The Science of Childhood Cancer is an interactive, weekly lecture series designed to engage the scientific community on key questions in pediatric cancer research. The series, hosted by the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center, originally launched in August 2020 and features leading experts across the spectrum of basic, translational, clinical and population science. Explore our library of archived lectures below, and visit our registration page to receive updates about upcoming live events. View past lectures organized by category.

Prior Lectures: 2024-2026

 Date Speaker Title Lecture Topic
05.14.2026 Kim Stegmaier, MD
Professor, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute

Targeting Fusion-driven Cancers

This lecture was canceled

Hematological malignancies
05.07.2026 Nickhill Bhakta, MD, MPH
Associate Member, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Leveraging global health priorities to advance scientific discovery Perspectives
040.30.2026 Rachel Rau, MD
Associate Professor, Seattle Children’s Hospital
How blinatumomab changed B-ALL therapy and what comes next  Hematological malignancies, immunotherapy
04.23.2026 Dario Campana, MD, PhD
Professor, National University of Singapore 
Developing immune cell therapies for cancer: historical insights, current applications, and pathways to broader impact 
Immunotherapy, hematological malignancies
04.16.2026 Mondira Kundu, MD, PhD
Member, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Exploring the role of somatic mtDNA mutations in acute leukemia
Hematological malignancies, cancer biology
04.09.026 Francesca Del Bufalo, MD, PhD
Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital
GD2-CART01 for pediatric solid tumors: achievements, challenges and future directions
Immunotherapy, solid tumors
04.02.2026 Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD
Professor, Columbia University

Predicting and Preventing Late-occurring Adverse Outcomes in Childhood Cancer Survivors 

Recording not available

Immunotherapy
03.26.2026 Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH
Distinguished Professor, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Predicting and Preventing Late-occurring Adverse Outcomes in Childhood Cancer Survivors  Survivorship
03.19.2026 Steven DuBois, MD
Professor, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute

Accessing Innovative Medicines for Children and Adolescents with Cancer

Targeted therapies, clinical trials
03.12.2026 Michelle Monje, MD, PhD
Professor, Stanford University
The neuroscience of childhood brain cancers Brain tumors
03.05.2026 Trevor Pugh, PhD, FACMG
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Ontario Institute for Cancer Research

The CHARM of it all: Cell-free DNA sequencing for Hereditary And High-Risk Malignancies 

Hematological malignancies, data science
02.26.2026 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Lily Guenther, MD

Assistant Member, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Machine learning-based prediction of alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) identifies a novel dependency in ATRX-mutant ALT-positive pediatric solid tumors  
Recording not available
Cancer biology, solid tumors
02.26.2026 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Tim Coorens, PhD

Research Group Leader, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) 

Tracing the origins of childhood cancer through genome sequencing 

Cancer biology, solid tumors
02.19.2026 John  Dick, PhD, FRS
Professor, University of Toronto 

Backtracking leukemia to its origins 

Hematological malignancies, cancer biology
02.12.2026 Charles Mullighan, MBBS (Hons), MSc, MD
Member, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Therapeutic targeting of high-risk leukemia

Hematological malignancies, targeted therapies
02.05.2026 Crystal Mackall, MD
Professor, Stanford University
Developing CAR T Cell Therapies for Children’s Cancers
Recording not available
Immunotherapy, brain tumors
11.20.2025 Kevan Shokat, PhD
Professor
University of California, San Francisco
Overcoming the undruggable nature of the most common human oncogene: K-Ras Targeted therapies, cancer biology
11.13.2025

Martha Donoghue, MD
Associate Director for Pediatric Oncology and Rare Cancers
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
 

Dominik Karres, MD
Senior Scientific Officer
European Medicines Agency

This lecture was canceled

Joint lecture: Working together for timely pediatric cancer drug development: EMA and FDA perspectives

