EACR 2021 Virtual Congress: A Participant’s View

Job title: Masters student
Home institution: Koc University, Turkey
Research: Anti-gastric cancer therapies unfortunately do not function very well and result in a low 5-year survival rate. I am doing my research to identify new targets in gastric cancer by analysing gene expression profiles of gastric cancer patients, and to select new therapeutic agents against these targets. If these drugs can reverse the cancerous characteristics of the gastric cancer cells, we believe that these agents can be used as new therapies for gastric cancer in the clinic.

What was a personal highlight of the Congress for you?

I am a first-year master’s student in Koc University, Turkey. Here, grad students usually start to present their research in their 2nd year when they start to obtain data to share with other people from the area. However, during the pandemic, I conducted my bioinformatics research remotely from my home and I worked a lot. This brought results very well and within my 1st year, we had the data to discuss. Thus, we sent our abstract and it was accepted as an e-poster. It was my first poster presentation in an international congress. I am really grateful that I had this experience in such a nice organisation. This boosted my self-confidence and belief that my work is appreciated by the experts in the area.

Were there any social/networking highlights you want to tell us about?

After completing my graduate studies as a master’s student, I am aiming to pursue a PhD in a foreign country to improve my scientific abilities. Since the competition is extremely high among the international PhD applicants, it is an important step to identify potential supervisor and contact them. While checking the websites of the programs that I am planning to apply, I noticed that sometimes the research topics listed on the lab pages are not updated.

It also increased my self-confidence and motivated me to do more research!

In the poster session, I encountered a poster from the laboratory that is my top-choice to conduct my PhD, and I went to see the poster to discuss the details of the research. I also asked the presenter, who is a post-doc from that lab, whether they have an ongoing project related to my studies and they will take a PhD student. The topic of the poster was an interesting one which is not listed on the lab webpage, and I am really happy to see that poster during the congress and met the post-doc researcher from that lab.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

As a new graduate student, I am taking baby steps to improve my research, to learn new techniques, and to brainstorm about new ideas and hypotheses. Listening various talks about high-quality research in the cancer area have introduced me new scientific methodologies and aspects of the cancer research which can be incorporated into my area. Also thanks to the industry sessions, I learnt about the innovations that help us carry our research one-step further.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

I want to sincerely thank to EACR for supporting my participance in the congress as one of the eleven bursary winners from all over the world. Currency rates sometimes restrain our research, our participation and networking in the scientific events to discuss our research and to meet the researchers from the cancer area. Having the opportunity to present the data of a female first year-master’s student as an e-poster and supporting her participance is an amazing approach to support the scientific community. It also increased my self-confidence and motivated me to do more research! Thank you EACR for your amazing support. I hope we see each other face to face next year in Seville!

Job title: PhD student
Home institution: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina
Research: I work with a new drug (1A-116, developed in Argentina) for the treatment of glioblastoma, one of the most common and lethal brain tumors. I administer this drug with a chronopharmacological approach, that is, looking for the best time-of-day to give the drug in order to achieve higher effectivity and less toxicity, affecting the proliferation and cell death of cancer cells but not of normal ones. I work both in cell lines and mice (animal models).

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

I really enjoyed the congress. It was different from others I have attended, because it was very dynamic. There were really interesting plenaries, and I really loved the educational sessions and the industry sessions. I think it’s really important to have sessions in a Congress that are really practical and also intended for the public, not just the people working on that specific topic. In that regard, I think the educational and industry sessions were great for debate and learn about matters that are important for all cancer research.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

At the moment, I am starting to investigate the tumor microenvironment in glioblastoma, from a circadian perspective. I really enjoyed Dr. Johanna Joyce’s lecture about the tumor microenvironment, particularly in glioblastoma. This talk was perfect for me, and gave me really great ideas to apply to my research. It was really inspiring and exciting, and it made me want to run straight to the lab to start experiments!

