ABOUT
CANCER CONVERGENCE EDUCATION NETWORK
The Cancer Convergence Education Network (CCEN) – an NSF-sponsored model program – creates and facilitates opportunities for participants affiliated with the Stand Up To Cancer Convergence Research Teams to broaden their knowledge base, present and discuss their research, and generate collaborations across disciplines, institutions, and research communities. Meetings and activities offer unique opportunities for post-doctoral researchers, graduate students, and early investigators to interact with each other and with participating senior scientists to learn about current developments on topics that are or are poised to become important to cancer research; to present their own research and receive constructive feedback and mentoring on future directions, and to build long-term cross-disciplinary relationships that will form a key component of the infrastructure of this emerging field.
Through CCEN programs, members of this group of graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, clinical fellows, and early career investigators from different backgrounds in quantitative science, experimental biology, and medicine, are brought together with senior scientists, in both formal meetings and informal settings to learn about, present, and discuss current questions, technologies, and approaches to cancer research.
CCEN provides a mechanism for direct feedback from diverse members of Convergence Teams to improve existing research; fosters new collaborations borne of the proximity of scientists from a range of cross-disciplinary backgrounds that may lead to new original research efforts, offers professional connections for trainees seeking post-doctoral or professional positions. The program is promoting the development of a new field with new practitioners who are targeting important questions in cancer biology and developing research tools and technologies in physics and other quantitative sciences in an original fashion with significant impact. The grant-hosting institution for CCEN is the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ.
The goal of the CCEN program is to develop and support a strong and continuing convergence education program for these researchers, who will form a network of scientists that combines a unique set of multidisciplinary abilities and perspectives. The program has been doing this through educational workshops, symposia, and mentored meetings with presentations and time for extensive discussions.
Learn more: HIGHLIGHTS >>
The Stand Up To Cancer Convergence Research Teams bring together quantitative scientists and oncologists in integrated projects focused on cancer biology. The awards seek to accelerate cancer research and treatment for patients by bringing together scientists from diverse yet complementary disciplines - such as nanotechnology or new materials science.
The teams are investigating fundamental questions about cancer biology that can be rapidly applied to combination therapies. Research grants in cancer biology, known as Convergence 1, Convergence 2.0, and Convergence 3.1416, which were an outgrowth of an NSF-funded Ideas Lab held at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in February 2015, have been funded by Stand Up To Cancer, the NSF, and several other private entities and foundations.
CONVERGENCE RESEARCH TEAMS PRINCIPAL SCIENTISTS
Although a number of Convergence Research Team members were already in the cancer field, whether as clinicians or researchers, the concept of Convergence was to bring together individuals from a variety of fields, including physics, computer sciences, molecular biology, engineers, etc. to create interdisciplinary approaches to the understanding of cancer, its prevention and cure.
The individuals listed below were all trained in other fields before they became involved in cancer research and became members of SU2C Convergence Research Teams. In some instances, the researchers already had an interest in cancer, but in many cases, their beginnings in cancer research and their knowledge of cancer were expanded as members of the Convergence teams.
Individuals whose names are in BLUE attended the first ‘Ideas Lab’ at IAS in February 2015.
PHYSICS
Herbert Levine, PhD
Rice University
Gurinder S. “Mickey” Sing-Atwal, PhD
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Clare C. Yu, PhD
University of California, Irvine
Chang S. Chan, PhD
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey
Daniel S. Fisher, PhD
Stanford University
Harlan Robins, PhD
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Curtis G. Callan, PhD
Princeton University
Benjamin D. Greenbaum, PhD
Icahn Medical School at Mount Sinai
Reka Z. Albert, PhD
Pennsylvania State University
Raul Rabadan, PhD
Columbia University
Rong Fan, PhD
Yale University
Pablo G. Camara, PhD
University of Penn Perelman School of Medicine
ENGINEERING
Darrell J. Irvine, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Scott Manalis, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MATHEMATICS
Steven J. Altschuler, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Ernest Fraenkel, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Regina Barzilay, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Marta Luksza, PhD
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
BIOLOGY
Shelley Berger, PhD
University of Pennsylvania
Mark Davis, PhD
Stanford University
Tyler Jacks, PhD
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ileana Cristea, PhD
Princeton University
Shawn Davidson, PhD
Princeton University
CLINICAL MEDICINE
Peter P. Lee, MD
City of Hope Cancer Center
Ross L. Levine, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Aaron Hata, MD, PhD
Mass. General Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Peter O’Dwyer, MD
University of Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Drebin, MD, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
David T. Ting, MD
Mass. General Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Anthony Letai, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Maurizio Scaltriti, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Nikhil Wagle, MD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Cancer Center
Alessandro Santin, MD
Yale University School of Medicine
John Wherry, PhD
University of Pennsylvania
Claire Friedman, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Constantine Mitsiades, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Carl H. June, MD
University of Penn. Perelman School of Medicine
Vinod Balachandran, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Calvin Kuo, MD, PhD
Stanford University
Dan Littman, MD, PhD
New York University Langone
Karuna Ganesh, MD, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Calvin Kuo, MD, PhD
Stanford University
Ami Bhatt, MD, PhD
Stanford University
Jennifer Wargo, MD
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Kenya Honda, MD, PhD
Keio University
Hans Clevers, MD, PhD
Hubrecht Institute
Toshiro Sato, MD, PhD
Keio University
Benjamin Neel, MD, PhD
New York University Langone
BIOCHEMISTRY
Michael Fischbach, PhD
Stanford University
Joshua Rabinowitz, MD, PhD
Princeton University
Cancer Convergence Education Network
Leadership
Arnold J. Levine
Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study
Scientific Advisory Committee, Vice-Chairman, Stand Up To Cancer
Principal Investigator, Cancer Convergence Education Network
Arnold J. Levine, Ph.D. is a leader in cancer research. In 1979, Levine was one of the co-discoverers of the p53 protein. The p53 gene and its protein are central players in our present day understanding of cancers. This discovery has generated more than 60,000 publications. In 1989, Levine’s group demonstrated that the wild type p53 gene and protein functioned as a tumor suppressor, preventing transformation by oncogenes. This observation changed the direction of the field. The research paths of the Levine group provide clear evidence that the p53 pathway plays a central role in the prevention of human cancers and that polymorphic variations in components of the pathway can influence individual responses to environmental mutagens, age of cancer onset, sexual dimorphisms in cancers, response to therapy and survival times, all for a gene whose mutations cause the most common genetic alterations in cancers. This research helped to uncover the genetic origins of cancer and focus drug discovery on a rational path to treat cancers.