Rumor has it that this year's annual American Society of Preventive Oncology (ASPO) meeting was a hit. Some would argue that its success stemmed from the meeting venue on the 8th floor conference center in the Cancer Prevention Building at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. A building—a vision—inspiring to all involved in cancer prevention research. Others might embrace the quality and value of the conference program that spanned crosscutting topics that highlight the organization's continued focus on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Still others could choose to remark on the intimate breakfast sessions; the ease and ability for members early in their career development to network with more senior investigators; or the spoken words of the Distinguished Achievement and Joseph W. Cullen award recipients: Drs. Bernard Levin and Michael Thun, respectively. For those who donned cowboy hats and boots, the meeting's success might be attributed, in part, to the Friday evening social event at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at the Reliant Stadium. Indeed, what made the 31st annual ASPO meeting so enjoyable likely was a combination of several or all of these factors, a complex n-way interaction that we would love to quantify, although careers could be built or broken in attempting to do so.
In total, 302 persons were registered for the ASPO meeting that ran from Friday March 2 to Sunday March 4 this year, the timing of which was a change from the typical Sunday to Tuesday schedule of past conferences. This year's organized symposia were on (a) inflammation and cancer, (b) global tobacco use, (c) translating genetics in cancer prevention and control, (d) survivorship from molecular epidemiology to symptom management, and (e) lessons learned from large-scale trials: is energy balance the answer. These five symposia, as well as the four breakfast sessions, are developed under the direction of the chairpersons of the special interest groups (see ASPO Web site for the complete listing of groups, chairpersons, and contact information; ref. 1). This year, a new special interest groups on cancer survivorship was added to the ASPO ranks to complement the behavioral oncology special interest groups (2), and an inaugural breakfast session that focused on how ASPO can forge innovative science in this important cross-discipline was held on the final day of the meeting.
Also new at this year's meeting was the reestablishment of the ASPO educational workshop. After an absence of many years, the last education workshop sponsored by ASPO was offered in 1995 and was entitled “molecular epidemiology,” four educational workshops were organized. Each workshop was slated for 2 h, was offered either on Thursday evening or on Friday morning before the official start of the annual meeting, and ran in two concurrently taught series. The workshops were developed for a mixed audience so that individuals with and without a background in the topical area, as well as those with varied levels of professional experience (ranging from predoctoral candidates to senior investigators), could benefit. In total, 63 persons registered for at least one educational workshop, and the head count for individual educational sessions ranged from 12 to 30 (median, 23.5).
The first series focused on molecular epidemiology. This evening session was led by Dr. Stephen Chanock who gave an overview of practical approaches to high-throughput genotyping. In the morning, Dr. Ellen Goode followed up with 2 h of instruction on uses of haplotypes in association studies. The evening session for the second workshop series drew on the expertise of Drs. Isaac Lipkus and Suzanne Miller who highlighted important issues in the communication of cancer risk, with a focus on theory, measurement, and application. Dr. Paula Lantz instructed the morning session on changing public policy.
A post-meeting survey was sent electronically to all educational workshop registrants to elicit information on workshop satisfaction. Twenty-six (41%) participants returned surveys for 32 workshops attended. Overall satisfaction (“Overall, how satisfied were you with this educational workshop?”) across the four workshops was rated as 8.1 on a scale of 1 to 10, with individual workshop averages ranging from 7.7 to 9.3. Similarly, the overall mean scores for questions concerning the ease of understanding, usefulness, and organization of the workshop information were all highly rated, scoring between 4.1 and 4.2 on a scale of 1 to 5.
Given the success of these workshops, the ASPO Executive Committee is supporting the continued organization of additional educational sessions at next year's meeting in Bethesda, MD. This decision further highlights the dedication of ASPO to the academic development of its junior members (3, 4). Indeed, this theme formed the core of the talk given by outgoing ASPO President Dr. Melissa Bondy. We invite suggestions for future topics from all ASPO members (please forward suggestions to [email protected]).
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