Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled Epigenetics and Cancer, organized by Tony Kouzarides and Kristian Helin. The meeting will be held in Keystone, Colorado from January 25-30, 2015. Cancer epigenetics is a new and rapidly developing area of research. This comes from the fact that many epigenetic regulators (chromatin modifying enzymes, modification reading proteins and chromatin remodeling activities) are found mutated in cancers and from the recent approval of cancer drugs targeting epigenetic enzymes. This Keystone Symposia meeting aims to bring together scientists who are interested in understanding the connections between basic epigenetic pathways and the process of cancer. One aspect of the meeting will highlight the mechanisms by which epigenetic pathways control various biological processes. Information will be presented on chromatin and DNA modifications, chromatin complexes and ncRNAs. A second aspect will revolve around the connections between epigenetic pathways and cancer. This section will highlight genetic and epigenetic changes that take place during oncogenesis and efforts to counteract cancer with small molecule inhibitors against epigenetic regulators. Our hope is to provide a forum for the interchange of information and knowhow between the two converging fields of cancer research and epigenetics. The general topic of this meeting is relevant to the NCI mission with respect to the association between basic epigenetic pathways and cancer processes.
The impact of epigenetics in many areas of biology has become abundantly obvious. What is only recently being realized is the involvement of these pathways in disease and importantly, their potential as targets for therapeutic intervention. The Keystone Symposia meeting on Epigenetics and Cancer provides a unique new format for bringing together three distinct communities of scientists/clinicians: those investigating the basi biology of epigenetic pathways, those using genomic technologies to investigate the damage in epigenetic pathways in cancer cells and those developing and clinically testing epigenetic drugs.
