Αιματολογικό-Ογκολογικό Συνέδριο της Θεραπευτική Κλινικής του ΕΚΠΑ σε συνεργασία με την Mayo Clinic

Αιματολογικό-Ογκολογικό Συνέδριο της Θεραπευτική Κλινικής του ΕΚΠΑ σε συνεργασία με την Mayo Clinic

Στις 27-29 Ιουνίου 2024 πραγματοποιήθηκε στην Αθήνα στο Ξενοδοχείο Divani Caravel το σημαντικό Αιματολογικό-Ογκολογικό που διοργανώθηκε από τη Θεραπευτική Κλινική και την Ιατρική Σχολή του ΕΚΠΑ σε συνεργασία με την Mayo Clinic των ΗΠΑ. Στο συνέδριο εβδομήντα πέντε Καθηγητές από την Ιατρική Σχολή του ΕΚΠΑ και τη Mayo Clinic παρουσίασαν τα νεότερα δεδομένα από τα πρόσφατα ετήσια συνέδρια της American Society of Clinical Oncology και της European Hematology Association, που πραγματοποιήθηκαν τον Ιούνιο του 2024

Σημειώνεται ότι είναι η δεύτερη φορά που πραγματοποιήθηκε μία τέτοια εκδήλωση στην Ελλάδα με τη συμμετοχή διαπρεπών Επιστημόνων από ένα από τα πιο σημαντικά Ιδρύματα του κόσμου, όπως η Mayo Clinic.

Παρακάτω η εισαγωγική ομιλία του Καθηγητή στην Mayo Clinic Dr Savvides

Dear colleagues and friends,

Goodmorning! Kalimera!

On behalf of our course directors and co-directors, I would like to welcome you and thank you for your participation in our University of Athens and Mayo Clinic Hematology and Oncology Course, already in its second year.

It has been an honor and a privilege to be involved in organizing this first of its kind meeting. We understand that Athens is a desirable destination at this time of the year. We appreciate your decision to join us and we are proud that we continue to bring together both the Hematology and Medical Oncology communities in organizing this event.

Over the next two and a half days, we look forward to coming together to review and interpret new, practice-relevant data primarily presented at ASCO 2024 and EHA 2024, as well as discuss how best to integrate novel evidence-based treatment strategies and how to apply novel biomarker-based approaches into clinical practice in the fields of hematology and medical oncology.

This meeting is a unique opportunity to bring together passionate practitioners and to be able to combine both the European and US experience and perspective during our sessions over the next few days. But we want to continue going beyond this. We hope that there will continue to be a demand to further grow this meeting and we would love to hear from you. We would like to ask all attendees and faculty to share with us their thoughts on this topic. On our end, we hope that this meeting will continue to serve as a catalyst to promote collaboration between investigators in both Institutions and an opportunity for young Greek physicians to seek information on training opportunities at Mayo Clinic.

We look forward to renewing old friendships and developing new ones. But please let us know what your thoughts and needs are. This meeting could not have happened at a more fortunate time.

It is in alignment with Mayo Clinic’s strategic plan for 2030 and beyond, as Mayo Clinic seeks to cure, connect, and transform health care globally. Educational activities like this meeting directly support these goals.

This meeting is also in alignment with Professor Dimopoulos vision, who has been enthusiastically championing for years initiatives that enhance the university of Athens’ international presence and recognition and promote its faculty. In order to facilitate a deeper understanding of our Institutions, we have included two special sessions in the agenda.

The first one scheduled for tomorrow at 8:00am will include a 30 minute introduction to the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology: Driving Transformational Research in the US delivered by Professor Evanthia Galanis. Dr. Galanis is a graduate of the University of Athens Medical School. She has a long standing distinguished career developing novel virotherapy approaches for cancer treatments. We will hear more about her professional accomplishments and highlights during her introduction by Dr. Dimopoulos tomorrow morning.

During the Saturday morning session at 10:00 Professor Cheryl Willman will lecture on Mayo Clinic Cancer Comprehensive Cancer Center: Three sites, one comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Willman is a graduate of the Mayo Medical, where she also received part of her postdoctoral training in pathology Dr. Willman currently serves as the Executive Director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Programs both nationally and globally and serves as the Director of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. She has served in many leadership roles and she has co-led several key NCI initiatives and we feel very fortunate that she has decided to participate in our meeting.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank Professor Dimopoulos for his leadership in supporting and making this event grow. On the Mayo side, I would like to thank Dr. Saab for his enthusiasm and embracement of this meeting, without his support this meeting would not have happened.

I would also like to thank my colleagues at Mayo Clinic and at the University of Athens who eagerly agreed to participate and share their expertise.

And finally, I would like to thank all participants for their support of our effort and all of the pharmaceutical companies as their support has allowed us to make this meeting happen.

On a personal level this meeting is an important destination in my own Odyssey.

It has been a joy to reconnect with some colleagues, and during last year’s meeting I had the pleasure of reconnecting with some of them, decades after we had first met while I was a medical student and resident at the University of Athens Medical School.

At the same time it is my pleasure to get to introduce my colleagues at the Mayo Clinic, to the leaders of the Greek hematology and Medical Oncology community.

I hope my own personal experience as well as that of my greek colleagues in our delegation Drs Leventakos , Dimou Grivas Kaklamani and Galanis can serve as a foundation for what I hope this meeting will be: a gathering of friends, old and new.