Although it looks like only yesterday, more than 5 years have gone by from the time that the executive committee members of the Middle-Eastern Association for Cancer Research (MEACR), announced the birth of the MEACR and its official journal, Clinical Cancer Investigation journal (CCIJ) at Aleppo University/Aleppo-Syria in May 2010. Few months before, December 2009, the MEACR was officially registered in Montreal-Canada, as a nonprofit association, that aims to enhance the exchange between clinicians, cancer researchers, graduate-students and other health workers who deal with cancer patients in all Middle-East (ME) countries and the world. To reach its goal, the MEACR was planning to organize an annual meeting in a different country in the ME each year in collaboration with a local university or foundation, in addition to publishing a peer review scientific journal. Therefore, the MEACR meetings were held at Aleppo University (Aleppo-Syria), Tanta University (Tanta-Egypt), Sfax Biotechnology Centre (Sfax-Tunisia), Mohamed V University (Rabat-Morocco), and in collaboration with Cadi Ayyad University (Marrakech-Morocco) in 2014.

In this context, I would like to mention that the fourth annual meeting of the MEACR in Marrakech-Morocco was successful and very well organized, like our previous meetings; our meeting was supported by several local sponsors (Pharmaceutical companies). The number of the participants was around 240 and the majority of them were young oncologists. Meanwhile, several prominent oncologists and cancer scientists form western countries including Canada, France and the USA participated, as key speakers, in this meeting. The executive committee members of the MEACR would like to thank the organizing team of the fourth annual meeting for their excellent job. Therefore and based on the recommendation of the organizing team, we have decided to publish the abstract of this meeting in the CCIJ, as a supplementary issue, of 2015.

Regarding the MEACR′s official journal, The CCIJ today is publishing its fourth volume. To date, more than 500 authors across the world participated in the success of the journal with the active contribution of more than 550 reviewers worldwide that volunteered the progress of the CCIJ. Thus, we would like to thank all our authors and reviewers who joined us in this adventure; meanwhile, we wish to acknowledge all the editorial members of the CCIJ for their excellent job.

Hence, it is clear that the past years have been successful for the MEACR and the CCIJ; and we hope to continue our work to fight cancer in the ME through the MEACR and its activities. On the other hand, we still have smaller battles to conquer in order to reach complete financial independence and hopefully be able one day to offer funding for cancer research in the ME. However, presently we are still trying to find sponsors to support certain activities such as the website and the publication of the CCIJ. Accordingly, we take this opportunity to call all private and public companies in the ME countries to support the MEACR and its fight against cancer in this region.

The MEACR today exist thanks to the personal dedication and help of several colleagues, oncologist and cancer scientists, from ME and around the world, who have made their contribution to the current position of the MEACR; thus, I am sure that we will be able to continue the success of our association and its journal with their continued support. Finally, I would like to invite all oncologists and cancer scientists worldwide and especially from the ME to join us to fight cancer through their contributions to the MEACR activities.