The identification and validation of new cancer targets is an essential step to developing new therapeutics. Traditional drug discovery approaches have relied on biochemical screening of validated targets ex vivo with large chemical libraries. Recent advances in functional genomics and chemical biology now provide a powerful complementary approach to target discovery and validation. This Workshop will focus on recent developments of using genetic and chemical approaches in cell and animal based screens to validate new cancer targets and to identify potential small molecule inhibitors.
Educational Session: Functional Screens to Identify New Cancer Targets

Functional genomic approaches to identify cancer targets and co-dependencies; William C. Hahn. Dana-Farber Cancer Inst., Boston, MA

Cancer gene discovery through in vivo RNAi screens; Michael T. Hemann. MIT-Koch Inst. for Integrative Cancer Research, Cambridge, MA

Genomic approaches to cancer drug discovery; Todd R. Golub. Broad Inst. of MIT & Harvard, Cambridge, MA

High throughput screening and target validation; Markus Warmuth. Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc., Cambridge, MA,