The DNA damage response is critical to the maintenance of the genome and also determines the efficacy of DNA-damaging cancer therapies including radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Aberrant DNA damage response and DNA repair are frequent in malignant tumours and can sustain tumour development. At the same time, they offer tumour-specific vulnerabilities that can be exploited in the clinic. Understanding how the DNA damage response is regulated by genetic or metabolic alterations and microenvironmental cues is thus crucial to the design of therapeutic strategies based DNA damage induction, photon and particle irradiation, as well as to minimizing resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. It is an exciting and rapidly evolving research field that will expedite the development and implementation of biomarkers for patient stratification and of novel treatment concepts in precision cancer medicine.

This is the second EACR conference focused on this topic. It is designed to be of interest to cancer scientists and medical oncologists with expertise in basic, translational and clinical research. Its objective is to cover recent and exciting developments in the field that are crucial to our understanding of the multifaceted role of the DNA damage response and associated tumour cell specific alterations in cancer initiation, progression and precision cancer therapy.