29th - 30th January 2025 | ExCeL, London
MULTI-OMICS STAGE
Integrating the layers of life: Unlocking the Power of Multi-Omics in Research
Tackle the integration of diverse omics datasets to understand biological contexts, with discussions on balancing data collection costs and showcasing multi-omics successes in cancer and patient outcomes.
DAY 1
On Day 1, The Multi-Omics Stage will focus on Multi-Omics Data Collection, Multi-Omics Analysis and Multi-Omics Data Integration and Visualisation.
[topic] MULTI-OMICS DATA COLLECTION
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Dissecting Phenotypic Heterogeneity and Plasticity in Colorectal Cancer Metastasis
- A major challenge for inhibiting metastasis is the ability of cancer cells to reversibly switch states in response to microenvironmental cues along the metastatic cascade.
- Phenotypic heterogeneity in cancer is increasingly recognised as a driver of tumour progression, metastasis and therapy resistance. The regulatory factors and signals from the microenvironment driving phenotypic heterogeneity in colorectal cancer (CRC) cells and liver metastasis remain unknown.
- Using a combination of single-cell multiomics and spatial transcriptomics data from primary and metastatic CRC patients, we reveal cancer states with regenerative and inflammatory phenotype, potentially driven by transcription factors AP-1 and NF-κB. We show that these cells resemble metastasis-initiating cells identified in mouse models and that they are enriched at the invasive edge in primary CRC.
- We identify an intermediate population with a hybrid regenerative and stem phenotype, indicating phenotypic transitions between stem and pro-metastatic cells. Our spatial analyses show localisation of the regenerative states in an immunosuppressive niche in liver metastasis, surrounded by immune and stromal cells that sustain these cells. We uncover putative ligand-receptor interactions driven by cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), macrophages and CD8 T cells that are predicted to activate the regenerative and inflammatory phenotype in cancer cells.
- Together, our findings reveal regulatory and signalling factors that potentially mediate distinct cancer cell states and can be targeted to restrict transition into invasive states to impair metastasis.
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Multi-omics Data Analysis for Identifying, Prioritising & Validating Novel Drug Targets
- STORM Therapeutics is a clinical stage biotechnology company creating novel therapies targeting RNA modifying enzymes for use in oncology and other diseases
- As a small biotech company working in a novel field of biology, the use of bioinformatics and multi-omics is essential at every stage of the drug discovery pipeline
- We use multi-omics during identification and validation of novel drug targets, to elucidate target/drug MoA and identify disease positioning strategies
- We are developing bespoke RNA omics readouts and computational workflows in-house as part of our proprietary RNA analytics platform"
Speaker
Principal Scientist, Bioinformatics
Milner Therapeutics Institute, University of Cambridge and STORM Therapeutics
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Reactome GSA: How to Map Your Multi-Omics Data to Functional Pathways
- A short introduction to Reactome
- A brief explanation of the principles behind the different analysis methods
- A demo of Reactome GSA in a multi-comics context
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[break] Lunch
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Food Options : Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Live Lounge Over Lunch : 15 mins technology focussed presentations
- Poster Zone : Browse the posters and reach out to potential new collaborators
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
- Patient Perspectives: Talks and discussions on the crucial role of patients and patient families in the understanding and development of treatments for rare diseases.
[topic] MULTI-OMICS ANALYSIS
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Full-Length Transcript Atlas of the Developing Human Cortex
- Laboratory and bioinformatic outline of the generation of single cell and long read sequencing from human cortex tissue Identification of transcript diversity and usage in the developing cortex, including for genes associated with neuropsychiatric phenotypessuch as autism and schizophrenia
- Highlighting examples of alternative splicing colocalising with developmentally-dynamic regions of differential DNA methylation
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Our annotations are available as a resource to the research community via browsable tracks and database
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More details to be announced shortly
Sponsored by
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Using Network-Based Approaches to Integrate Multi-omics Data for the Study of Context-Specific Human Cell Signalling
- We combine mathematical methods with network analysis to identify phenotype and context-specific networks
- We use these networks to provide insight into the regulation of human cell signalling, including the generation of multiple new hypotheses and predictions of context-specific cell responses
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[break] Break
- Speed Networking: Fun and useful sessions where you’ll rapidly meet other Festival attendees to immediately expand your network.
- Food Options : Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
[topic] MULTI-OMICS DATA INTEGRATION & VISUALISATION
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Integrative Analyses of Patient’s Molecular Profiles for Clinical Outcome and Response Prediction in Clinical Trials
- Infrastructure needs Using exemplars to demonstrate
- Importance of using validated and standardised computational approaches
- Challenges and opportunities for discovery science in clinical trials.
Speaker
Team Leader of Integrative Genomics Analysis in Clinical Trials
The Institute of Cancer Research
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Multivariate Modelling of Multi-Omic Data in Generation Scotland
- Most omics-based association studies consider marginal effects i.e., each SNP/protein/CpG is modelled in an independent regression model We have co-developed methods that can model all omics features simultaneously and conditionally on each other.
- We have also extended this to consider multiple disease/phenotype outcomes simultaneously in a multivariate regression framework Here, I will provide examples of how these approaches improve our ability to identify lead loci and boost prediction in external test sets
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These examples will focus on common disease outcomes (e.g., CVD, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's dementia) that have been ascertained via data linkage to electronic health records in the Generation Scotland cohort (n~20,000). The omics features will include SNPs, CpGs (EPIC array methylation) and proteins (measured by mass spectrometry).
