Driving innovative cancer science to patient care is the theme for this year’s American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in Chicago.
As more progress against cancer emerges from various areas of study, scientists are bringing different tools and skills together to help diagnose cancer at an earlier stage, increasing the chances of effective treatment and survivability. The conference will highlight and honor those developments, while taking the opportunity to reflect on the patients who are in urgent need of a cure.
Elizabeth Jaffee, deputy director for the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and associate director for the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, will be taking over as president of AACR at this year’s convention. Jaffee is also the co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Panel for Vice President Joe Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
In addition to taking over the leadership role at AACR, Jaffee will be hosting and moderating several gatherings and panels during the convention, including a panel on rational combination therapies in immune-oncology and a science policy session, where she will provide the latest information on the Biden Moonshot Initiative.
She was elected into the 2018 class of Fellows of the AACR Academy for “her groundbreaking efforts dedicated to the development of cancer vaccines and vaccine combinations that bypass tumor-associated immunotolerance, and for exploiting genomic and proteomic technologies to define biomarkers required for cancer onset, progression, and metastasis.”
Several Johns Hopkins researchers are taking advantage of the gathering at AACR and presenting their research into cancer detection and treatment. Six different young researchers from Johns Hopkins will be honored for the work into cancer research at the convention.
The AACR Annual Meeting 2018 will be held in Chicago, starting on April 14 and ending on April 18.