Joan M. Block, Co-Founder

Maintaining a unique and relevant meeting after 12 years can be difficult. The Hepatitis B Foundation’s Princeton Workshop, however, has defied the odds. Our goal was to host a meeting that would bring together a group of the world’s thought leaders from academe, industry and government for highly focused roundtable discussions of innovative therapeutic strategies for chronic hepatitis B.

Since 1995, we have successfully hosted annual meetings that continue to serve an important role in promoting dynamic scientific exchange at the highest level, and research collaborations that would not otherwise occur.

Despite a crowded scientific conference schedule, the Princeton Workshop draws leaders in the field because of its unique format – small size, minimal structure, and no formal proceedings. As a result, participants can discuss what they are working on with unprecedented freedom.

“What makes the meeting special is that it always combines basic scientists and academics with those in the pharmaceutical industry who actually make the drugs,” notes Dr. W. Thomas London, HBF board member and co-organizer of the workshop.

In a departure from tradition, the HBF changed its meeting focus this year from therapeutics to diagnostics. We partnered with the National Cancer Institute to address an urgent need: the early detection of liver cancer, which is the most serious complication of chronic hepatitis B and one of the foundation’s top research and public health priorities.