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Barcelona
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Future Leaders' Conference 2024

13 November 2024 - 15 November 2024 | Novotel Barcelona City, Barcelona

Welcome

We are looking forward to hosting you in Barcelona, Spain, for the next Future Leaders' Conference! 

Join your fellow early career researchers from the global Cancer Grand Challenges community and share the latest progress you’re making against your teams’ challenge. This year we are especially looking forward to welcoming the five new teams at the event.

Venue

The conference will be hosted at the Novotel Barcelona City, located at Avenida Diagonal, C/ de la Ciutat de Granada, 201, Entrada Por, 08018 Barcelona, Spain. Accommodation for the 13 and 14 November will be booked as soon as attendees register, and the cost is included in the conference attendance. 

Agenda

The conference will start at 3pm on Wednesday 13 November and end at 4:30pm on Friday 15 November. More information will be shared in the coming weeks. 

Find an overview of the agenda and our events Code of Conduct here.

Keynote talks

Professor David Hunter, University of Oxford

Talk title: Genomic insights: charting the future of cancer epidemiology 

David is the Richard Doll Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at the University of Oxford, and has facilitated the development of many initiatives in cancer genetics and genetic epidemiology. He is Chief Science Advisor to Our Future Health a major new UK initiative that aims to return genomic information to consenting participants. 

Dr Karin Straathof, University College London 

Talk title: Developing T-cell based immunotherapy approaches for childhood cancer 

Karin is an Associate Professor in Tumour Immuno-oncology at UCL and consultant paediatric oncologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, UK. Her research is focused on the development and clinical testing of engineered-T cell based treatments for childhood solid cancers.

Networking reception

Join us on Thursday 14 November, 7pm – 9.30pm, for a private dinner and drinks reception. Sant Pau is the world’s largest Art Nouveau complex, as well as being the most important work by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the architect of Modernisme, the Catalan Art Nouveau. Declared World Heritage by the UNESCO in 1997 for its singularity and artistic beauty, the Art Nouveau Site was once a functioning hospital and houses the Historical Archive of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, one of the most important collections of hospital documentation in the world today. On an exclusive tour you will learn about what life was like in the former hospital and what kind of medicine was practised in Barcelona in the nineteen-twenties.

The Cancer Grand Challenges Future Leaders Conference is generously supported by The Bjorn and Inger Saven Future Leaders Fund. 

Challenge setting consultation

Cancer Grand Challenges supports a global community of diverse, world-class research teams to take on some of cancer’s toughest challenges. Every two years we engage experts from across the cancer research field to help us identify what the next set of challenges should be. You will have the opportunity to participate in this consultation at the conference. Teams will be formed based on the selections you made in the pre-event survey. You will have the opportunity to refine your challenges ideas during the conference and all teams will pitch their ideas to a selected panel of experts on the last day of the conference. 

Read the guidance document to learn more about the challenge setting consultation activities.