We are delighted to report on the success of the 2024 International Summer School ‘Childhood Cancer Research in the Era of Big Data’ held at Trinity Hall WYNG Gardens in Cambridge. We welcomed 54 delegates from across Europe, North America and Asia including PhD candidates, Clinical fellows, Masters Students and Postdoctoral Research Associates.
Highlights from the Summer School included fantastic Key Note talks from Dr Bissan Al-Lazikani from MD Anderson Cancer Centre and Dr Michael Taylor from Texas Children’s Hospital. We had sessions on Machine Learning meets ‘Omics, New Targets and Novel Therapeutic Approaches, Applications of ‘Omics and Towards the Clinic.
We also had a very engaging careers session with a brilliant talks by Dr Lucy Stead, UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Leeds, Professor Petra Hamerlik from the University of Manchester, Dr Pau Creixell from The University of Cambridge and Professor Richard Gilbertson who gave an interesting talk about effective grant writing! Other highlights included the panel Q & A sessions and networking opportunities throughout the event. Our drug discovery workshop was a great learning experience for our delegates who split into groups and had a few hours to research a core topic from the Summer School and then present this topic to the whole group in just 7 minutes! Delegates also had the opportunity to present a 60 second flash talk about their research. Other highlights include the networking Gala dinner at Trinity Hall and the ‘Women in Science Lunch’ led by Dr Bissan Al-Lazikani.
Feedback from the Summer School was overwhelmingly positive, with delegates commenting on the inspiring talks and strong sense of community throughout the event. Delegates formed connections with their peers and our distinguished guest speakers and we plan to track progress and outputs from this event over the next 2-3 years.
We thank CRUK, who funded most of the Summer School costs and are excited about planning our next Summer School and including more opportunities for inspiring, motivating and connecting Early Career Research Scientists researching paediatric brain tumours!
Prof Richard Gilbertson
Dr Emily Linnane
