2020 Annual Conference Grant: American Society of Preventive Oncology

The mission of the American Society of Preventive Oncology (ASPO) is the exchange and translation of scientific information to reduce the cancer burden and for the continued development of investigators involved in cancer prevention and control. The 44th ASPO Annual Meeting will be held at the Marriott Tucson University Park, Tucson, Arizona, March 21-24, 2020. The specific aims of the annual meeting and this conference grant are to: 1) provide multidisciplinary forums for the exchange of scientific information; 2) foster implementation and broaden dissemination of scientific discoveries; and 3) provide exceptional professional development to investigators at any career stage, but especially early career investigators, to maximize their potential for success. This application requests partial support for the 2020 ASPO Annual Meeting, which is a keystone of this multidisciplinary organization and the preventive oncology community. ASPO's annual meeting provides a high quality program that fosters new opportunities for early career, mid-career and senior investigators whose careers are focused on the primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of cancer. The 2020 ASPO Annual Meeting, scheduled over 3 days, is organized to consist of 4 symposia, 4 submitted paper sessions, 2 award lectures, 4 Special Interest Group breakfast sessions, a networking mixer, a poster session, and—for the first time—a Community Scientist session. Pre-meeting workshops include multiple professional development sessions, a meeting of cancer center Associate Directors and Program Leaders for Cancer Prevention and Control, and a meeting for NCI training grant directors. Breakfast roundtable discussions are organized by Special Interest Groups tasked to move the field forward in specific topical areas highly relevant to the ASPO mission. Meeting planning takes satisfaction surveys from previous annual conferences into account. Abstracts will be solicited beginning in September 2019. The 16 abstracts receiving the highest peer reviewed rankings will be published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention and presented orally during submitted paper sessions and the poster session. We anticipate that over 175 posters will be presented. Multiple initiatives including this conference grant—which requests travel support for minority investigators, early career scientists, and community scientists—enhance the diversity of the meeting attendees, program committee, and invited speakers. All meetings are held in non-smoking, ADA accessible conference facilities. Journal and online advertisements, posters and direct mail will publicize the meeting. Over 350 participants are anticipated to attend the Annual Meeting. Speakers and participants are from multiple disciplines in cancer prevention and control research and represent fields concerned with translating evidence into effective prevention and control programs. By fostering communication among multidisciplinary professionals, ASPO meetings have been extraordinarily successful at reaching the society's goals of supporting mentoring, encouraging dialogue, and promoting innovative progress in cancer prevention and control.