Looking for Common Themes and Solutions in Drug Resistance for Cancer, Infectious Disease and Agriculture

The 2018 Gordon Research Conference on Drug Resistance will build on the success of the three prior meetings to focus on assembling a multi-disciplinary group of basic and clinical scientists to understand mechanisms of drug resistance and how to identify and to overcome them using novel strategies.

Drug resistance is a major challenge for the effectiveness of therapies in cancer and infectious diseases and for agricultural products including herbicides and pesticides. Drug resistance negatively impacts the health of millions in both developed and developing nations and has a massive financial impact on society. Despite the common issues facing these fields there are no forums that encourage cross-disciplinary interaction on this important problem. This forum will serve a unique and critical role of bringing together experts from different disciplines to create a community which will share expertise around drug resistance and work together on effective long term solutions. The community will explore areas including identifying resistance mechanisms, computational modeling of resistance from cells to humans, the use of diagnostics to identify and monitor resistance and the development of novel treatments. Beyond science, the community will become a valuable expert resource for policy makers to develop and guide implementation of effective long term strategies.

The meeting will assemble a broad group from a diverse area of disciplines including established experts, young investigators and students with wide geographic and cultural perspective to build a long term community. This will include representation from academic, biotech/pharma and government. The meeting will encourage cutting edge-research presentations coupled with significant discussions and will also provide an opportunity for students to highlight research through poster presentations with the opportunity of a select group of students to present short oral presentations.