The University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s 43rd annual Scientific Symposium will feature talks by scientists from UNC Lineberger and from around the country, including three recipients of the prestigious Lasker Award, on the topic of dysregulated signaling in cancer.
The symposium, which will be held April 29-30 at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education in Chapel Hill, is open to students, faculty and the public.
“We have significant new understanding of the signaling pathways that are dysregulated in cancer – how those pathways lead to cancer, and then how this creates therapeutic vulnerabilities since the cancers utilize these pathways for growth and survival,” said the symposium’s co-organizer Albert Baldwin, PhD, UNC Lineberger’s associate director of basic science. “Through this symposium, you can stay in the Triangle and see international-quality scientists discussing cutting-edge findings on cancer mechanism and new therapeutic options.”
In addition to Baldwin, the symposium’s co-organizers are UNC Lineberger’s Greg Wang, PhD, associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine’s Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics; Yue Xiong, PhD, William R. Kenan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics; and UNC Lineberger’s Qing Zhang, PhD, associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
Scientists will speak about the science of signaling in multiple types of cancer including bladder, glioblastoma, pancreatic, lung and prostate.
Three of the speakers are recipients of the prestigious Lasker Award, which recognizes scientists and others who have made major advances in the understanding, treatment, cure or prevention of disease. C. David Allis, PhD, the Joy and Jack Fishman Professor at The Rockefeller University, will speak on cancer epigenetics; William G. Kaelin Jr., MD, professor in the Department of Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, will speak on the von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor and oxygen sensing in cancer; and Charles Sawyers, MD, chair of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, will speak on lineage plasticity – the ability of cells to change their “identity” – in prostate cancer.
“This year’s symposium covers a breadth of science, with talks covering basic, translational and clinical studies focused on multiple cancer types,” Baldwin said.
The symposium is free to attend. There is an option to buy lunch at the symposium for a cost of $20 per day. Registration is required. For more information and registration, and for a list of speakers, go to the website https://unclineberger.org/symposium/.