Metastatic disease, the lethal component of cancer, remains largely intractable to modern medicine.

New insights into the biology of metastasis promise fresh insights into how to design therapies that effectively tackle this life-threatening disease process.

Recent years have seen the development of novel tools for studying metastasis that continue to provide dramatic advances in our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive metastasis formation.

Metastasis is regulated by both tumour cell-intrinisic factors such as genetic defects, epigenetic perturbation and metabolic changes, as well as by a variety of factors in the microenvironment, including cells of the immune system.

These tumour cell-intrinsic factors combine with the external microenvironment to regulate tumour dormancy and the development of therapy resistance. This knowledge is starting to be translated into therapies that target not only the metastatic seed but also the micro-environmental soil.

Key Sessions

• Therapy-induced metastasis and the patient with metastatic disease
• Metabolic changes that drive metastasis
• Metastatic dormancy - maintenance and escape
• Novel approaches to pharmacology and drug delivery for the  treatment of metastases
• Control of metastasis by inflammation and the innate immune system
• Targeting the metastatic microenvironment
• Novel tools for studying metastasis
• Cancer Stem Cells - Do we all mean the same? A controversy session.

Target Audience

Research scientists from both academia and the pharmaceutical industry will benefit from this meeting by updating their knowledge in key areas of this rapidly moving field.

Clinicians involved in the treatment and management of cancer patients will obtain new insights into how the modern understanding of metastasis has the potential to translate into the clinic.

Graduate students and postdocs will gain a cutting-edge overview of the field and will have the unique opportunity to interact with and network intensively with leaders in the field due to the strictly limited number of conference participants.