Events | Judith Tam ALK Lung Cancer Research Initiative
Where Research and Community Meet
Our team participates in conferences, presentations, research collections, community gatherings, and more that bring our work beyond the lab. These events offer valuable opportunities to share our progress, learn from others, make new connections, and move research forward through conversation and participation.
We invite you to explore highlights from past events and return for updates about future opportunities to connect with our team! Below, follow our journey at the ALK Positive Summit, where a first-of-its-kind field collection has grown into an expanding longitudinal research resource:
ALK Positive Summit 2026
Advancing ALK+ Research Together in Washington, D.C.
By the time the Judith Tam ALK Lung Cancer Research Initiative arrived in Washington, D.C., for the 2026 ALK Positive Summit, our on-site blood collection had grown from a first-of-its-kind effort in Nashville into a multiyear study spanning three cities and three consecutive Summits. This year, we welcomed back many familiar faces from Nashville and San Diego, met new individuals and their loved ones, and reached our largest collection to date.
With the help of Pamela, Patricia, and Natasha (pictured below), our trusted phlebotomy team throughout all three years, we collected samples from 188 individuals: 144 members of the ALK+ community and 44 of their family or household members who joined the comparison group. This represented a 25% increase over San Diego in 2025 and a 72% increase over Nashville in 2024. Pamela, Patricia, and Natasha once again brought the skill, warmth, and professionalism that have made them such valued members of our Summit team and familiar faces to many returning individuals.
The most important measure of growth, however, extends beyond the total number of samples. More than 90 individuals have now provided samples at two or more Summits, allowing our researchers to examine biological changes over time. For some, Washington D.C. marked a first blood draw with our team. For others, it was a familiar Summit stop and another chapter in a study they have helped build year after year.
This year’s Summit offered an exciting opportunity to share what our team has begun learning from the 2024 and 2025 collections. Near the blood draw room and our temporary laboratory, our bioinformatician, Dr. Peter Ulintz (see image below), presented findings from the 2024 and 2025 samples during the scientific poster session. His poster, Towards a Blood Test for Active ALK-Positive Lung Cancer Using the 2024/25 ALK Positive Summit Cohort, brought the study full circle by sharing early findings with many of the same people whose samples helped make the analysis possible.
Dr. Ulintz’s poster quickly became a gathering place. People stopped between sessions to study the figures and ask detailed questions. Some returned later with notes, follow-up thoughts, and research ideas of their own. We were repeatedly impressed by the knowledge, curiosity, and advocacy people brought to these conversations. Their perspectives challenged us to look at the findings from new angles and sharpened the questions guiding the next phase of the study.
Meanwhile, our research staff processed and stored this year’s samples in the temporary laboratory before they traveled to the University of Michigan for further study. Back in Michigan, our team will compare samples from the 2024, 2025, and 2026 Summits and search for patterns among proteins found in the blood. We will use the 2026 collection to test preliminary signals identified in earlier analyses, refine our methods, and investigate proteins released by cells into the bloodstream. Through this next phase, we hope to determine whether these signals could eventually complement existing tools for monitoring ALK+ disease progression.
We returned home with more than our largest collection to date. We brought new questions, memorable conversations, and the perspectives of a close-knit group that continues to face adversity with remarkable knowledge, humor, and resolve. Thank you to every person who made time to provide a sample, every family or household member who joined the comparison group, and everyone who shared an idea, asked a challenging question, or stopped by to offer encouragement.
After three successful years, we remain grateful to everyone who continues to advance this study, including the organizers, advocates, phlebotomists, and many others who made this year’s work possible. We also recognize Judith Tam ALK Lung Cancer Research Initiative team members Dr. Sofia Merajver, Dr. Peter Ulintz, Dr. Mark Slayton, Dr. LiWei Bao, Sraboni Chaudhury, Ali Dabaja, Stacy Fry, Avery Rudnick, Albana Grajqevci, and Imtiaz Khalil Ullah for the commitment and precision they brought to every stage of the collection.
We are honored to carry your trust and insight forward as the research continues.
Below are videos from the ALK+ Summit 2026 featuring Drs. Sofia Merajver and Angel Qin.
ALK Positive Summit 2025
Building on Success and Accelerating Discovery in San Diego
The Judith Tam ALK Lung Cancer Research Initiative team was honored to attend the 2025 ALK Positive Summit in San Diego, California, for our second year of on-site blood collection. This year, we expanded the study by inviting eligible family or household members to join a healthy comparison group. Their blood provides a useful baseline for several areas of our work, including the study of proteins, immune activity, genetic information, and other circulating biomarkers. These samples also help us improve methods for finding and examining the small number of tumor cells that may circulate in the bloodstream. Together, these analyses may offer important clues about how ALK+ disease changes and responds to treatment over time.
