Breaking Barriers, Fostering Collaboration at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

Ahead of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2025 in Chicago later this week, program chairs Lillian L. Siu, MD, FAACR, incoming AACR president, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Matthew G. Vander Heiden, MD, PhD, director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), shared with The American Journal of Managed Care® what attendees can expect at this year's meeting.

In line with the theme, "Unifying Cancer Science and Medicine: A Continuum of Innovation for Impact," they encourage attendees to venture beyond their areas of expertise at this year's meeting to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration and discovery.

This transcript has been lightly edited; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

Overall, what can attendees look forward to at this year's AACR Annual Meeting?

Vander Heiden: We tried to create a program for the 2025 AACR Annual Meeting that really covers the entire continuum from basic cancer discovery all the way through to translational research and clinical trials.

I think attendees can expect to find a little something across that entire spectrum because we feel pretty strongly that if we're going to make progress in our fight against cancer, it has to start both with fundamental discovery, but also we have to do very good clinical trials and clinical science and everything in between.

We really try to highlight that entire continuum, both within the meeting theme, but also within the program itself. My hope, at least, is that attendees at the meeting will, of course, go to the talks on their topic and specific areas of interest but might also get out of their comfort zone a little bit. We tried to build some sessions that highlight that entire spectrum of where cancer research matters and how they're interrelated.

If you're a clinical trialist, maybe you can learn something from the basic scientists and how we're thinking about solving problems for the future. If you're a basic scientist, you can learn about what really goes on in the clinic because maybe that'll have you think differently about basic science problems.

Siu: To add to what Matt just said, we also have other areas broadly covered, population science, for example, chemistry, [and] biostatistics; there really is something for everyone.

We also have different types of sessions, from plenary sessions to symposia to meet the experts to educational sessions. I think different formats with different kinds of presentation styles [will help] to really cover the whole spectrum of science to medicine.

I think it'll be an exciting meeting for everybody. Certainly, I agree with Matt. I certainly want to attend sessions where I have little experience or knowledge so that I can learn instead of just going to [the ones in] my comfort zone.

This year's theme is "Unifying Cancer Science and Medicine: A Continuum of Innovation for Impact." How will this be represented throughout the conference?

Vander Heiden: Making progress in cancer science and medicine really means gaining insight from everything: basic discovery, population science, policy, clinical trials, biomarker studies, [and] chemistry. Everyone plays a role; all these areas are interconnected—they're a continuum.

Impact comes from the continuum of insights gained across all the many different aspects of cancer biology, cancer research, [and] cancer medicine, and we, as the title says, tried to unify how we can learn from each of these areas as a way to really gain impact. The title, we hope, is well reflected in how the meeting is constructed.

Siu: As you heard, we have non-clinical basic science projects or abstracts all the way to practice-changing clinical trials that will be showcased.

We also have global oncology, looking at cancer care and research across the globe, not just in high-middle-income countries but also in low-income countries.

Really, we want to cover the whole spectrum, not just bench to bedside, but also geographical barriers and other barriers. We're trying to break [them] so that we really can learn science globally together.