Cancer Immunology & Immunotherapy 2008:
From Discovery to Development to Drug
Sept. 15-17, 2008
James P. Allison, Ph.D.
Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy,
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Plenary Lecture Title: Checkpoint blockade in tumor therapy: New insights and opportunities
Dr. Allison was the first person to isolate the T-cell antigen receptor protein, a feat which has been called one of the three most important findings in immunology in the last 20 years. He also carried out pioneering studies showing the existence of a previously unrecognized class of T cells that expressed an alternative form of antigen receptor that were located in epithelial tissues. His work over the last several years has demonstrated that T-cell activation is considerably more complex than originally thought, and involves integration of at least three signals: activating signals generated by recognition of specific antigens by the antigen receptor; costimulatory signals generated by engagement of CD28 on the T cell surface; and competing inhibitory signals mediated by the CD28 homologue CTLA-4. Dr. Allison was the first to show that one of the reasons that tumor cells avoid immune responses is that they lack the molecules that provide the CD28 mediated costimulatory signals. More recently, he has shown that blockade of the inhibitory signals of CTLA-4 can greatly enhance immune responses, including those directed against tumors. CTLA-4 blockade is currently in clinical trials and shows considerable promise in immunotherapy of human cancer. His group has recently identified a family of co-inhibitory molecules expressed on tumor cells that seem to contribute to disease progression, perhaps by limiting anti-tumor immune responses. Dr. Allison is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served as president of the American Association of Immunologists. He has received numerous awards, including the Centeon Award for Innovative Breakthroughs in Immunology and the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology.
David Berman, M.D., Ph.D.
Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, NJ
Plenary Lecture Title: Potential biomarkers of immune activation in Ipilimumab-treated patients with advanced melanoma
Dr. Berman received both his M.D. and Ph.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He completed his residency at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and his fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Berman was an attending pathologist at the National Cancer Institute, where he conducted translational biomarker studies focused on melanoma and immunotherapy. In 2005, he joined Bristol-Myers Squibb where he conducted early-phase and biomarker clinical trials.
Michael J. Bevan, Ph.D.
University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA
Plenary Lecture Title: Antigen presentation and the T-cell response
Dr. Bevan is a professor of immunology at the University of Washington, Seattle. He received his Ph.D. at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London, England. He did his postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Melvin Cohn. He was then an assistant and associate professor of biology in the Center for Cancer Research and the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Bevan received the 2008 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology for his discovery of cross-presentation and positive selection of T cells. Dr. Bevan’s work has also uncovered much about the molecular signals that are required during an infection to drive the differentiation of CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes into long-lived memory cells. He was a member of the Department of Immunology at the Scripps Research Institute before moving to the University of Washington. Dr. Bevan is a fellow of the Royal Society of London and was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Vincenzo Bronte, M.D.
Istituto Oncologico Veneto and Venetian Institute for Molecular Medicine, Padova, Italy
Plenary Lecture Title: Myeloid-derived suppressor cells in cancer
Dr. Bronte received his doctor of medicine at the University of Padova in Padova, Italy, specializing in allergy and clinical immunology. He went on to join the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, in 1994 as an exchange scientist to work in the field of recombinant viral vaccines for cancer therapy. He is now coordinating a research group focused on immunosuppression strategies used by tumors, with the aim to design new approaches for effective anti-tumor immunotherapy. Dr. Bronte holds positions in Padova, Italy, as clinical associate in the Department of Oncology and Surgical Sciences at the Istituto Oncologico Veneto, the contract professor of immunology and pathology for Medicine Faculty at the University of Padova, and the group leader at the Venetian Institute for Molecular Medicine. He is author of 68 publications in peer review journals and on the editorial boards of Current Gene Therapy and the Journal of Translational Medicine. In 2007, Dr. Bronte won the International Prize “Francesco De Luca” for scientific oncology career awarded by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, Italy.