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

I immediately wrote to my advisor telling him about the tumor microenvironment lecture. In particular, I told him about how I really enjoyed the microbes and viruses symposium. The talk about the role of the tumor microbiome in cancer, given by Dr. Jennifer Wargo, was fascinating. It left me thinking about how many results we dismiss because they are not what we expected. Are we losing valuable information about the systems that we study? Also, I think the interaction between microbiomes and cancer is a really interesting new topic. It can help shed some light on the complicated behaviour of tumors.

Did you gain any specific knowledge that has benefited your research?

I learnt a lot about clinical research, tumor microenvironment and technical applications and how to use them in cancer research. This was really beneficial for my research, because it is related to the topic that I am studying. Particularly, I really enjoyed the bioinformatics and the biormarkers symposiums. It is a field I do not know very much about, and I think is really interesting for cancer researchers. I consider it knowledge that we all should know and try to understand and apply in our research. Even if it is not directly related with our topic of study, it enables the better understanding of cancer using in silico models.On the other hand, it helps improve the diagnosis and treatment of patients using biomarkers.

Job title: PhD student
Host institution: University of Isfahan, Iran
Research: Tumors require bloodstream to grow. In the absence of blood vessels, tumors will not be able to grow further due to high levels of metabolism and oxygen deficiency. Some activators such as VEGF can stimulate endothelial cell proliferation, permeability, immigration and other factors contributing in formation of new vessels. Consequently, prevention of creating new vessels is accepted as an appropriate target for inhibiting tumor growth. We have designed a peptide as a drug and a VEGF antagonist which has the same structure with opposite activity and can bind to VEGF receptors and inhibit tumor growth.

What was a personal highlight of the Congress for you?

I would like to mention more than one item as the highlight of the Congress:

• One of the highlights of the conference was the presence of various sponsors along with attractive games containing awards which was an incentive to follow the congress with more excitement.
• There were a lot of interesting scientific sessions which covered different fields of cancer research.
• The time management of the programs meant that I could easily schedule attending my favorite programs.
• The conference was well-organized and you could find information easily.

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

Broader participation was possible in this virtual meeting compared a traditional meeting. It provided a good opportunity for scientists to share their work. The meeting was advantageous for professionals who live in isolated and distant countries. Regular communication ensured all the different steps from registration to post-ending the programs was covered.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

All the sessions I could attend were fruitful to my experience. The lectures gave me some takeaways which I may use in my future studies and encourage me to work harder. The behavior and the character of the EACR president and her colleagues was very admirable and impressed me a lot. I hope this will inspire me to be a better person, and try to inspire others.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

Easy access, accurate timing, polite staff behavior, excellent management, attractive posters and specially though-provoking and informative lectures were many positive points of the conference rarely seen all in one conference. In addition, some of the sponsors that attended the Congress became aware of my work. After the Congress, they showed their willingness and interest to support my research via email. It is very valuable and useful for me.

Job title: PhD student
Home institution: University of Cape Town, South Africa
Research: My research focuses on unravelling the molecular basis of cervical cancer initiation and progression and identifying cheap and effective means to treat this disease. The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the main causative agent of cervical cancer and I have established that the oncoprotein TBX3 contributes to cervical cancer proliferation and migration. I now aim to determine if TBX3 interacts with HPV oncoproteins to drive these processes and as a means to identifying cheap and safe drugs, we have adopted a high-throughput drug repurposing screen to identify commercially available drugs that are able to disrupt this protein interaction.

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

Thus far I have attended local conferences in South Africa. While they have been interesting, attending the EACR conference has made it increasingly apparent to me that the standard of research that I have exposed to needs to be raised. Despite this being a Virtual Congress, I felt that the speaker’s information was conveyed to us in a convenient format and the range of topics and sessions was impressive. While my focus was to attend sessions in fields related to my research, I had the opportunity to watch a few in adjacent topics and this has allowed me to explore new avenues to pursue for my future research.

