2014-ANZSCDB-Summer-newsletter

ANZSCDB Sponsored Meeting - REPORT
cells, and the advances this discovery has
made to regenerative medicine and anticancer
treatment. The keynote was followed
by the first of two vibrant poster sessions.
Over the next 3 days, the latest in Wnt
signalling mechanisms, stem cells biology,
development and disease was delivered by
experts in the Wnt field.
Wnt signalling encompasses so many fields,
thus more recent Wnt meetings tend have
some sort of focus. As might be expected,
given the keynote (Hans Clevers) and
plenary (Tony Burgess) speakers, and the
research background of the co-convenors,
much of the stem cell focus was on adult
epithelial stem cells, and much of the
disease focus was on cancers of epithelial
origin, in particular gastrointestinal cancers.
The highlights of reports at this Wnt meeting
include: identification of the multipotent
adult mammary stem cell; characterisation
of the context dependent nature of Wnt
signalling; the intricacies of achieving the
“just right” level of Wnt signalling that
drives efficient adenoma formation – or the
“Goldilocks” effect; also several “bench to
bedside” reports – therapeutic targeting via
Wnt pathway components, especially the
Frizzled receptors but also the intracellular
components. A summary report of the
meeting will be published soon.
Importantly, 96% of the delegates said that
the Australian Wnt meeting was as good
as previous EMBO workshops they had
attended. This is a very rewarding result
for all involved. The Australian Wnt meeting
was my tenth Wnt meeting; all the meetings
have been inspirational. I am delighted that
we could bring the Wnt meeting to Australia
and maintain this high standard. On behalf
of the co-convenors (Nick Barker, Owen
Sansom, Beric Henderson and Matthias
Ernst) and MTCI, I thank all our sponsors,
particularly ANZSCDB for sponsoring and
endorsing the meeting.
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