George Coukos, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA
Plenary Lecture Title: Open sesame: The endothelin (B) receptor mediates the tumor endothelial barrier to T-cell homing
Dr. Coukos is a tenured associate professor in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology and directs the Gynecologic Malignancy Research Program at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2005, Dr. Coukos was appointed the Celso Ramon Garcia Chair in Reproductive Biology, and in 2007, the Ovarian Cancer Research Center was established with Dr. Coukos as its director. Dr. Coukos is best known for his effort and contributions in translational research on understanding the immune system's response to ovarian cancer. His findings provide the first proof that a spontaneous immune response against the tumor dramatically impacts the clinical course of ovarian cancer. His current research interests focus on three areas that revolve around the overarching theme of the tumor microenvironment: (1) tumor immune surveillance and tolerance; (2) immune-vascular interactions; and (3) microenvironment editing by tumor cells. Dr. Coukos is currently involved in preclinical research focused on the development and optimization of combinatorial biological therapies and is involved in clinical trials testing immune therapies against ovarian cancer. Dr. Coukos is the recipient of many awards and honors, most notably the ABOG Scholar, American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Foundations (2001), Bristol-Myers Immunology-Oncology Award, Gynecologic Cancer Foundation (2002), Translational Science Award, Sidney Kimmel Foundation (2003), Schwid Award, Gynecologic Cancer Foundation (2003), Liz Tiberis Award, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (2003), Mary Kay Ash Foundation Award (2004), Greenfield Award for “Excellence in Ovarian Cancer Research,” Gynecologic Cancer Foundation (2006), Judah Folkman Award, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (2006), Sir William Osler Award for Excellence in Patient Oriented Research, University of Pennsylvania (2007), and the Philadelphia Crystal Ball Award for Research Excellence in Ovarian Cancer.
Glenn Dranoff, M.D.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
Plenary Lecture Title: Balancing tumor immunity and inflammation
Dr. Dranoff received his B.S. from Duke University and his M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and a clinical fellowship in medical oncology at DFCI. He received postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute. His research focuses on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the stimulation of antitumor immunity, and on the development of cancer vaccines. Dr. Dranoff is the leader of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Program in Immunology and co-leader of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Cancer Vaccine Center. He is an associate director of the Cancer Research Institute Scientific Advisory Council, a member of the Academy of Cancer Immunology, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and the Osler Interurban Clinical Club, and is a Leukemia/Lymphoma Society Stohlman Scholar. He is director of the Human Gene Transfer Laboratory and a staff member of the departments of medical oncology and hematologic neoplasia at Dana-Farber, and is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Wolf H. Fridman, M.D., Ph.D.
University Paris Descartes and University Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
Plenary Lecture Title: Shaping an efficient adaptive immune microenvironment in human cancer
Dr. Fridman received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Paris, France. After ten years in the laboratory headed by Jean Dausset, he created his own laboratory at the Cancer Research Centre in Villejuif in 1976, and then moved to Institut Curie in 1983. Dr. Fridman is presently director of the Cordeliers Research Centre, a joint research structure between INSERM, University Paris Descartes and University Pierre et Marie Curie. He is also head of the Immunology Laboratory of European Hospital Georges Pompidou in Paris. Dr Fridman’s research interests have been focused around the role of the immune system in controlling human tumors and the biological functions of receptors for IgG antibodies, both through basic and translational approaches.
Sacha Gnjatic, Ph.D.
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research,
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Plenary Lecture Title: Identification of immunogenic markers in pancreatic and ovarian cancer by seromics
Dr. Gnjatic’s first contact with immunology was during his junior year abroad at University College London while attending classes of Dr. Av Mitchison. On his return to Paris, he received his undergraduate degree from University of Paris VI and VII and continued his graduate degree at Ecole Normale Supérieure, which included an advanced course in immunology at Institute Pasteur. He completed his Ph.D. in Dr. Jean Gerard Guillet’s laboratory at Institute Cochin, where he worked on recognition of the p53 tumor antigen by human T cells. He continued his interest in tumor immunology at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in New York with Dr. Lloyd Old working on defining the repertoire of CD8 and CD4 T-cell responses against cancer/testis antigen NY-ESO-1 and their relation to antibody responses. He joined the Ludwig Institute after finishing his postdoctoral studies and helped to establish the immunomonitoring of tumor vaccines centered around cancer/testis antigens for clinical trials. Together with his colleagues, he identified some of the regulatory mechanisms that may prevent successful vaccination with tumor antigens and assessed the potential of innovative platforms such as bacterial vectors or long peptides for the induction of integrated tumor- reactive immunity. Dr. Gnjatic’s most recent focus is to broaden the knowledge of antigens recognized by the immune system of cancer patients by defining the specificity of antibody responses, either naturally occurring or following immunotherapeutic treatment, using proteomic approaches.
