Course Directors

Donal Hollywood, Radiation Oncologist, St. Luke’s Hospital, Dublin (IE)
Philippe Lambin, Radiation Oncologist, Maastro Clinic, Maastricht (NL)

Course Aim

This educational symposium will address the emerging clinical use of molecular targeting approaches in clinical radiation oncology practice and the potential to exploit a wide range of targeting strategies to augment radiation effect in human cancers.

Data on the existing clinical experience of emerging agents and druggable targets including growth factor receptors, intracellular signalling, hypoxia, HDAC/chromatin re-modelling and DNA repair will be discussed with a particular emphasis on ‘proof of principle’ research and where available early clinical trials.

The clinical experience of individualised patient treatment approaches, and the use of high throughput technology platforms for individual patient prediction and treatment monitoring will be highlighted.

The complex challenges for Radiation Oncology of integrating emerging and protoyptic 'biologically-based' treatment planning systems will also be addressed.

Target Group

The symposium will be aimed at a wide range of practising Radiation and Clinical Oncologists, together with biologists and physicists with an interest in this novel area of radiotherapy development. In particular the program is directed towards clinicians, physicists, biologists and RTTs with an interest in novel clinical trials, molecular targeting, functional imaging, and systems biology integration in future clinical practice.

Educational Programme

  

Session 1 - Growth Factor Receptor Targeting and Radiation Therapy
09.00 – 09.40:     Targeting growth factor receptor pathways - EGFR as a    prototype

                            Mechthild KRAUSE

09.40 – 10.20:     Small molecule' tyrosine kinase targeting

                            Guido Lammerling
10.20 – 11.00:     Targeting death receptors and apoptotic signaling pathways

                            Claus Belka

11.00 – 11.30:     COFFEE BREAK

Session 2 - Targeting Tumor Micro-environment, Normal Tissues Protection and Prediction of Response
11.30 – 12.00:     Targeting hypoxic signaling pathways - HIF and beyond

                            Brad Wouters
12.00 – 12.30:     Normal tissue targeting and protection

                            Hans Peter RODEMAN

12.30 – 13.00:     Prediction of radiation response – is it possible ?

                            Adrian BEGG
13.00 – 14.00:     LUNCH

Session 3 - Emerging Molecular Targeting Approaches and Radiation Therapy
14.00 – 14.30:     HDAC inhibitors and radiation therapy

                            Anne HANSEN REE
14.30 – 15.00:     Radiation therapy – the potential to target DNA repair

                            Rob BRISTOW
15.00 – 15.30:     Gene therapy and RT - is there a future?

                            Kevin HARRINGTON

15.30 – 16.00:     COFFEE BREAK

Session 4 - Integration of Molecular-Modified RT into Clinical Practice
16.00 – 16.30:     Biologically optimized 3D in vivo predictive assay based IMRT

                            Anders BRAHME

16.30 – 17.00:     Molecular and functional imaging

                            Karin HAUSTERMANS