Perspectives, clinical trials
11.06.2025 Ken Aldape, MD
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota
DNA Methylation and Artificial Intelligence for the Diagnosis and Classification of CNS Tumors Brain tumors, epigenetics
10.30.2025 Danielle Friedman, MD
Associate Member
Memorial Sloan Kettering
Bridging surveillance and mechanistic insights to address cardiometabolic risk in childhood cancer survivors  Survivorship
10.23.2025 Alberto Pappo, MD
Member
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Pediatric melanocytic tumors: a 34-year journey of discovery and progress Solid tumors
10.16.2025 Benshang Li, MD
The Director of Cell Therapy Center 
Shanghai Children’s Medical Center
CAR T-cell therapy: experience from SCMC  Immunotherapy
10.09.2025 Lynley Marshall, PhD
The Royal Marsden Hospital and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK
‘Faster, higher, stronger’ (together) - clinical drug development in children and young people with cancer Targeted therapies, clinical trials
10.02.2025 Jeremy Rich, MD, MHS, MBA
Deputy Director for Research & Chief Scientific Officer
Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Killing cancer stem cells Brain tumors, cancer biology
09.25.2025 Anindita Roy, MRCPCH, FRCPath, PhD
Professor
University of Oxford
Developmental origins of infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia Hematological malignancies, cancer biology
09.18.2025 Alex Kentsis, MD, PhD
Director, Tow Center for Developmental Oncology
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Developmental mutagenesis: A unified theory of why young people develop cancer  Cancer biology, targeted therapies
09.11.2025 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Chris DeRenzo, MD

Associate Member
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Advancing CAR T cell therapies for pediatric patients with solid tumors

Recording not available

Immunotherapy, solid tumors
09.11.2025 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Paulina Velasquez, MD

Associate Member
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Next-generation cell therapy approaches for high-risk leukemias 

Recording not available

Immunotherapy, hematological malignancies
09.04.2025 Vijay Sankaran, MD, PhD
Professor
Boston Children's Hospital & Harvard Medical School 
Inherited risk for and resilience to blood cancers Hematological malignancies, cancer biology
08.28.2025 Karen Rabin, MD, PhD
Professor
University of California, San Francisco
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children with Down syndrome: insights and challenges Hematological malignancies, cancer biology
08.21.2025 Stephen Mack, PhD
Associate Member
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Deciphering the molecular and cellular basis of fusion driven ependymoma to uncover novel therapies Brain tumors, targeted therapies
08.14.2025 William G. Kaelin, MD
Professor
Dana Farber Cancer Institute

150th Science of Childhood Cancer Lecture

The Von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor: insights into oxygen sensing, tumor immunity, and drugging the undruggable

Cancer biology, targeted therapies
05.15.2025 Leonard Zon, MD
Director, Stem Cell Program, Boston Children’s Hospital
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Grousbeck Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
The leukemic niche - endothelial and macrophage control of clonality Hematological malignancies, cancer biology
05.05.2025 Chris Vakoc, MD, PhD
Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Transcriptional dependencies in cancer Epigenetics, cancer biology
05.01.2025 Tanja Mittag, PhD
Member, Department of Structural Biology
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital 
Dissecting mechanisms underlying transcription factor phase separation in function and disease Cancer biology
04.24.2025 Doug Hawkins, MD
Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital
Looking back and looking forward for the Children’s Oncology Group Perspectives, clinical trials
04.17.2025 Paul Ekert, MB.BS, PhD, FRACP
Deputy Director, Children’s Cancer Institute, UNSW
Group Leader, Translational Tumour Biology Laboratory
Head, Translational Genomics
ZERO Childhood Cancer Program
 
The ZERO Childhood Cancer - a national pediatric cancer precision medicine program Cancer biology, targeted therapies
04.10.2025 Rob Wechsler-Reya, PhD
H. Houston Merritt Professor of Neurological Sciences, Department of Neurology
Scientific Director of Brain Tumor Research, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
Columbia University Medical Center

Less heat, more light: discovering smarter therapies for pediatric brain tumors

Recording not available

Brain tumors, targeted therapies
04.03.2025 Hanna Mikkola, MD, PhD
Professor, Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California Los Angeles

Dissecting human hematopoietic stem cell development, self-renewal and transformation

Recording not available

Hematological malignancies
03.27.2025 Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD
Edward P. Evans Chair in MDS; Chair, Molecular Pharmacology Program
Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

New therapeutic approaches for myeloid & lymphoid leukemias

Recording not available

Hematological malignancies, immunotherapy
03.20.2025 Chris Jones, PhD
Head of Division of Molecular Pathology
Institute of Cancer Research, London UK
Lineage-specific dependencies in paediatric-type diffuse high-grade glioma Cancer biology, brain tumors
03.13.2025 Greg Wang, PhD
Professor, Duke Cancer Institute and Duke University School of Medicine
Chromatin-based regulations of gene transcription and oncogenesis Cancer biology, epigenetics
03.06.2025 Rising Star of Cancer Research:
Cindy Im, PhD, MPH

Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota
Precision survivorship: predicting primary ovarian insufficiency risk in female survivors of childhood cancer Survivorship, data science
03.06.2025 Rising Star of Cancer Research:
Stephanie Dixon, MD, MPH

Assistant Member
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Cardiometabolic risk factors in survivorship: a target to reduce morbidity and mortality Survivorship
02.27.2025 Jan-Henning Klusmann, MD, PhD
Director of the Department of Pediatrics, Professor for Pediatric
Goethe University Frankfurt

Targeting aberrant splicing in pediatric acute myeloid leukemia

Recording not available

Hematological malignancies, targeted therapies
02.13.2025
James R. Downing, MD
President and CEO
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo MD
Chair, Department of Global Pediatric Medicine
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Transforming global pediatric cancer care: an update on strategies to address global inequities in childhood cancer care and control Perspectives
02.06.2025

Martine Roussel, PhD

Member, St. Jude Faculty
Endowed Chair in Molecular Oncogenesis

Developing new models and therapies for high-risk pediatric embryonal brain tumors  Brain tumors, targeted therapies
11.14.2024

Michael Dyer, PhD

Chair, Developmental Neurobiology Department
Co-Leader, Developmental Biology & Solid Tumor Program
Richard C. Shadyac Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cancer Research
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Developmental programs contribute to chemoresistance in pediatric solid tumors Solid tumors, targeted therapy
11.07.2024

Alexander Stark, PhD

Senior Group Leader
Research Institute of Molecular Pathology
Vienna, Austria

Decoding transcriptional regulation

Recording not available

Data science, epigeneticsq
10.31.2024

Wendy Landier, PhD, CRNP

Professor, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Addressing the challenges of HPV vaccination in young cancer survivors Survivorship, clinical trials
10.24.2024

Greg Reaman, MD

Scientific Director, Childhood Cancer Data Initiative
National Cancer Institute

The Childhood Cancer Data Initiative: An update Data science, perspectives
10.17.2024

Mark Hatley, MD, PhD

Associate Member
Director Division of Molecular Oncology
Department of Oncology

Developmental heterogeneity in rhabdomyosarcoma Cancer biology, solid tumors
10.10.2024

Cynthia Hawkins, MD, PhD

Neuropathologist, The Hospital for Sick Children
Professor, University of Toronto

Oncogenesis in pediatric glioma, moving beyond the genome Cancer biology, brain tumors
10.03.2024

Stephanie Halene, MD

Chief, Section of Hematology
Department of Internal Medicine and Yale Cancer Center
Yale University School of Medicine

RNA biology in MDS and modeling myelodysplasia Cancer biology, hematological malignancies
09.26.2024

Howard Chang, MD PhD

Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine
Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Cancer genes beyond chromosomes Cancer biology, epigenetics
09.19.2024

Adam Palmer, PhD

Assistant Professor, Computational Medicine Program
Department of Pharmacology
Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Modeling curative combination therapies Cancer biology, data science
09.12.2024

Torsten Haferlach, MD PhD

CEO, Munich Leukemia Laboratory

Diagnosis of leukemia: from phenotype to genotype to artificial intelligence  Hematological malignancies
09.05.2024

Charles WM Roberts, MD PhD

Member, St. Jude Faculty
Executive Vice President
Director, Comprehensive Cancer Center

Chromatin and cancer: from mechanisms to emerging therapies Epigenetics, cancer biology
08.29.2024

Guillermina Lozano, PhD

Chair, Department of Genetics
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Wild type and mutant p53 functions Cancer biology, solid tumors
08.22.2024

Stephen Gottschalk, MD

Chair, Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy
Co-Director, Center of Excellence for Pediatric Immuno-Oncology
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Engineered cell therapy for pediatric cancer Immunotherapy, solid tumors
08.15.2024

Rising Star of Cancer Research:
Evan Weber, PhD

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
University of Pennsylvania
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Targeting transcription factors to augment CAR T cell fitness Immunotherapy
08.15.2024

Rising Star of Cancer Research:
Kyle Daniels, PhD

Assistant Professor of Genetics
Stanford University School of Medicine 

Decoding CAR T-cell phenotype using combinatorial signaling motif libraries and machine learning Hematological malignancies, immunotherapy
08.08.2024