Cécile Gouttefangeas, Ph.D.
University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
Plenary Lecture Title: Harmonized T-cell monitoring assays as biomarkers for immunotherapy trials: A data driven approach by the CIMT Immunoguiding Program (“CIP”)
Dr. Gouttefangeas is a scientific associate and group leader at the Institute for Cell Biology, Department of Immunology, and is currently investigating the characterization of the specific CD8+ and CD4+ T-cell repertoire against new tumor antigen-derived epitopes in healthy donors and cancer patients. She is also monitoring the immune response in cancer patients after vaccination by immunotherapy and dysfunctional antigen-specific T cells in healthy donors and cancer patients. Dr. Gouttefangeas is a member of the Association for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (CIMT) and the European Society of Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy (ESCII). She is also a co-organizer of the international CIMT Immunoguiding Program for standardization of T-cell monitoring assays. Dr. Gouttefangeas received her Ph.D. in biology of hematopoietic cells at the University Paris VII, France. Postdoctoral positions followed at the Laboratory of Immune Response and Major Histocompatibility Complex in Toulouse, France, and at the Institute for Cell Biology, Department of Immunology in Tübingen, Germany.
Günter J. Hämmerling
German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Plenary Lecture Title: Control of tumor immunity by the microenvironment: Overcoming the tumor endothelial barrier
Dr. Hämmerling is currently the chairman of the Department of Molecular Immunology at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany, and serves as a professor of medicine at the University of Heidelberg. He received his Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg, Germany, and continued his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School, Palo Alto, California. Dr. Hämmerling’s research focuses on the control of tumor immunity and tolerance by the microenvironment, peripheral tolerance, and antigen presentation. In 1985, Dr. Hämmerling co-founded the European Network of Immunological Institutes. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, on the Executive Board of the Association for Immunotherapy of Cancer, and on the Scientific Advisory Board for the German Center for Rheumatology Research.
Adrian Hayday, MA, Ph.D.
King's College School of Medicine at Guy's Hospital, London, UK
Plenary Lecture Title: Molecules regulating the immunosurveillance of tissues
Dr. Hayday is the Kay Glendinning Professor of Immunobiology and is head of the Division of Immunobiology, Infection, and Inflammatory Diseases at King's College London. A graduate of Queen's College Cambridge, Dr. Hayday obtained his Ph.D. in tumour virology in 1978 and then undertook post-doctoral training at MIT. In 1998, after thirteen years on the faculty of the Departments of Biology and Immunobiology at Yale University, he returned to London, and was appointed to the Kay Glendinning Professor & Chair in the Department of Immunobiology at King's College. He is internationally renowned for his work in immunology and has published more than120 papers. He has worked on chromosome translocations causing B-cell neoplasia, and contributed to the cloning of the T-cell receptor (TCR), in particular the unanticipated TCR-gamma chain gene. Together with long-standing collaborators, Dr. Hayday has succeeded in identifying critical roles for gamma-delta cells in primary immunoprotection against solid tumors, and in immunoregulation, particularly with tissues. In 1997, he was awarded the William Clyde DeVane Medal, Yale College's highest honour for teaching and scholarship, and he was elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2002. He advises a number of bodies, including the Wellcome Trust, where he chairs the funding committee in Basic Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and sits on the Strategy Committee.
Kristen M. Hege, M.D.
Cell Genesys, Inc., South San Francisco, CA
Plenary Lecture Title: Potential biomarkers of response to GVAX immunotherapy for prostate cancer
Dr. Hege is the vice president of clinical research and development at Cell Genesys, Inc. During her 14 years there, she has focused on the development of immune and gene therapies for cancer and HIV infection, including adoptive immunotherapy with genetically retargeted T cells and active immunotherapy with cytokine gene-modified tumor cells. Clinical programs have focused on development of GM-CSF gene-modified whole tumor cell immunotherapies (GVAX®) for the treatment of solid tumors (prostate, lung, and pancreatic cancer) and hematologic malignancies (multiple myeloma and leukemia) as well as oncolytic viral therapies based on selectively replicating adenoviral vectors, some of which are armed with GM-CSF (bladder and prostate cancer). Dr. Hege is board-certified in hematology and oncology. She holds a faculty appointment at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she attends part-time on the adult leukemia and bone marrow transplant service. She received her doctor of medicine from UCSF, followed by training in internal medicine at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and hematology/oncology subspecialty training at UCSF. She is a member of the American College of Physicians, American Society of Hematology, American Society of Oncology, American Society of Gene Therapy, and the International Society for the Biologic Therapy of Cancer.
