Abstract
The worldwide innovative networking (WIN) consortium comprises a global alliance of 28 academic and clinical cancer centres, 11 pharmaceutical and technology companies and five charitable or health payer organisations. Since its inception the consortium has striven to provide a forum for all of its members to network, share information and experience, and perform clinical trials with the overarching goal of advancing the care of patients with cancer through the use of precision medicine.The annual 2-day WIN Symposium is the most visible output of the consortium and provides an opportunity for around 400 experts and other delegates to meet and discuss the latest research and initiatives in personalised cancer medicine. The seventh WIN Symposium, held in Paris, France, 29–30 June 2015, consisted of nine plenary and eight poster sessions that covered the overarching theme of novel targets, innovative agents, and advanced technologies being a winning strategy.Highlights included discussions of immune mechanisms and ways to target the cancer immunome and systems biology approaches to supporting personalised cancer. The latest data from the BATTLE-2 and WINther trials were discussed, and round table discussions were held that focused on how best to design the next generation of clinical trials, which included SPRING, SUMMER, and BOOSTER being initiated by the WIN Consortium.
Highlights
The launch of the WINther trial in several European countries and the planned SPRING, SUMMER, and BOOSTER trials are a testament to the successful collaboration that it has been possible to achieve to date
The focus of the second plenary session was approaches being undertaken to identify and understand immune mechanisms and try to understand how these may be harnessed to improve upon the successes seen with immunotherapies to date
Systems biology and new approaches to support personalised cancer care Andrea Califano (Columbia University, Department of Systems Biology, New York, USA) gave a keynote lecture to start off the third plenary session, looking at using a systems biology approach to precision cancer medicine
Summary
During the first plenary session, the Chairman of the WIN Consortium John Mendelsohn (The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, Houston, TX, USA) provided an overview of the WIN Consortium and the global effort needed to improve patient access to precision medicine. The premise behind the creation of the Consortium was that this is too big a task for one institution alone and that a worldwide network assembling all cancer stakeholders to develop cutting-edge concepts in precision cancer medicine was needed to have a real impact on patient survival. The launch of the WINther trial in several European countries and the planned SPRING, SUMMER, and BOOSTER trials are a testament to the successful collaboration that it has been possible to achieve to date
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