The Symposium is great!

Here we are in London, Ontario

The local organizing committee has done a wonderful job creating a beautiful venue for this meeting. And as usual the gathering of researchers, physicians, and families is incredible. Old friends, new faces, exciting advances ... the experience is just amazing. (see photos below).

Today we heard from Canada's top researchers on VHL: Dr. Stephen Lee from Ottawa University, and Dr. Arnim Pause of McGill. They have been doing some fascinating work helping to decode the process that occurs within the cell, looking for possible therapies that could make a difference. Dr. Lee shared with us one theory that we will report in the next newsletter -- some existing drugs that happen to target a process that might inhibit tumor growth. click here for the agenda

Researchers from 12 countries shared the work of their laboratories, looking for new ways they can collaborate to move things forward more rapidly. Work on more basic animals -- earthworms, zebrafish, mice -- help to prove concepts that might work in humans.

We learn from each experiment -- what does work, and what doesn't. The underlying mechanisms of the various VHL-related tumors have much in common. By studying the different mechanisms of similar tumors, we learn more about the pathways or sequences of events that may lead to a tumor. And putting into one room all these great minds and their rich sets of experience with VHL research -- synergies emerge constantly throughout the day.

This evening following dinner Dr. Gladys Glenn reported to us on some other familial kidney cancer syndromes that point up similarities and differences with VHL.

Tomorrow we will hear from the clinical researchers, discussing diagnosis and treatment.

Meet a few of the attendees...

Chantal Lammens (Netherlands), Gillian Crawford (England), Hansjakob Mueller (Switzerland)	Patrick Maxwell (England), Jose Claudio Rocha (Brazil), Graeme Eisenhofer (USA)
Jane Green (Canada), Emily Chew (USA), Stephen Lee (Canada). Drs. Green and Lee co-chaired the Scientific Committee for the meeting.	Taro Shuin (Japan), Hartmut Neumann (Germany), Hiroshi Kanno (Japan), Eamonn Maher (England)