Carl H. June, M.D.
Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Plenary Lecture Title: Updates in adoptive T cell therapy
Dr. June received his bachelor of science in chemistry from the United States Naval Academy and his doctor of medicine from the Baylor College of Medicine. He was a research fellow at the World Health Organization Immunology Research and Training Center, Geneva, Switzerland, a resident in internal medicine at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. He was a fellow in oncology at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, where he did postdoctoral research with Dr. Paul Martin and Dr. John Hansen from 1983 to 1986. From 1986 to 1999, Dr. June was at the Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, where he was promoted to the rank of professor in 1995. From 1999, Dr. June has been at the University of Pennsylvania, where currently he is director of Translational Research Programs and a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Dr. June has authored more than 200 scientific papers and book chapters. His research interests are in the area of lymphocyte biology and adoptive immunotherapy for cancer and infectious diseases.
Frederic Lehmann
GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Rixensart, BelgiumPlenary Lecture Title: Clinical response to the MAGE-A3 immunotherapeutic in metastatic melanoma patients is associated with a specific gene profile present to prior treatment
Dr. Lehmann is director of Clinical Research and Development at GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, where he is leading the early clinical development of the Antigen-Specific Cancer Immunotherapeutic (ASCI) program. The aim of this approach is to actively educate the patient’s immune defenses to recognize molecules expressed on the tumor cells and to kill those tumor cells. ASCIs are made of tumor-specific antigens, delivered as recombinant proteins and combined with potent immunological Adjuvant Systems. The ASCI clinical development targets different tumor antigens in numerous cancer diseases. Dr. Lehmann completed an internship in internal medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain and a clinical fellowship in medical oncology at the Institute Jules Bordet, Free University of Brussels. His specific area of clinical research interest was early clinical development of novel immunologic therapies, with expertise in the treatment of metastatic melanoma. He received postdoctoral training at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. His research focused on T cell tumor immunology and developing cancer vaccines.
Hyam Levitsky, M.D.
John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Plenary Lecture Title: Lymphocyte homeostasis and tumor-specific immunity during immune reconstitution
Dr. Hyam Levitsky is professor of oncology, medicine, and urology at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Levitsky’s laboratory research has focused on basic studies of antigen processing and presentation, T-cell co-stimulation, T-cell priming versus tolerance, molecular imaging of host anti-tumor immunity, and the evolution of tumor-specific immunity during immune reconstitution. He is a co-inventor of a genetically modified GM-CSF (granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor) secreting tumor cell vaccines (GVAX) now in phase III clinical trials for treatment of prostate cancer and phase II trials for acute and chronic myeloid leukemia, multiple myeloma, and pancreas cancer. At Johns Hopkins, Dr. Levitsky is the scientific director of the George Santos Bone Marrow Transplant Program, where he has led efforts to integrate therapeutic cancer vaccines during immune reconstitution following high dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation. Dr. Levitsky has received a number of awards for his research, including the Stohlman Scholars Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation of America, The Senior Research Award from the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, Research Awards from the CapCURE Foundation, The American Cancer Society, and the National Institutes of Health. In 2001, he was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He is a member of the Cancer Research Institute Cancer Vaccine Consortium Executive Committee. Dr. Levitsky received his undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania, and his medical degree at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Ellen Puré, Ph.D.
