Between the 31st March and the 4th
April 2012, BioMed Central attended the Annual
Meeting of the American Association for
Cancer Research (AACR),the
oldest and largest cancer research organization in the world, in Chicago,
Illinois. The theme of this year’s meeting was “Accelerating Science:
Concept to Clinic” and more than 16,000 attendees were treated to talks
covering all aspect of basic, translational and clinical cancer research.
The AACR conference was an ideal showcase for BioMed Central’s portfolio of Cancer journals, which
includes Breast Cancer Research,
Molecular Cancer and BMC Cancer, along with BMC
Medicine, the flagship medical journal of the BMC-series.
We were delighted to meet Francesco Marincola,
Editor-in-Chief of Journal
of Translational Medicine, which has enjoyed continued success over the
past year and whose talk on the immunological constant of rejection in cancer
proved to be very interesting. We were also able to meet the Editors of
BioMed Central’s two newest cancer journals – Chung-Tsen Hsueh, Deputy
Editor-in-Chief of Experimental
Hematology & Oncology, and Chi Van Dang, Editor-in-Chief of the
upcoming Cancer &
Metabolism. BMC Cancer was pleased to meet several of its
dedicated academic Section Editors and
Associate Editors at the exhibition stand and also at the editorial board
meeting, which was held during the conference. We would also like to take
this opportunity to thank Danny Dhanasekaran, Editor-in-Chief of Journal
of Molecular Signalling, Sham Kakar, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Ovarian Research, and
everyone who took the time to visit us at the booth.
The meeting
opened with an interesting talk by Elaine Mardis about how genomic changes in
tumors can be used to monitor response to treatment, and a central theme
linking many speakers’ presentations was how cancer medicine is moving away
from tumor-specific treatment and towards targeted therapy, in a more
personalized approach. Rakesh Jain described how the tumor microenvironment can
be modified to enhance the response to therapy in the session “Tumor
heterogeneity: challenges and therapeutic opportunities”, and Avrum
Spira gave a thought-provoking presentation on identifying lung cancer risk
genes before the development of disease, so that early interventions can be
carried out. The “Current concepts and controversies in
diagnostics, therapeutics, and prevention” session was concluded by a very
stimulating talk by BMC Cancer’s
Associate Editor David
Malkin on the application of genomics to the development of clinical
surveillance and treatment guidelines for children deemed to be at ‘high risk’
for cancer.
We hope to see
you at the 2013 meeting in Washington, DC.
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