A national conference entitled "Young Researchers in Lung Cancer" was held in Brescia on 19 January 2018. The format was a departure from traditional conferences in that all the young researchers in attendance had the opportunity to present the work conducted at their organizations in an effort to give them the spotlight as well as stay abreast of the latest developments.
Each research group had been asked in advance to submit by a set deadline an abstract summarizing the key aspects of their work. Once all the abstracts had been received, the best ones were then selected for oral presentation during the conference.
The Buzzi Unicem Foundation (BUF) actively participated during this event to further promote research aimed at diagnosing and treating malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). One of the conference sessions in fact involved MPM, and many Italian researchers had submitted their scientific work on this disease. The BUF’s Scientific Committee contributed by helping choose the best scientific work among the abstracts submitted. The Foundation also offered a prize of 1,000 euros, which was awarded to the best research conducted on MPM during the conference. The winner of the award was Dr. Rrapaj Eltjona, a researcher at the San Raffaele Vita e Salute (Life and Health) Hospital and University of Milan, who presented a paper entitled: "Malignant mesothelioma organoids, mesospheres and patient derived xenografts as tools to study drug sensitivity and tumor microenvironment ".