The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA, and
The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, New York, NY
Plenary Lecture Title: Targeting a stromal cell protease inhibits tumor growth
Dr. Puré earned her A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical School. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University where she then joined the faculty. In 1992, Dr. Puré moved to the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she is currently professor of cellular and molecular oncogenesis and professor of medicine, microbiology and pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Puré’s laboratory studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms of inflammation. In recent years, they have revealed several novel mechanisms of regulation of type I inflammation including the regulation of IL-12 by endogenous pathways that mediate inflammation in response to tissue injury or organ dysfunction in the absence of infection. These pathways include receptors for modified matrix components such as CD44 and its ligand hyaluronan (proteins involved in lipid metabolism), and they recently demonstrated that 12/15-lipoxygenase (which catalyzes the metabolism of unsaturated fatty acids) selectively regulates IL-12 family cytokines by macrophages. In the course of these studies, they established that 12/15-lipoxygenase plays critical roles in chronic inflammation and in hematopoiesis and is a suppressor of leukemogenesis. The role of mesenchymal cells (including fibroblasts and smooth muscle cells) in chronic inflammatory diseases such as atherosclerosis and pulmonary fibrosis is a particular focus of the lab’s research. They have also recently expanded these studies to investigate the role of mesenchymal cell stromagenesis and extracellular matrix in the initiation and progression of epithelial-derived tumors.
Jeffrey V. Ravetch, M.D., Ph.D.
The Rockefeller University, New York, NY
Plenary Lecture Title: A general mechanism for anti-tumor therapy based on Fc receptor engagement
Dr. Ravetch is currently the Theresa and Eugene Lang Professor at The Rockefeller University and head of the Leonard Wagner Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology. He earned his doctorate at The Rockefeller University – Cornell Medical School M.D./Ph.D., program in genetics and his doctor of medicine from Cornell University Medical School. His postdoctoral studies were at the National Institutes of Health, where he identified and characterized the genes for the human immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody and the DNA elements involved in switch recombination. As a faculty member of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell Medical College Dr. Ravetch and colleagues in his laboratory cloned the first genes for Fc receptors, identified the SHIP inhibitory receptor signaling pathway, and contributed significantly to understanding the mechanisms of antibody-mediated effector responses, establishing the FcR pathways as fundamental components of the immune response. In addition to his studies on antibody receptors, Dr. Ravetch has made fundamental contributions to the genetics of the malaria parasite and, with the identification of the first cytokine, IP-10, established this class of molecules as novel mediators of inflammation. He has served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Cancer Research Institute, the Irvington Institute for Immunological Research, and the Damon Runyon Foundation. He has also served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Exelexis Pharmaceuticals, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Medimmune, Genentech, and Novartis. He founded MacroGenics in 2000 with Leroy Hood, Alan Aderem, and Reudi Aebersold and Virdante Pharmaceuticals in 2007. Also in 2007, Dr. Ravetch received the 2007 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology.
Michel Sadelain, M.D., Ph.D.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Plenary Lecture Title: Targeting tumors with genetically enhanced T lymphocytes
Dr. Sadelain is currently the director of the Gene Transfer and Somatic Cell Engineering Facility and the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). He is also a member of the Department of Medicine and Immunology Program, the Molecular Pharmacology and Chemistry Program at MSKCC. He received his M.D. from the University of Paris, France in 1984 and his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Canada in 1989. Dr. Sadelain’s present research goals include aims to genetically target T cells to the PSM antigen, engineering safe allogeneic T cells for adoptive cell therapy, investigating genetic approaches for promoting donor T cell recognition of host Leukemia and controlling adoptively transferred T cells in vivo, and perfecting technologies for imaging genetically modified, adoptively transferred T lymphocytes in tumor-bearing mice. Until 2007, Dr. Sadelain was the co-chair of the program committee and on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Gene Therapy. He is also a member of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Gene Therapy Resource Program review panel and on the Curriculum Planning Committee at the Sloan-Kettering Institute.
Robert D. Schreiber, Ph.D.
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO
Plenary Lecture Title: Cancer immunoediting: Molecular pathways to possible novel therapeutic interventions
Dr. Schreiber is current program leader in tumor immunology at The Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center of the Washington University School of Medicine. He also holds a position as the Alumni Endowed Professor of Pathology and Immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York in Buffalo, New York, as well as at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Dr. Schreiber serves as a member of both the Publications and the Finance Committees for The American Association of Immunologists, a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors for the National Cancer Institute, the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Kennedy Institute of Rhematology, associate director of the Scientific Advisory Council for the Cancer Research Institute, an affiliate of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and part of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His most recent honors include The William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute, The Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Prize for Cancer Research, and the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Washington University School of Medicine.
Padmanee Sharma, M.D., Ph.D.
