The goal of this International Symposium is to bring together the scientists worldwide that are working on cancer stem cells to highlight the most recent progress in phenotyping, characterizing, and targeting cancer stem cells in different tumor systems. The Symposium will start Thursday (Oct. 17) with the Keynote talk by John Dick, Ph.D (University of Toronto) who will dissect tumor cell heterogeneity generated via genetic versus non-genetic mechanisms. Max Wicha, M.D (University of Michigan) will deliver another Keynote talk on Sat. (Oct. 19) by updating the current status of moving cancer stem cell-targeting therapeutics to the clinic. The Symposium also features talks from leading stem cell and cancer stem cell researchers including Weiqiang Gao, Bill Matsui, JP Medema, Luis Parada, Duanqin Pei, Gang Pei, Richard Pestell, Jeremy Rich, Micheal Shen, Jane Visvader, Hong Wu, and others. The Symposium will have two poster sessions and conclude in the afternoon of Saturday (Oct. 19).