NPG becomes official media partner to the 2010 WIN Symposium

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is the official media partner to the 2010 WIN (Worldwide Innovative Networking) Symposium, it was announced today. The second annual WIN Symposium, which will be held in the Palais des Congrès, Paris, 7–9 July 2010, will bring together hundreds of oncology researchers from around the world to discuss how best to tailor therapies for patients with cancer. As part of the partnership, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology will publish a personalized cancer medicine focus issue in 2011. The WIN Consortium is a joint initiative of the Institut Gustave Roussy (France) and the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (USA), in association with several other leading cancer care institutions in Europe, the United States of America, Canada, and Asia.

“The challenges now facing oncologists are early diagnosis, the optimum ways to deliver individualized, tailored treatments and how to translate the latest research breakthroughs to the clinic”

Clinical researchers, working in academia and the pharmaceutical industry, are starting to make real progress in understanding tumor pathology and identifying which patients will respond best to particular treatments. This approach—known as personalized cancer medicine—should give patients a better outcome and a more accurate view of their prognosis.

“We created the WIN Consortium to aid the rapid translation of ground-breaking personalized cancer medicine discoveries from the bench to the bedside. Led by WIN Consortium President, Professor John Mendelsohn of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, this organization is a new cooperation between academia and the pharmaceutical industry”, explains Dr Vladimir Lazar, co-ordinator of the WIN Consortium and Head of Genomic Research Centre at the Institut Gustave Roussy, which is organizing the conference. “We believe that co-ordinated international collaborations are the best way of achieving rapid validation of breakthrough concepts and technologies to improve treatment outcomes for cancer.”

“The challenges now facing oncologists are early diagnosis, the optimum ways to deliver individualized, tailored treatments and how to translate the latest research breakthroughs to the clinic” said Dr Lisa Hutchinson, Editor of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.

“Nature Publishing Group has built its reputation for excellence by publishing ground breaking research across the life, physical, and clinical sciences”, says Dr James Butcher, Publisher of the eight clinical Nature Reviews journals. “We are delighted to be partnering with the WIN Symposium, which is co-chaired this year by two scientific visionaries---Dr Leroy Hood and Dr Richard Schilsky.”

As part of the media partnership, Nature Publishing Group will be showcasing the breakthrough scientific technologies and achievements in personalized cancer medicine in a focus issue to be published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. This special edition of the journal, which will be published early in 2011, will feature reviews written by prominent members of the WIN Consortium who will be leading the discussion at this year’s symposium.