 Good morning and thank you for coming on behalf of the kidney cancer Association You know she really appreciate all the effort that's gone into organizing this Wonderful event and you know, it's a really important regional conference for us to support and to be able to put on every year Just to give you a little bit of context on my involvement the kidney cancer Association I started working with them a little bit over five years ago doing projects and helping them with their organizational structure And I have since been put to become a board member and so I'm a board member for about three years now and I've Really really loved being part of the kidney cancer Association and being able to attend events like this and and being engaged in such an important Such an important program So just to give you a little bit of context in the kidney cancer Association and a little bit of history It's this is actually the 25th year of its existence The kidney cancer Association has three goals Patient research and and education advocacy for those patients and then promoting new research in 1990 Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld was diagnosed with kidney cancer and at the time there wasn't a lot of good options And there wasn't a lot of information out there. And so he actually had a challenge from his doctor. Well do something about it Dr. Schoenfeld decided to start the kidney cancer Association as a way to start getting information out there as a way to help other patients and And you know to promote new new treatments and your cures for kidney cancer Years later, we have a much better situation. There's as You know as we're just discussing there's new treatments There's a lot of therapies out there that were not around the beginning of the kidney cancer Association There's targeted therapies. There's new clinical trials, but there's also plenty of room for us to go the kidney cancer Association is It's not it's an international organization and it's really comprised of everybody It's the patients the families the survivors the caregivers nurses doctors, and it's a group that transcends international borders The mission is clear reduce suffering Mortality and incidents of kidney cancer globally through collaborative education research and patient advocacy To that end there's two main pillars of activities that the kidney cancer Association conducts in order to achieve these goals First of all from patient perspective. It's to get out information There's a hundred supporting conferences and in meetings on a regional and local basis including four larger ones like this on an every year In addition to kidney cancer as a comprehensive set of resources on its website without I'd encourage you to check out kidneycancer.org is the domain Additionally, you can find kidney cancer Association on Facebook on Twitter and a number of social media outlets on the on the kidneycancer.org website There's a wealth of resources including literature Videos of conferences like this and probably this conference later Information sees on drugs The option to have live chats with nurses, you know 24 hours a day And so there's constantly resources available if you have any questions on the kidney cancer website in addition that we have kidney cancer literature that they have The that we have updated and and kept going is something that is you can download you can purchase you can have it Shipped to you. There's a number of different ways to get this literature. We actually have several copies outside as well This is something that's reviewed every year through a nurse practitioners group that we're involved with and is Constantly kept up to date. So again, I really I really would encourage you to go if you haven't already spent some time on the kidney cancer.org website In addition to the patient patient education Any cancer Association is very involved in research and promoting new research Every year there are a number of grants that are given to young investigators Who are beginning their careers in order to help them find their research and start their commitment to kidney cancer as young Principal investigators. In addition, there's a number of symposiums both local and international. There's generally one in Chicago There have been in Dublin and Singapore and other locales around the world These symposiums offer a really important opportunity for researchers and doctors to get together This is where doctors are educated on new treatments and there's there's a lot of discussion on What the the current trends are and and important places for them to change their their practice in addition This is where papers are presented as new research and exciting developments are are Coming to fruit coming to bear fruit And so this is another area where the kidney cancer Association really focused a lot of its effort and a lot of its resources to try to Push for the the research for for this important important disease Thank you very much, and I really appreciate you all coming today