Engagement

Launched in 2019, our annual Idea Generation Workshop enables us to deliver on our strategic goals to accelerate the pace of discovery and foster collaboration between researchers. 

These workshops help drive our research pipeline and provide a valuable platform for members to connect and develop new ideas using a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach. 

Our most recent event occurred in May 2023, and workshopped five new ideas for late-stage colorectal cancer - a focus area in line with our research priorities. Ideas that progress past the Workshop are then developed further in the newly-formed concept development groups, before being presented to the Lower GI Working Party.

Congratulations to Dr Mark Nalder (REAL-CRC), Dr Alex Flynn (PREDICT 5FU-mCRC), and Professor Vicki Whitehall – all of whom have elected to progress their embryonic ideas through the AGITG Research Development and Prioritisation Framework. 

Thank you to our Co-Convenors Associate Professor Cherry Koh and Dr Sina Vatandoust for helping to host another successful workshop.

Since launching our Preceptorship Program in 2013, these events have evolved to become a pivotal way to deliver on our strategic objective to encourage and support emerging research leaders. 

The 2023 Preceptorship explored the current management of Biliary Tract Cancer and Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Expert preceptors representing the disciplines of surgery, gastroenterology, radiation oncology and medical oncology were in attendance, offering

invaluable discussions, insights, and mentorship. The background of the preceptees was just as diverse, with colleagues from Aotearoa New Zealand and the UK in attendance, as well as attendees from all over Australia. 

Thank you to AstraZeneca for your sponsorship of this wonderful event.

The 2023 ASM theme was ‘Navigating Pathways to Equity in GI Cancer Research’. The topical theme stressed the need to extend access and increase equity in therapeutic options – whether that was across regional, rural and remote areas, or across culturally diverse and First Nations populations.

The Meeting’s Opening Plenary featured distinguished surgeon Professor Jonathan Koea (Ngāti mutunga, Ngāti tama) and renowned Indigenous health leader Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver AM on the continued impact of colonisation on a patient’s cancer journey, including access to cancer care. For our Closing Plenary, we welcomed a series of talks from Professor George Laking, Claire Howlett, Dr Kimi Hēnare, Professor Cheri Ostroff and Associate Professor Craig Underhill on equity-focussed cancer care.

To bring the Meeting’s focus on equity to a full circle, each speaker also issued a subsequent challenge for the AGITG to meet in coming years.

The range of research showcased at the Meeting came through in the number of Best of Posters presentations, which had increased this year, and especially in the popular New Concepts Symposium – where members presented concepts at an early stage of development and received feedback from the delegates and invited international faculty.

Thank you to the Meeting Organising Committees, sponsors, Chairs, presenters, and delegates for being a part of one of our most successful meetings yet.

Listen to The Oncology Podcast‘s wrap-up episode, featuring Co-Convenor Dr Ben Lawrence and International Invited Faculty A/Prof Katherine Garman