Tracking Cancer: Detection and Monitoring, from Diagnosis to Therapy, took place in one of Europe’s most famous science museums – CosmoCaixa in Barcelona. 131 participants from 33 countries took part in the 2.5 day conference.
The programme covered topics such as: circulating tumour cells, imaging, liquid biopsies, clinical trial design, immunotherapy and genome analysis. We heard from prominent cancer researchers including EACR President Alberto Bardelli and keynote speakers Charles Sawyers (MSKCC, USA), Lillian Siu (Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Canada) and EACR President Elect Caroline Dive (CRUK Manchester Institute, UK). The Scientific Programme Committee comprised: Victoria Aranda (Nature), Alberto Bardelli (University of Turin Candiolo Cancer Institute), Markus Elsner (Nature Biotechnology), Joan Seoane (VHIO) and Charles Swanton (Francis Crick Institute).
Nature hosted a publishing session on the Tuesday morning where a panel of four experienced editors discussed their journals and answered questions from the audience on the world of publishing. Discussions included current hot topics for the journals, the best way to present findings and what the best things are about being an editor. Two panel discussions with invited speakers also took place on Monday and Tuesday evenings to discuss the important themes of the day (“Playing Hide and Seek with Cancer” / “Cancer’s Neighbours: Bystanders, Friends & Enemies”). These proved to be lively and insightful events. Later Tuesday evening, the Conference Dinner took place at the stylish El Principal del Eixample restaurant in the centre of Barcelona.
Feedback
After each conference we ask participants to complete a short evaluation survey. 100% of participants at Tracking Cancer 2019 said they were satisfied with the quality of the scientific content and 99% said they were satisfied with the opportunities for networking, interaction and discussion. 99% also said they would recommend the conference to others.
The overall quality of the scientific content was excellent with high quality talks of both senior and young scientists.
Very good talks delivered by pioneers in different areas of cancer research
The session with editors from Nature was interesting and meaningful.
Poster Prizes
Poster discussion sessions were held on Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon. Invited speakers formed the Poster Judging Panel and identified the top work presented in each session. Two Clinical & Experimental Metastasis Poster Prizes of €100 were awarded thanks to sponsorship from Springer. Congratulations to the winners:
- Shea Connell (University of East Anglia, UK)
“Predicting outcome in prostate cancer patients using a multi-signature risk classifier, derived from urinary extracellular vesicles” - Dhruva Biswas (University College London Cancer Institute, UK)
“A clonal expression biomarker improves prognostic accuracy: TRACERx lung”
All of the presented abstracts can still be found in the online programme book.
Meeting Bursary Awards
We were delighted to offer 5 EACR-Worldwide Cancer Research Meeting Bursaries to help early-career members to attend. Each recipient received a free registration and funds of up to €500 to support their travel and accommodation costs. Our congratulations go to:
- Hisham Bahmad – Lebanon
- Jole Fonderico – Italy
- Sandra Nunes – Portugal
- Dina Polyak – USA
- Lucy Swithenbank – UK
Photo Gallery
A photo gallery from this conference is available on the EACR Facebook Page.
