Physical Sciences in Oncology Symposium: Take Home Thoughts

Final comments from the speakers and people from the audience.

• (???) It's really difficult to know actually what's going on in the patient.
• (David Parkinson) This is actually an issue of clinical priorities.
• Need to link all of the work in cancer research to clinical activities
• (Larry Nagahara) There are going to be a wealth of research and applications coming out of the PSOC centers.
• (Peter Kuhn) 
• (David Agus ?) Would be nice to all get drug response data in a reproducible fashion
• Should start getting people together more
• (woman from the audience) Would be great to aim all of this technology at clinically relevant questions.
• First step: Identifying the questions!  What do we want to answer?
• (Bob Austin) Technology is still somewhat misplaced.
• (Dr. Lee ?) Can the medical doctors give feedback to the physical scientist to make their work relevant to the clinician sooner
• (Bittorio) Good that the community is developing a common language.
• Journals should be coming out around this common language
• Trans-network collaboration is good, as long as it stays focused on key questions
• (David Parkinson) Comment from a physicist:
• "You're where the physicists were 100 years ago.  We were taking the atom apart and discovering it's components.  But the real value came when we started putting it back together."
• Again, focus on the goal
• e.g., in drug development, start with the end goal of what the drug should do, and then work backwards