PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is the official media partner to the 2010 WIN (Worldwide Innovative Networking) Symposium, it was announced today. The second annual WIN Symposium, which will be held in the Palais des Congrès, Paris, 7–9 July 2010, will bring together hundreds of oncology researchers from around the world to discuss how best to tailor therapies for patients with cancer. As part of the partnership, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology will publish a personalized cancer medicine focus issue in 2011. The WIN Consortium is a joint initiative of the Institut Gustave Roussy (France) and the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (USA), in association with several other leading cancer care institutions in Europe, the United States of America, Canada, and Asia.

Clinical researchers, working in academia and the pharmaceutical industry, are starting to make real progress in understanding tumor pathology and identifying which patients will respond best to particular treatments. This approach—known as personalized cancer medicine—should give patients a better outcome and a more accurate view of their prognosis.

“We created the WIN Consortium to aid the rapid translation of ground-breaking personalized cancer medicine discoveries from the bench to the bedside. Led by WIN Consortium President, Professor John Mendelsohn of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, this organization is a new cooperation between academia and the pharmaceutical industry”, explains Dr Vladimir Lazar, co-ordinator of the WIN Consortium and Head of Genomic Research Centre at the Institut Gustave Roussy, which is organizing the conference. “We believe that co-ordinated international collaborations are the best way of achieving rapid validation of breakthrough concepts and technologies to improve treatment outcomes for cancer.”

“The challenges now facing oncologists are early diagnosis, the optimum ways to deliver individualized, tailored treatments and how to translate the latest research breakthroughs to the clinic” said Dr Lisa Hutchinson, Editor of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.

“Nature Publishing Group has built its reputation for excellence by publishing ground breaking research across the life, physical, and clinical sciences”, says Dr James Butcher, Publisher of the eight clinical Nature Reviews journals. “We are delighted to be partnering with the WIN Symposium, which is co-chaired this year by two scientific visionaries---Dr Leroy Hood and Dr Richard Schilsky.”

As part of the media partnership, Nature Publishing Group will be showcasing the breakthrough scientific technologies and achievements in personalized cancer medicine in a focus issue to be published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. This special edition of the journal, which will be published early in 2011, will feature reviews written by prominent members of the WIN Consortium who will be leading the discussion at this year’s symposium.

About WIN Consortium

The WIN Consortium is a joint initiative of the Institut Gustave Roussy and the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, in association with several other leading cancer care institutions in Europe, the United States of America, Canada, and Asia. The Consortium aims to build new strategic alliances in oncology, creating innovative drug development programs and accelerating clinical trials and validation of new drugs for personalized cancer care. Its SITED program (standards in individualized treatment and early diagnosis) brings together academia and industry, undertaking a range of research and clinical projects to improve early diagnosis of cancer and to establish new treatment strategies.

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.

Focusing on the needs of scientists, Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal. In addition, for this audience, NPG publishes a range of Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals, plus a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. Online, nature.com provides over 5 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services, including Nature News and NatureJobs plus access to Nature Network and Nature Education’s Scitable.com.

Scientific American is at the heart of NPG’s newly-formed consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 16 local language editions around the world it reaches over 3 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany.

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