We are pleased to report that our third Ependymoma Science (EpCam) meeting was held in July 2024 in Cambridge, UK. This meeting was funded by the major sponsor the Robert Connor Dawes (RCD) Foundation with support from Texas Children’s Hospital and Cancer Research UK. Overall, 28 leading experts in ependymoma research attended from UK, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Canada and the U.S.A. Presentations included topics such as clinical updates, ependymoma development, sexual specific differences in posterior fossa group A (PFA) ependymoma, gene regulation, omics, models and new therapeutic opportunities.
Whilst the past two meetings (2022 and 2023) had seen a high level of co-operation across research groups and delegates, this year’s meeting saw unprecedented levels of collaboration. Every speaker presented unpublished or new data which resulted in many stimulating discussions and opportunities for further cross collaboration. Highlights from this year’s meeting included presentations from the Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine on PFA ependymoma and neuroepigenomics, multidimensional profiling of tumour cell heterogeneity from Dana Farber and a talk on the immune system’s function in ependymoma development from Cambridge. We also had fantastic discussions exploring new opportunities for therapeutic development following a talk from Sanford Burnham Prebys on new targets and high throughput screening for ependymoma.
Feedback from the meeting attendees was overwhelmingly positive, with delegates reporting that the scientific value of this meeting was excellent and impacts their current and future work in this field. As last year, meeting outputs are tracked. A notable one was a successful $1M USD grant being awarded to collaborators as a direct result of concepts formed from this meeting. Another is a $2.4M AUD project funded to develop and test an mRNA vaccine for ependymoma supported by Australian and US colleagues.
Thanks to all who attended and made this event such a success!
