Session I: TILs
2:25-3:45 p.m. PDT

Moderator: John Haanen, MD, PhD – Netherlands Cancer Institute 

Inducing Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses in the Tumor Microenvironment with TIL Engineered to Express Regulated Membrane-bound IL15 and LIGHT (TNFSF14)
Jan ter Meulen, MD, PhD – Obsidian Therapeutics

Influencers Impacting Success of TIL Therapy for Metastatic Melanoma
Inge Marie Svane, MD, PhD – Copenhagen University Hospital

(124) Tumor-reactive CD8+ T cells correlate with the clinical benefit of adoptive cell therapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for patients with metastatic melanoma; observations from a phase III trial
Joachim Stoltenborg Granhøj – Copenhagen University Hospital

(133) Personalized, Autologous Neoantigen-Specific T cell Therapy in Metastatic Melanoma: Phase I Clinical and Translational Results and Potency Enhancement through Gene-Knock Out
Marit M. Van Buuren, PhD – BioNTech US

Keynote Address
1:10–2:10 p.m. PDT

Moderator: Evan W. Weber, PhD – University of Pennsylvania 

Learnings from TIL for Melanoma
John Haanen, MD, PhD – Netherlands Cancer Institute

Question and Answer

Session II: TCR Gene Therapy – From Private to Public Antigen Targeting
3:45–5:10 p.m. PDT

Moderator: Christopher A. Klebanoff, MD – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 

Decoding T cell Immunity Against Cancer Using Genetic Screens
Wouter Scheper, PhD – Netherlands Cancer Institute 

Targeting Fusion-Derived Public Neoantigens Using TCR Gene Therapy
Christopher A. Klebanoff, MD – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Development, Clinical Efficacy and Translational Analysis of PRAME Targeting with TCR Transduced T cells via IMA203
Jason J. Luke, MD, FACP – UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

(33) Immunogenic landscape and therapeutic targeting of mutant NRAS ”public” neoantigens
Inaki Etxeberria, PhD – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Session III: CAR Makes, Models and Trials 2025
9:05–10:25 a.m. PDT

Moderator: Daniel J. Powell, Jr., PhD – University of Pennsylvania 

Next Generation CAR T cells for Solid Cancers
Crystal Mackall, MD, FAIO – Stanford University

Engineering a Potent T cell Response Against Melanoma
Cristina Puig-Saus, PhD – University of California, Los Angeles

Custom CAR Designs
Daniel J. Powell, Jr., PhD – University of Pennsylvania

(30) B7-H3-CAR T cells Expressing 41BB Ligand for Pediatric Solid Tumors: Preliminary Results of a Phase 1 Study
Rebecca Epperly, MD – St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

(120) ALLO-316 in patients with advanced or metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC): Updated safety and efficacy from the phase 1 TRAVERSE multicenter study
Samer Srour, MD, MS – The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Session VI:  Strategies to Enhance T cell Fitness and Potency
2:20–3:40 p.m. PDT

Moderator: Evan W. Weber, PhD – University of Pennsylvania 

Genetic Modification Strategies to Improve CAR T cell Function
Stephen Gottschalk, MD – St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Rewiring the Transcriptome and Epigenome to Enhance CAR T cell Fitness
Evan W. Weber, PhD – University of Pennsylvania

(66) Drug-regulatable, inducible, and membrane-bound interleukin 12 (IL-12TM-D) for use in adoptive cell therapies against advanced solid tumors
Sanghyun Peter Kim, PhD – National Cancer Institute

(98) Systematic discovery of CRISPR-boosted CAR T cell immunotherapies
Eugenia Pankevich, MSc – CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine

Session IV:  Everything but the T cell
10:25–11:45 a.m. PDT

Moderator: Jennifer L. Guerriero, PhD – Brigham and Women's Hospital 

Novel Tumor Microenvironment Modulation Approaches for Enhanced Immunotherapy
Rizwan Romee, MD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

A Framework for Addressing Barriers to CAR T Cell Therapy in Solid Tumors
Gordon Moody, MS – AstraZeneca

(21) Interleukin 12 genetically engineered myeloid cell therapy with cyclophosphamide and fludarabine preconditioning reconfigures the myeloid compartment in a syngeneic mouse model of osteosarcoma
James Cronk, MD, PhD – National Cancer Institute

