Conferences & Events
John H. Blaffer Lecture Series
Each Tuesday from September through April, an internationally recognized scientist is invited to speak and present his or her latest results. Students have the opportunity to meet and interact with these distinguished scientists. , is the chair and coordinator of the Blaffer Lecture Series.
The Fall 2025 Blaffer Lecture Series is an in-person opportunity. Please check the MD Anderson calendar for upcoming lectures.
For further information on a lecture, please contact Lisa M. Watson, series coordinator, at lmwatson@mdanderson.org.
Tuesdays, 12¨C1 p.m.
Onstead Auditorium (BSRB S3.8012)
September through April
Fall 2025 Blaffer Schedule (In-Person)
September 30, 2025
Speaker: , Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson, Medical School, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey
Title of Talk: ¡°Hypoxia-Induced Metastatic Heterogeneity in Pancreatic Cancer¡±
Host: Florencia McAllister, M.D., Department of Genetics
October 7, 2025
Speaker: ., Professor, Alan and Edith Seligson Professor of Cancer Research, Cancer Center Deputy Director of Research, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Title of Talk: ¡°Cancer Dependency Identification and Mechanisms¡±
Host: Yejing Ge, Ph.D., Department of Experimental Radiation Oncology
October 14, 2025 ¡ª To Be Rescheduled
Speaker: , Professor & Chair, Department of Armond and Elena Hairapetian Chair in Engineering and Medicine, UCLA Bioengineering
Title of Talk: ¡°Building Better Cell Therapies: Functional Selection and Discovery Using Nanovials and Cell¨CCell-Seq¡±
Host: Ken Chen, Ph.D., Department of Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
October 21, 2025
Special Lecture for Blaffer Series: 2025 Mary Beth Maddox Award Recipient
Speaker: Assistant Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry, Children¡¯s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern
Title of Talk: ¡°Metabolic Regulation of Cancer Cell Growth¡±
October 28, 2025
Speaker: , Professor, Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, HHMI, Harvard Medical School
Title of Talk: ¡°Mining for Gold with AlphaFold in Genome Maintenance and Beyond¡±
Host: Junjie Chen, Ph.D., Department of Experimental Radiation Oncology
November 4, 2025 - To Be Rescheduled
Speaker: , Assistant Professor of Human Genetics, The University of Utah
Title of Talk: ¡°'Peeling back the layers¡¯: Anatomical and Molecular Characterization of the Zebrafish Meninges¡±
Host: Richard Behringer, Ph.D., Department of Genetics
November 11, 2025
Speaker: , Zbigniew and Anna M. Scheller Professor for Medical Research, Chair, Division of Experimental Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic
Title of Talk: "Characterization of Cancer Predisposition Gene Variants"
Host: Georgios Karras, Ph.D., Department of Genetics
November 18, 2025
Speaker: , Professor and Co-Leader, Genome Regulation and Cell Signaling Program, Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center, Director, Center for Systems and Computational Biology, The Wistar Institute
Title of Talk: ¡°Spatial Regulation of 3¡¯ end Processing of pre-mRNA and its Implications in Cell Metabolism and Cancer Therapies¡±
Host: Angela Ting, Ph.D., Department of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis
December 09, 2025
Speaker: ., Professor of Cancer Biology, Vice Chair, Department of Cancer Biology, Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, Penn Epigenetics Institute, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Title of Talk: ¡°Metabolic Signaling in Cancer¡±
Host: Jihye Yun, Ph.D., Department of Genetics
Research Exchange Series
Each week from October through May, this series alternates faculty from across the Texas Medical Center (TMC) with senior trainees from the Department of Genetics to discuss their research. This series highlights the breadth and depth of science in the TMC and provides an opportunity to establish collaborations across the numerous institutions in the TMC. It is also a forum for senior students and postdoctoral trainees to present their studies.
Shih-Han "Peggy" Lee, Ph.D., and Jihye Yun., Ph.D., host this series.
For further information or access to a seminar, please contact Monique Richardson at MMRichardson1@mdanderson.org.
Wednesdays, 12¨C1 p.m.
October through May
Fall 2025 Research Exchange Schedule (In-Person)
October 15, 2025
Yixiao Cheng, B.S., Graduate Research Assistant (Van Loo Lab) Department of Genetics, MD Anderson
Oct. 22, 2025
Joy McDaniel, Ph.D., Instructor (Lozano Lab) Department of Genetics, MD Anderson
October 29, 2025
Tianshi Feng, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow (Yun Lab) Department of Genetics, MD Anderson
November 5, 2025
Benjamin Morris, Ph.D., CPRIT TRIUMPH Fellow (Heymach Lab) Department of Thoracic Head & Neck Medical Oncology, MD Anderson
November 12, 2025
, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Sam Houston University
November 19, 2025
, Assistant Professor & CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine
December 3, 2025
, Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine