IARC hosts second annual meeting of DISCERN project

Researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) are hosting the second annual meeting of the Discovering the Causes of Three Poorly Understood Cancers in Europe (DISCERN) project on 23–24 May 2024 at IARC in Lyon, France.

The meeting brings together representatives of the 19 DISCERN consortium partners to review progress, engage in scientific discussions, and plan for future steps in the project. The meeting also includes a special Renal Cancer Workshop, during which some of the most renowned renal cancer researchers will consider the latest information about the causality, epidemiology, and exposures related to this topic. The workshop is organized in three main sessions: (i) descriptive epidemiology, (ii) molecular data instrumental for discovering ubiquitous exposures, and (iii) reflections on assessing causality.

The aim of the workshop is to define the current scientific understanding of the ubiquity of carcinogens and other exposures associated with renal cancer. In addition, the workshop participants will try to develop methods to better integrate epidemiological approaches and molecular data in research on renal cancer etiology and prevention.

A report summarizing the state of the art, key take-away messages, and future directions is planned, to be published later this year.

The DISCERN project is a consortium of 19 partners coordinated by IARC with the goal of discovering the unknown causes of three poorly understood cancer types: renal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and colorectal cancer. It is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Mission on Cancer, through the Horizon Europe programme, and by the United Kingdom Research and Innovation Agency.

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