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Plenary Lecture Title: Immunologic impact of anti-CTLA-4 antibody
Dr. Sharma is a physician scientist in the Departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC). She is an assistant professor whose translational research work is focused on understanding which components of the human immune system can be manipulated by immunotherapeutic strategies to lead to tumor regression. She designs relevant clinical trials and enrolls patients from her clinic onto these protocols. She is also involved in conducting laboratory research on collected patient samples as part of her ongoing studies. She received her Ph.D. in immunology from Pennsylvania State University, and completed her postdoctoral training in tumor immunology in Dr. Lloyd Old's laboratory. She also received her M.D. from Pennsylvania State University and completed her medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in 2004. She has received many distinguished awards including the ASCO Young Investigator Award, the ASCO Career Development Award, the CRI Clinical Investigator Award, the PCF Young Investigator Award, the PCF Challenge Award in Immunology, the Melanoma Research Alliance Young Investigator Award, and the Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Award. Most recently, she was also appointed as the associate clinical director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at MSKCC. This appointment has strengthened her research collaborations between two premier cancer centers, MDACC and MSKCC.
Arlene Sharpe, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA
Plenary Lecture Title: PD-1, PD-L1 and their ligands: Regulating the balance between T cell activation and tolerance
Dr. Sharpe received her Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics from Harvard University in 1981 and doctor of medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1982. She then trained as a resident in anatomic pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, and is board certified in anatomic pathology with an area of expertise in the pathology of infectious diseases. Following postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch at the Whitehead Institute, she joined the faculty in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1991. She currently is the George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology and vice chair for Education, Faculty Development, and Diversity in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Her laboratory focuses on T-cell costimulation as it relates to T-cell activation and tolerance and regulating disease processes including host responses to infection, inflammation, and autoimmunity. Her laboratory has used genetic approaches to determine the obligatory functions of T-cell costimulatory pathways and elucidated in vivo functions of costimulatory molecules, including B7-1 (CD80), B7-2 (CD86), and newer B7 family members and their receptors on lymphocytes as important components of the acquired immune system and critical regulators of T-cell activation and tolerance. Dr. Sharpe served a four-year term as a member of the National Institutes of Health Immunological Sciences Study Section (IMS) and chaired the Hypersensitivity, Autoimmune, and Immune Mediated Diseases (HAI) study section. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Michail V. Sitkovsky, Ph.D.
N.E. Inflammation and Tissue Protection Institute, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Plenary Lecture Title: The hypoxia-adenosinergic protection of tumors from anti-tumor T lymphocytes
Dr. Sitkovsky received his Ph.D. in biophysics and physiology at Moscow State University in 1973. In 1974, he learned about the paradoxical coexistence of tumor and anti-tumor immune cells in the same cancer patient and has been trying to solve this problem ever since. He studied molecular mechanisms of lymphocyte activation in Moscow State University (1970-1981) and at the MIT Center for Cancer Research (1981-1984) first as a postdoctoral fellow with professor Hermann Eisen and then as the research scientist. After 20 years of research of cytotoxic T lymphocytes regulation in normal, inflamed, and cancerous tissues in the Biochemistry and Immunopharmacology Section, Laboratory of Immunology, NIAID, NIH (1984-2004) he moved back to Boston and founded the New England Inflammation and Tissue Protection Institute, a Consortium at Northeastern University. His main interests are to further understand the subtleties of regulation of T cells by the immunosuppressive Hypoxia-Adenosinergic pathway and in “engineering inflammation” by recruiting this pathway to prevent autoimmunity or to weaken the Hypoxia-Adenosinergic protection of tumors from anti-tumor T cells.
Mark J. Smyth, Ph.D.
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victoria, Australia
Plenary Lecture Title: Cancer immunoediting: Recent progress in elimination and equilibrium
Dr. Mark Smyth received his Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne in 1988. During his postdoctoral years at the National Cancer Institute, Frederick, USA (1989-1991), he developed an interest in Natural Killer cells, cytokines, and lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity. He returned to the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and began to study the biological relevance of lymphocyte effector proteins and cytokines in immune control of various cancers. In 2000, Mark relocated to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre as the head of the Cancer Immunology Program. His work on innate immune surveillance of cancer received the 2002 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology and the 2007 Brupbacher Foundation Prize. His recent work has included a major collaboration with Dr. Robert Schreiber on the three phases of cancer immunoediting, and pre-clinical testing of combination chemo-immunotherapies for treating established cancer.
