Pharma Strategy Blog

On Thursday this week I’m off to the GI Carcinogenesis meeting hosted by MD Anderson Cancer Center, you can find out more about the event here.

It’s a brand new meeting for me, but according to the program:

“The ISGC is comprised of basic, translational and clinical scientists.  This conference will encourage and develop research and communication in the areas of gastroenterological biology and oncology in both basic and clinical aspects through joint meetings with international and national gastroenterologists.”

I’m particularly looking forward to hearing what Lee Ellis has to say on cancer stem cells and the microenvironment, as well as Emanuel Petricoin on molecular profiling in GI cancers.  There are a whole host of other really interesting talks too, as you can see from the program agenda.

When I first looked at the faculty, my initial reaction was, “Oh my!” It’s a quite serious line-up of some of the top GI cancer researchers and certainly not easy to get them all in the same place together, so it will be fun to chat with them in the poster sessions and get their perspective on the latest happenings in this field.

The meeting runs through Saturday, so I’ll try and post a daily synopsis, as time permits.

If I hadn’t been following Dr Raymond DuBois, the MD Anderson Provost and Co-Chair of the meeting on Twitter, I would have missed this altogether – the power of social media in spreading and communicating awareness of these special events is very much here to stay.

If you have any burning questions in this area, please do add them in the comments below and I will do my best to ferret out some answers.