Award-Winning Physicians to Present Special Lectures on Advances and Unmet Needs in the Field During IKCS 2020

William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD

At the International Kidney Cancer Symposium (IKCS 2020) Virtual Event, the 2019 Nobel Laureate and recipients of the Kidney Cancer Association’s (KCA) Andrew C. Noviak Award and the Pieter de Mulder Memorial Award will give lectures on key topics in the kidney cancer landscape on November 6 and 7.¹

“Kidney cancer has gone from being one of the backwaters in medical oncology to being one of the few solid tumors where there are multiple proven or highly promising targeted agents including VEGF inhibitors, immune checkpoint inhibitors, mTOR inhibitors, and HIF2 inhibitors,” William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD, said in an interview with Targeted Oncology. “Other potential targets include MET, Cdk4 and its paralog Cdk6, and glutaminase.”

Kaelin, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues were the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winners for their research on altered von Hippel-Lindau genes. The research revealed that these genes are vital in understanding the mechanism for how cells sense and adapt to changing levels of oxygen, which is a fundamental process in certain kidney cancers.²

“The hope is that we can eventually get to a curative combination therapy for kidney cancer, which will likely include 3 or 4 drugs that have distinct mechanisms of action,” Kaelin concluded.

Kaelin’s keynote lecture starting at 10:30 am ET on November 7 is titled “Can studies of the VHL gene get us to curative combination therapies for kidney cancer?” and will be followed by a question and answer session.

The winner of the Pieter de Mulder Memorial Award, Axel Bex, MD, PhD, will be giving a lecture on “Perioperative treatment strategies in renal cell carcinoma” at 8:05 am ET on November 7. His key takeaway is that “patients with metastatic kidney cancer and their primary tumor in place who require systemic therapy to control their disease should not undergo surgery first to remove the kidney tumor,” he said in an interview with Targeted Oncology. This award is given to recognize oncologists who have contributed significantly to the treatment of kidney cancer.

“I will be discussing post hoc analysis from a randomized trial of deferred cytoreductive nephrectomy and latest retrospective data of patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitor combination therapies and the primary tumor in place which support the concept that patients who require systemic therapy first should not undergo immediate surgery,” Axel, of the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust in London, England, explained.

Normally the Pieter de Mulder Memorial Award would be given at the European EIKCS, but since it was canceled due to the pandemic, it will be given at IKCS 2020 instead. Axel believes the virtual format for this conference is going to allow for more participants to join and therefore reach a broader audience. He is looking forward to the lectures on novel treatments and on translational science.

Finally, Steven C. Campbell, MD, PhD, will be receiving the Andrew C. Noviak Award for healthcare professionals who have contributed significantly to urology for the treatment of kidney cancer. Campbell, of the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, will be giving his lecture “Partial nephrectomy: an ongoing journey for surgical excellence”at 10:15 am ET on November 6. Campbell is a professor of surgery, residency program director, and a member of the Section of Urologic Oncology in theGlickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.

_References:

_{1. IKCS 2020 to feature three special lectures. News release. Kidney Cancer Association. Published October 15, 2020. Accessed October 23, 2020. https://bit.ly/3jiCcUM}

_{2. How a gene linked to kidney cancer helped lead three researchers to a Nobel Prize. News Release. Kidney Cancer Association. Published October 9, 2019. Accessed October 23, 2020. https://bit.ly/31CvbIf}