In February 2001, the first RTOG Workshop on Translational Research will be held at the RTOG national meeting in Tampa, Florida. The Translational Research Program (TRP) of the RTOG combines the members from various site and modality committees to work on the translation of laboratory research into clinical trials. Currently, the TRP sponsors keynote presentations twice a year at the semi-annual RTOG meetings. Toward the goal of presenting more timely, cutting edge research, the TRP sees the need to augment these presentations with a comprehensive basic science symposium every other year. Young and established scientists would be invited to participate based on the potential of their project to develop into productive additions to national protocols performed by the RTOG. Applications from other scientists will be actively recruited and selected based on their potential to advance the missions of the RTOG. Efforts specifically will be made to encourage diversity-based scientific questions as they pertain to the RTOG. It is expected that two hundred or more RTOG meeting participants will add this extra day to their agenda and that the conference will be attended by other oncology professionals as well. Basic researchers will be invited to participate in the clinical component of the three day meeting in order to strengthen professional collaborations and to introduce basic scientists to the process of clinical trial development. Anticipating the success of the 2001 meeting, a biennial workshop is planned to correspond with the winter RTOG meeting in the future. This grant application is for partial support of the first three workshops to be held in 2001, 2003, and 2005.
