This first edition of the Cancer Grand Challenges Conference Series aims to convene researchers from diverse backgrounds, from bench to bedside, across and beyond the ecDNA field, to provide an interdisciplinary forum to stimulate discussion around emerging concepts, open questions, what we need to do to answer them, and the future for this exciting field. The tools, datasets, pioneering technologies, and experimental models have now matured to an extent that the field is ripe for innovation as new investigators enter the field. The purpose of this meeting, in addition to sharing cutting edge science, is to further enhance and build upon an open, collaborative, and inclusive community that will advance the science rapidly for the benefit of patients.

Starting from the basic mechanisms of formation, maintenance and function, touching on transcription, replication and inheritance, and discussing where ecDNAs hijack existing processes and where they’ve put new mechanisms in place. Moving to how ecDNAs are involved in different cancers, and their implications for understanding tumour initiation, progression, evolution and resistance to treatment. The conference will also showcase novel technologies to generate, manipulate and study ecDNAs in human and animal tissues, bioinformatic tools to detect ecDNAs, as well as chemical probes as tools to understand and target ecDNA.