(101) Myeloid Populations Modulate GD2 CAR T cell Activity in Diffuse Midline Glioma Patients
Sneha Ramakrishna, MD – Stanford University

Session V:  The Tumor Microenvironment – Understanding and Engineering Effective Immunotherapy
1–2:20 p.m. PDT

Moderator: Christine Brown, PhD – City of Hope 

CAR T cell Therapy for Solid Tumor
Renier J. Brentjens, MD, PhD – Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

Clinical Insights into the Tumor Microenvironment and its Impact on CAR T-Cell Therapy
Christine Brown, PhD – City of Hope

(81) Acquired CAR-T therapy resistance in a pre-clinical model of pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma minimal residual disease
Amanda Lulu, PhD – University of Virginia

Workshop: Searching Predictive Biomarkers with Innovative Technologies 
9:40–11:20 a.m. PDT 

Moderator: Christine Brown, PhD – City of Hope 

Melanoma-intrinsic and Microenvironment Features Associated with Tumor-reactive T cell Infiltration
Katie Campbell, PhD – University of California, Los Angeles

Uncovering Immune Correlates of Efficacy in TIL Therapy in Metastatic Melanoma
George Coukos, MD, PhD – Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne Branch

What Can Neoantigen-specific T cells Teach Us About Human Antitumor Immunity?
Sri Krishna, PhD – National Cancer Institute

Panel Discussion 

Session VIII:  Novel Targets for Solid Tumor Cell Therapies
1–2:10 p.m. PDT

Moderator: Christopher A. Klebanoff, MD – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 

Driving New CARs Through Intracellular Targets
Mark Yarmarkovich, PhD – NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Constructing a Library of T cell Receptors Specific to Class I and Class II Restricted Tumor Antigens for Personalized T cell Receptor Engineered Therapies
James R. Heath, PhD – Institute for Systems Biology

Tumor-wide RNA Splicing Aberrations Generate Therapeutically Actionable Public Neoantigens
Hideho Okada, MD, PhD – University of California, San Francisco

(53) CAR T cells targeting GPC2 mediate potent activity against high-risk medulloblastoma
Sabine Heitzeneder, MD – Stanford University

Session VII: Next Generation Engineering Strategies for Cell Therapy
8:05–9:25 a.m. PDT

Moderator: Daniel J. Powell, Jr., PhD – University of Pennsylvania 

In vivo Screening to Identify Regulators of CAR T cell Persistence and Efficacy
Robert Manguso, PhD – Broad Institute

Functional Genomics Screens to enhance CAR-T cells
Julia Carnevale, MD – University of California, San Francisco 

Ex vivo and In vivo CRISPR Editing to Reprogram T cell Function
Justin Eyquem, PhD – University of California, San Francisco

(85) A novel CD28-mutant CAR improves IL-2 secretion and enhances antitumor efficacy in a model of pancreatic cancer
Elena Martinez Planes, MS – Moffitt Cancer Center

(112) A next generation immune cell engineering platform to create multifunctional solid tumor cell therapies using a silicon membrane-based delivery system
Anil Narasimha, PhD – Portal Biotechnologies

Research Highlights: Abstract Presentations
3:55–4:55 p.m. PDT 

Moderator: Jennifer L. Guerriero, PhD – Brigham and Women's Hospital 

(28) A phase 1/2 study evaluating the safety and efficacy of autologous TAC T cells in subjects with claudin 18.2+ advanced solid tumors
Ecaterina Dumbrava, MD – The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

(37) Targeting SPP1 overcomes tumor microenvironment-driven resistance to CAR T cell therapy in solid tumors
Sharareh Gholamin, MD, PhD – City of Hope

(49) Identification of novel genes associated with CAR T persistence in solid tumors
Robert Hapke, BA – University of Pennsylvania, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

(109) A multicenter phase 2 trial of lifileucel plus pembrolizumab in patients with checkpoint inhibitor-naive metastatic NSCLC: updated results
Adam Schoenfeld, MD – Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

(132) Trop2-targeting chimeric antigen receptor-natural killer (CAR-NK) cell therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma
Ranjan Upadhyay, MD, PhD – The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

4:55 p.m.

(146) Senolytic CAR T Cells with Cancer-Agnostic Potential
Zeda Zhang, PhD – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center