Conference Scene: Advancing toward personalized medicine

Organized by the Cambridge Healthtech Institute, this conference consisted of four major tracks, each of which focused on a topic integral to the development and successful translation of new diagnostic and therapeutic tools and approaches. The theme of these tracks were optimizing clinical trials, implementing personalized medicine, advancing cancer therapy and bridging the silos in biomarker development. Four preconference short courses were also offered that well-complemented these themes, and addressed biomarker assay development/validation, commercial advances in circulating tumor cell assessment, novel cancer biomarkers and biomarker qualification/validation. This conference served as an interactive venue for the networking and exchange of information between researchers, industry, physicians and other attendees on the translation of concepts from the laboratory to the clinic.