Meeting Summary

**The Metastasis Working Group**

**May 2, 2003**

This was the first organizational meeting of the Metastasis Working
Group (MWG). Approximately 21 people attended; Kent Hunter agreed to
serve as chair. The group discussed the overall aims of the working
group and reached a consensus on the following goals:

-   Promote information-sharing and collaboration among intramural
    investigators, emphasizing collaborations between the MWG and other
    working groups and faculties, and among intramural and extramural
    researchers in order to facilitate multidisciplinary approaches to
    the study of metastasis.

-   Promote education and training initiatives, primarily targeting
    postdoctoral fellows.

-   Develop a website devoted primarily to education and recruitment.

-   Sponsor an annual retreat.

-   Host a seminar series.

# Collaboration and Information Sharing

The MWG will serve as a forum through which the members can become
acquainted with and discuss each other's work and present papers;
collaborations between basic and clinical investigators will be strongly
supported. Among the first group projects will be to develop a list of
metastasis-related genes that can serve as the basis for developing
putative metastasis pathway maps.

> *Action item:* To generate a master list, members are requested to
> send their lists of metastasis-related genes to Kent Hunter.

The MWG will promote interchanges and collaborations with other
faculties, working groups, and research initiatives. One effort will be
concentrated on developing a partnership with the Animal Models
Initiative (AMI) to explore questions relating to the development and
use of animal models of metastasis and related imaging systems; possible
contacts include Glenn Merlino, Susan Silk, Steve Libutti, and Mark
Simpson. Other groups with which the MWG can interface include the
Molecular Targets Faculty, with Pat Steeg as contact, the Cancer
Prevention Faculty, the Cellular Molecular and Developmental Biology
Faculty, and the Tissue Array Research Program. In addition, clinical
contacts will be pursued; Lee Helman and Elise Kohn could handle this.

# Education and Training; Website Educational Functions

Inviting the participation of postdoctoral fellows to further their
training will be a central priority of the MWG. The MWG website will be
designed primarily to serve as an educational tool, with a central
emphasis on disseminating publications of interest. The publication
section can include important recently published papers, historically
significant papers, a list of directed readings for training purposes,
and publications by MWG members via hyperlinks to principal
investigators' websites. It may be possible to set up a weekly Porpoise
literature search on metastasis that can be automatically linked to the
website. The master list of metastasis-related genes and pathway maps
will be posted on the site for educational purposes.

*Action Item*: PIs should bring their personal website bibliographies up
to date to

enhance their value for the MWG site.

## Website Recruitment Functions

The website can be developed to recruit not only intramural
investigators from the NCI and the NIH as a whole but also to extramural
investigators. It may be possible to develop a link with the website of
the Metastasis Research Society in order to facilitate extramural
contacts.

## Retreat

A two-day retreat will be held as soon as it is feasible; postdoctoral
fellows will be invited to participate. The retreat will be
laboratory-based and include poster presentations by postdoctoral
fellows. Discussion/debate sessions will be organized. The metastasis
pathway map will be discussed.

> *Action Item*: Kent Hunter will determine when Carl Barrett's schedule
> can accommodate his participation in the retreat and schedule
> accordingly.

*Other Action Items*

> An MWG list serve will be set up and a second organization meeting
> will be scheduled to further discuss retreat planning and the future
> meeting schedule and seminar series.