This experience would be as valuable for my younger laboratory mates and I really hope they join the EACR and present at future conferences.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

I think the one take home message I got from this conference is the need to actively work towards moving our research towards the clinic. My project aims to identify new drugs but there are numerous papers that are published with novel drugs, however, research towards taking them towards clinical trials still feels far away, especially in the African context. In addition, I believe we have many promising drugs available, but the form of delivery needs to be improved to increase it’s efficacy and reduce the horrendous side-effects currently seen.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

I think the main thing I wanted to share with my colleagues is the experience of attending the conference and how they should seriously aim to attend future EACR Conferences. For example, hearing first-hand about some of the research breakthroughs and novel approaches presented by world leading researchers was very informative and inspiring. The experience was intellectually stimulating and truly invaluable and I have already started to realise the value and grown as a researcher. This experience would be as valuable for my younger laboratory mates and I really hope they join the EACR and present at future conferences.

Did you gain any specific knowledge that has benefited your research?

One of the main ideas that has already benefited my research are the different approaches employed towards combination therapy to treat various cancers that were referred to in both the talks and the posters that were selected. This is an area of research I find very interesting and something we as a research group have been contemplating exploring. However, after seeing the inspirational research and rational approach employed by the presenters, I was excited to share this with our team and we have begun planning for these experiments and hopefully expand the scope of our work.

Job title: PhD student
Home institution: Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Research: The aim of my PhD thesis is to elucidate the role of 3 selected miRNAs (has-miR-17-5p, has-miR-21-5p, and has-miR-93-5p), involved in regulation of TGF-β signaling pathway, in response to standard chemotherapeutics used for treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). Additionally, the expression pattern of tumoral and circulating hsa-miR-93-5p is to be examined in a prospective clinical study involving patients with colorectal cancer liver metastasis and to explore its predictive potential for therapy response and prognostic value for early disease recurrence.

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

I was extremely glad that EACR organized the 2021 Virtual Congress because many congresses and conferences were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This made opportunities to hear about the latest research difficult. As I wrote in my Meeting Bursary application, I think of the EACR 2021 Virtual Congress as an event I would not want to miss. I am incredibly grateful to the EACR which enabled me to be virtually present. The EACR organizing team did everything to ensure the whole congress experience felt like an in-person meeting.

The online platform looked and worked perfectly. There were live Q&A sessions, Meet the Speaker and Meet the Expert sessions where you could post questions or ask them directly. I could see the positive side of asking questions this way, because there was no time spent on waiting for a person to receive a microphone from another end of a congress hall. You could also upvote a question that you think should be answered first.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

YES! This moment was after the amazing keynote lecture by Dr. William G. Kaelin titled ‘Raising the Bar in Preclinical Cancer Research to Accelerate Cancer Cures’. This was the second time I have had an amazing opportunity to listen to this Nobel laurate’s presentation. I particularly enjoyed this talk because I think it was perfect for early research investigators, like myself. He made amazing points about how important system robustness is, not confusing causation and correlation, to be specifically careful when performing down-regulation assays because of the potential unspecific events, and to include rescue experiments. This really reminded me to be extremely careful when designing experiments and drawing conclusions.

I will also remember the story about his correspondence with a journal editor. The editor was about to reject his work because the data was inconclusive, since several cell lines performed as the authors expected but some did differently, and they could not explain this in the paper, so the editor said it was not sufficient for publication. However, Dr. Kaelin argued that it would be better to publish this data as is, so someone else could continue afterwards where they left off. This was instead of just pretending that the experiment on these cell lines were not performed and to exclude this data from the paper. Fortunately, the editor agreed. This taught me defend my results, and even if I do not have an explanation to the phenomenon I am studying, it is ok. It does not mean the data should not be published.

At the end, the key point for me was he said that it should not be so important to publish in top journals, but to strive to do good and meaningful science.

Did you gain any specific knowledge that has benefited your research?

I am come from Serbia, a middle income county, where we have limited funding for science. Listening to the presentation from sponsors like Nanostring and Fluidigm, I could see how far research has come, by combining multi-omics approaches in answering scientific questions. My research could benefit on so many levels if my institute would have a GeoMx® Digital Spatial Profiler instrument by Nanostring or could perform imaging mass spectrometry. In a world of 3D models and single cell genomics/transcriptomics, we really need to keep up with the newest research tools if we want to stay competitive. For this reason, I decided to apply for the next Grant Award calls.

