Report of the Integrative Molecular Cancer Epidemiology International Symposium, Lyon, France

S Raimondi

doi:10.3332/ecancer.2008.95

Abstract

An International Symposium on Integrative Molecular Cancer Epidemiology took place in Lyon, France, on 3–5 July 2008. The Symposium focused on aetiological and mechanistic aspects of molecular and genetic cancer epidemiology research and was divided into the following three sections: Molecular epidemiology—application of novel molecular markers to cancer epidemiology.Genomic epidemiology in the era of whole genome scan.Integrative molecular epidemiology: visions for the future.Participants included epidemiologists, geneticists, biochemical and molecular biologists, pharmacologists, pathologists and all researchers interested in this field. The Symposium provided a complete and clear overview of the present and future programmes in molecular cancer epidemiology. It also served to encourage international scientific collaboration between investigators working in this specific research field, and to stimulate transdisciplinary research with experts of other research areas. Highlights of each of the scientific presentations are summarized below.

Highlights

Over the last two decades molecular epidemiology has developed as an independent discipline, which aims to overcome some limitations of traditional epidemiology and to offer a framework for applying novel molecular techniques to population and clinical studies
It provided an opportunity for investigators to present their work and to review the most promising areas of future development of molecular cancer epidemiology
The Symposium focused on aetiological and mechanistic aspects of molecular and genetic cancer epidemiology research, which have been addressed through the interplay of epidemiologists, clinicians and molecular biologists

Summary

Introduction

Over the last two decades molecular epidemiology has developed as an independent discipline, which aims to overcome some limitations of traditional epidemiology and to offer a framework for applying novel molecular techniques to population and clinical studies. In order to address these gaps new epigenetic and ‘omic’ biomarkers have recently became available, but they need to be systematically validated using principles and criteria established over the past few decades in the epidemiology and molecular epidemiology of cancer These new biomarkers can be used in combination with the earlier validated biomarkers of exposure, risk and susceptibility to identify ‘at risk’ individuals, increase our understanding of mechanistic carcinogenic pathways, and mount more effective intervention to prevent cancer occurrence. Marco Pierotti (National Cancer Institute, Milan) focused his talk on gene expression analysis, by explaining how they tried to identify expression profiles potentially predictive of response to treatment, using an accessible source, such as blood He used as an example the application of expression analysis to the study of toxicity from ionizing radiation therapy in cancer, with the hypothesis that some cases of toxicity could be associated with abnormal transcriptional response to radiation. Cancer Center, Houston) presented the results from a study on in vitro benzo[a]pyren diol epoxide-induced damage to DNA and chromosomes as independent risk markers for squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

Genomic epidemiology in the era of whole genome scan

Findings

Conclusions