UCSF Brain Tumor Experts Featured at Neuro-Oncology Conference

Specialists in brain cancer research and clinical care from UC San Francisco will present research findings in cancer neuroscience, neuroimaging, precision and immunotherapy at the 31st annual meeting of the Society for Neuro-Oncology in Philadelphia, Nov. 12 to 15.

They will join more than 3,000 researchers and physicians, gathering at the conference.

This year’s theme, Crossing the Translational Divide: From Neurons to Novel Therapies, focuses on the latest developments in the management of brain tumors.

Joanna Phillips, MD, PhD, UCSF Brain Tumor Center principal investigator and director of the Neurosurgery Biorepository, and John de Groot, MD, division chief of Neuro-Oncology in the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery, are co-chairing this year’s meeting. Phillips will welcome conference attendees during the Plenary I session on Nov. 13 from 8:30 a.m, to 8:40 a.m.

Shawn Hervey-Jumper, MD, a neurosurgeon at UCSF and Mitchel S. Berger MD, Endowed Professor at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, is president-elect of the Society for Neuro-Oncology and will become the next president of the society in November 2027. Hervey-Jumper is an NIH-funded investigator specializing in the surgical management of brain cancers within functional brain regions, using physiological mapping. He has led both institutional and national research initiatives spanning neuroscience, oncology, and research ethics.

Janine Lupo, PhD, a professor of Radiology and principal investigator in the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, will receive this year’s Neuroimaging Abstract Award from SNO. She will present her talk, “Clinical Utility of Radiopathomic Mapping in Glioblastoma Management: From Predicting Underlying Pathology to Response and Prognosis,” during Neuroimaging Oral Abstracts Session I on Nov. 13 from 3:45 p.m. to 3:52 p.m.

Researchers and clinicians from the UCSF Brain Tumor Center will be presenting talks and posters throughout the week. Here are some highlights (all times Eastern):

Friday, November 13

Martha Cady, a PhD student in the TETRAD program at UCSF, presents her research from the UCSF Raleigh lab, “A Proteogenomic RNA Processing Mechanism Drives Sex Differences in Meningioma Proteomic Signaling Events That Help Explain Why Meningiomas Are More Common in Women Than in Men,” during the Plenary II session from 1 p.m. to 1:10 p.m.

Christina Weyer Jamora, PhD, RN, a neuropsychologist at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, presents, “Building Embedded Cognitive Rehabilitation into Brain Tumor Centers” during

Advances and Future Directions for Managing Cognitive Outcomes in Patients with Primary Brain Tumors (Session organizer: UCSF’s Jennie Taylor, MD), from10:43 a.m. to 10:55 a.m.

Nicholas Butowski, MD, a neuro-oncologist and UCSF professor of Neurological Surgery, presents “Survival Outcomes with Bizaxofusp (MDNA55) in Unresectable IDH-Wildtype Recurrent Glioblastoma (Rgbm) Using a Propensity Score-Weighted External Control Arm (ECA) in the Intended Phase 3 Population” during Clinical Trials Oral Abstracts Session I from 10:36 a.m. to 10:43 a.m.

Nadia Allen-Gardizi, BS, a junior specialist in Anwar Lab in the Department of Radiation Oncology at UCSF, presents, "Real-Time Intraoperative Imaging of 5-ALA/PPIX in Glioblastoma Using VISION - A Chip-Scale Fluorescence Contact Imager” during Neurosurgery Oral Abstracts Session I from 10:36 a.m. to 10:43 a.m.

Jennifer Clarke, MD, MPH, a neuro-oncologist and UCSF professor of Clinical Neurology and Neurological Surgery, presents, “Results from the Dose-Escalation Cohort of a Phase 1 Study of Autologous Anti-EGFRvIII Synnotch Receptor-Induced Anti-Epha2/Il-13Rα2 CAR (E-SYNC) T-Cells in Adults with EGFRvIII+ Glioblastoma” during Rapid Orals Session IA from 12:24 p,m. to 12:27 p.m.

Tianrun Xiao, staff research associate in the Viswanath Lab at UCSF, presents “The H3K27M Mutation Drives a Glycerophospholipid Program in Diffuse Midline Glioma that is Suppressed by Antisense Oligonucleotide Therapy and Detected by Metabolic Imaging” during

Rapid Orals Session VI A from11:30 a.m. to 11:33 a.m.

Gray Umbach, MD, UCSF neurosurgery resident, presents “Functional Single Neuron and Assembly Activity Define Information Encoding Within Diffuse Glioma” during Cancer Neuroscience Oral Abstracts Session I (Moderator: Shawn Hervey-Jumper, MD) from3:19 p.m. to 3:24 p.m.

Alex Sorensen, BS, UCSF medical scientist trainee program student, presents “DNA Sequencing Defines Evolutionary Trajectories of Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors” during Neurogenetic Tumor Syndromes Oral Abstracts Session from 3:59 p.m. to 4:06 p.m.

