“What causes sarcoma?”
On 8 September 2016, 71 scientific minds from all over the world gathered at the Royal Society of Chemistry to discuss what causes sarcoma. Hosted by Sarcoma UK, the gathering was our first ever sarcoma basic science symposium. In attendance were researchers and scientists, including Principal Investigators, postdoctoral researchers and PhD students.
Find out what happened on the day on YouTube:
The day ended with an interactive and creative workshop led by Dr Andrea Siodmok, Head of Policy Lab at The Cabinet Office. As a result of this session, the following research priorities were established.
The key research priorities for the next 10 years were set out as:
To work together - to create a strong and dynamic community
To invest in sarcoma researchers of the future - bringing in fresh ideas, innovation and energy
To create meaningful scientific models of sarcoma - to seperate what's value from what's "noise"
To develop a national sarcoma research strategy - that sets out how sarcoma patients participate in research; and encourages centralised workflows for the collection and use of samples and data
We had 17 entries to our scientific research poster competition. Our winner was Dr Julia Hmeljak from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre who had come over from USA especially to attend.
We also launched the Sayako Grace Robinson Studentship programme as part of our Funding Programme.
Our Director of Research, Sarah McDonald, said, "We aim for this to be a lightning rod moment in working towards ending the causes of sarcoma. I am excited to see what the researchers do next and how Sarcoma UK can support this. The Sayako Grace Robinson Studentships will grow the research leaders of the future in sarcoma.”