American Society of Hematology to Host Scientific Meeting on Breakthroughs in Lymphoma Biology

(WASHINGTON, June 17, 2016) – The American Society of Hematology (ASH), the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to the causes and treatments of blood disorders, will hold the second ASH Meeting on Lymphoma Biology, June 18–21 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. More than 300 lymphoma experts from around the world will attend the meeting to share cutting-edge research and focus on key priorities to accelerate the development of new approaches to understanding and treating lymphoma.

Nearly half of all blood cancer cases are lymphomas, or cancers of the lymphatic system. While these diseases are now treatable in many patients, the causes of lymphoma are still unknown. The development of new and improved therapies depends on greater understanding of lymphoma development and progression. Because these diseases are biologically complex, there is a great need for collaboration.

In order to facilitate the exchange of scientific information, and to support relationships among researchers in this community, ASH held an initial Meeting on Lymphoma Biology in 2014. Those who participated in this meeting created a strategic roadmap, published last year in Blood, identifying key priority areas in both infrastructure and research that would accelerate the development of treatments for people with lymphoma. Building on the success of that meeting, this year’s event will encourage robust partnerships across the discipline that are focused on both understanding the pathogenesis of lymphoma and translating these insights into future clinical intervention strategies.

Meeting Co-Chairs Ash Alizadeh, MD, PhD, of Stanford University; Randy Gascoyne, MD, of British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver; and Margot Thome, PhD, of University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the steering committee have invited world-class experts from across the globe to present cutting-edge, unpublished research in lymphoma pathogenesis. The conversation will be further enhanced by presentations of 120 abstracts that were submitted to the meeting. To ensure participation from the next generation of scientists, ASH has provided travel awards to over a dozen trainees with high-scoring abstracts.

Michael Stratton, MBBS, PhD, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, will deliver an opening keynote address on new insights into the mutational signatures across cancers from recent large-scale cancer genome sequencing initiatives. The meeting’s closing keynote address will be presented by Hao Wu, PhD, of Harvard University, who will discuss the therapeutic implications of lessons learned from recent biochemical and structural studies of lymphoma.

“The ASH Meeting on Lymphoma Biology is the only meeting that brings together basic and translational lymphoma researchers to foster the critical scientific exchange and collaboration that is vital for accelerating the development of therapies to treat these diseases,” said ASH President Charles S. Abrams, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “As the momentum from our initial agenda-setting meeting continues, ASH is pleased to continue its support for this community of researchers as they plot the course of lymphoma research and treatment for years to come.”

Formore information, including the meeting program, visit http://www.hematology.org/Lymphoma-Biology.

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) (www.hematology.org) is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists dedicated to furthering the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting the blood. For more than 50 years, the Society has led the development of hematology as a discipline by promoting research, patient care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology. The official journal of ASH is Blood (www.bloodjournal.org), the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field, which is available weekly in print and online.