CCBIO's 2nd symposium (2014)

More than 160 people were gathered at the 2-day symposium at Solstrand, where tailored made cancer therapy was the main focus. See the program here.

The lectures held by invited international and national speakers, the former in majority, were very well received by the audience. 46 younger researchers took the opportunity to present their research with posters during two long combined lunch- and poster sessions of two hours each. The poster sessions proved a successful catalyst for interaction between younger and more senior researchers from Norway and abroad. Most participants also took the opportunity to have a late dinner together and stay at the hotel overnight for the second day of lectures.

CCBIO-leader Lars Akslen is very happy with the symposium.

–The meeting was very successful, he says. –Focus was kept on biomarkers and the tumor's microenvironment, and our local, national and international lecturers did a great job. Such meetings are important to make new contacts across borders, for future cooperation and knowledge exchange. We already look forward to next year's CCBIO symposium, May 19th and 20th 2015. Make a note of the date, Akslen urges with a smile.

Speakers included:

• Helga Salvesen (Bergen): Molecular profiling of primary compared to metastatic lesions in gynecologic cancers.
• Rameen Beroukhim (Boston): Interpreting cancer copy-number alterations.
• Therese Sørlie (Oslo): Gene expression patterns and biomarkers in subtypes of breast cancer.
• Mark LaBarge (San Francisco): Insights into aging and cancer through deconstruction and recapitulation of human mammary microenvironments in culture.
• James Lorens (Bergen): The role of the Axl receptor tyrosine kinase in drug resistance and metastasis.
• Ian Mills (Oslo): An Interplay Between Transcription and Metabolic Reprogramming in Prostate Cancer.
• Karl Henning Kalland (Bergen): Cancer cell heterogenity and reprogramming plasticity - therapeutic possibilities
• Valerie Weaver (San Francisco): Tissue tension reprograms the tissue to metastasis.
• Donald Gullberg (Bergen): Fibroblast integrins in wounds, scars and tumors - emerging molecular themes.
• Randolph Watnick (Boston): Development of a novel multimedia therapeutic agent targeting the tumor microenvironment.
• Johanna Ivaska (Turku): Cell-matrix interactions in cancer
• Taina Pihlajaniemi (Oulu): Multiplexin Collagens in Development and maintenance of tissue homeostasis and in malignant growth.
• Bruce Zetter (Boston): New approaches to metastatic cancer.
• Kjetil Taskén (Oslo): Regulation of anti-tumor immune responses in colorectal cancer.
• Bjørn Tore Gjertsen (Bergen): Personalized medicine and clonal evolution in acute leukemia?