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Announcing the fifth International Summer School in Piran, scheduled between the 25th and 31st of August 2012, with a tentative title Modern Approaches to Research and Treatment of Cancer.
We have initiated a series of International Summer Schools on different topics since 2008 as an effort to promote education and research in this field in the European region. The schools are aimed to be international and interdisciplinary and intended for doctoral students of life as well as engineering sciences. This year's school focus will be mainly cancer research and treatment, with an emphasis on current advances in the field. Priority will be given to the connection between fundamental and applied research, as this interrelation is of crucial importance when attempting to transfer new research insights into practice.
Chairs
 The term cancer is commonly used to cover a wide range of diseases, which share a common feature, namely that the cells in the affected organs and tissues escape the growth control. Most of them acquire the capacity to spread to other tissue forming metastases, which are the actual cause of death in 90% of cases. Cancer incidence is increasing worldwide and is becoming the leading cause of death, competing with cardiovascular diseases. Due to increased understanding of the aetiology and progression of these diseases at the systemic, cellular and molecular levels, which has been successfully translated into diagnostic, treatment, and prevention strategies, the mortality of some cancers is drastically decreasing. There is, however, a wide variability between countries in cancer incidence due to social and epidemiological factors, such as screening, control plans, individual life styles and food consumption, occupational exposures, etc.
It is of the utmost importance that we increase the level of knowledge and expertise in experimental and translational oncology, to further improve the overall control over cancer mortality. The ISS 2012 is dedicated to educate particularly the students of biochemistry, biology, biotechnology, pharmacy and medicine in the mechanisms of cancer progression and methodology in cancer research. Following the traditional scope of previous ISS schools we will focus on the dual role in stem cells in cancer progression, which is either protective (due to anti tumorigenic activities of normal tissue - mesenchymal stem cells) or carcinogenic (due to the initiation of cancer stem cells and their dedifferentiation in malignant tumour cells). The latest approaches using cellular therapy will be presented and discussed.
We hope that the subject will attract a number of graduate students from different countries to attend ISS 2012!
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