PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WIN Consortium (www.winconsortium.org) announces today the scientific program of the upcoming WIN 2014 Symposium in Paris, June 23-24. The world’s leaders in tumor biology and precision cancer medicine will present keynote lectures in an exceptional event entirely dedicated to combination therapies for cancer under the title:

WINning combinations for precision cancer medicine: Breakthrough molecular investigations and combined therapeutic approaches

"This original theme is, for the first time, the subject of an international symposium," said Dr. Vladimir Lazar, Chief Operating Officer of the WIN Consortium.

"Most patients’ tumors are driven by multiple molecular aberrations that cannot be controlled by a single targeted agent. The challenge is to identify and test smart combinations of targeted agents capable of blocking pathways most effectively, or by combining different therapeutic modalities such as targeted and immunomodulatory agents or radiation therapy," said John Mendelsohn, Chair of the WIN Consortium.

Alexander Eggermont, Vice-Chair of WIN Consortium and co-chair of the WIN2014 Symposium together with Mike Pellini (USA) and Gerald Batist (Canada) stated: "We are very pleased to announce the participation of some of the undisputed thought-leaders in the field: Robert Weinberg (USA), Leroy Hood (USA), Hans Clevers (Netherlands), Olli Kallioniemi (Finland), Rene Bernards (Netherlands), Guido Kroemer (France) and many other colleagues that accepted our invitation to create an unprecedented scientific event dedicated to innovation in therapies to improve cancer patients’ outcomes and quality of life."

The scientific program will address major developments in precision cancer medicine in sessions featuring the world’s leaders in basic and clinical cancer research, each session focusing on the rationale for combinations. Sessions themes and confirmed speakers are:

1. Molecular analysis of immune cells and immunotherapy: Jérôme Galon (France); George Coukos (Switzerland); Axel Hoos, GlaxoSmithKline, (USA); Guido Kroemer, (France)
2. What can we learn from hemato-oncology? Bob Löwenberg, (Netherlands); Eric Solary (France); Ross Levin (USA); Jesus Gomez-Navarro, Millennium-Takeda (USA); Olli Kallioniemi (Finland)
3. Innovative therapeutic initiatives and models of cooperation: Denis Lacombe (Brussels); Jean-Charles Soria (France)
4. Tumor cell plasticity and drugable targets: Robert Weinberg (USA)
5. Combination of targeted therapies: Hans Clevers (Netherlands); René Bernards, (Netherlands); Razelle Kurzrock (USA); Richard Buller, Pfizer (USA); Antoine Yver, AstraZeneca (UK); Silvia Formenti (USA); Elias Zerhouni, Sanofi (France)
6. New findings in fundamental mechanisms in pediatric solid and liquid cancers: Stefan Pfister (Germany); Gilles Vassal (France)
7. Blood and body fluids – non-invasive investigations in oncology: Leroy Hood (USA); Mathias Uhlen (Sweden); Caroline Dive (UK)

For program updates, registration, and call for abstracts, visit the WIN 2014 Symposium website: www.winsymposium.org

WIN2014 is the 6^th edition of a successful series of conferences organized by the Worldwide Innovative Networking (WIN) Consortium in personalized cancer medicine (www.winconsortium.org).

The WIN Consortium is a not-for-profit global collaboration of leading academic, industry, health plan, and advocacy organizations that runs global research projects identifying biomarkers for targeted therapies and clinical trials investigating targeted cancer treatments. WIN’s mission is to accelerate the pace and reduce the cost of translating the most promising innovations in personalized cancer medicine into the standard of care worldwide.