Cancer Research in China And Individualization of Cancer Treatments in The 21st Century

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jul 19, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Recent breakthroughs in cancer research and the promise of individualized cancer treatments in the 21st century will be the focus of a National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) Conference, Breaking Down Cancer: Research for a Cure, to be held September 13-15, 2001 at Georgetown University.

In addition, Dr. Graham Richards, Chairman of Chemistry and Director of the NFCR Center for Computational Drug Discovery at Oxford University, will provide preliminary results from the NFCR-Intel-United Devices Research for a Cure computing project made possible by over 600,000 individual PC users who have downloaded software to analyze drug molecule interactions.

At this conference top scientists, including the Director of the Chinese National Human Genome Project, will focus on breakthroughs in cancer research:

* Individualization of cancer treatments in the 21st century

* Breakthroughs in cancer research in China

* Nutrition and cancer: science behind the hype

* Update on new cancer drugs made possible by PC users worldwide

* New molecular targets for cancer research

Dr. Terry Sharrer, Curator for Health Sciences at the National Museum of American History, will lead a public forum to explore what these breakthroughs mean for cancer patients and for the future directions of cancer research.

Presenters at the conference include:

* Bruce Ames, Ph.D., * Susan Band Horwitz, Ph.D.

* Robert Bast, M.D. * Laurence Hurley, Ph.D.

* Webster Cavenee, Ph.D. * Jian-Dong Jiang, M.D., Ph.D.

* Kai-Xian Chen, Ph.D. * Wayne Marasco, M.D., Ph.D.

* Zhu Chen, M.D., Ph.D. * W. Graham Richards, Ph.D.

* Shu-Jun Cheng, M.D. * Harold Scheraga, Ph.D.

* Yung-Chi Cheng, Ph.D. * Helmut Sies, Ph.D.

* Curt Civin, M.D. * Michael Sporn, M.D.

* Harold Dvorak, M.D. * Daniel Von Hoff, M.D.

* Volker Erdman, Ph.D. * Danny Welch, Ph.D.

* Xilian Gao, Ph.D.

* Daniel Haber, M.D., Ph.D.

NFCR is using this occasion to also honor the late Henrietta Lacks of Baltimore, MD for the contributions made to modern medicine for the HeLa cell. Over the past 45 years, research on HeLa cells has provided scientists with an enormous amount of basic knowledge about the physiology and genetics of cells. The HeLa Cell, cloned from Mrs. Lacks, has been the principle cell line for cell biology studies for over two decades and remains the cell line that is still studied for regarding human health. Henrietta Lacks has not received significant recognition for her contribution to cancer research and modern medicine, so NFCR will present to Henrietta Lacks' family an honor in recognition of her important contribution to medical science.

To see the full agenda for this conference, please visit http://www.nfcr.org/conference/agenda.html or call NFCR at (301) 654-1250.

For media inquiries about the conference, contact Silas Deane at Silas@Logicmediagroup.com or call (615) 301-8313.

The National Foundation for Cancer Research is a cancer related charity dedicated to advancing basic science cancer research in the laboratory that will lead to a cure for cancer. Since 1973 the National Foundation for Cancer Research has spent over $170 million to fund discovery-oriented research that has played a key role in the prevention, diagnosis and new treatments of all types of cancer. By supporting the best ideas of the best minds, and by facilitating collaboration among scientists world wide, advances in one field contribute to discoveries in another. This is what NFCR's "Laboratory Without Walls" makes possible.

　　From Nfcr.org