SUMMARY OF DAY 3
“Evidence, arrogance, ignorance, eminence”. How do you find the optimal balance for better treatments and quality of life? That is the central theme of the annual Inspire2Live congress, which was kicked off on Wednesday January 29. We kick-off day 3 of our Annual Congress with a warm welcome by our conference chairs Rebecca Malby (London South Bank University) and Piarella Peralta (Inspire2Live).
Speakers (and what they were talking about)
Nicole Stolk (Central Bank of the Netherlands) tells her personal story and opens the day with the striking story of her young son Jasper who survived a brain tumour. It was beautiful and emotional to see his movie in which he tells his schoolmates that he has to have surgery and will miss his class. The power of his mother in her support of her son is amazing. It showed the audience that cancer is not an individual disease but a disease that effects a whole family. And only in supporting the patient as a family you can survive as a family. Her talk ends with a video of Jasper in which he speaks of his future: he wants to become a doctor and help patients!
Laura van ‘t Veer (UCSF) has done a lot of work in her I-Spy trial design. It is so important that patients are part of trials when there is still not enough knowledge about the drug response to treatments. I-Spy means that patients can easily step into another ‘arm’ of the breast cancer trial when there is no response in their initial arm and it appears that there might be a better response in another. Researchers and clinicians can learn a lot from this concept. More important is that patients benefit from it.
Joy Wolfram (Mayo Clinic) speaks about the importance and magic of Nano particles and cancer. With the help of these Nano particles we are able to deliver drugs in a more precise way and prevent the liver and kidney to break down the medicine before it can be effective: ‘How can we be certain that a drug will get to the tumour? The passion of Joy comes from her friend Rebecca. Joy works to prevent patients to die like Rebecca.
Dan Peer (Tel Aviv University) ‘Personalized Medicine: RNA therapeutics – the next revolution?’ DNA has delivered good and important information to make more effective treatments. But (of course) it is not the magic bullet. Will RNA be this? We will see this in the near future according to Dan Peer. Listening to Dan we get the feeling that ‘DNA just sits there and RNA is at the steering wheel.’
In the afternoon participants work with leaders of the sessions and under the direction of PA’s, towards the answer to the question: ‘In the coalition of the willing, how do we unlock the Eminence in: science, care, industry and government?
- Jan Hoeijmakers (ErasmusMC) and Ilona Schelle discussed the eminence in science.
- Mark Lawler (Queens Univ. Belfast), Nicole van Leeuwen and Jeffrey Waldron worked on the treatments.
- Sjoerd Repping (Zorginstituut Nederland, University of Amsterdam), together with Gaston Remmers stepped into the word of eminence and government.
- Finally, Werner Verbiest (Jansen Diagnostics) and Piarella Peralta worked with their group on industry issues in relation to eminence.
After the sessions, there was a plenary report.
4 participants reflected on a successful congress and one of them even promised to join Inspire2Live as a patient advocate. This was so good to hear.
The closing words came from the director of the congress Ilona Schelle.