Rob Pieters, MD PhD MSc

Chief Medical Officer
Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology

Recent results from translational and clinical studies in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the Princess Máxima Center Hematological malignancies
05.16.2024 Heather Conklin, PhD
Chief, Division of Neuropsychology; Full Member, Department of Psychology and Biobehavioral Sciences
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Improving Cognitive Outcomes for Children Treated for Cancer: Moving Beyond the Cure Survivorship
05.09.2024 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Matt Ehrhardt, MD, MS

Associate Member
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Guideline development and delivery of precision-survivorship care

Recording not available

Survivorship
05.09.2024 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Kira Bona, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Harvard Medical School
Attending Physician, Pediatric Oncology
Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center

Poverty as a "druggable" target: opportunities and challenges for health equity research

Recording not available

Survivorship, clinical trials
05.02.2024 Sriram Venneti, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Pathology and Pediatrics; Al and Robert Glick Family Research Professor of Pediatrics; Scientific Research Director, Chad Carr Pediatric Brain Tumor Center, University of Michigan Medical School
Metabolism and epigenetics as integrated drivers of childhood brain cancer Epigenetics, brain tumors
04.25.2024 Gilles Vassal, MD, PhD
Gustave Roussy Comprehensive Cancer Center, Villejuif, France
Accelerating therapeutic innovations for children and adolescents with cancer Clinical trials, perspectives
04.18.2024 Daniel Herranz, PharmD, PhD
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Pediatrics
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey 

Novel therapeutic targets in T-cell Leukemia

Recording not available

Hematological malignancies, targeted therapies
04.11.2024 Poul Sorensen, BSc, MD, PhD, FRCPC
Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
The University of British Columbia

Targeting metabolic vulnerabilities in high-risk childhood cancer using immunotherapy (and other modalities)

Recording not available

Immunotherapy, cancer biology
04.04.2024 Jenny Mack, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Pediatrics. Harvard Medical School
Associate Chief, Division of Population Sciences,
Faculty Vice President for the Office for Faculty Development, Professionalism, and Inclusion
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Quality of care for adolescents and young adults with advanced cancer Survivorship
03.28.2024 Kai Tan, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics, Richard & Sheila Sanford Endowed Chair
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Stem cell programs in high risk leukemias
Hematological malignancies
03.21.2024 Kara Davis, DO
Stanford University    
Understanding treatment resistance and relapse in ALL through single cell studies Hematological malignancies, targeted therapies
03.14.2024 Mark Dawson, MBBS (Hons), BMedSci, FRACP, FRCPA, PhD 
Professor, Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology & Centre for Cancer Research
University of Melbourne
HHMI International Research Scholar, CCV Sir Edward Dunlop Fellow, Associate Director for Research Translation, Consultant Haematologist (RMH / PMCC)
Head, Cancer Biology & Therapeutics Program
Non-genetic mechanisms of clonal dominance in normal and malignant haematopoiesis Hematological malignancies, epigenetics
03.07.2024 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Jarno Drost, PhD

Group leader, Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology
Group leader, Oncode Institute
Organoids in pediatric cancer research Solid tumors, brain tumors
03.07.2024 Rising Star of Cancer Research
Adam Durbin, MD, PhD

Assistant Member, Division of Molecular Oncology, Department of Oncology
St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital
Dissecting epigenetic control of transcription in pediatric cancer Epigenetics, solid tumors
02.29.2024 Sharon Castellino, MD, MSc
Professor of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine
Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
Beyond owl eyes - advances in pediatric and AYA Hodgkin lymphoma Survivorship, hematological malignancies
02.22.2024 Marcel Kool, PhD
Group leader, deputy division head, Division of Pediatric Neuro-oncology, Hopp Children’s Cancer Center (KiTZ) & German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Heidelberg, Germany
Group leaders, Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Professor, pediatric brain tumors,
University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

Molecular and clinical analyses of rare pediatric brain tumor types

Recording not available

Brain tumors
02.15.2024 Jian Xu, PhD
Member, Center of Excellence for Leukemia Studies, Department of Pathology
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Understanding and targeting the non-coding regulatory genome Hematological malignancies, epigenetics
02.08.2024 Bing Ren, PhD
Director, Center for Epigenomics; Professor, Cellular and Molecular Medicine
University of California, San Diego

Single-cell epigenome analysis: methods and applications

Recording not available

Epigenetics

Comprehensive Cancer Center

St. Jude is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children