The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is hosting their Annual Meeting this week in Chicago. If you think back to April, I was excited for another cancer conference that I referred to as Cancer Madness. In my opinion, the ASCO meeting is centered more on the patient – so there are many reports on new drugs in clinical trials, changes in how patients are diagnosed and treated, etc. The attendees include the oncologists, companies developing new treatments/diagnostics, folks from the financial side of the world and the press/publication relations groups. Of all the conferences I go to, ASCO certainly seems to have strong representation from patients and patient advocates.
You will likely notice a large spike in announcements on the progress in cancer coming out of the meeting. ASCO recently published a great website with some interesting information on the progress to date. The timeline goes from the 1970s to now and is easily readable. Some of the sessions will be available online and you can also follow on Twitter using the ASCO11 hashtag. Using social media at scientific conferences can be a concern for presenters who are discussing unpublished results. Scientific journals often have strict rules on where data can be presented prior to publication. Still, there is significant value to the practice – check out Sally Church’s thoughts on the American Urology Association conference. While the debate goes on, Brian Reid at the communications firm WCG is going to do an experiment – collecting social media on specific abstracts during the conference to see what can be learned.
I will be spending the next few days learning about recent progress on drugs in our space and meeting with people about our next stage of development of our cancer drug. Hopefully I will also be able to send some interesting information your way! (If you’re here in Chicago, stop by our Trials in Progress poster on our Phase I trial of QBI-139 (TPS146) on Monday morning.
The Next Element 
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