Two satellite offices. Twelve organizations. Five continents. The AACR continued to promote scientific excellence around the world in 2016 with an expanded slate of programs and partnerships.

New Horizons Conference

At the third annual conference on New Horizons in Cancer Research in November 2016, the AACR brought the excitement of the Annual Meeting to the cancer research community in Asia. AACR President (2015-2016) José Baselga, MD, PhD, FAACR, and Annual Meeting Program Chair Scott A. Armstrong, MD, PhD, worked with local experts on the Regional Advisory Committee to showcase the breadth and depth of advances in cancer science.

The program included two early-career scientists whose outstanding work has been fostered by AACR grants. Nikhil Wagle, MD, a recipient of a 2016 AACR NextGen Grant for Transformative Cancer Research, and Christine M. Lovly, a recipient of the 2015 AACR-Genentech BioOncology Career Development Award, presented their results in a session on “Genomics, Targeted Therapies, and Clinical Applications.”

Expanding Presence in Asia

The organization bolstered its presence in Asia in November 2016 with the launch of an AACR International website. Hosted on the aacr.asia domain, the site provides users with information on relevant AACR conferences and grants as well as cancer science news from AACR journals. In concert with the Shanghai office and the ongoing series of meetings in the region, the website supports the AACR’s efforts to foster the highest quality science in Asia.

Joint Conferences Fostering Joint Progress against Cancer

Expanding its international collaborations in 2016, the AACR worked with nine different international scientific organizations to develop seven joint conferences and workshops:

• Tenth AACR-JCA Joint Conference on Breakthroughs in Cancer Research: From Biology to Therapeutics, Maui, Hawaii, February 2016
• ECCO-AACR-EORTC-ESMO Workshop on Methods in Clinical Cancer Research, Zeist, The Netherlands, June 2016
• Fifth JCA-AACR Special Joint Conference on the Latest Advances in Hematological Cancer Research: From Basic Science to Therapeutics, Urayasu, Japan, July 2016
• EORTC-NCI-EMA-AACR International Conference on Innovation and Biomarkers in Cancer Drug Development, Brussels, Belgium, September 2016
• ACORD: Australia & Asia Pacific Clinical Oncology Research Development Workshop, Magenta Shores, Australia, September 2016
• CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival, New York, New York, September 2016
• EORTC-NCI-AACR Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium, Munich, Germany, December 2016

Other International Collaborations

The AACR worked with three additional organizations to sponsor sessions at or provide program support for the following conferences:

• Tata Centre Jubilee Conference: A Conference of New Ideas in Cancer—Challenging Dogmas, Mumbai, India, February 2016: The AACR was a conference partner, and AACR member Varsha Gandhi, PhD, served on the Program Committee and delivered a symposium presentation on “Novel PI3 kinase inhibitors: Bench to bedside.”
• AACR Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 2016: The AACR and the Japanese Cancer Association (JCA) organized a joint symposium on “Molecular Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment of ALK-induced Malignancies.”
• Eighth Annual Meeting of the Israel Society for Cancer Research: Breakthroughs in Cancer Research—The Future Is Now, Rehovot, Israel, May 2016: The AACR was the organizing partner, and AACR member Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, delivered a keynote presentation on “Immunologic checkpoint blockade: Exploring combinations and mechanisms.”

• IARC 50th Anniversary Conference: Global Cancer—Occurrence, Causes, and Avenues to Prevention, Lyon, France, June 2016: The AACR sponsored a lecture by Past President Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, FAACR, recipient of the 2016 IARC Medal of Honour, on “Telomeres, biology, and cancer.”

• Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Chinese Society for Clinical Oncology (CSCO), Xiamen, China, September 2016: The AACR and CSCO organized a joint symposium on “Study of Biomarkers in Cancer Immunotherapy.”
• Seventy-fifth Annual Meeting of the Japanese Cancer Association, Yokohama, Japan, October 2016: The JCA and the AACR organized two joint symposia, on “Molecular Targeted Therapies for Breast Cancer” and “Personalized Treatments Based on Cancer Genome Profile.”

African Researcher Travel Awards

The AACR invested in the education and training of African cancer investigators in 2016 through the inaugural African Cancer Researchers Travel Awards. The awards offset the travel expenses for five cancer scientists to attend the AACR Annual Meeting 2016.