Conference Scene: DGVS Spring Conference 2009

Abstract

The 3rd annual DGVS Spring Conference of the German Society for Gastroenterology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Verdauungs- und Stoffwechselkrankheiten) was held at the Seminaris Campus Hotel in Berlin, Germany, on 8–9 May, 2009. The conference was organized by Roland Schmid and Matthias Ebert from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. The central theme of the meeting was ‘translational gastrointestinal oncology: towards personalized medicine and individualized therapy‘. The conference covered talks on markers for diagnosis, screening and surveillance of colorectal cancer, targets for molecular therapy, response prediction in clinical oncology, development and integration of molecular imaging in gastrointestinal oncology and translational research in clinical trial design. Owing to the broad array of topics and limitations of space, this article will focus on biomarkers, response prediction and the integration of biomarkers into clinical trials. Presentations mentioned in this summary were given by Matthias Ebert (Technical University of Munich, Germany), Esmeralda Heiden (Epigenomics, Berlin, Germany), Frank Kolligs (University of Munich, Germany), Florian Lordick (University of Heidelberg, Germany), Hans Jorgen Nielsen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Anke Reinacher-Schick (University of Bochum, Germany), Christoph Röcken (University of Berlin, Germany), Wolff Schmiegel (University of Bochum, Germany) and Thomas Seufferlein (University of Halle, Germany).

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.