AACR Annual Meeting 2024 – San Diego, California 5-10 Apr 2024
This April David Wedge and Laura Woodhouse had the privilege of attending the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) conference in San Diego, California. This event brought together over 23 000 registrants from across the globe to learn of the latest updates in cancer research. The Wedge group showcased our current research with four poster presentations from Laura, Chris, Aliah and visiting student Claire, with conference abstracts published in the online supplement of Cancer Research.
Laura Woodhouse received a prestigious Scholar-In-Training Award with a generous educational independent grant from AbbVie to support attendance at the conference. This award is highly competitive and recognises outstanding young investigators presenting meritorious proffered papers at the AACR Annual Meeting. The award was presented at the Scholar-In-Training Award reception, where Laura got to meet her sponsors and other awardees.
The vast scientific programme included plenaries, major symposia, educational sessions, methods workshops, proffered paper sessions and poster exhibits. More than 240 clinical trials were presented, including numerous phase 3 trials and practice-changing studies. The plenary programme started with a session on Discovery Science in Early Cancer Biology and Interception, chaired by Daniel De Carvalho. Seventy percent of cancer-related deaths are in cancer types with no screening options, therefore the importance of early detection to allow earlier treatment is the current focus of many research programmes and funding streams. This session’s presentations focused on early-stages of cancer development and targets for cancer treatment; the four presentations explored changes underlying clonal haematopoiesis, why breast cancer risk increases with age, genome instability in prostate cancer and genome instability as a therapeutic target.
The final day closed with a plenary session on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science chaired by Vivek Subbiah, where experts in the field discussed the role of AI in medical imaging, precision medicine and drug development. Specifically, there was a focus on breast cancer and the role of AI and machine learning in breast cancer screening and assessing response to CDK4/6 inhibitors. The need for validating AI in prospective studies was emphasised, and also the importance of ensuring technology is equitable and accessible to low- and middle-income countries. Finally, the potential for using AI to link the multi-modal approach to cancer research was highlighted, a theme that resonates with the Wedge group. Utilising AI to link together genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics etc. to gain meaningful biological insights, is undoubtedly the focus of ongoing research.
Finally, it was fantastic to see the ‘Team Womb’ collective, led by Professor Emma Crosbie, receive the prestigious AACR Team Science Award for their work on Lynch syndrome associated endometrial cancer. Their prospective study has led to changes in clinical guidelines, with NICE now recommending universal testing of all endometrial cancer patients for Lynch syndrome. This annual award recognises outstanding interdisciplinary research and meritorious science that has translated through to clinical care. It was truly inspiring to see research performed in Manchester showcased and rewarded at an international level.
