AHEAD Steering Committee Meeting

Tuesday March 3rd, 2026 - 2:00pm-6:00pm CT

Location: Onstead Auditorium, S3.8012 – Mitchell Building

Time (Central Standard Time) Title Presenter Number

2:00 pm-2:10 pm

Welcome

Jennifer Webster-Cyriaque, DDS, PhD, NIDCR Acting Director

Sudhir Srivastava, PhD, MPH, Senior Scientific Officer & Chief, Cancer Biomarkers Branch, National Cancer Institute

N/A

2:10 pm -2:15 pm

Overview of AHEAD Program and AHEAD-EDRN Collaborations

Zhong Chen, MD, PhD and Jason Wan, PhD, NIDCR and Wendy Wang, PhD, NCI

N/A

2:15 pm-2:22 pm

2:22 pm-2:25pm Q&A

Group 1

Yu Leo Lei, PhD, DDS (University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center), Steven Chinn, MD, MPH, FACS (University of Pittsburgh), Thomas Wang, MD (University of Michigan)

01

2:25 pm-2:32 pm

2:32 pm - 2:35 pm Q&A

Group 2

Fatemeh Momen Heravi, DDS, PhD, MPH, MS (University of California San Francisco)

02

2:35 pm - 2:42 pm

2:42 pm - 2:45 pm Q&A

Group 3

Laura Rozek, PhD (Georgetown University), Maureen Sartor, PhD, Nisha D’Silva, BDS, MSD, PhD (University of Michigan)

03

2:45 pm - 2:52 pm

2:52 pm - 2:55 pm Q&A

Group 4

Sara Pai, MD, PhD (Yale University)

04

2:55 pm-3:02 pm

3:02 pm-3:05 pm Q&A

Group 5

Antonio Amelio, PhD, Anna Giuliano, PhD (H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center)

05

3:05 pm-3:12 pm

3:12 pm-3:15 pm Q&A

Group 6

Hua Li, PhD, DABR, FAAPM (Washington University), Xiaowei Wang, PhD (University of Illinois Chicago)

06

3:15 pm-3:22 pm

3:22 pm - 3:25 pm

Group 7

Silvio Gutkind, PhD Ludmil Alexandrov, PhD, Scott Lippman, MD (University of California San Diego)

07

3:40 pm - 5:45 pm Working Group Discussion Session

Central Standard time Topic Presenter

3:40 pm-4:05 pm

H&E biorepository—Pathology working group

Lead: Sara Pai MD, PhD (Yale University) and Yu Leo Lei, PhD, DDS (The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center)

4:05 pm-4:30 pm

Generation of CDE

Lead: Yu Leo Lei, PhD, DDS (The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center), team members: Vidhya Venkateswaran, BDS, MPH, PhD, NIDCR

4:30 pm-4:55 pm

Spatial transcriptomics efforts

Lead: Fatemeh Momen Heravi DDS, PhD, MPH, MS (University of California San Francisco) [human] and Silvio Gutkind, PhD, (University of California San Diego) [mouse]

4:55 pm-5:20 pm

Shared biospecimen protocols

Lead: Laura Rozek, PhD (Georgetown University) and Antonio Amelio, PhD (H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center)

5:20 pm-5:45 pm

Collaboration with EDRN lung group and funding opportunities

Leaders: AHEAD Co-chairs and Guillermo Marquez, PhD, NCI

5:45 pm-6:00 pm

Summary

Sara Pai, MD, PhD (Yale University)