Driving innovation to advance cancer control equitably is the theme of the 2021 World Cancer Leaders’ Summit that ASCP will host in Boston on Oct. 25-26. The prestigious, invitation-only event—organized by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC)—brings together key decision makers from around the global to facilitate debates about emerging issues related to cancer control. The Summit will occur Oct. 25-26, just before the ASCP 2021 Annual Meeting begins in Boston.
The Summit is held in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Over the past six years, the event has grown to become a major, annual high-level policy meeting dedicated exclusively to furthering global cancer control. It provides an important forum to secure a coordinated, multi-level global response to address the spiraling cancer epidemic.
“ASCP is honored to be chosen by the UICC to host the 2021 World Cancer Leaders’ Summit,” said E. Blair Holladay, PhD, MASCP, SCT(ASCP)CM, ASCP Chief Executive Officer. “It underscores the vital role that pathology and laboratory medicine play in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. We are excited to be the voice of our profession in this endeavor to develop a coordinated and effective response to the global cancer epidemic.”
This year’s Summit will include pre-recorded comments from former President George W. Bush and Paul Farmer, MD, Kolokotrones University Professor and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and Co-founder and chief strategist of Partners in Health.
Other prominent speakers include David Simas, CEO of the Obama Foundation, Holly Kuzmich, Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute, Andrea Feigl-Ding, Founder and CEO of the Health Finance Institute, Atul Gawande, professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Rifat Atun, professor of global health systems at Harvard University. ASCP Chief Medical Officer Dan A. Milner, Jr., MD, MSc(Epi) FASCP, will serve on a panel that will discuss the future of invitro diagnostics from a global and domestic perspective.
The fact that Boston is home to 60 colleges, including Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, several major academic medical centers and cancer centers, 25,000 physicians, and 2,200 start-up companies in the Boston area many of which focus on the life sciences, cancer and pharmaceuticals, made the city a very strong contender to host the Summit.
The 17 U.S.-based organizations that supported the event include Partners Healthcare, Massachusetts General Hospital, Partners in Health, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, MD Anderson Cancer Center, UCSF Helen Diller Cancer Center, The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, American Cancer Society, American Society for Clinical Oncology, Susan G. Komen Foundation, Global Oncology, Oncology Nursing Society, International Society of Nurses Cancer Care, RTI International, The Max Foundation, and Project ECHO.
“The patient is at the center of all that we do as pathologists and medical laboratory professionals,” Dr. Milner said. “Taking this message and this requirement for equitable cancer care to the thought leaders of the world can be an incredible force for change for our patients. Doing so in Boston, an epicenter of biotechnology, clinical care, public health, and education, will be paramount to successful change.”