Job title: PhD student
Home institution: Bursa Uludag University, Turkey
Research: I am working on an in vitro combined cancer therapy model. This is an augmented prooxidant (ROS trigger) therapy model for cancer cells of different phenotypes. It has also selective cytotoxic effects on cancer cells than normal cells. I showed that the combined model synergistically caused programmed cell death in prostate cancer cells and evaluated the redox-mediated mechanisms underlying the therapy targets in the cells. The results demonstrated the therapy model is a promising strategy for prostate cancer cells that exhibit different aggressivity from moderate metastatic to redox adapted cells and the most aggressive castration-resistant metastatic ones.

What was a personal highlight of the Congress for you?

I think my potential to be able to look at, understand and interpret a global challenge, cancer, from a broader perspective, has increased. This potential is very important for the level of thinking and rapid understanding of deep molecular connections in cancer. For example, I brought together new details about the DNA damage and repair mechanisms that I especially remember, and it got me very excited. Moreover, especially in clinical cancer studies, certain deficiencies in biomarker investigation can directly affect the results of the study and the talk I have listened to has improved my potential to look more carefully and questioningly at clinical cancer studies.

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

Since my studies are generally in the field of uro-oncology, I have attended twice EMUC organized jointly by ESMO and EAU. However, I attended the EACR Congress for the first time this year. I can say that, in this congress, the deeper causes of cancer were discussed at a more basic science level, not only clinically. So, being able to combine both levels is important for us to follow the clinical reflections of the basic studies quickly. In this sense, both congresses with different concepts have very productive content.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

The presentation entitled “Exploring and Therapeutically Exploiting the Tumor Microenvironment” by Prof. Johanna Joyce was a great talk. Listening to such teamwork, the originality of the science fiction, the way the Professor’s expression and speaking style very impressed me. Building a good team is one of the most important success points in my opinion. Maybe we all have original ideas, but what matters is how many ideas we can bring to life. This is teamwork.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

Among the presentations I listened to, I took short notes on the newly learned information that I found interesting, and then I passed them on to the team that I was working with. The presentation topics of the congress were very suitable for our study fields, we evaluated the abstracts that we were interested in, we visited the poster area together and we still do. We tried to create presentation plans for the EACR Congress to be held in the following years.

Job title: Doctor/Specialist
Home institution: Molecular Cancer Research and Application Center –  Istinye University, İstanbul, Turkey
Research: My PhD project was about Multiple Myeloma (MM), one of the hematological cancers. In our previous study, we investigated the contribution of some candidate genes we obtained from next generation sequencing data to the diagnosis and treatment of this disease. I think that the contribution of candidate genes in terms of individualized medicine and treatment will be very important in the future. Especially as new targeted therapies are needed in MM today.

What was a personal highlight of the Congress for you?

The support of young researchers who stood out individually at the congress and presented their work was very valuable. It was a unique experience to have the opportunity to listen to valuable professors who are performing important research in the field. Thanks to the excellent infrastructure opportunities provided, it was very productive for researchers to create platforms for talking to each other or to send questions directly by writing.

Very inspiring in my field of study

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

I was able to participate in the EACR Congress for the first time, so I am very happy. I think we are all used to this new form of congress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It allowed me to easily pay attention to the presentations that I followed both in my office and at home.

In the presentation section, I was very happy that we had the opportunity to directly ask our questions in an interactive way. Both with stimulating information and with the researchers sharing their experiences with us. Additionally, I think the Congress being online allowed me to watch the conflicting presentations on different channels at the same time. For me, this is a very important advantage in accessing information. Apart from that, the GATHER application is really very creative and entertaining. It created a very different ambiance compared to other congresses.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

