I was out of town attending the AACR 2013 annual meeting in Washington DC from 4/6/13-4/10/13. It was a big conference boasting more than 18,000 researchers from around the world. The main theme was of course cancer. People involved in cancer biology, prevention, etiology, therapy, methods, products, patient advocates, policy making and education, all got together in the meeting.
There was some talk about the sequestration and the 10% budget cut for the NIH/NCI grants. As a matter of fact, I was surprised when they released this year's money for my grant in March. They initially released only 6 months worth of the grant money with a 10% cut. I did not know it, so it was quite confusing to see the figures at first. Some researchers were pessimistic and others were still hopeful about the situation. Although researchers in general are very, very smart people among the entire population with PhDs, MDs, or Professor titles and all, they are still people.
As a researcher I have to do what I promised to do when I wrote the grant, nonetheless.
This year I attended some sessions I do not usually go to, sat through the sessions (90-120 min each) and learned about the new field. I am planning to put some of my efforts on these cancers, and it was a part of my study process. A big meeting like this provides great opportunity for quick learning.
Also a part of fun was attending some sessions about research fields I was curious about but have had no time to study. Cancer stem cell/initiating cell research was one of them. There is a model for where cancers come from and are replenished, in which they state "cancers arise and are replenished by a subset of cancer cells called cancer stem cells or cancer initiating cells." The characterization of the stem/initiator cells and finding markers to identify the cells had been a focus of the study field, with a hope of specifically targeting the stem/initiator cells to eradicate the cancer.This study field was new and had been "on fire" so to speak for quite a while.
This year they started to sort out the findings, and made a statement, "Some cancers follow the model, but some don't." Hearing the common sense-ish statement, I was under the impression that the research field is finally reaching maturity.
Like any other conference, we can use the opportunity in a variety of ways. Personally I think the time was well spent.
Last but not least, I appreciate my colleagues for the feedback on my presentation. The comments were valuable.
