Battling cancer on many fronts

6 páginas, 2 figuras. In March 2008, around 100 young scientists met at the Spanish National Cancer Centre (CNIO) in Madrid, Spain, to share their results with one another and a few invited senior scientists from their fields. The workshop was organized by eight foreign students on the Oncotrain programme—supported by the VI European Framework—who are undertaking their PhDs at the CNIO in the fields of cancer research.The Oncotrain meeting could be seen as representing a small survey of the ‘temperature' of various areas of cancer research. There was an emphasis on certain subjects—the regulation of the mitotic checkpoint and the relevance of various genes to cancer, for example—and it was clear that there is still much to be discovered. In addition, although the analysis of genetic and cytogenetic alterations on a massive scale is being applied to large numbers of samples in order to identify prognostic markers, more functional studies are necessary. Finally, there is no doubt that a better understanding of CSCs will lead to a new era of both basic and clinical cancer research, the reclassification of human tumours and the development of novel therapeutic strategies specifically targeting CSC.Work in the laboratory of A.C. is funded by the Fundacion Mutua Madrileña, the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (SAF2005-00944) and the VI Framework of the European Commission (Project Netsensor).Peer reviewe