 Hi. Good morning. Again, I'm Kari Konoski. I'm the Vice President of Development and Public Affairs for the Kidney Cancer Association. And I just want to welcome you all here again to thank all of our speakers and for Stanford for hosting this meeting for us. Every year we very much look forward to this meeting, and we have a wonderful turnout here. Just a few things in the beginning to let you know. We are videotaping the meeting again, so it will be available on our website a couple weeks following the meeting. So if there's anything that you missed, don't worry about trying to take down all those notes. You can go back and watch any of the sessions again. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about what the association is and how we can help you for those of you that might not be familiar with us. So the Kidney Cancer Association, we are an international nonprofit organization made up of patients, family members, friends, doctors, nurses, researchers, other healthcare professionals all working together to find a cure for this disease. This year we're celebrating our 25th anniversary. It was founded in 1990 by Eugene Schoenfeld. He was a PhD who worked at the Northwestern Middle School of Journalism when he was diagnosed. At that time there were none of these therapies that we have available. There were no patient networks, no real internet for people to get on and learn about their disease. So Gene went to his doctor and when his doctor said, you know, I'm sorry there's nothing we can do for you, enjoy the time with your family, he wasn't going to accept that. And so he quit his job and his wife and he started the Kidney Cancer Association with his doctor and a few other patients in Chicago sitting around his kitchen table and he started getting things out there on the internet in the very very early days trying to bring patients together. He was a big advocate on fast-track approval for for many of these therapies and while Gene unfortunately passed away from this from his diagnosis I think he would be very excited to see where we are today with this disease. As was mentioned earlier, we do have eight therapies approved now for kidney cancer. A few new drugs that are very close for approval and we're excited that some of these may within the next year be approved for kidney cancer patients. This small organization that started around Gene's kitchen table now consists of over 90,000 patients around the globe. It's our mission to reduce the incidents of and suffering and mortality caused by kidney cancer through innovative and collaborative education and research. So our mission again is in three areas education advocacy and research. In terms of education we do patient education meetings so larger regional conferences such as this one around the US each year. We have over 100 small patient support group meetings so if you know if there's not something in someone's area and they're looking to connect with other kidney cancer patients we can help you get something started in your area. For the larger meetings we do try to videotape them so that if someone is unable to attend the meeting or as I mentioned you do attend and it kind of goes over your head some of those some of the things you're learning that you can go back online and and rewatch some of the video and then we do have a series of webinars that our nurse advisory board has put together. Right now they are mostly consisting of what the therapies that are approved currently are and how you can manage some of those toxicities that come with them and really kind of learn the difference between these different therapies. We also support physician education we do two international symposia each year one in the US in the fall so we'll be in Miami in November and a European conference each spring next year will be in Barcelona. These meetings bring in anywhere from 300 to 600 physicians from across the globe and it's really a forum for doctors and nurses and researchers to get together and talk about the research that they're working on. We have a lot of lively debate which sometimes is really great because there are so many therapies approved now but there's you know a lot of talk is what's the best order for these or should be looking in a new direction so these meetings are also videotaped and I would encourage you to go online and watch some of those talks. Our website we really see as our number one resource so I would encourage you to spend some time on there we're always looking for feedback every couple of years we do try to revise it but we make sure that we have news articles out there of what the latest therapies are ways for you to connect with other patients print materials that you can order and we also have a live chat you can see in the bottom right now it says leave a message but we usually have someone online so if you are looking on the website and having trouble finding something or you know reading something on the website and have some questions that somebody can can talk to you in a live live chat and answer your questions right there. Our primary publication we have kidney cancer is also available on our website you can order a hard copy you can read an eBook online you can download it on Amazon if you have Kindle we do have it available in 13 languages now which is very exciting every time we're in a different city in Europe for our medical education meeting we do try to get that translated so it's a great resource for patients especially when you're first diagnosed because it's very comprehensive from you know surgery to the different therapies our nurse advisory board updates this usually on an annual basis so we will have a new new version coming out hopefully at the end of the year and hopefully with some some new approved therapies in there. We are also on social media so if you haven't if you are online and haven't joined one of our online communities we have over 90,000 patients now on our Facebook group just go to Facebook kidney cancer association as well as Twitter I mentioned you can see that the videos are all on our YouTube channel and we do have a patient community on the Inspire website which is very new it's growing quickly and it's really an opportunity for patients to communicate with each other one-on-one. Clinical trials are also a really important part of our mission that we do try to encourage patients to participate in clinical trials to learn how they can be a benefit to you while we're so fortunate to have so many approved therapies sometimes they don't work for every patient and none of these is yet the cure and the only way that we'll get to that point is by continuing to participate in clinical trials so we work with emerging med and with clinical trials dot gov and those are two services that can help match you to a clinical trial that might be right for you. So just a few ways on how you can help us as I mentioned we do support group meetings throughout throughout the US so if you're interested in one start a support group meeting in your area also starting a fundraiser this is an area that has really grown for us I think a lot of it too with the increase in social media has been an opportunity for patients in their families to tell their stories to get out there and you know do local walks and runs and raise money for kidney cancer do a dinner event with your friends and not only raising funds but really spreading awareness for this disease and share your story you know you all have unique stories for this disease that a lot of people haven't heard about until it hit someone close to them so we do encourage you to not be afraid to share your story. Go on to our website and sign up for our e-news letter we put that out monthly where we'll feature events the patients have done for us you know if there's a new therapy if there's some something in the news we'll feature those out there if there's interest in clinical trial accrual we'll tell you how you can can participate in the clinical trial and then I would also encourage you to make a donation you can do by mailing us a check making an online contribution and we really you know can't do what we do without all of your support so again thank you and as I mentioned please visit our website can be cancer.org if you haven't we've got ways to contact us phone email and we're always happy to help you in any way that we can so I hope that you enjoy the meeting today I will be outside throughout the day so if you have any other questions about the organization I'd be happy to speak with you thank you