This meeting, the 25th Congress of the International Association for Breast Cancer Research, is designed to foster the development and use of mouse models for testing pharmaceuticals and innovative biological strategies for the treatment and cure of human breast cancer. The meeting will provide a forum for highly regarded national and international leaders in industry and academia. The meeting is designed to establish the contacts necessary to foster subsequent collaborations between scientists and industry and to stimulate the use of the models to alleviate human disease. The meeting promises to herald a new era of cooperation between industry, clinicians, and scientists who develop the models by bringing the groups together for meaningful meetings and discussions. It will review the progress in the various scientific disciplines and expose the participants to new approaches and new models that might serve much wider applications than has been expected from previous murine studies. It will also show how the field is moving into new promising areas of therapeutic interventions, taking advantage of sensitive in vivo imaging techniques. ? ? This meeting will specifically address several emerging areas in breast cancer research. Following a keynote lecture from Dr. Dennis Slamon, the first session will deal with the pathology and molecular profiling of breast cancer. This session will also include a plenary lecture from Dr. Joe Gray; an acknowledged leader in area of breast cancer genetics. The second session will deal with various signal transduction pathways activated in breast cancer and their potential utility as therapeutic targets. The third session will focus on the role of growth factor and hormone receptors in the initiation and progression of breast cancer. This session will also include a plenary lecture from Dr. Kent Osborne dealing with the concept of crosstalk between both growth factor receptors and hormones. The third session will involve the emerging roles of tumor microenvironment and cancer stem cell in development of breast cancer. This session will include a plenary lecture from Dr. John Condeelis dealing with the role of inflammatory response in regulating breast cancer progression. The final session of the meeting will deal with the emerging therapies that are used in the treatment of breast cancer. Speakers from both academic and pharmaceutical and biotechnology fields will be prominently represented. The session will also include a plenary lecture from Dr. A Ullrich who pioneered the concept of targeting the HER2 oncogene in the treatment of breast cancer. ? ? ? ?
