With an estimated 2.9 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths each year, cancer remains an important public health problem in Europe. In addition, the ageing of the European population will cause these numbers to continue to increase even if age-specific rates remain constant.

The discovery of novel molecular targets for several of the most frequent cancers to date will enable diagnosis at earlier stages of the disease. This will lead to early identification of patients needing treatment, and will have a profound impact on treatment selection for individual patients. In addition, cancer biomarkers may have the potential to serve as targets for the development of new anti-cancer therapies and innovative treatment strategies. Finally, accurate prognostic markers will be useful in assessing the risk of developing metastasis, and will empower the clinician in making decisions about the best possible targeted therapy for the benefit of the patient.

However, Europe's research and development efforts have so far been fragmented and have suffered from the lack of a coherent, strategic vision in translating basic knowledge into successful therapies and applications. The aim of this workshop is to determine strategic cancer research priorities, to disseminate and discuss validation of novel molecular cancer targets as well as to identify bottlenecks and solutions that would boost validation and implementation of potentially innovative findings on molecular targets emanating from European research on cancer. This two-day workshop focuses on haematological cancers, host-tumour interactions and treatment outcome, treatment and care of cancer patients and survivors and early detection and diagnosis as well as cross-cutting issues relevant for translational cancer research at large, respectively.

We look forward to your participation and hope you will join us at Solstrand for an exciting programme.