Dr. Bennett's closing remarks:

· The mission of participants at this SOTS meeting is to persuade NCI leadership   to develop the strategies necessary for accomplishing the goals that we   formulated today.

· It is up to the leukemia chairs of the Cooperative Groups to get together and   devise what they think would be the best approach to solving the problems   elucidated at this meeting.

· Two definite goals have resulted from this meeting:
  1) To orchestrate a new Myeloproliferative Disorders Cooperative Group/       consortium whose role is to:
      ¨ Provide direction to the NCI and the Cooperative Groups.
      ¨ Develop studies exportable to the Cooperative Groups and other consortia,         either through the Clinical Trials Support Unit (CTSU) or the Cooperative         Groups.
  2) To encourage NCI not to reject out-of-hand those protocols addressing the       MPDs, submitted by the Cooperative Groups' leukemia committees, on       grounds that they are not quite neoplastic. Likewise, encourage the leukemia       committees to submit such protocols.

Dr. Gilliland's closing remarks:
Dr. Gilliland stressed the opportunities afforded in this post-genome era for unraveling some of the heterogeneity of the molecular genetic defects in the MPDs.

Agenda Item: Wrap-up and Future Plans.

DR. BENNETT: Concluding remarks. Mechanistically, it is very straightforward what we do at this point. We are going to summarize what has gone on today. We are going to make it widely available through the NCI website and also via publication.
That is sort of the end of our mission, but it is really the beginning of your mission, and that is to be persuasive to the leadership at NCI, which has sponsored this approach to solving these problems.

DR. GILLILAND: I would just like to thank all of you who have come today and participated in this. I do agree with Mr. Tollen that this really is the creme de la creme of the experts in myeloproliferative disease in this country.
I think there are some very exciting things going on, especially in this post-genome era, where we may be able to unravel some of the mysteries of heterogeneity and molecular genetic defects.

So, I would like to thank each and every one of you for your participation, especially the section chairs. We should also acknowledge the wonderful work that Jean Kazares and the support staff have done here in putting this meeting together. So, I would like to thank them as well.

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