The Fifth Research Workshop on the Biology, Prevention and Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer, is the next scheduled conference in a series held every four years. This proposal requests funds for registration fees, travel, and partial housing support for 20 young investigators to attend the workshop. It also requests funds to offset expenses for 10 invited speakers. Young investigators are defined for the purpose of this award as Ph.D. or M.D. students, residents, and postdoctoral fellows in training in the United States who are presenters of abstracts selected for either poster or oral presentations. Individual awards to young investigators will average $820. Expenses for invited speakers (eight from the United States and two from overseas) will average $1,400. The Research Workshops are the most important international research conferences devoted, in a single meeting, to a broad range of topics related to head and neck cancer. These topics include molecular genetics, tumor cell biology, immunology, gene therapy, organ-sparing surgery, radiology and imaging, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, chemoprevention, and quality of life issues. The Workshops bring together clinical investigators, geneticists, immunologists, molecular and cellular biologists to share recent advances in head and neck cancer and identify needed areas of future research. Therefore, the Research Workshops are particularly suitable for training young scientists, who gain exposure to a diverse array of topics related to their own field of studies. The results of the conference are of interest not only to those who attend, but all investigators in the related fields. The Workshop is of utmost importance for research progress in head and neck cancer biology, therapy and prevention and progress contributing to the public health.
