Annual Meeting Keynote Addresses

Article Outline

• Keynote Address I
  • Advances in Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering
• Keynote Address II
  • The Future of Health Care Reimbursement
• Keynote Address III
  • Energy, Evolution and Cancer

Back to Article Outline

Keynote Address I 

Advances in Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering 

Robert L. Langer, Sc.D.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advances in drug delivery and tissue engineering are revolutionizing medical therapies. New drug delivery technologies including novel polymers and intelligent microchips promise to create new treatments for cancer, heart disease and many other illnesses. Furthermore, by combining mammalian cells with synthetic polymers, new approaches for engineering tissues are being developed that may someday help repair tissues for patients with burns, damaged cartilage, paralysis and vascular disease.

Back to Article Outline

Keynote Address II 

The Future of Health Care Reimbursement 

Gail R. Wilensky, Ph.D.

Project HOPE

Each year Congress struggles whether and how to prop up the RBRVS, postponing the inevitable redesign of a reimbursement system for physicians that all of us know is coming and is desperately needed. The question is how to reimburse physicians so that they are rewarded for providing clinically-appropriate, high quality care while being mindful of the expensive resources at their command. These are ultimately the same questions that need to be answered for the rest of health care—not just so that we can cover the 15% of the population that remain uninsured but also so we can develop a health care system that will be sustainable for our future and the future of our grandchildren.

Back to Article Outline

Keynote Address III 

Energy, Evolution and Cancer 

Donald S. Coffey, Ph.D.

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Over time, cancer cells routinely develop resistance to all forms of therapy that are designed to destroy them. It appears that cancers have reactivated a form of somatic cell evolution that produces a diversity of cells with different phenotypes. From this tumor cell heterogeneity, clones are selected for survival from any type of therapy to which they are exposed. New concepts in evolution and the role of energy in macromolecular functions are providing new insights into how we might resolve the cellular mechanisms of therapeutic sensitivity and resistance.