meet the speakers

Dr. Victor E. Velculescu is internationally recognized for his pioneering contributions to cancer genomics, including the discovery of key cancer genes and the development of transformative liquid biopsy technologies for early cancer detection. Dr. Velculescu led the first genome-wide sequencing efforts in human cancers, identifying critical genes and pathways involved in tumorigenesis. He developed foundational methods for large-scale gene expression analyses and introduced the term “transcriptome” to describe the global RNA landscape in cells. His group’s landmark studies revealed the genomic architecture of human cancers – including in colorectal, breast, pancreatic, and glioblastoma – leading to the identification of PIK3CA as one of the most frequently mutated genes in human cancer. These discoveries have directly contributed to the development of FDA-approved therapies targeting PI3K and IDH1, and informed the creation of the first FDA-cleared diagnostic for comprehensive tumor profiling, now widely adopted in clinical oncology. A pioneer in liquid biopsies, Dr. Velculescu’s team was the first to perform whole-genome analyses of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in cancer patients. His group demonstrated that cfDNA from early-stage cancer patients harbors detectable mutations, and that genome-wide fragmentation patterns, when analyzed with artificial intelligence, can enable non-invasive early cancer detection. The approach, known as DELFI, provides a powerful window into tumor biology from a simple blood sample. These innovations led to the first clinically validated blood test for lung cancer screening and are now being extended to ovarian, liver, and other cancers – advancing a new era in cancer detection with the potential to significantly reduce global cancer mortality. Dr. Velculescu’s current work focuses on advancing AI-driven, non-invasive diagnostics to enable accessible cancer screening worldwide. Dr. Velculescu is a Professor of Oncology, Pathology, and Medicine, and Genetic Medicine and Co-Director of Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He received his undergraduate degree with Honors and Distinction in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, and earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in Human Genetics and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins. He has served on the Board of Directors and as Chair of Publications for the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), as Co-Leader of the Stand Up to Cancer Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer Dream Team, and on the scientific advisory boards of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Cancer Research UK, the Tisch Cancer Center at Mount Sinai, Ludwig Cancer Research, the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, and the White House Cancer Moonshot initiative. He is a Founder and former Co-CEO of Personal Genome Diagnostics (acquired by LabCorp in 2022) and Founder and former CEO of DELFI Diagnostics. Dr. Velculescu’s contributions have been recognized with numerous national and international honors, including the Grand Prize of the Amersham/Pharmacia & Science Young Scientist Prize (1999), the Order of Merit from the President of Romania (2000), the Judson Daland Prize of the American Philosophical Society (2008), the AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research (2009), and the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research (2011). He has also received multiple AACR Team Science Awards (2013, 2014, 2017), and, most recently, the Pioneer Award from the Precision Medicine World Conference (2025). He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2014), the American Association of Physicians (2018), and as a Fellow of the AACR Academy (2022). He was named an Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy (2017) and elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2023). Dr. Velculescu holds over 500 patents and patent applications worldwide and has been honored with the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Maryland, 2016), the Baltimore Business Journal Best in Tech Award (2021), and the Health Care Innovation Award (2022).