19th Annual Koch Institute Summer Symposium on Cancer Immunotherapy, June 12, 2020 at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
Summer Symposium 2020
Engineering the Next Wave of Immunotherapy
The 19th Annual Koch Institute Summer Symposium on June 12, 2020 at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium will focus on cancer immunotherapy.
Cancer immunotherapy has revolutionized the landscape of cancer treatment, our thinking of tumor biology and clinical practice. Following the groundbreaking successes of checkpoint blockade therapy and CAR T cell therapy, culminating in multiple FDA-approved treatments and the awarding of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine to Jim Allison and Tasuku Honjo, the field is currently at a critical juncture.
While checkpoint blockade therapy has demonstrated that the immune system can be harnessed to fight cancer, the next generation of treatments will require us to understand what causes resistance in non-responders, how this can be overcome, and how these issues are best addressed clinically. Discussing these questions will be at the core of this symposium as we move towards our ultimate goal to increase the number of patients benefiting from immunotherapy.
Session Speakers
Targeting T Cells
Rafi Ahmed, Michael Dougan, Chris Love
Thinking Beyond T Cells
Angelika Amon, Yasemine Belkaid, Stefani Spranger
Engineering Clinical Translation
Nina Bhardwaj, Chris Garcia
Panel Discussion: Clinical Translation: A Real Life Perspective
Daniel Chen, Howard Kaufman, Kimberly Schaefer-Weaver
Moderator: Steven Silverstein
SOURCE
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Amandeep Kaur
Aashir Awan, Phd
Abhisar Anand
Adina Hazan
Alan F. Kaul, PharmD., MS, MBA, FCCP
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anamikasarkar
apreconasia
aviralvatsa
David Orchard-Webb, PhD
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Demet Sag, Ph.D., CRA, GCP
Dror Nir
dsmolyar
Ethan Coomber
evelinacohn
Gail S Thornton
Irina Robu
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jshertok
kellyperlman
Ed Kislauskis
larryhbern
Madison Davis
marzankhan
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ofermar2020
Dr. Pati
pkandala
Rosalind Codrington, PhD
ritusaxena
Rick Mandahl
sjwilliamspa
Srinivas Sriram
stuartlpbi
Dr. Sudipta Saha
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This is very insightful. There is no doubt that there is the bias you refer to. 42 years ago, when I was postdocing in biochemistry/enzymology before completing my residency in pathology, I knew that there were very influential mambers of the faculty, who also had large programs, and attracted exceptional students. My mentor, it was said (although he was a great writer), could draft a project on toilet paper and call the NIH. It can’t be true, but it was a time in our history preceding a great explosion. It is bizarre for me to read now about eNOS and iNOS, and about CaMKII-á, â, ã, ä – isoenzymes. They were overlooked during the search for the genome, so intermediary metabolism took a back seat. But the work on protein conformation, and on the mechanism of action of enzymes and ligand and coenzyme was just out there, and became more important with the research on signaling pathways. The work on the mechanism of pyridine nucleotide isoenzymes preceded the work by Burton Sobel on the MB isoenzyme in heart. The Vietnam War cut into the funding, and it has actually declined linearly since.
A few years later, I was an Associate Professor at a new Medical School and I submitted a proposal that was reviewed by the Chairman of Pharmacology, who was a former Director of NSF. He thought it was good enough. I was a pathologist and it went to a Biochemistry Review Committee. It was approved, but not funded. The verdict was that I would not be able to carry out the studies needed, and they would have approached it differently. A thousand young investigators are out there now with similar letters. I was told that the Department Chairmen have to build up their faculty. It’s harder now than then. So I filed for and received 3 patents based on my work at the suggestion of my brother-in-law. When I took it to Boehringer-Mannheim, they were actually clueless.