WIN Symposium 2013

Dr Amy Abernethy talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris about the challenges that occur in translational research when the jump is made between the lab and the clinic. Clinical decision support tools centers on matching information learned in the lab to the care of the patient. Dr Abernethy discusses how to quickly integrate new and sophisticated information to make decisions regarding patient care.

Dr David Kuang Fu Chang talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium about a follow-on, translational study based on the Australian Pancreatic Tumour Initiative. Results from the study found that pancreatic cancer is a very heterogeneous disease, less than 2%, which, signals the need for multiple drugs in most patients treatment regimes. The study is now looking at patients who had significant responses to treatment in order to identify potential new targets.

Dr Sabine Tejpar talks to ecancer that 2013 WIN Symposium about understanding the patterns for treating colorectal cancer and drug development, including novel agents.

Prof Drew Pardoll talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris about the recent developments in treating cancer with immunotherapy. Immunotherapy for cancer aims to empower the immune system's antibodies and T-Cells to attack tumours. This occurs through the blockade of regulatory pathways, immune checkpoints, and the reactivation of T-Cells. The most recent breakthrough in this field has been the results in blocking PD-1 with ipilimumab.

Dr Robert Kerbel talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris about the problem of targeted drug development and single agent clinical trials in metastatic disease. Initially, targeted agents are not very effective in metastatic disease, when use as a single agent; however, many of these drugs ended up as chemotherapy enabling drugs and significantly improve patient outcomes.

Dr Kris Joshi talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris about the Oracle Health Sciences Network, a translational research center that aides collaboratiion between clinical and research communities. Dr Joshi highlights these collaborations and the goal of discovering new biomarkers, establishing more clinical studies and identifying cohorts of patients associated with specific molecular biomarkers. As treatment becomes more personalised, more and more studies will have requirements involving identifiying cohorts of patients like this.

Dr Matthew Smith, West Midlands Regional Genetics Service, Birmingham, UK and Alice Tuff-Lacey, Cancer Research UK, London, talk to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium about next generation sequencing and biobanks. Over the past two years and across three technical hubs, 9,000 patients have had samples of their blood and tissue sent for testing for a small range of genes, then analyzed and stored for future reference. All of the DNA samples are stored in a central repository, accessible through Cancer Research UK. This biobank collaboration began with CRUK looking at stratified medicine and it's delivery within the NHS.

Prof Richard Schilsky talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium about the theme of the meeting, ‘Innovation to Implementation’, and implementing personalized cancer care. Some of the challenges facing this initiative are the heterogeneity of most cancers, developing effective treatment on a case-by-case basis and finding ways to share information across boarders.

Dr Gerald Batist talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium about the Segal Cancer Center in Quebec and their research network of clinicians and laboratory researchers who focus on translating fundamental research in the lab to achieve the ultimate goal of overcoming therapeutic resistance.

Prof Shripad Banavail talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium about treating cancer patients in India, where most people do not have health insurance and have to pay for drugs out of their own pocket. This means most can not afford treatment which is the standard of care in wealthier countries. Metronomic therapy (repetitive low doses) can help with this situation; moving away from newer drugs towards 'drug repositioning'; using older cheaper targeted drugs alongside chemotherapy - often 3 in combination that target: 1) the tumour itself 2) the tumour microenvironment including angiogenic effect 3) the body's own immunity

Dr Scott Ramsey talks to ecaner at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris about the imminent increase in cancer cases because of an ageing population and population growth. The difficulty will become how to handle the cost of treating these new cases. Dr Ramsey discusses the overwhelming need to find a system of developing where drugs are high value and only given to patients where they will have a strong benefit.

Dr Daniel Catenacci talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris about inter and intra patient tumour heterogeneity, molecularly, within the context of gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma. In the case of inter patient heterogeneity, patients all have an individual molecular profile and in cases of intra patient molecular heterogeneity, clinicians deal with the physical space the tumour occupies and progression over time. Dealing with this is heterogeneity is one the major hurdles in major molecular therapies. As more is understood about these settings it becomes a strain on the classic clinical trial design, which has lead to the implementation of PANGEA.

Dr Rui Reis talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium about the development of biobanks in Latin America, understanding different molecular profiles of patients, genetic alterations and recreating and validating biomarkers that were discovered in other populations.

Prof Jean-Charles Soria discusses the WINTHER trial at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris. The WINTHER trial is the first therapeutic trial organised by the WIN Consortium. Prof Soria describes the trial as a second generation, personalised medicine trial with the aim to provide an indivualised, biologically oriented therapy for all patients enrolled.

Prof Lex Eggermont talks to ecancer at the 2013 WIN Symposium in Paris about the large progress made in melanoma over the past year. Until recently, there have been very few developments in this area, but drug mutation development and immunotherapy, specifically PD1, have pushed many studies forward. Anti-PD1, a monoclonal anti-body, involves the reactivation of T-cell systems. The most exciting part for this progress is the potential for it to carry over into other tumour types.