Nobel Conference 56Cancer in the Age of Biotechnology
October 6 & 7, 2020
Mission
The Nobel Conference brings students, educators and members of the general public together with the leading thinkers of our time, to explore revolutionary, transformative and pressing scientific questions and the ethical issues that arise with them.
Watch archived lectures and discussions
Nobel Conference 56 explored the science of new cancer treatments, the structural and societal factors that will determine who has access to these life-saving treatments, and the therapies and practices that will enable people to live with cancer for the long term.
In recent decades, researchers have made great strides in understanding both the progression of cancer in the human individual and the ways the individual’s immune system responds to it. Their findings have led to the development of cancer therapies that can strategically target cancer cells, with the result that persons undergoing the treatments experience fewer side effects than they would with traditional chemotherapy. The complexity of these biological drugs allows for their specificity and greater effectiveness, but also makes them very expensive to develop, produce and administer. Advances in treatment also increase the number of individuals living with cancer raising questions about how to most effectively support patients in the long-term following diagnosis.
Download and print at home the 2020 Nobel Conference Poster and 2021 Nobel Conference Poster.
Learn More About Cancer Topics
For this unusual conference we created videos and interactive activities specially for our online audience. You'll find "science minutes" (five minute explorations of scientific topics in cancer), spoken word pieces, yoga-for-cancer and cooking demonstrations, art, music, and history of science lectures, as well as links to past Nobel Conference lectures about cancer. They're arranged topically, so you can dig into an area--immunotherapy or exercise, mental health or molecular targeted therapy--that particularly interests you.
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