Pramod K. Srivastava, Ph.D.
Center for Immunotherapy of Cancer and Infectious Diseases, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT
Plenary Lecture Title: Molecular nature of the antigenic entity transferred from antigen donor cell to antigen presenting cells during cross presentation
Dr. Pramod Srivastava is professor of immunology at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, where he is also director of the Center for Immunotherapy of Cancer and Infectious Diseases. He holds the Physicians Health Services Chair in Cancer Immunology at the University. Professor Srivastava is the scientific founder of antigenics. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Cancer Research Institute and was a member of the Experimental Immunology Study Section of the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. Government (1994-1999). He serves presently on the Board of Directors of two privately held companies: Ikonisys (New Haven, CT) and CambriaTech (Lugano, Switzerland). In 1997, he was inducted into the Roll of Honor of the International Union Against Cancer and was listed in Who's Who in Science and Engineering. He is among the 20 founding members of the Academy of Cancer Immunology. Dr. Pramod Srivastava obtained his bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry and a master's degree in botany (paleontology) from the University of Allahabad, India. He then studied yeast genetics at Osaka University, Japan. He completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India, where he began his work on tumor immunity, including identification of the first proteins that can mediate tumor rejection. He trained at Yale University and Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Srivastava has held faculty positions at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Fordham University in New York City.
Jedd D. Wolchok, M.D., Ph.D.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Plenary Lecture Title: New response criteria for immunotherapy to capture response patterns in advanced melanoma patients treated with Ipilimumab: Results from two phase II trials
Dr. Wolchok is assistant attending physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with expertise in the treatment of metastatic melanoma. He is also the co-director of the Swim Across America laboratory at MSKCC, one of the foremost immunotherapy and melanoma research groups in the country. His specific area research interest is the pre-clinical and early clinical development of novel immunologic therapies. Most recently, Dr. Wolchok has initiated several clinical trials using plasmid DNA vaccines for patients with melanoma. He has been involved in the development of the DNA vaccine program at every level--from initial studies in mouse models, through all levels of regulatory review and now as principal investigator of the clinical trials. Dr. Wolchok has authored numerous articles concerning DNA vaccines, cytokine biology and clinical care of melanoma and co-authored two chapters in the definitive textbook, Cutaneous Melanoma. Dr. Wolchok is also co-editor of the journal Cytotherapy. Most recently, Dr. Wolchok was appointed to be associate director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at MSKCC.
Cassian Yee, M.D.
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Plenary Lecture Title: Adoptive T cell therapy: Back to the future
Dr. Yee is currently the director in the Immune Monitoring Laboratory and associate member of the Program in Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He also serves as an associate professor at the University of Washington, School of Medicine. He received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and has gone on to evaluate immunotherapy methods of melanoma and ovarian cancers. Specific research interests and clinical studies include the use of antigen-specific T cell clones for treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma, anti-tumor immunity using MHC-peptide tetramers, and the role CD4 T cell response in melanoma. Dr. Yee holds memberships with the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Association of Immunologists, and the Society for Biological Therapy. His research has won various awards including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award, the Cancer Research Institute Investigator Award, the Cancer Research Institute Melanoma Initiative Clinical Trials Grant, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Pilot Research Grant, and the Damon Runyon Walter Winchell (Eli Lilly) Clinical Investigator Award.
.jpg "Laurence Zitvogel Ph.D.")
Laurence Zitvogel, Ph.D.
Institut GustaveRoussy, Villejuif, France
Plenary Lecture Title: Is an anticancer immune response mandatory for therapeutic success?
Dr. Zitvogel graduated in medical oncology from the School of Medicine of the University of Paris in 1992. She started her scientific career when she was at the University of Pittsburgh in Michael Lotze’s laboratory. She became research director at Institut National de la Santé et Recherche Médicale in a laboratory located at Institut Gustave Roussy, a large cancer center in Villejuif, France, and the head of the Center for Clinical Investigations for vaccine developments at Villejuif. Dr. Zitvogel has been actively contributing to the field of cancer immunology and immunotherapy, bringing together basic and translational research, including the design of cancer therapies through combined animal studies and phase I patient trials. Her expertise is mainly dendritic cell and innate effector biology and relevance during tumor development, as well as exosome-based vaccine designs.
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