With the support of our skilled returning phlebotomists, Pamela, Patricia, and Natasha, we collected samples from 151 individuals: 112 members of the ALK+ community and 39 of their family or household members in the comparison group. During the week before the collection, each person in the comparison group was asked to follow a diet similar to that of their participating family or household member. This extra commitment helped reduce dietary variation and allowed our researchers to make more meaningful comparisons. We are especially grateful to these family and household members for sharing their time and further strengthening the study. This year, 39% more people took part than in Nashville in 2024. More than 40 individuals participated in both years, giving our researchers a valuable opportunity to examine biological signals over time.
Conducting the collection in San Diego required months of planning and a tremendous team effort. Thanks to the coordination of our staff, we successfully transported our equipment across the country, operated a temporary laboratory during the Summit, and safely returned every sample to the Rogel Cancer Center for further study. Samples from the 2024 and 2025 Summits will support future proteomics analyses, which examine patterns in proteins found in the blood. By studying samples from the ALK+ group alongside those from family and household members in the comparison group, our team hopes to identify meaningful protein differences and gain a more detailed understanding of ALK+ lung cancer.
Thank you to every person who provided a sample and to ALK Positive, Inc., the Summit organizers, the venue staff, and everyone who contributed to this enormous effort. We also extend our gratitude to the Judith Tam ALK Lung Cancer Research Initiative team members Dr. Sofia Merajver, Dr. LiWei Bao, Sraboni Chaudhury, Ali Dabaja, Hassan Zbib, Mary Horn, and Avery Rudnick for the time and knowledge they devoted to expanding this study in San Diego.
Unlock the Summit: Watch All Expert Talks and Insights from the ALK Positive Summit.
ALK Positive Summit 2024
A New Chapter in ALK+ Research: Taking the Study Beyond the Lab
In partnership with ALK Positive, Inc., the Judith Tam ALK Lung Cancer Research Initiative moved beyond the laboratory to host an unprecedented in-field blood collection at the 2024 ALK Positive Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. Through this first-of-its-kind effort, our team pioneered a field-based collection method designed to accelerate discovery and give members of the ALK+ community from across the country an opportunity to participate while attending the Summit at the Hutton Hotel.
Turning that idea into reality required five months of meticulous planning and coordination. Our clinical and research staff developed a robust procedure for enrollment and blood collection, adapted standard procedures and protocols to a nontraditional field setting, and transported specialized equipment from Ann Arbor. In Nashville, we partnered with Pamela, Patricia, and Natasha from Gifted Touch Mobile Phlebotomy (GTMP) , whose steady hands and reassuring presence helped bring our ambitious plans for the blood draw room to life. Working alongside this experienced phlebotomy team, we established temporary blood draw and wet-lab spaces inside the hotel.
Just as the Summit was getting underway, the widespread CrowdStrike technology outage disrupted air travel across the country, delaying and canceling flights for members of our team and many Summit attendees. When several of our staff learned they would not make it to Nashville by air, they quickly regrouped, loaded what they needed into cars, and began the long drive from Ann Arbor to Nashville. While the rest of the team made the drive south, Dr. Sofia Merajver donned her lab coat, gloved up, and stepped into the temporary laboratory to process the first samples on her own, keeping the collection moving until her colleagues arrived. Despite the unexpected challenges, ALK Positive organizers, attendees, and our staff adjusted their plans and looked out for one another. Flights and schedules changed, but the commitment to gathering, learning, and moving ALK+ research forward did not.
During the Summit, we had the opportunity to put faces to voices we had previously known only through phone and Zoom conversations and to meet new individuals and their loved ones. Within just 24 hours, 109 members of the ALK+ community provided a total of 634 tubes of blood. Each sample was carefully processed, first on-site and later in our laboratory at the University of Michigan, using consistent procedures to preserve sample quality. These samples will support several avenues of investigation, including cell-free deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequencing, whole-blood RNA sequencing, plasma proteomics and metabolomics, and the isolation and characterization of circulating tumor cells.
We are deeply grateful to every person who made time during the Summit to provide a sample and help establish this unique research resource. We thank every person who provided a sample, our phlebotomy team of Pamela, Patricia, and Natasha, and Judith Tam ALK Lung Cancer Research Initiative team members Dr. Sofia Merajver, Dr. LiWei Bao, Habib Serhan, Stacy Fry, and Mary Horn for their ingenuity, persistence, and teamwork. We also thank ALK Positive, Inc., the Summit organizers, the Hutton Hotel staff, and everyone who took part in this inaugural effort. Together, their determination and hard work made this ambitious collection possible and laid the groundwork for the research ahead.
Dr. Angel Qin in the Key Opinion Leader Panel
