5th Translational Genomics & Epigenomics Symposium
September 18 & 19, 2025
2025 Keynote Speakers
Olivier Elemento, PhD, is a tenured full professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) and Cornell University. Since 2017, he has been the Director of the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, a large multi-disciplinary institute that uses precision medicine technologies and informatics to uncover the molecular mechanisms of disease and individualize disease treatment and prevention. He is also the Associate Director of the Institute for Computational Medicine, Director of the Laboratory of Cancer Systems Biology, Co-Leader of the Genetics, Epigenetics, and Systems Biology Program in the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Elemento’s research group combines Big Data, Artificial Intelligence with experimentation and genomic profiling to accelerate the discovery of cancer cures. Dr. Elemento and his team have published over 450 scientific papers in the area of precision medicine, genomics, epigenomics, artificial intelligence, computational biology and drug discovery. He has received several awards including the NSF CAREER Award, Siegel Family Award for Outstanding Medical Research, the Irma T. Hirschl Career Scientist Award and the Daedalus Fund for Innovation Award. He has mentored over 30 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, several of which have become faculty members, joined pharmaceutical companies, and two of his students were chosen as 30 under 30 in Healthcare by Forbes Magazine in 2016. Dr. Elemento and his research group have developed new assays and analytical pipelines for cancer genome and epigenome analysis, clinical sequencing and precision medicine. They led the development of the first New York State approved whole exome sequencing test for oncology. They developed new methods for assessing tumor-driving pathways, the immune landscape of tumors and predicting immunotherapy responders. In addition, they developed methodologies to repurpose existing drugs to target specific pathways, predict drug toxicity and identify synergistic drug combinations. Their research has been highlighted in broad audience media outlets, including Popular Science, CBS, Gizmodo, Huffington Post.
Emily Bernstein, Ph.D., is Professor and Vice Chair of Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. She performed her thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Hannon at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory with a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University. Dr. Bernstein completed her postdoctoral studies with Dr. David Allis at Rockefeller University. She has made important scientific contributions to various areas of gene regulation biology during her career, including understanding the mechanisms of RNA interference and chromatin regulation, and in her own laboratory, how the latter impacts disease. Her laboratory studies epigenetic mechanisms underlying cellular reprogramming in development and cancer, with a focus on malignant melanoma and neuroblastoma. She has held continuous funding from the NIH for her research program, served as a permanent member of the Cancer Genetics study section of the NIH, and participates in grant review committees for multiple foundations. She is also co-leader of the Cancer Mechanisms Program of the NCI-designated Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai.
We utilize computational and experimental methodologies to identify and characterize the essential genetic elements that guide the function of the human genome, with a particular emphasis on the elements that orchestrate the development of the human brain. Our lab creates detailed cell-specific molecular maps of genetic, epigenetic, transcriptional, and translational activity, creating a draft of the molecular recipe for the creation of the brain. We also develop methods to detect, catalog and functionally annotate variants in the genetic pathways that control developmental processes and how they are perturbed to create disease. We aim to understand of the functional elements of the human genome well enough to enable, eventually, the ability to repair, re-engineer, or fortify these genetic networks within human cells.
Dr. Gutkind is a Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, and Associate Director for Basic Science at the Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in pharmacy and biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. After completing his postdoctoral training at the NIMH and NCI, he joined the NIDCR at the NIH. He served as the Chief of the Oral and Pharyngeal Cancer Branch at the NIDCR, NIH, from 1998 until his recruitment to UCSD in 2015.
His research team is exploiting the emerging information on dysregulated signaling circuitries and individual genomic and molecular alterations to develop new precision cancer therapies and novel multimodal strategies that enhance the response to immune checkpoint blockade. He pioneered the study of G proteins and G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in human malignancies, including GNAQ-driven uveal melanoma, and discovered that the PI3K-mTOR and Hippo-YAP/TEAD networks are the most frequently dysregulated signaling mechanisms in oral cancer. As part of his translation efforts, Dr. Gutkind led several multi-institutional clinical trials that established the benefits of targeting mTOR for the prevention and treatment of oral cancer. He is also exploring novel combination treatments for uveal and cutaneous melanoma. His laboratory has recently launched a new initiative targeting immune-GPCRs and cancer-specific oncogenic and immune escape signaling drivers as a novel multimodal precision cancer immunotherapy strategy to increase the response of immune checkpoint blockade.
Dr. Gutkind has received many national and international awards and recognitions. These include his election to the National Academy of Medicine (2019), his recent selection as Fellow of ASBMB and ASPET, and as American Association of Cancer Research (ACS) Professor (2024), reflecting his team’s efforts on cancer signaling and his translational program to prevent and treat human malignancies. He has published over 600 research articles in some of the most prestigious journals. He has organized multiple national and international meetings and symposia on signal transduction and cancer research. He has been a member of numerous editorial boards of scientific journals and served on national and international advisory committees. He has also supervised and mentored many junior investigators, who are now holding leadership roles in multiple institutions throughout the United States and abroad.