I will be flying to Stockholm next week for the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (twitter #EMCC2011), more commonly known as ECCO or ESMO 2011.

What are the sessions that look interesting at the meeting? I previously wrote about the phase III ALSYMPCA trial data for Alpharadin that will be presented as a late breaking abstract.

In addition, the best abstract at ECCO 2011 is on vismodegib in basal cell carcinoma.  Sally Church on Pharma Strategy Blog has written extensively about the hedgehog pathway and role of smoothend inhibition in the treatment of cancer.

What else has attracted my attention at ECCO 2011 in Stockholm? In looking at the preliminary program I was struck by the large number of scientific symposia throughout the meeting. However, many occur at the same time! On Saturday 24th two in particular caught my attention:

Molecular Imaging of Hypoxia

Nanotechnologies for Targeted Drug Delivery

Having written about hypoxia and nanotechnology on this blog, I will probably go to one of those two sessions.

Later in the conference, there is another block of scientific symposia on Monday 26th, again all at the same time! Several that look particularly interesting include:

  • How to understand and to Reverse Drug Resistance in Metastatic Breast Cancer
  • From New Targets to New Drugs in Prostate Cancer
  • Tailoring Personalized Medicine for the Future
  • The Role of IGFs/IGF-1R Pathway in Paediatric Malignancies

And in case one still hasn’t had enough science, there’s another group of scientific symposia on the final day of the conference on Tuesday, 27 September including:

  • Unravelling Ras PI3 Kinases Targets 
  • PARP inhibiting strategies: from Molecular Mechanisms to Rational Clinical Applications

I expect Stockholm to be expensive, they jokingly say you can buy a brewery in America for the price of a beer in the city, but it looks like there’ll be some interesting news and scientific data from the meeting. Hopefully I’ll have a few hours sometime to see something of what looks like a stunningly beautiful city.

If you plan to be in Stockholm do let me know. I can be reached via twitter (@3NT).

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