The Society for Medical Research (SMR) is a diverse organization of scientific and medical investigators devoted to alleviating the suffering of people with melanoma. It was founded to unify the field by increasing communication among researchers and building bridges of collaboration between basic, translational, and clinical investigators.

The SMR 2025 Annual Congress is a four-day congress dedicated to fostering our SMR mission to support basic, preclinical, and translational melanoma research, held in the beautiful and historic city of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). In addition to exciting and innovative research, there will be plenty of opportunity to network within our community to get inspired and build collaborations to meet the most important challenges in melanoma research.  

This year, we are renewing our congress format with several enhancements for scientific exchange and networking opportunities. Guided by our yearly surveys, we are introducing the following new elements: 

1. Recognizing the narrowing gaps between basic, translational and clinical research, we will cover every element in each session, thereby stimulating discussion between the different members of our community.

2. Instead of the traditional parallel sessions, we will have only plenary sessions, fostering interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration.

3. We will feature three dedicated poster sessions and encourage all delegates and invited speakers to visit posters and engage with the presenters. We are also introducing poster awards this year, which we hope will further support the poster presenters.

4. Our Congress Awards Ceremony and dinner will be designed to provide an informal, accessible setting for junior delegates to connect not only with each other but also with our invited speakers. 

We will feature nine sessions, covering a great variety of topics, ranging from melanoma progression to heterogeneity, metabolism, heterogeneity, immunotherapy, rare melanomas and innovative technologies. We have also invited four world-class Keynote speakers covering the spectrum of melanoma research.

In sum, we believe we have put together an exciting scientific program with new elements fostering exchange and networking for all members of our international melanoma community. We look forward very much to welcoming you in Amsterdam!

Congress Committee Members

Tom Gajewski, MD, PhD
University of Chicago Medicine, USA