2025 Gloria and Mark Snyder Symposium
April 22, 2025 • 8 am to to 5 pm
Cancer mortality rates have steadily declined during the last decades in the United States. This remarkable result is due to the combination of controlling risk factors, chiefly tobacco smoking, achieving earlier detection and diagnosis, improving the understanding of mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and developing more effective therapies. The growing understanding of the mechanisms underlying these achievements, including the role of genetic and non-genetic factors, and their interplay with environmental factors, represents a major avenue of research at Stony Brook Cancer Center. These advances are supported by world-class programs in omics technologies, big data analytics and imaging, and form the basis for the robust portfolio of clinical studies, which address novel aspects of tumor landscapes, offering novel and more personalized approaches in molecular medicine.
Speakers at this year’s Gloria and Mark Snyder Symposium on Research and Clinical Insights for Cancer Prevention and Treatment will address the interplay and the integration of different components of cancer research and how they jointly contribute to the development of novel prevention strategies, diagnostic methods and therapeutic interventions, aimed at reducing the burden of cancer in the population served by Stony Brook Cancer Center and beyond.
Keynote Speakers
Xuehong Zhang MBBS, MSc, ScD
Professor and Assistant Dean for Research
Yale University School of Nursing
Dr. Xuehong Zhang, is a Professor with Tenure and Assistant Dean of Research at Yale University School of Nursing. Dr. Zhang is an epidemiologist with solid training in clinical medicine and nutrition. His research program is centered on digestive diseases and cancers, with a particular focus on liver-related conditions. His broad research interests encompass diet, lifestyle, obesity, environmental risk factors, biomarkers, health disparities, early detection, diagnosis, and global health. With over 15 years of experience in clinical and epidemiological research,
Dr. Zhang is currently the Principal Investigator for several research grants, including an NCI MERIT Award (R37), two U01 grants, and an American Cancer Society (ACS) Interdisciplinary Team Award. Dr. Zhang's research has led to more than 260 publications, including numerous senior author papers in journals such as JAMA, Nature Communications, Gut, Hepatology, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. He is passionate about teaching and has mentored over 30 early-career researchers. Additionally, he serves as the Associate Editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and editorial board for the Journal of National Cancer Institute. He is a standing member of the ACS Cancer Detection and Progression Peer Review Committee.
Wei Zheng, MD, PhD
Anne Potter Wilson Chair in Medicine
Professor and Director, Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center
Associate Director for Population Sciences Research, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
Dr. Wei Zheng is Professor and Director of Division of Epidemiology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and the Associate Director for Population Sciences at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. He has published more than 1,320 research papers and served as the principal investigator for more than 35 NIH-funded large epidemiologic and genetic studies, including three large prospective cohort studies with over 200,000 study participants.
His research focuses mainly on the nutrition, molecular and genetic epidemiology of cancer. Dr. Zheng has been the primary mentor for more than 60 graduate students and postdoc fellows and 20 junior investigators. He has served on the editorial board for more than 10 life science journals and as a reviewer for many review panels for research funding. He is an elected fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science. Dr. Zheng received his medical degree from Fudan University Shanghai Medical School and his doctoral degree in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University.