Science: American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting 2022

AACR (American Association for Cancer Research) Annual Meeting 2022 was held in New Orleans (4/8-13). This year they are back to in-person meeting with online virtual/streaming options.

  I saw a few recorded presentations due to covid, notably from UK, but 78% of registrants attended in person, they said.

Although I sent a poster, I selected online/virtual attendance, and browsing streamed live/recorded symposium sessions from my home or office. I may have gotten too used to the comfort of working from home.

Live meeting is far better for meeting people. I know. But if we focus mainly on catching up with recent scientific advances, especially in research fields I am only loosely following, virtual is pretty good.

As AACR is a big meeting, several symposium occur simultaneously. We had to choose which to attend. Recorded streaming of sessions just solved the "I cannot be in two places at a time" problem. The session recordings should be available until 7/13/22. I'll take some time to watch missed sessions next week.

Notable things 2022;

  New plenary symposium on cancer evolution and on precancer discovery science. Taken up in a plenary session means the subfield has been recognized as a part of mainstream research field. The presenters are scientists working on the field for long (decades), far before the big stage is set up for the first time. Rome was not built in a day.

  Thanks to accumulated DNA/RNA sequencing data and bioinformatics, cancer analysis has reached another level. 

  Newer technologies such as single cell sequencing, spatial biology, and tumor linage analysis are providing high-resolution descriptions on cancer development and its biology previously not available. The data are not only descriptive, but hypothesis-generating. They are not cheap yet, though. In our core facility, single cell sequencing costs about $3600/sample. Still, usually, "just do it" is the best answer.

  Notion of tumor microenvironment has become commonplace. Different fields (e.g., aging) are using the notion.

  Speaking of aging, NCI and NIA are cooperating to keep providing funding for the "aging and cancer" field. It makes sense, especially with the effects of aging being described at a finer level with aforementioned newer technologies. We will see what grows out of the funding in coming years.

Also, a reminder;

  Cancer research is science, and numbers play a major role in the game. As cancer research has become a game of big data, it is easy to forget the dots/lines represent people. Got to be careful with that.

I got a few ideas thanks to inspirational sessions. Time to work on the ideas and plans.

[AACR annual meeting 2022, virtual landing page]

Science: Yanagida life science symposium 4/2/2022

My graduate advisor, Dr. Mitsuhiro Yanagida, has been a leading and prolific scientist. He had his lab in Kyoto University for decades, carrying out research on mitosis. Much of molecular components and mechanisms of mitosis were identified from his molecular genetics lab. As a graduate school student, I cloned a few "new" genes involved in mitosis for my PhD. How nostalgic.

Then in late 2000's, he moved his lab to Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, with a new research focus on human metabolomics. The studies have been uncovering intriguing changes in human blood occurring with aging or diseases.

When I visited his office in Kyoto during my honeymoon trip in 2011, he gave me a couple of tea cups and an Okinawan textile. Sometimes, it is these little kind gestures that are remembered.

On 2021, he was turning 80, which is an auspicious age (sanju 傘寿; "umbrella age") in Japan. To cerebrate the occasion, a life science symposium gathering lab alumni in Kyoto, Japan, was planned to be held on 2021. 

I got the first notice on 2020. Then Covid came. The symposium was postponed by one year. 

This past April 2nd (Saturday) 2022, we had the symposium.

As Covid is still ongoing in Japan, situation was quite fluid for some time (e.g., travel restrictions, facility availability, mask mandate, is gathering in person ok?). It must have been a major headache for organizers.

The symposium was held in a hybrid (online/in-person) format with select speakers including Dr. Yanagida himself. 

I was attending through Zoom (for scientific talk) and through another chatroom app called gather, as directed by organizers. Never used the app, but the use was easy enough and the old-role-playing-game-ish format was interesting.

About 70 people were present, in person and zoom participants from the world (UK, US, SG, JP) combined.

As I have been working on scientific subjects not directly related to many of alumni', and as my base is in the US, I have not been in close contact with the Yanagida lab alumni much. It was nice to know that many alumni members have established themselves, working as professors in prestigious universities, or even as Dean of graduate university. 

Even if we discount survivor's bias, when we apply a principle of "a teacher's success can be measured with students' success", Dr. Yanagida is still plentifully successful.

I heard he is closing his lab in Okinawa later this year. I don't know the plan afterwards; staying active or retirement. But witnessing a successful scientist's life journey (so far and ongoing) is certainly inspiring.

[For Yanagida life science symposium participants]