CHOP to Host ‘Personalizing Pediatric Cancer Care’ Summit

CHOP Cancer Center and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine will host the hybrid inaugural summit “Personalizing Pediatric Cancer Care” March 10 – 11.

mccannn [at] chop.edu (By Nancy McCann)

The ability to analyze tumors with multi-omics technologies is powerful, leading clinicians and researchers to understand that not only is each disease different, but also that within each disease there are differences. Already rare diseases become even rarer due to genetic subsets, making tailoring therapy in an individualized way critical.

With "innovation through collaboration" as its guiding principle and advancing personalized medicine in pediatric cancer care as its goal, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Cancer Center and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine will be hosting the hybrid inaugural summit, "Personalizing Pediatric Cancer Care" March 10 - 11 at the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia. This summit will bring together scientists from around the globe with expertise in different tumor areas to talk about their research and experience focused on genomic medicine and precision cancer care in the pediatric cancer world.

John Maris, MD

"The purpose of this meeting is to catalyze our ability to treat every child with cancer as an individual rather than a disease," said summit co-chair John Maris, MD, the Giulio D'Angio endowed professor of Pediatric Oncology at CHOP. "Oftentimes, the genomics we do on the tumors teaches us that the cancer is going to resist standard therapy, and we need to innovate. And the best way to innovate is through collaboration, helping us understand what the best approach is for something that we don't — even in a place like CHOP — see every day."

Forward-thinking Gathering

World-class experts will gather in the City of Brotherly Love to present on scientific advances in pediatric cancer care in the diagnostics and therapeutic space. They'll be covering such topics as cancer predisposition; and hematological, central nervous system, and solid malignancies. The agenda will also delve into advances in lab diagnostics and genetics, FDA/regulatory updates, and patient advocacy.

For two days, attendees will have the opportunity to convene — in-person or virtually — with other innovators and researchers seeking to advance precision-based medicine in pediatric cancer care. Anticipated to attend are physicians, scientists, care providers, researchers, clinical geneticists, patient advocates, regulatory experts, and pharmaceuticals and laboratory diagnostic leaders spanning multiple oncology specialty areas. Together, they'll be able to review unpublished research and data, share best practices, examine advances in diagnostics, and build new relationships.

The Right Time for Innovation Through Collaboration

Marilyn Li, MD

New data based on multi-omics profiling and new clinical trials have exploded in the last five years, said conference speaker and co-chair Marilyn Li, MD, vice chief of the Division of Genomic Diagnostics and director of Cancer Genomic Diagnostics at CHOP, making it the perfect time to collaborate.

"Our hope is that by inviting other people in the world at the forefront of pediatric cancer care to discuss and exchange information on these new technologies and therapies we will be able to turn each institution's data into a bigger data cohort," Dr. Li said. "Only until we have big enough data can we truly realize precision medicine."

Abstracts for the summit are being accepted through March 1. Submission details can be found here.