The recent, increasing amount of knowledge regarding lung cancer, especially in the field of basic science, has led to a significant paradigm shift in the management of patients with thoracic cancers. Elucidation of biologic mechanisms that underpin carcinogenetic potential and metastatic behavior has led to an inevitable explosion in the development of effective targeted agents and immunotherapy strategies, many of which have been proven to be more effective and less toxic therapeutic approaches.

Despite energetic efforts and the enormous support gained within the oncology community, there are many obstacles in the clinical implementation of precision medicine. On the one hand there is increasing pressure to utilize some form of biologic treatment or immunotherapy for each individual patient; on the other hand, the immense bulk and the rapid recycling of the new information complicates interpretation of the data when we are faced with the patient in our daily clinical practice. In fact, translation of the acquired knowledge from the lab bench to the bedside to develop an efficacious treatment has proved to be an extremely difficult task, owing to the existing gaps in our understanding of the biology of cancer coupled with contradictatory findings from clinical trials,

The success of seven previous meetings and our willingness to extend collaboration through continents have prompted us to organize the 8^th Lung Cancer Network Virtual Symposium «Bridging Science and Practice». Our aim is to provide a comprehensive update of the accumulating evidence and to tease out the useful information from the background noise in order to optimize the use of “precision medicine” in the real-life setting by bringing together basic scientists, clinical researchers and lung cancer specialists who have contributed immensely to this field. Our distinguished multidisciplinary, international faculty will discuss the latest translational and clinical data to provide treating physicians with practical information on how to implement recent developments in their clinical practice.

As we face a changing World, challenges well known to us due to the pandemic has led us to organize this year’s symposium as an on-line event. We are very fortunate to be able to make use of the technological opportunites which have broken barriers to share information in this era of unprecendented innovation. As always, we hope that this meeting will provide a great opportunity to all of us not only to improve collaboration for our future educational goals, but also to serve as a platform to develop great friendships in the long run.

We cordially welcome you all to the 8^th Lung Cancer Network Virtual Symposium : Bridging Science and Practice, held in collaboration with the Turkish Association of Lung Cancer (TAKD) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) on February 20, 2021.

Yesim ERALP, MD

Symposium Chair

Professor of Medical Oncology

Istanbul, TURKEY