Florence, December 2004

Nice to meet you again!

From the very beginning, in 1959, ISC founders decided to lodge anti-infectious and anti-cancer chemotherapy under the same roof for sound reasons. The same scientists, using the same screening methods were able to discover new drugs in the two domains. As a result of this policy, a number of ISC affiliated societies as well as our biennial International Congresses of Chemotherapy (ICC) also cover the two fields. However, with the time, increasing trend to specialization somewhat split cancer and infection. So we have decided to organize cancer only meetings to better serve oncologists.

The first ISC International Conference on Cancer Therapeutics, aiming at discussing in depth molecular targets, pharmacology and clinical applications, was held in Florence this year, on February 19 to 21, in collaboration with the Società Italiana di Chemioterapia. It was put together by our Florence “dream team” composed of Teresita Mazzei, Enrico Mini and Andrea Novelli. With such fairies over the cradle, it worked beautifully! Superb programme, about 400 participants, one third international, 67 acknowledged leaders in the field as speakers and moderators. If you are interested, the programme, abstracts, and some relevant slides are made available on our website www.ischemo.org.

After this unqualified success, very obviously, a second ISC International conference on cancer therapeutics is planned: this will be in Istanbul, November 10-11 2005, under the leadership of Bülent Berkada. For more information: www.kongresist.com. For the future, a meeting in Tokyo (2006) then in Toronto or Buenos Aires (2007) are envisaged.

Interestingly, recent scientific developments create new convergences between cancer and infection. Infections causing cancer, and some promising innovations such as the antisense oligonucleotides should allow the common gathering of infectious disease and cancer specialists in the same rooms. It may well be that ISC founders were visionary…

Warm regards to all,