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Integrative Analysis of RNA-Protein Interactome Dynamics with Different Datasets Reveals Enzymatic Insights
- Expansive study combining RNA-protein interactome, proteome, transcriptome and metabolomics datasets
- Exploring the interplay between enzymes and RNA through integrated multi-omics analysis
- Unravelling connections between RNA and intermediary metabolisms
DAY 2
On Day 2, The Multi-Omics Stage will focus on Cancer Multi-Omics and Multi-Omics Data Integration. The theatre will end with a panel discussion on how personalized healthcare is transforming precision medicine and the key challenges and opportunities in integrating multi-omics data for more accurate diagnostics and tailored therapies.
[topic] CANCER MULTI-OMICS
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Knowledge-Based Machine Learning to Extract Disease Mechanisms from Multi-Omics Data
- Curated knowledge can support machine learning analysis to obtain molecular mechanisms
- Big opportunities with single-cell and spatial multi-omits novel technologies
- Need for benchmarks Big potential in medicine and beyond
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An Omics Approach to Explore the Impact of Diet, Sex and Hormones on Colitis and Colon Cancer
- Using a multi-omics approach to study the impact of diet, sex and hormones on immune cells in mouse models of colitis and colon cancer
- Leveraging a mixture of the transcriptome, microbiome and spatial proteomics, we discover immune cells that are associated with protection again CRC development
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Future work to translate results into human findings
Speaker
Professor & Head of Department of Protein Science
KTH Royal Institute of Technology & SciLifeLab
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Mechanisms of Evolution of Malignant Primary Brain Tumours
- Multi-omic and temporal analysis of primary brain tumours (Epi-) genetic mechanisms of malignant progression
- Molecular markers for tumour grade"
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[break] Lunch
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Food Options : Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Live Lounge Over Lunch : 15 mins technology focussed presentations
- Poster Zone : Browse the posters and reach out to potential new collaborators
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
[topic] MULTI-OMICS DATA INTEGRATION
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Medicalising the Poly-omic Revolution : A Key Role of the Human Cell Atlas
- While we know in exquisite detail the anatomical structures that make up human organs and all the genes in the human genome, rather embarrassingly we do not know how many different cell types make up a human. The Human Cell Atlas (HCA) has a key role to play in solving this problem. Establishing the cellular basis for disease is a major challenge for drug discovery in the 21st century.
- Unlike haematological diseases where the gene (Hb), cell (red blood cell) and clinical features (anaemia) map well onto each other, the cellular basis for most inflammatory diseases remains enigmatic. Current methods for drug discovery attempt to target causative pathways, often with strong associated genetic links, but they are too often “blind” to the pathogenic cell involved. C
- linicians, scientists, and those involved in designing new drugs now have a golden opportunity to contribute to and benefit from the insights that the cartographers of the Human Cell Atlas are delivering. This approach has real potential to design better drugs by providing access to a high- definition maps of human tissue as opposed to our current low-level histological maps used to define and classify human pathology.
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Multi-Omics Analysis of Cancer Signalling Networks; Towards a New Therapy Against Childhood Brain Cancer
- Explore how combining genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and epigenomic data reveals key dysregulated cancer signaling pathways in childhood brain tumors.
- Discuss how multi-omics analysis maps cancer signaling networks to identify potential therapeutic targets and biomarkers for personalized treatment strategies.
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Highlight promising therapies derived from multi-omics research, focusing on novel approaches to combat childhood brain cancers, with implications for clinical translation.
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Deep Learning Approaches for Identifying Predictive Biomarkers from the Tumour Microenvironment
- Tumour microenvironment plays a critical role in cancer progression and resistance.
- Histopathology and cellular imaging approaches allow for capturing the spatial organisation of different cell types in the tumour microenvironment and their potential interactions. While convolutional neural networks demonstrated great performance in classifying histopathological datasets, they are difficult to interpret.
- We evaluated several deep learning architectures for histopathology data including weakly supervised and vision transformer approaches.
- We demonstrate how graph neural networks allow creating explainable deep learning models that provide insights into the diversity and complexity of the tumour microenvironment.
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[break] Break
- Speed Networking : Fun and useful sessions where you’ll rapidly meet other Festival attendees to immediately expand your network.
- Food Options : Grab a sandwich at The Tree of Life Cafe or head on over to the Food Village for a range of hot food options including Indian, Jamaican and Thai food
- Exhibition Floor : Wander around the vibrant exhibition floor to see the latest technologies and services on offer
- Talkaoke : The Flying Saucer of Chat, a fun and interactive pop-up show that offers you the opportunity to sit down with others and discuss any topic you like.
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PANEL: Personalised Healthcare and Diagnostics: Significance and Impact
- How is personalized healthcare transforming precision medicine, and what impact does it have on treatment outcomes and patient safety?
- What are the key challenges and opportunities in integrating multi-omics data (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.) for more accurate diagnostics and tailored therapies?
- What ethical and regulatory considerations must be addressed to ensure the responsible implementation and equitable access to personalized healthcare and multi-omics diagnostics?
Speakers
NIHR Clinical Lecturer, Division of Population Health, Health Services Research & Primary Care (L5)
University of Manchester
Honorary Specialty Registrar and NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow
Cambridge University Hospital