Wade Samowitz, the CGA President, with the help of all of the council members planned an excellent meeting. Audience interest was evident from the first session and continued throughout the meeting. Topics such as variants of unknown significance, the relationship between PTEN and autism, a new look at juvenile polyps, hereditary pancreatic and gastric cancer stirred questions and lively discussions from the floor. Everyone enjoyed the serious and, at times, humorous interaction between the debaters during the surgical crossfire. All of the attendees benefited from Scott Walters tips to maximize cancer screening adherence in our patients.

Loic Le Marchand, MD, PhD., from the University of Hawaii, gave the Jass Lecture on “Genome Wide Association Studies”.

Richard Fishel receives recognition from Tom Weber for presenting Herrera Lecture

Richard Fishel, PhD., from the Ohio State University, gave the Herrera Lecture on “Mechanism of Mismatch Repair and its Role in Tumorigenesis”.

Joanne Young, PhD., from Queensland Medical Center in Brisbane Austrialia gave a tribute to Jeremy Jass, MD, who was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. (see personal comments below from Johanna Nixon, Jeremy's wife).

During the business meeting, Paul Wise, MD Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, was elected President-elect for 2010. Susan K. Peterson, PhD MPH from University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was elected to a 3-year term on council. Matthew Kalady, MD, from the Cleveland Clinic was appointed to council by CGA President Steve Erdman to serve out the remaining 2-year term vacated by Dr. Wise.

From the scientific abstracts submitted, Brandie Leach, MS, Cleveland Clinic, received the Best Platform Presentation and Melyssa Aronson, MS, Mt Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada received the Best Poster Award.

Johanna Nixon Jass comments on Lifetime Achivement Award honoring her late husband, Jeremy.

"Thank you very much for...advising me of the Lifetime Achievement Award made to Jeremy by the CGA. On professional visits to North America with Jeremy I have met Professor Church and am aware of his work at the Cleveland Clinic. It is always good to hear both of the fond personal memories that others have of Jeremy and also of the professional esteem in which his work is held. Jeremy knew that it was beyond him alone to secure the fate of the work to which he dedicated his life, that its place would be ultimately determined by the advance of medical science over time. But over his career he certainly made the greatest efforts to ensure that how he thought and what he published was invested with as much scientific integrity as possible. Indeed, having seen on a day to day basis how hard and constantly he thought about his work I do not think he could have done more with respect to either its quality or quantity. Although some of his original research contributions were too novel to be immediately accepted by his professional peers, Jeremy always held their opinion in the greatest respect and was particularly pleased if his own conclusions came to be supported by their rigorous and independent work. He also could not have valued collaboration with his colleagues more highly. Particularly in the last years of his career Jeremy worked in an extensive international network of collaborators from many backgrounds - his "virtual laboratory" made possible by the era of electronic communication - believing that gathering data and concentrating expertise unrestricted by institutional or international boundaries offered the best prospects for forwarding medical research. I am sure that, could he know of it, Jeremy would feel greatly honoured by this award. I will of course let the rest of his family know and can assure you that they will share my own appreciation of the CGA's recognition."

Best wishes,

Johanna Nixon Jass