Each year Cancer Grand Challenges (CGC) hosts a two-and-a-half day conference for Future Leaders bringing together early career researchers from the global CGC community to share the latest progress being made in each of their teams’ challenges. In 2022, the conference was held in Barcelona, Spain. Ten eDyNAmiC Future Leaders from seven institutions attended the inaugural meeting. In 2023, eleven eDyNAmiC Future Leaders from nine different institutions attended the meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. Below, we share reflections from Year 1 and Year 2 attendees. 

Year 1: Barcelona, Spain

• Name: Jens Luebeck, University of California – San Diego
• Role with eDyNAmiC?: Postdoctoral researcher in Vineet Bafna’s lab. Developer of tools for ecDNA detection and analysis from sequencing data.
• What did you enjoy most about the Future Leaders Conference?: Making new connections with scientists from other Grand Challenges teams and learning about work being done on the frontiers of cancer research.
• What was your biggest takeaway from the meeting? Cancer research is vast and encompasses many different disciplines and fields. The most promising breakthroughs are being made by teams who are bridging fields.
• What do you hope to accomplish during your time with Team eDyNAmiC? Improve our ability to detect ecDNA in tumors, and provide a better understanding of the clinical implications when ecDNA is found.

Year 2: Lisbon, Portugal

• Name: Garrett Lindsey, Scripps Research Institute 
• Role with eDyNAmiC? I am a 4^th graduate student in the Cravatt lab working on WP7
• What are you most looking forward to/hope to gain from attending the Future Leaders Conference? I am so excited to learn more about the career options in Leadership in the field of Cancer research. I look forward to expanding my network and developing skills that I can implement in my day to day to set myself up for future success/opportunities. 
• What do you hope to accomplish during your time with Team eDyNAmiC? I hope to contribute to the understanding of proteins that regulate ecDNA and hope to use chemical biology tools and chemical probes to modulate these interactions. I also hope to make lasting connections with the inspiring investigators and trainees who are all involved.