Inaugural Fellows' Summary

As International Fellows, we attended several excellent medical meetings (including the STO Chabner Colloquium and STO Fellows Forum, and Alliance Group Foundation Meeting) to gain new insights in cancer drug development and therapy. In addition to translational research and immunology, we learned a great deal about grant applications, designing and conducting clinical trials, the importance of biostatics and the role of statisticians.

This program is both practical and participatory. We attended weekly oncology case discussions at MGH; participated in the Longwood Translational Medicine program where invited top scientists and doctors in the Boston area shared their research; and we visited the labs of several professors in Boston, with whom we hope to collaborate in the near future. We also had the opportunity to actively participate in two projects in gastric neuroendocrine tumor and gastric linitis plastica as well as to write manuscripts, one of which is complete and the other is under preparation.

Finally, we visited US FDA and NCI where we attended several CTEP meetings. These meetings provided us with great insights on how the protocols were evaluated at NCI. In addition, we made a presentation to FDA officers on oncology clinical trials in China that included examples of new drug development.