At the 10th Annual MARF meeting Gala Dinner on June 12th, V. Courtney Broaddus, M.D., Professor of Medicine at  the University of San Francisco and Chief of the Pulmonary Division and Critical Care Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, received a Pioneer Award for her achievements in the research field of mesothelioma and service to MARF.
In addition to her publications on asbestos- induced mechanisms of cell death in mesothelial cells, Courtney has  developed a novel spheroid cell culture system to study signaling pathways of apoptosis resistance in mesothelioma cells and …

The IMIG Board of Directors is pleased to announce that 3 Young Investigator Awards will be given at the upcoming IMIG meeting in Kyoto.
The funding for these three awards has been donated in honor of 3 important advocacy organizations that work to ban asbestos:

BANJAN (Ban Asbestos Network Japan) Young Investigator Award ($2000)
ADAO (Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization) Young Investigator Award ($1500)
IBAS (International Ban Asbestos Secretariat) Young Investigator Award ($1500)

Awardees will be selected by the IMIG Board from submitted abstracts for the Kyoto meeting.

Submit your abstracts here by June 1st.

The 46th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) will be held in Chicago, June 4-8, 2010. This year’s Annual Meeting will focus on Advancing Quality through Innovation. More than 30,000 cancer specialists from around the world will gather at the meeting to discuss the latest innovations in research, quality, practice and technology in cancer.

Dr. David J. Sugarbaker, chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at the Brigham & Women’s hospital in Boston, talks about the delicate EPP procedure and how this procedure has proved to be key in the war against meso.

Mesothelial cells are a single layer of specialised pavement-like cells that line the body’s internal cavities and most organs. The primary function of this cell layer, termed the mesothelium, is to provide a slippery, non-adhesive and protective surface. However, mesothelial cells play other pivotal roles involving transport of fluid and cells across the surface of the body wall and organs, presentation of foreign molecules (such as bacteria and virus proteins) to immune cells, inflammation and tissue repair, formation and breakdown of fibrin …