VILLEJUIF, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Successful personalized cancer care requires a global collaborative effort so that diverse populations of cancer patients have the opportunity to participate in clinical trials and are treated with the latest innovative drugs which target the products of the abnormal genes which cause cancer. Because these aberrant genes can vary from one patient’s cancer to another, the responses to a targeted therapy can vary. Responses also can vary because patients differ in their genetic makeup, environmental exposure and lifestyle (for example, diet). Such heterogeneity among individual cancers and among patients has a huge impact on the design of clinical trials. The WIN Consortium in Personalized cancer medicine (http://www.winconsortium.org) proposes a unique worldwide alliance to address this challenge.

WIN Consortium vision is presented in this special issue of Nature Reviews in Clinical Oncology dedicated to Personalized Medicine, published today online (http://www.nature.com/nrclinonc/focus/personalized-medicine/index.html)

The opening News and Views article, signed by Dr. John Mendelsohn, Chairman of WIN and President of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, presents the concept, the goals and the strategy of the WIN Consortium, founded by 17 academic cancer centers across five continents, National Breast Cancer foundation, Sage Bionetwork and three major industry partners: Agilent Technologies, GE Healthcare, and Life Technologies.

“Our overarching goals are to achieve more rapid and efficient translation of groundbreaking personalized cancer medicine discoveries into the standards for worldwide clinical care, to significantly improve the outcomes and quality of life of cancer patients, with a very ambitious goal of generating the first relevant study results within 3-5 years.” says Dr. Richard L. Schilsky, Chairman of WIN Scientific Advisory Board.

WIN’s strategies to address the major issues determining the efficacy of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics will be the focus of the 3rd WIN annual symposium to be held 6th to 8th July, 2011 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, France. For the first time, WIN will provide attendees a unique opportunity to take part in round table discussions with experts from academia and industry, worldwide.

Register now on http://www.winconsortium.org

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