Álvaro Quintanal Villalonga specializes in the molecular biology of lung cancer and targeted therapies. During his PhD in the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) and the Doce de Octubre Hospital (Madrid, Spain) under the direction of Dr. Luis Paz-Ares, Álvaro studied the role of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptors (FGFRs) as oncogenes in non-small cell lung cancer. His work identified biomarkers of response to FGFR inhibitors and the role of these receptors in the acquisition of EGFR targeted therapies. Currently, Álvaro is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Rudin’s laboratory in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA). He conducts research on lineage plasticity mechanisms driving histological transdifferentiation of adenocarcinomas into small cell and squamous cell carcinomas, and on novel therapeutic targets in small cell lung cancer.

Dr. Chan completed his MD/PhD at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he studied computational biology and developed new methods to model the topology of viral evolution and identify recurrent FGFR-TACC fusions in glioblastoma multiforme. He is now a clinical instructor and postdoctoral research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he aims to leverage single-cell technologies to understand how neuroendocrine lineage plasticity in lung and prostate cancer mediates metastasis and therapeutic resistance, and how the tumor microenvironment can impact this tumor-intrinsic process.