Sept. 4–5, 2019 • Houston, Texas
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Building upon the success of 2018’s Interim Workshop on Cancer Immune Responsiveness (CIR), the goal of this year’s CIR workshop was the continued advancement of knowledge in the field about interactions between the immune system and cancer that contribute to immunotherapy response and resistance.
During this two-day workshop, participants took part in both didactic sessions and working groups to identify and address key questions in the field concerning cancer immune responsiveness.
Topics discussed included:
- The role of host genetics and epigenetics in immune responsiveness
- Transcription patterns indicative of distinct tumor immune landscapes
- Novel therapeutic strategies and related analytical approaches that involve modification of the tumor microenvironment
- Circumstantial/environmental factors that may help determine the immunological constant of rejection in the context of cancer
Attendee participation will greatly assist in defining and expanding upon pivotal questions concerning mechanisms of cancer immune responsiveness/resistance in order to advance improved therapeutic strategies and patient benefit with immunotherapy. It is anticipated that the efforts of numerous attendee-driven working groups will further momentum in the field by continuing discussions aimed at addressing the critical questions generated within this workshop well into the future.
This second-year workshop sought to further the suggestions and recommendations derived from the 2018 workshop, educate the scientific community on the status and direction of immunotherapy research related to immune responsiveness and culminate in a manuscript to be submitted for publication in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC).
Program ORGANIZERS
Alessandra Cesano, MD, PhD – ESSA Pharma Inc.
Francesco M. Marincola, MD – Refuge Biotechnologies, Inc.
Who should attend?
- Scientists in the fields of immunology, cell biology, genetics and computational biology
- Clinicians and researchers from academia and industry who wish to address the main questions relevant to immune responsiveness and contribute to a guideline about the strategies to pursue these questions
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of this meeting, participants will be able to:
- Summarize tumor and immune mechanisms contributing to immunotherapy response and resistance
- Discern the roles of the host’s genetic background and environmental modifiers in cancer immune biology
- Describe methods used to characterize the genetic landscape of the tumor, host immune system
(including roles of adaptive versus innate immunity), and the tumor microenvironment
- Summarize common predictors of immune responsiveness
- Describe in vivo models that can be used to develop novel immunotherapeutic strategies
This program has been supported, in part, by grants from Celgene Corporation, NanoString Technologies, Inc., Pfizer, Inc., and Refuge Biotechnologies.