William Hwang

Company: Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Job title: Assistant Professor

Bio:

Dr. William L. Hwang, MD, PhD is a Principal Investigator and Physician-Scientist at the Center for Systems Biology, Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research, and Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) where he leads the Laboratory for Spatial and Systems Oncology and cares for patients with pancreatic cancer and other gastrointestinal malignancies. He have a long-standing interest in the immense temporal and spatial heterogeneity of biological systems and the many insights that can only be gleaned by studying systems at the level of their individual components—single molecules or cells. His laboratory is focused on studying tumor-stroma interactions in cancer at unprecedented resolution through the development and application of techniques in advanced microscopy, single-cell and spatial biology, and genetic engineering to patient-derived specimens, stromal tumoroids, and mouse models. He is particularly interested in elucidating the roles of cell state plasticity and cell-cell interactions in mediating cancer development, progression and therapeutic resistance, with a specific focus on contributions from the nervous system. Dr. Hwang’s research has resulted in more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals including Nature, Cell, Nature Genetics, Cancer Cell, and Cancer Discovery, as well as several awards including the Martha Gray Prize for Excellence in Research, Seidman Prize for Outstanding Thesis, summa cum laude graduation honors from Harvard Medical School, MGH Clinical Research Award, William Shipley Research Award, ASCO/CCF Young Investigator Award, MIT Koch Institute Image Award, AACR NextGen Star, Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists, Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Career Development Award, 40 under 40 in Cancer – Rising Stars and Emerging Leaders, and Sir William Osler Young Investigator Award.

Seminars:

Decoding Multicellular Interactions in the Tumor Microenvironment using Integrated Spatial Multi-Omics 11:30 am

Harnessing advanced computational pipelines and spatial experimental methods to resolve cell–cell interactions in situ at high resolution Integrating same-section multi-omics (transcriptomics & proteomics) for an unbiased view of the tumour microenvironment and resistance mechanisms Applying target-agnostic spatial proteomics to uncover novel biomarkers and cellular neighbourhoods driving treatment failure and progressionRead more

day: Day One

Panel Discussion: What Will it Take to Standardize Spatial Across Industry & Who Should Lead the Charge? 9:40 am

What are the most critical barriers currently preventing standardization across spatial platforms, workflows, and datasets in biopharma? How do inconsistent tissue handling, assay protocols, and data formats affect cross-study comparability and regulatory acceptance? Should standardization start with biomarkers, instrumentation, data pipelines, or all at once? What should the priority be?Read more

day: Day One