What happens inside and around a cancer cell? How does a tumor’s interaction with its surroundings contribute to cancer’s growth and spread? These questions could lead to a new generation of cancer therapies with fewer harmful side effects. Appropriately, they’re being asked and answered by a new generation of scientists at forums like the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) meeting, Biology of Cancer: Microenvironment & Metastasis.
The meeting, which ran September 16-20, brought together 316 scientists, clinicians, and students from around the world. Inside CSHL’s Grace Auditorium, they discussed the latest discoveries and questions from across the spectrum of cutting-edge cancer research. As with all CSHL meetings, the conference offered opportunities for young researchers to gain valuable experience presenting their work. For example, speakers from CSHL included graduate students Seung Tea Kim, Steven Lewis, and Manojit Swamynathan, and postdoc Bodu Liu.
“Cold Spring Harbor has a tradition of top science, but also of supporting young scientists,” says University of California, San Francisco Professor Valerie Weaver, one of the meeting’s organizers. “This meeting is very focused on promoting young faculty and trainees. It’s really very refreshing. You come here and see where the field is moving. It really nucleates interactions and gets all these really cool ideas out there.”
Weaver co-organized the meeting with Columbia University Professor Cory Abate-Shen. Sixty-seven speakers presented their work on a variety of topics, including tumor-stromal metabolism, cancer metastasis, and targeting of the tumor immune microenvironment. The conference also featured keynote speeches from CSHL alum Scott Lowe, now at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the University of Pennsylvania’s M. Celeste Simon.
“Bringing people together from different geographical places, disciplines, career stages, and perspectives to talk about their latest work is key for making advances in the field,” Abate-Shen says. “We all work on different aspects of cancer and different cancers. So, having a meeting that is broadly focused on cancer as a whole is extremely important.”
Written by: Nick Wurm, Communications Specialist | wurm@cshl.edu | 516-367-5940