At the EACR2021 Congress, cancer bioinformatics was one of the most interesting topics for me. Since I have used multi-omic technologies and bioinformatic tools in my own research, I followed both the presentation sections and poster presentations very carefully. The Congress gave me new perspectives and equipment in our effort to contribute to the elucidation of the pathogenesis of Multiple Myeloma. I gained new horizons on how to integrate bioinformatics analysis of studies using data sets from other database. The wonderful presentation of Haplotip-aware single cell multiomics somatic variation in cancer, which I listened to with pleasure, was very inspiring in my field of study.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

In particular, I had the opportunity to understand how far the cancer bioinformatics field has advanced and how important it is for us young cancer researchers. I explained to my colleagues and students that the truly wonderful single cell omic technology in cancer bioinformatics has an indispensable place in the future and its use in studies such as cancer heterogeneity and the investigation of tumor microenvironment.

Job title: Assistant Professor of Medical genetics and PostDoc researcher
Home institution: Department of Medical genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Medical University, Sofia, Bulgaria
Research: My research interest is in the sphere of molecular oncology and oncogenetics. Particularly, my PhD thesis was connected with expression profiling of solid tumors of different degrees of aggressiveness – tumor of the thyroid gland and tumors of the ovaries. The main contribution of this research was to address and focus on new genes that promise to appear good targets for molecular targeted therapy.

Recently, I moved to work with hematological tumors connected with my work at the genetic laboratory at the Hematology ward, Clinic of Oncology, University Hospital “Saint Ivan Rilski”, Sofia. There I study mainly MPN (myeloproliferative neoplasms) and the distribution of some mutations (as JAK2 V617F) among Bulgarian patients. In addition, we summarize the effect of some drugs (as azacytidine) on patients – both their general condition and their genetic status.

What was a personal highlight of the Congress for you?

For me there were two topics that definitely stick out for this year’s congress – the involvement of microbiome community on the development of the malignant processes and the link between the immune system – inflammation – cancer.

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

This year’s congress was the first one for me. By chance, this year the congress was entirely virtual. This helped me a lot as it was easy to follow, there were no travel expenses, no health risks, nevertheless the quality was high and the lectures were of great scientific value.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

All lectures were up-to-date, and I was specifically impressed by the session “Innate immunity, inflammation and cancer: double edged swords”, as well as “Microbes, Viruses and Cancer Symposium”. The latter topic interests me lately and this is a new field of research in my institute.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

For me, the most interesting thing was the abstracts in the e-poster section. The research studies were numerous, almost all were well prepared, and variable from scientific points of view. Thank you for sharing these research ideas!

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

The organization and the congress went perfectly well and I would like to thank the organizers and to all those people “behind the scenes” who made this event happen for the sake of all of us belonging to the community of cancer research!

Job title: Postdoctoral researcher
Home institution: Palladin Institute of Biochemistry, Ukraine
Research: In our department we study molecular mechanisms of cancer metastasis. Previously, it was found that highly aggressive cancer cells possess high expression level of adaptor protein Ruk/CIN85. Thus, the main goal of our research is to investigate the effect of this protein on cancer cells of various tissue origin. Briefly, we used cancer cells with high and low levels of Ruk/CIN85 expression, and demonstrated that high expression level of this protein correlated with intensive metastasis and resistance to antitumor drugs. So, Ruk/CIN85 may be considered as a novel target for anticancer therapy.

What was a personal highlight of the Congress for you?

At this Congress I had an opportunity to attend several reports about tumour microenvironment and interactions between cancer and immune cells. We are going to investigate deeply the role of adaptor protein Ruk/CIN85 and especially Ruk/CIN85-containing vesicles on these interactions. That’s why it was important to me to be able to meet experts in this field.

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

I have never attended EACR events before, but I can compare to other scientific congresses. First, I am happy and grateful for a great organization of an online event and creating special virtual space for this Congress. It was easy to navigate and in some aspects it was even more comfortable than at offline events. In addition, I appreciated the possibility of viewing any abstract at any time.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

Since we are going to investigate the effect of adaptor protein Ruk/CIN85 on tumor microenvironment, I was looking forward to visiting meeting with Prof. Johanna Joyce in order to find out about modern approaches and current research in this field. I am really inspired by her work and after searching more information I am going to use some techniques, such as co-culture, 3D culture, and, probably, animal studies.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

First of all, I would like to tell my colleagues about the possibilities of EACR members, in particular about the possibility to attend EACR events. Unfortunately, not all Ukrainian scientists involved in cancer research or oncology are familiar with EACR. Also, during this Congress I met new people who study related issues, and found interesting research, that may be a background for future collaboration.

