Gustave Roussy and The Lancet Launch Annual "Lecture Series on Cancer Breakthroughs"
核心洞察
Gustave Roussy (搜索) and The Lancet (搜索) have partnered to create the Lecture Series on Cancer Breakthroughs, an annual programme dedicated to major advances in oncology.
The inaugural lecture on 18 September at 5:00 pm in Villejuif will be delivered by Harvard cancer prevention specialist Professor Timothy R. Rebbeck.
Rebbeck's work has advanced understanding of BRCA-related cancer risk, preventive surgery for high genetic risk, and prostate cancer (搜索) inequalities.
Gustave Roussy (搜索) and The Lancet (搜索) have partnered to create the Lecture Series on Cancer Breakthroughs, a new annual programme of lectures dedicated to major advances in the fight against cancer. The initiative aims to bring together leading research, innovation and public health perspectives around the developments reshaping oncology.
The inaugural lecture of the partnership will take place on Friday 18 September at 5:00 pm in Villejuif, and registration is now open for those wishing to attend either in person or online.
Precision Medicine and the Shift Toward Earlier Intervention
The opening lecture will be delivered by Professor Timothy R. Rebbeck, an internationally renowned epidemiologist and specialist in personalised cancer prevention. He holds the Vincent L. Gregory Chair in Cancer Prevention at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
According to the organisers, Professor Rebbeck's work is helping to redefine prevention strategies in the era of precision medicine and has led to major advances in several fields, including improving understanding of cancer risks associated with BRCA gene mutations, demonstrating the effectiveness of preventive surgery for patients with a high genetic risk of cancer, and investigating inequalities in prostate cancer (搜索) risk and outcomes.
His lecture will explore how advances in precision medicine are transforming the way cancer is approached. For many years, efforts to combat cancer focused primarily on diagnosis and treatment once the disease developed. Today, by analysing genetic data, lifestyle factors and environmental exposures, scientists can increasingly identify individuals at highest risk of developing certain cancers and intervene earlier, sometimes even before the first signs of disease appear.
Programme and Panel Discussion
The session opens at 5:00 pm with an introduction by Vania Wisdom of The Lancet (搜索), followed by the lecture at 5:10 pm. A panel discussion begins at 5:55 pm, featuring Professor Rebbeck alongside Dr Judith Balma\u00f1a of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (搜索) (VHIO) in Spain and Dr Suzette Delaloge of the Institut national du cancer (搜索) and Gustave Roussy (搜索) in France. A question-and-answer session follows at 6:40 pm, with closing remarks at 7:00 pm from Vania Wisdom and Professor Fabrice Barlesi of Gustave Roussy.
Dr Balma\u00f1a is an expert in inherited cancer predisposition, particularly breast and ovarian cancers associated with the BRCA1 (搜索) and BRCA2 (搜索) genes. Her research focuses on the interpretation of genetic variants, PARP inhibitors (搜索) and Lynch syndrome (搜索), and she has contributed to several European clinical practice guidelines in the field of cancer genetics.
Related Oncology Innovation Programme in Paris
The lecture series launch follows Gustave Roussy (搜索)'s renewed collaboration with the IFODS Congress, a benchmark event for French-speaking oncology. The 9th edition of the congress will be held from 17 to 19 June at the Novotel Paris Tour Eiffel Conference Centre, with a joint IFODS/Gustave Roussy presidential session on Thursday 18 June from 14:15 to 15:30, chaired by Professor Barlesi.
That session will address therapeutic vaccines (搜索), artificial intelligence and minimal residual disease. Dr Damien Vasseur, a medical biologist, will discuss the challenges surrounding minimal residual disease (MRD). In some patients, fragments of tumour DNA may persist in the bloodstream after treatment even in the absence of visible signs on imaging; this molecular residual disease is an early indicator of relapse risk, and previous studies have shown that MRD-positive patients have a significantly higher risk of recurrence than MRD-negative patients. Recent advances in molecular biology now allow MRD detection through a simple blood test, paving the way for personalised monitoring and pre-emptive treatments before clinical relapse.
Dr Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Danlos, a medical oncologist in the Department of Therapeutic Innovation and Early-Phase Trials (DITEP), will present the latest developments in therapeutic vaccines (搜索). The approach involves administering to patients information about the proteins expressed by their cancer cells, with the aim of training immune cells to better recognise antigens expressed by tumour cells and eliminate them. Two approaches are currently being explored: personalised vaccines developed in the laboratory for each patient, and generic vaccines targeting common antigens expressed within a given group of diseases. Several clinical trials evaluating these new treatments are being conducted at Gustave Roussy (搜索) alongside fundamental research.
Dr Julien Vibert, a specialist in artificial intelligence and computational oncology, will outline the medical, scientific and regulatory challenges of implementing AI tools in oncology. AI tools are already used in practice, particularly in imaging to assist radiologists in detecting and characterising lesions on scans, while in research deep learning approaches enable analysis of vast quantities of data with the hope of identifying new therapeutic targets and better understanding cancer mechanisms.
The congress programme also includes the 6th edition of the Onco Startup Summit on 18 June, co-organised by Gustave Roussy (搜索) Transfert as part of IFODS. The full-day event dedicated to oncology start-ups will bring together more than 200 stakeholders in oncology innovation, with pitch sessions and exchanges among entrepreneurs, investors and support organisations.