The proposed Keystone Symposia meetings in the area of cancer include six strong meetings directed at the forefront of basic cancer research: exploring the molecular processes associated with chromatin structure and genome instability and repair; identifying the highly varying roles of host cells in responding to tumor cells; using mice as models for mechanistic and therapeutic investigation of cancer; establishing and taking advantage of the link between innate and adaptive immune regulatory mechanisms and cancer development and cancer treatment; and expanding knowledge of cancer stem cells and how they have escaped the limitations placed on growth of normal cells. ? ? The remaining three meetings are explicitly directed at treatments and potential cures for cancer: molecular targets for cancer; anti-tumor immunotherapies; and therapeutic antibodies. The meeting on Molecular Targets nicely takes advantage of the kind of information discussed at the more """"""""basic research"""""""" meeting, whereby molecular circuits that are altered in cancers and responsible for malignant transformation are coming into better focus. In fact, the Molecular Targets meeting will be held jointly with the meeting on Mouse Models at the Frontiers of Cancer Discovery. In the case of meeting on The Potent New Anti-Tumor Immunotherapies, the focus is directed at the most successful current immunotherapies, adoptive cell transfer (ACT) of anti-tumor T cells after the depletion host immune cells. This meeting explicitly addresses the major challenges in this area -- control and directing the potent new weapons - by bringing together the key scientists establishing the basic foundations of the new immunology and the translational immunotherapists who are pioneering strategies that clearly work in the clinic. The meeting on Antibodies as Drugs: From Basic Biology to the Clinic provides an unusual forum for retrospective and prospective discussion regarding why therapeutic antibodies have become highly important components of standard care in some areas of clinical practice, but lag behind in others. The meeting will address this important topic through interdisciplinary discussions spanning immunobiology, protein engineering, bioprocess development, pharmacokinetics, and clinical medicine, with the aim of identifying crosscutting themes and general approaches. ? ? ?
