Oncogenomics 2005 meeting report: Dissecting cancer through genome research

The Oncogenomics Conference was held on February 2 to 5, 2005 at the Omni San Diego Hotel, San Diego, CA. The meeting chairpersons were Dr. Jeffrey Trent (Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ) and Dr. Nicholas Dracopoli (Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, Princeton, NJ). This fourth conference sponsored by the AACR brought together a diverse group of scientists working in the Gelds of genome research, cancer biology, and epidemiology, and explored how genomic research can be used most effectively to impact the clinical response to cancer. Advances in the clinical application of pharmacogenomics to predict response to oncology therapeutic modalities led to a dramatic increase in the number of presentations and posters with a clinical focus at this year's meeting. The keynote address was given by Dr. William Evans (St. Jude Children's Hospital, Memphis, TN) who discussed the pharmacogenomics of acute lymphoblastic leukemia as a cancer paradigm.