After months of conference calls, in June 2018 the Annual Symposium Reimagination Task Force met for 1 ½ days to have an exstensive discussion about all aspects of the Annual Cancer Symposium experience. Task Force Chair, James Howe, MD said, “Our challenge was to take a great clinical meeting and find new ways to enhance and deliver not only educational value, but also to create an environment that fosters a greater level of engagement and community.” During this meeting Task Force members reviewed years of attendee data. This data was a deep dive into all aspects of the meeting – from use of the mobile app to session attendance, from networking events to exhibit hall functions, from invited lecturers to registration rates – no topic was off limits.
The Task Force presented a full report and recommendations during the Executive Council meeting that was held in October during the 2018 ACS Clinical Congress. A total of 28 recommendations were approved that covered various topics including registration, education experience, networking, exhibit hall and technology. While several of these recommendations will be implemented during the 2020 meeting, several new concepts will be introduced at SSO 2019; including, a new registration category for residents and medical students, shortening symposia and parallel sessions to 90 minutes, increased networking opportunities and an increase in ePosters.
SSO 2019 Scientific Program Chair, Sanjay Bagaria, MD said, “The Reimagination Task Force was a diverse group of surgical oncologists from academic and community settings, and research and non-research institutions. These unique perspectives, along with a comprehensive data-driven analysis of past meetings have enabled new ideas to emerge and be implemented in the upcoming meeting. I hope that SSO 2019 attendees will leave the symposium feeling inspired, wiser and better connected to cancer surgeons from around the globe.”
2017 Clinical Investigator Award Recipients Present Work at SSO 2019
2017 Clinical Investigator Award recipients will also present an update on their funded research projects. Metabolic Reprogramming in Sarcoma – Repurposing Statins as Anticancer Agents is Dr. Rebecca Gladdy’s research project. Since receiving the CIA, her team has uncovered that metabolic reprogramming, the process whereby cancer cells are able to bypass normal cellular function so that they can survive in more stressed conditions, is important in several types of common adult sarcomas. Dr. Gladdy said, “We think that types of pathways that have been documented genetically to be abnormal in sarcoma predispose them to becoming more sensitive to drugs that inhibit these metabolic processes such as the use of statins, or cholesterol lowering agents.”
During SSO 2019, she will describe that using functional drug screens is a useful way to try to identify novel drug targets or in some cases helps re-purpose drugs used for other more common human diseases for cancer therapies. Dr. Gladdy said, “With the support of our CIA funded grant, we have been able to test other common types of adult sarcoma and think we understand why statin therapies work in some sarcomas and not others.”
Genevieve Boland, MD, PhD is presenting the findings of her research, Tumor and Immune Monitoring via Exosomal Analysis in Patients on Targeted Therapy with Anti-PD1 Immunotherapy. Instead of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) or cell-free DNA as a monitoring tool, Dr. Boland and her research team have been using circulating micro-vesicles, which are secreted by a variety of cell types including immune cells and tumor cells. Because they are protected from degradation in circulation, they contain intact RNA and allow for a dynamic read out of changes in tumor- and immune-cell states in real time. Her lab has the ability to benchmark these circulating changes to tumors and to compare the signatures in the blood to clinical outcomes.
Dr. Boland said, “One of the big, but pleasant surprises of the research was that we found that immune contribution seems to be more important in distinguishing response from non-response, and that would not have been detected with the other monitoring techniques like circulating-tumor cells or cell-free DNA.” During SSO 2019, Dr. Boland will further describe the use of this approach as part of a clinical trial and how this may impact immuno-oncology in the future. Dr. Boland said, “Receiving the CIA has allowed me to take preliminary data and apply it in a more clinically relevant setting, which I hope will allow us to operationalize these approaches and bring them one step closer to the clinic.”