field in the last two decades, we have made great strides in
identifying and elucidating the biology of cancer stem cells in virtually all tumor systems. Significant progress has
also been made in understanding how cancer stem cells interact with the cellular constituents and soluble factors
in the proinflammatory and immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment. Facilitated by an explosion of
technical advances in recent years, especially single-cell RNA-seq, we are achieving an unprecedented
appreciation of the complexity of the cellular heterogeneity of human tumors. Significantly, novel therapeutic
strategies that target cancer stem cells and cancer cell heterogeneity and plasticity are rapidly progressing to
the clinical arena. This conference is organized to recapitulate these recent advances in our understanding of
cancer stem cell biology and, importantly, the clinical translation of targeting cancer stem cells.