Scholar Retreat

Chaired By

 Nabeel Bardeesy, PhD of Massachusetts General Hospital

Meeting Description

The Scholar Retreat held annually, invites scholars and mentors to attend a 3-day meeting. This meeting focuses on bringing junior scientists together from various areas of cancer research. The collaborations and innovative ideas that come from this meeting have been numerous and outstanding. The mentors provide great guidance regarding science and career for these junior scientists.

At the Retreat, the Scholars share their research with the other Scholars and Mentors. Each Scholar will participate in four sequential retreats, with all expenses paid by WGFRF. The opportunity for Scholars to connect and form relationships with researchers from completely different areas of cancer research and to have a sort of peer review is one of the most valuable roles of the Retreat. Through the Mentors, the Retreat offers Scholars guidance on practical career issues such as writing grants and preparing successful scientific publications.

Each year, the Scholar Retreat coincides with the Foundation’s annual ‘Blue Jean Ball’ fundraiser. All Scholars attend this event, providing them an opportunity to meet with families whose lives have been directly affected by cancer. This experience resonates particularly with scientists who, unlike clinicians, do not have contact with patients, by putting a human face on cancer.

Meeting Summary

The meeting brought together Scholars from areas of research in Resistance Mechanisms, Invasion and Metastasis, Immunotherapy, and Chromosomal Aneuploidy. The overall goals of the Scholar Retreats are to stimulate cross-disciplinary discussion among researchers, to provide mentorship on career development from senior scientists, and to create camaraderie among the group to lead to research collaborations.

The meeting was kicked off by a keynote address from Dr. Raul Mostoslavsky, Associate Professor of Medicine, at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School. He spoke about his journey as a scientist from being a medical student in a provincial town in Argentina to studies across 3 continents leading to his establishment of his own laboratory in Boston. He stressed the serendipity of discovery; the values of open-mindedness, curiosity, and collaboration; and emphasizing the privilege of being able to do scientific research, he motivated all who attended.

Those mentors (senior scientists who had not previously been to a Forbeck event) found that the Retreat was a revelation in how scientific communication should work and were in great admiration for the commitment of the Foundation to create and maintain such a great legacy of contribution to the cancer research community. The Foundation plays a truly unique role in the cancer research world, and it is extraordinary that its contributions remain as fresh and important as ever.

Forum Participants