Clinical News
On Location
American Society of Hematology’s first
Meeting on Lymphoma Biology
ASH Meeting on
Lymphoma Biology:
Creating a Roadmap for
Future Research
ore than 350 lymphoma experts from around
the world convened at the American Society
of Hematology’s first Meeting on Lymphoma Biology to share cutting-edge findings in
the field and set the course of future lymphoma research.
Scientists at the meeting perused more than 150
abstracts revealing new insights into lymphoma biology and attended interactive sessions led by more
than 30 renowned speakers. The meeting also provided
opportunities for identifying research priorities that
will potentially translate to intervention strategies for
eradicating lymphoma and other blood-related cancers.
Stay tuned: The next ASH Meeting on Lymphoma Biology is slated for early 2016, and ASH hopes to submit
a white paper summarizing past and present lymphoma research breakthroughs to a peer-reviewed journal
by the end of the year.
Here, ASH Clinical News reviews some of the scientific
highlights from the meeting, which took place August 1013 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and speaks with meeting
Co-Chair David Weinstock, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute, about the precedent that this meeting set.
ASH Clinical News: What made
the ASH Meeting on Lymphoma
Biology unique?
David Weinstock, MD: This
meeting is unique because it
brings together the community of
basic and translational researchers who focus specifically on
lymphoid biology and transformation.
It’s pretty clear that there are
a number of outstanding meetings covering the range of blood
cancers — or that focus on lymphoma specifically — that include
a large component of clinical
research and clinical trial news.
What we needed was a meeting
specific to the biology of lymphoma where scientists could come
together in a smaller community
and be able discuss the nitty-gritty details of the hottest science.
So, while the ASH Annual
Meeting offers breadth, the Lymphoma Biology Meeting offers
depth. When we are at the annual
meeting, there is so much exciting science across the range of
different blood diseases, but we
don’t have the same opportunity
to intensely focus on the depth of
lymphoma biology. That’s where
this smaller environment was key.
What was the highlight of the
meeting for you this year?
One of the goals with this meeting was to work together as scientists to develop a roadmap for
lymphoma investigation — determining where the roadblocks
ASHClinicalNews.org
were that were preventing us from
making transformative breakthroughs, and then determining
how we could overcome these
bottlenecks. I think we made
great strides in that at this year’s
meeting. As an organizer, I was
happy to hear the overwhelmingly
positive feedback I received from
participants and attendees.
What do you think was some
of the most exciting research
presented?
There were several, but a few of
the talks from our didactic sessions — where the latest science
was presented by leaders in that
field — stood out for me. First,
Jason G. Cyster, PhD, of University of California, San Francisco,
gave a talk defining the role of
G-protein signaling in diffuse
large B-cell lymphoma. Another
exciting talk was by Margaret A.
Shipp, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Center, who gave a description of the exciting activity of
PD-1 blockade. Finally, another
highlight was the presentation of
phase I data on EZH2 blockade
demonstrating the dependence of
human lymphomas on this target.
In addition to the didactic
sessions, we also planned more
interactive sessions, where attendees could voice their thoughts
about the bottlenecks that are
preventing major advancements
in lymphoma research and really
contribute to the roadmap that
we’re collectively organizing.
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