I hope you are enjoyed the Winter Olympics while we all wait for spring to come. This time of year is kind of like the Winter Olympics for our early career professionals as the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) launches many programs designed for early career scientists (ECS) and our ECS members prepare applications for our prestigious ECS programs. These programs are made possible by donations to the Forward Fund.

First off, our 2022 SITC Fellowships and Technology Award opportunities have hit new heights with over $680,000 available for early career scientists to advance their research. We are proudly offering eight individual fellowships with two specifically for underrepresented populations. SITC early career members are encouraged to apply.

The next program is Sparkathon 2.0 Accelerator. This year-long program is designed to foster leadership development, collaborations and scientific exchange among early career investigators over the course of two in-person retreats. This year’s class will focus on optimizing combination therapy based on immunological mechanisms. Attendees will have their research on this topic discussed by the leaders in the field during the two retreats, which feature a nearly 1:1 attendee to faculty ratio.

This month SITC is also launching a new initiative called Celebrating SITC Members. This is a great opportunity to highlight our incredible members and let you know what is new in their research or patient care and an opportunity for you to learn a little about what they do while they are not trying to cure cancer with immunotherapy. This month our spotlight is on Ms. Taylor Wilson. If you attended SITC 2021, you saw Ms. Wilson as the winner of our Presidential Award for her abstract on T cells. Here is a brief video that Ms. Wilson made to share a little bit about what she is working on now.

Another inspiring development that was announced this month was the reigniting of the Cancer Moonshot^SM, aiming to end cancer as we know it today. At SITC, we stand with President Biden and share his vision of reducing the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years and improving the experience of people and their families living with and surviving cancer. The development of immunotherapy treatments was a critical factor in bringing the death rate from cancer down initially and we know that continued refinement of immunotherapy treatments by our members will be a linchpin in achieving the next 50 percent drop.

I appreciate your time today and I will see you next month where we will feature our Fireside Chat with Dr. Carl June. I am eager to dig into his legendary career, learn about his research and the future of T-cell engineering for cancer.

Sincerely,