When: Thursday, March 4, 2010

             From: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Where: WorkBar Boston

              711 Atlantic Ave, Lower Level

              Boston, MA 02111

Key Note Speaker: Yolonda Colson, M.D., Ph.D.

• Division of Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Director of the Women’s Lung Cancer Program, and an Associate Professor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Science Shaping Our World (SHOW) is a monthly seminar and networking series that highlights areas of life science research possessing significant application potential.  Our mission is to bring together researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, technology and business professionals, in a setting where they can gain exposure and insight into the life science advancements changing our world.

Further, we seek to promote active inter and cross-disciplinary networking toward fostering the creation of opportunities for the development of these emerging technologies and their applications.

March’s SHOW will focus on the science and application of nanotechnology in cancer treatment.  Current cancer treatments include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.   All three of these treatments can damage healthy tissue and often fail to completely eliminate the cancerous cells.  The effectiveness of current cancer treatments is highly variable depending on the type of cancer, cell types within the tumor, and stage of disease at diagnosis among other factors.

Nanotechnology based therapeutics focuses on developing novel “medical devices”, much smaller than human cells, acting on the level of viruses or antibodies.  Nanotechnology has the potential to allow clinicians to more directly target chemotherapeutics (in combinatorial strategies) to the tumor cells limiting damage to healthy tissue as well as potentially other toxic side effects.

With funding support from the NIH/NCI, the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), and the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Colson's research focuses on the development of unique mechanisms of polymer and nanoparticle drug delivery aimed at preventing cancer recurrence, and the investigation of novel methods to identify hidden tumor that has spread to nearby lymph nodes.

Following the presentation, you are invited to join us for networking and further discussion with the speaker.  Light refreshments/food will be provided. 

SHOW is sponsored by Munevar & Associates, Inc., with space provided by WorkBar Boston.