Job title: PhD student
Home institution: University of Cape Town, South Africa
Research: Sarcomas are highly aggressive paediatric cancers of mesenchymal origin. Their clinical management is severely challenged due to their variety and insensitivity to current treatments. Identification of the cells that give rise to cancers aids the understanding of cancer biology and provides important diagnostic and therapeutic value. Interestingly, there is increasing evidence that sarcomas arise from adult mesenchymal stem cells. The oncogenic TBX3 has been identified as a key factor that promotes several hallmarks of sarcoma development. My research investigates whether TBX3 can drive the oncogenic transformation of normal mesenchymal stem cells into sarcomas.

What was a personal highlight of the Congress for you?

My personal highlight of the EACR 2021 Congress was the session “Scientific Publishing: Navigating A Changing Landscape”. For me as an early career researcher, it is especially important to learn about the publishing process and how to select appropriate journals for my research. The panel discussion with the editors was very interactive and a lot of important questions regarding journal identification, journal costs and preprints could be answered.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

Listening to some of the research breakthroughs and novel approaches presented was very informative and exciting and formed great basis for discussion and networking. The intellectually stimulating talks by top researchers in the field and the discussions with other scientists have been invaluable and I feel has led to personal growth. Overall, it was a highly inspiring and rewarding experience.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

I wanted to tell my colleagues immediately about the virtual poster session on the social GATHER platform. It was similar to a computer game where attendants could walk around as avatars and enter different rooms to explore the best scoring e-posters. In each room the best posters from a specific category could be viewed and poster presenters would stand next to their posters as avatars to interact with other avatars about their research.

Did you gain any specific knowledge that has benefited your research?

The EACR 2021 congress has benefited my PhD research in many ways. Firstly, it allowed me to identify future work to further consolidate the data I have already generated. Secondly, it enabled me to step out of my comfort zone and communicate with other researchers and be amenable to constructive feedback and criticism. I believe all of these are required to mature into a good scientist.

Job title: Assistant lecturer, PhD student
Home institution: National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
Research: Our study aimed to identify BRCA1/2 genes mutational profile in 62 as well as 45 fresh tissue biopsies from CRC and BC Egyptian patients. We found that BRCA1 harboured 8 deleterious variants while BRCA2 harboured 30 and 69 variants in CRC and BC, respectively. Exon 10 in BRCA1 and exons 2, 10, 11, 14, 23, 27 in BRCA2 were the most affected in both groups. Pathway analysis revealed that BRCA-DNA damage response pathway was altered in 65% vs 100% of CRC and BC patients, respectively. Deleterious mutations in BRCA1/2 genes denotes a severely impaired DNA repair mechanisms in cancerous cells.

How was this congress different from others you have attended?

This congress was more organized than the last virtual one. It covered more topics of my interest like cancer genomics, DNA damage and repair, genes to cure and many others. Also, it highlighted the role of genomics and bioinformatics in cancer. This will lead to a better cancer management and implementation of target therapies.

Were there any social/networking highlights you want to tell us about?

Yes, many collaborators and sponsors such as Qiagen, ThermoFisher, 10x Genomics.

How has the Congress inspired you in your research?

I listened to many experts and important speakers in the field. The Congress opened the gates for collaboration and exchange of information between different speakers all over the world.

Is there anything from the Congress that you immediately wanted to tell your colleagues about?

I gained information about microbiome and cancer, genomics, target therapies, mutational signatures in cancer genome and many more. Currently, I am working on identifying mutational signatures in breast and colon cancer using next generation sequencing (ion torrent and illumine) and though this information are of great importance to me. I think that I can share this information with my team and it will add value to our research.