Friday in Ontario

Clinical care for VHL

Dr. Emily Chew began the day with a presentation on Translational Research, the process of bringing laboratory research "from the bench to the bedside" -- turning all that basic science into practical help for patients. Dr. Chew heads the study of VHL in the eye at the U.S. National Eye Institute. Her family is from Vancouver, so she is a Canadian at heart.

She shared with us the clinical trials she has been conducting at NIH, hoping to find a drug to manage eye tumors without the damaging effects. While laser and cryotherapy work well for most lesions, you can't use either one on an optic nerve tumor without damaging the nerve and creating a blind spot in the vision. A drug would be an ideal therapy.

There was a fascinating series of presentations from U.S., Denmark, Germany, England, Spain , Japan, and Canada. We worked our way down the body -- eye, brain, pheochromocytoma, kidney, epididymis and APMO's.

In the evening, we gathered in the poster room to view the many posters and to hear Dr. Hartmut Neumann play the violin. Dr. Neumann's impromptu concerts have become a tradition at our meetings. He has played for us at every one of the conferences, since 1994.

Next we were treated to a presentation by Dr. Fred Sexton of the London (Ontario) Regional Cancer Center

His book, Docs without Socks recounts stories and lessons learned during three decades of medical practice with humor and wisdom.

Dr. Pautler had arranged for a bus to take attendees to a truly Canadian outing -- a hockey game featuring the London Knights.

The family first-timers gathered in Joyce's room to answer questions that had come up during the day.

Hartmut Neumann playing Bach	Jose Claudio Rocha (Brazil), Mercedes Robledo (Spain), Giuseppe Opocher (Italy)
Sven Glasker (Germany), Hanjakob Mueller (Switzerland), Eric Jonasch (USA), Hartmut Neumann (Germany)