NCRI 2015
Why is the NCRI conference important?
Dr Karen Kennedy - Director of the NCRI, UK
For me what’s unique about the conference is it covers the whole breadth of cancer research, both the research path but also the patient path which is unique. I’m interested in the whole spectrum; as a basic scientist I’m particularly interested in where the science is going, so the genomics but now that that’s being translated into clinical practice some of the stuff around immunotherapies. But I’m also interested in some of the more patient-focussed stuff, some of the more policy issues, e-cigarettes in cancer, policies around that. But also on Wednesday morning we have an interesting session around economics in cancer and the issue of the costs of cancer therapies, so I’m looking forward to that.
Could you tell us about the initiative NCRI is launching to look at cellular molecular pathology?
Pathology is a very important area for all diseases and particularly for cancer in terms of diagnosis, monitoring, prognosis but also for stratified medicine approaches. We need more innovation in this area yet in the UK there has been a decline in academic pathology over the past fifteen years and we know that there’s other barriers to research in this area. We’ve had a look at this before and tried to make some progress, there’s been limited progress. There are other initiatives that have been established that are making progress in specific areas but we really need a co-ordinated approach and so we’ve been working with the ECMC Pathology Network Group to develop a co-ordinated approach to bring together all these different initiatives and to really capitalise on them.
What else is the NCRI up to?
We’re continuing our work in radiotherapy, boosting radiotherapy research, so CTRad. We’re doing some work with the surgical research community to build research activity in that area and to address some specific issues relevant to surgical research. We’re also looking at survivorship as an issue in terms of people living with and beyond cancer and some of the issues that they might face and the research questions that that raises, so we’re looking at that. And we’re picking up some of the research recommendations that came out of the recent Cancer Taskforce report. So, yes, lots to keep us busy.
Why should people attend NCRI 2016?
If you’re interested in cancer you should definitely come to the NCRI Cancer Conference in 2016. It covers the whole breadth of cancer research in terms of the basic, right through translational, clinical research and more policy issues. We also cover the whole patient path so you will get a taste of everything that’s happening in the UK but also some international leaders, as well, speaking at the conference. So it’s really great for networking but also opportunities to present your research, to get feedback, make collaborations, contact with other colleagues as well.
Are there opportunities to network with people from outside of your field?
Yes, we always have quite a large number of patients. We run consumer bursaries so there’s quite a significant number of patients here as well. So there are opportunities to interact with patients and carers. We run Dragons’ Den proposals as well where you can get feedback about some research proposals from consumers. So definitely opportunities for cross-fertilisation across different groups but also across different areas of science and research as well.