Saritha Krishna, PhD, adjunct assistant professor in the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, presents “Tumor-to-Neuron Chloride Signaling Drives Neural Hyperexcitability and Glioblastoma Proliferation” during Cancer Neuroscience Oral Abstracts Session II from 5:14 p.m. to 5:21 p.m.

Saturday, November 14

Ankita Sati, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, presents “Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts Remodel the Immune and Stromal Microenvironment to Drive Therapeutic Resistance in Glioblastoma” during Basic Science Oral Abstracts Session II from10:54 a.m. to 10:59 a.m.

Annette Molinaro, PhD, the Zelda d’Angleterre Glazer Endowed Chair in Brain Tumor Research at UCSF, presents “Multivariate Survival Risk Stratification in GBMs Lacking Necrosis and Microvascular Proliferation” during Rapid Orals Session V B from 11:33 a.m. to 11:36 a.m.

Youssef Sibih, MD, UCSF neurosurgery resident, presents “The Aperiodic Exponent as a Multimodal Electrophysiologic and Transcriptomic Biomarker of Excitation-Inhibition Imbalance in Glioma-Infiltrated Cortex” during Rapid Orals Session IB from 12:03 p.m. to 12:06 p.m.

Sanjeev Herr, MD, MS, postdoctoral scholar in the Hervey-Jumper lab, presents

Molecular Subtype-dependent Remodeling of Axonal Conduction Pathways in Gliomas” during Rapid Orals Session IB from 12:09 p.m. to 12:12 p.m.

Zulekha Qadeer, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, presents “An In Vivo CRISPRi Screen Identifies Critical Epigenetic Dependencies in MYC-Driven Medulloblastoma” during Rapid Orals Session II B from 12:18 p.m to 12:21 p.m.

Xiangru Li, BS, UCSF PhD candidate, presents “Foundation Model Fine-Tuning Enables Glioblastoma Progression Prediction from Only Anatomical MRI for Scalable Personalized RT Planning” during Rapid Orals Session VI B from 12:27 p.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Mitchel Berger, MD, a neurosurgeon and director of the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, serves as moderator and session organizer for “Advancing Trial-Integrated Biospecimen Collection in Brain Tumor Window-of-Opportunity (WoO) Clinical Trials: Building on the Biospecimen Working Group Initiative” from 2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. Joanna Phillips, MD, PhD, conference co-host, is a panelist for this session. Martin van den Bent, MD, PhD, a neuro-oncologist at the Erasmus MC Cancer Center in Rotterdam and adjunct professor of Neurological Surgery at UCSF, is also a moderator for this session.

Christina Weyer Jamora, PhD, RN, presents “Implementing NCCN Survivorship Recommendations for Fatigue and Cognitive Impairment in Individuals with Primary Brain Tumors: A Real-World Study” during Survivorship Oral Abstracts Session I from 2:51 p.m. to 2:58 p.m.

Janine Lupo, PhD, professor of Radiology and principal investigator at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, presents “Multimodal Hierarchical Representation Learning for Spatial Classification of Glioma Recurrence” during Neuroimaging Oral Abstracts Session II from 3:19 p.m. to 3:24 p.m.

Jennie Taylor, MD, MPH, a neuro-oncologist and UCSF professor of Neurology, presents “Real-World Data from Clinical Caregiver Program: Concerns, Interventions, and Interconnections” during Survivorship Oral Abstracts Session I from 2:30 p.m. to 2:37 p.m. Taylor is also serving as a chair for the “Survivorship” subject matter track at the conference.

Taylor also presents “Real-World Utilization and Outcomes of Vorasidenib-Treated Patients with Grade 2 IDH-Mutant Gliomas in the US” during Rare Tumor Oral Abstracts Session II from 5:07 p.m. to 5:14 p.m.

Jacob Young, MD, a neurosurgeon and UCSF assistant professor of Neurological Surgery, is session organizer and moderator for “ASNO - EANO - SNO Young Investigator Debate” from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Steve Hetts, MD, a neurointerventional radiologist and co-chief of Neuroendovascular Surgery at UCSF, is an invited speaker for the neurosurgery education session “Endovascular Surgical Neuro-Oncology: An Evolving Field’ from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Sunday, November 15

Naomi Hoffer, MA, MCHES, program manager for the Sheri Sobrato Brain Cancer Survivorship Program at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, presents “From surviving to thriving: Implementation and utilization of an integrated neuro-oncology survivorship program” during Survivorship Oral Abstracts Session II (Moderator: Jennie Taylor, MD) from 8:30 a.m. to 8:37 a.m.

Gabrielle Malte, BS, UC affiliate researcher, presents “Deciphering the FLAIR Signal: Stimulated Raman Histology Reveals the Limited Ability of Radiographic Characteristics to Comprehensively Define Tumor Infiltration in Glioblastoma” during Neurosurgery Oral Abstracts Session II from 10:29 a.m. to 10:34 a.m.

Abraham Dada, a UCSF medical student in the Hervey-Jumper lab, presents “Genomic and Electrophysiological Modeling of Speech Representations in the Human Cortex” during Cancer Neuroscience Oral Abstracts Session III from 11:07 a.m. to 11:14 a.m.

For UCSF poster presentations, please check here.