Translations in Urologic Oncology

Dear colleagues,
Dear friends,

We would like to cordially invite you to join us in Heidelberg for Translations in Urologic Oncology in January 2013.

Not long ago, the mantra was that science, like history, repeats itself. One of the major contributing facts to this phenomenon was that clinicians started all over again discovering evidence, which previously had been revealed by basic researchers already.

The advent of 'translational medicine' represents a fundamentally new aspect where the formerly independent 'galaxies' of basic and clinical science find to each other on a fast track. This involves not only the classical 'bench-to-bedside' approach but also increasingly research strategies of 'bedside-to-bench', which likewise turn out to be extremely fruitful. Additionally, a still much neglected aspect of translational science is the exchange of knowledge between researchers who focus on different entities that still may share common pathological and curative pathways like for example leukemia and renal cell cancer.

The public audience expects, given the investments made, transformative patient care to be implemented as fast as possible. Only the free exchange of knowledge between researchers from different 'worlds' such as engineering, computational biology or chemistry and medicine will help to develop new solutions for common health care problems.

Ideally, 'translational science' functions like a neuronal network in its every sense: it produces, collects, organizes and presents evidence with all possible scientific and clinical parties involved. The costs of implementing such infrastructures may appear overwhelming. However, currently, a flood wave of new and extremely expensive therapies is finding its way into clinical routine, where many of the drugs are effective overall – but sometimes in an unpredictable way in the individual patient. Therefore, sophisticated translational medicine with its potential to develop into personalized medicine will be the only solution for the future, which will be characterized by high expectations in terms of cure rates and economical limitations at the same time.

Translations in Urologic Oncology brings together some of the most eminent people in the field - including Nobel Laureate Harald zur Hausen - from around the world. It aims to explore today's frontiers of treatment of tumors that account for approximately twenty-five percent of all malignancies: urological cancers.

Advances in silico and imaging, individualized next generation sequencing and tumor profiling, biomarkers, cancer stem cells and immunotherapy as well as current progress in local and systemic therapies will be highlighted. In addition, general aspects of 'doing science' such as the more and more urgent pressure to publish and to find the funds that are needed to move science forward will be discussed.

We hope that this meeting will find your interest, and we are looking very much forward to your attendance in Heidelberg.

Best regards, on behalf of the organizing committee,
Boris Hadaschik,
Sascha Pahernik,
Markus Hohenfellner