UICC Intl Conference on Familial Cancer--US Support

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We request partial support for a UICC International Conference on Familial Cancer: Biology and Clinical Care, to be held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on June 4-6, 2003. This research meeting will bring senior and junior researchers together to summarize progress in understanding and controlling familial cancer via clinical research, (eco)genetic epidemiology, and cancer risk assessment, counseling, and gene testing. Topics include: site-specific familial cancers (breast, ovary, colon, pancreas, stomach, melanoma) and cancer family syndromes; characterization of rate syndromes and major genes that predispose to cancer; identification of multiple modifying genes and gene-environmental interactions; clinical practice of risk assessment, genetic counseling, and management of high risk persons for cancer by screening, surgery, and chemoprevention; advances in interdisciplinary methods, including laboratory, genetic epidemiologic techniques, bioinformatics, and systems biology; ethnic, cultural, and international similarities and differences; ethical, legal, social, and psychological implications; and future research and clinical recommendations. The goal is to stimulate greater research cooperation and collaboration among geneticists, oncologists, and epidemiologists from the US and abroad to address the problem of human neoplasia via the interdisciplinary strategy of family studies. Innovative aspects of this Conference are its website publication of abstracts and block travel grant for research trainees in genetics epidemiology and oncology. The International Union Against Cancer (UICC) is the international nongovernmental organization that unites voluntary cancer societies from around the world, including the American Cancer Society. As part of its Epidemiology Program, the UICC started a Familial Cancer and Prevention Project in 1991 and held two major meetings, in Japan and China. Now, for the first time, organizers of the UICC Project have asked that the Conference be mounted in North America, specifically Oklahoma. Co-sponsorship by the Children's Medical Research Institute of Oklahoma City and the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center is secured, but NIH support is essential to support certain aspects of US participation, including certain conference logistics, keynote speakers, and scholarships to be awarded competitively for minorities, women, and trainees in oncology, medical genetics, genetic counseling, and genetic epidemiology.