The first Forbeck Forum of 2022 starts today.  Chaired by Navdeep Chandel, PhD of Northwestern University, Heather Christofk, PhD of UCLA, and Jason Locasale, PhD of Duke University, this Forum will spark lively discussion and collaboration among clinicians and researchers in this specialty.

Nutrition exerts profound effects on health, and dietary interventions are commonly used to treat diseases. Although cancer has a substantial metabolic component, the development of principles that define whether nutrition and new metabolic therapies may be used to influence tumor outcome are in the beginning stages. Nevertheless, it is also established that targeting metabolic pathways with longstanding chemotherapy agents or radiation can sometimes lead to controlled therapeutic outcomes. In contrast, whether specific dietary interventions could influence the metabolic pathways that are targeted in standard cancer therapies is not well known.

Recent work has emerged showing that changes in caloric intake, macronutrient composition, and the balance of specific macronutrients in the diet also influence cancer. There are emerging studies and mechanism linking nutrition and diet to cancer biology and therapy. Our Forbeck Forum will bring together current and emerging leaders whose work bridges the nutrition-cancer interface to discuss their work in the new interdisciplinary field of ‘Nutrition and Cancer Metabolism’ and to explore its potential as a novel area for therapeutic intervention.

To learn more about this forum and it's participants, please visit forbeckforums.org.

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