Breakout Discussions

Join a breakout discussion group. These are informal, moderated discussions with brainstorming and interactive problem solving, allowing participants from diverse backgrounds to exchange ideas and experiences and develop future collaborations around a focused topic.

MONDAY, AUGUST 5
3:00-4:00 PM

Marina II-IV

Table 1

Emerging Targets for Combination Immunotherapy

Moderator: Christopher J. Harvey, PhD, Director of Preclinical Sciences and JTX-2011 Scientific Lead, Jounce Therapeutics

• Future of metabolic targeting post-epacadostat
• Next-generation checkpoint inhibitors: beyond anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA4
• NK targeting antibodies

Table 2

Neoadjuvant Immunotherapy

Moderator: Rodabe Amaria, MD, Assistant Professor, Melanoma Medical Oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center

• What are the potential advantages of neoadjuvant immunotherapy?
• What are the potential risks of neoadjuvant immunotherapy?
• Is there a specific immunotherapy regimen that is optimal in the neoadjuvant setting?

Table 3

Targeting Innate Immunity for Combination Immunotherapy

Moderator: Arthur Krieg, MD, Founder & CSO, Checkmate Pharmaceuticals

• How useful are mouse models in evaluating innate immune activators for combo immunotherapy?
• Should a PD-1/L1 be a part of all innate immune activator combos?
• How soon should we expect to see triple/quadruplet combos in the clinic, and what data are needed to guide their selection?

Table 4

Combining Different Immunotherapy Modalities

Moderator: Sofia Gameiro, PharmD, PhD, Head, Immunomodulation Group, Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology, NCI, NIH

• Role of microbiome in immunotherapy combination trials. Probiotics or antibiotics?
• Resistance to immune checkpoint blockade – what’s next?
• With the current development of multiple immune oncology agents targeting the immune system and the tumor microenvironment, how can we best exploit the knowledge gathered over decades of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to increase clinical response rates and decrease the onset of therapy resistance?

Table 5

Predictive IO Biomarkers

Moderator: Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, Professor, Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Executive Director, Clinical Institute for Lung Cancer, Mount Sinai Health Care

• What is the role of PD-L1 as predictive biomarker?
• What is the role of TMB?
• Other potential predictive biomarkers

Table 6

Liquid Biopsy for IO

Moderator: Theresa Whiteside, PhD, Professor, Pathology, Immunology & Otolaryngology, Hillman Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

• Extracellular vesicles (EVs) as potential liquid biopsy
• Are exosomes more specific/sensitive biomarkers than cfDNA?
• Immune cell reprogramming in cancer as a potential diagnostic/prognostic tool

Table 7

Autologous vs Allogeneic CAR-T Therapy

Moderator: Preet M. Chaudhary, MD, PhD, Professor and Chief of Hematology and Director of Blood and Marrow Transplant, Jane Anne Nohl Division of Hematology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine; Founder, Angeles Therapeutics, Inc

• How critical is persistence of CAR-T cells for their long-term efficacy?
• Does the need for persistence of CAR-T cells for their long-term efficacy vary by tumor type?
• Can allogeneic CAR-T cells match autologous CAR-T cells in persistence?
• What are the risks associated with the approaches being tried to improve the persistence of allogeneic CAR-T cells?
• Is repeated infusion of allogeneic CAR-T cells a viable strategy?
• What are the risks and benefits of allogeneic vs autologous CAR-T cells?
• Is allogeneic CAR-T approach cost-effective?

Table 8

Strategies for Adoptive Cell Transfer

Moderator: Christopher Helsen, PhD, Director, R&D, Triumvira

• Effect and side-effect by ACT
• How to retain the function and cell number of infused T cells in patients
• The most effective combination drugs for ACT

Table 9

T-Cell Engaging Bispecific Antibodies

Moderator: John Desjarlais, PhD, Senior Vice President, Research, CSO, Xencor

• Tuning antigen and CD3 potency for reduced CRS
• Exploring valency and affinity for solid tumors
• Dosing strategies

Table 10

Selection of the Right Target Pairs for Bispecific Biologics

Moderator: Rakesh Dixit, PhD, DABT, President & CEO, Bionavigen

• What targets to select and not select
• Agonist pairs, antagonist pairs, or mixed pairs
• Soluble ligand pairs vs. membrane ligand pairs
• ADA, PK, and safety risks with the target pairs, cross-linking
• Potency, valency, and other considerations

Table 11

Promising Combination Strategies for Overcoming Primary and Secondary Immunotherapy Resistance

Moderator: Brent Hanks, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Assistant Professor, Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke Cancer Institute, Duke University School of Medicine

• Relationship between EMT/mesenchymal transformation and immunotherapy resistance
• Tumor cell autonomous mutations leading to immunotherapy resistance and the development of therapeutic strategies to overcome these mutations

Table 12

Cellular Models for Immunotherapy

Moderator: Christopher Kemball, PhD, Scientist, Biochemical & Cellular Pharmacology, Genentech

• What are the advantages of using 3D in vitro models to evaluate large molecule immunotherapeutics?
  
• How can we design in vitro models that better mimic the tumor microenvironment?
  
• How can we leverage emerging technologies to improve physiological relevance of in vitro cellular models?
  

Table 13

Clinically-Relevant Mouse Models

Moderator: Eric Holland, MD, PhD, Director, Solid Tumor Translational Research, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

• How well do the various models mimic their human counterparts with regards to genomics or gene expression or histology?
• Are models immunocompetent and how well do the models mimic immunology and response to immunotherapy?
• What can we learn about the biology of therapeutic response from models that would inform human disease?

Table 14

Metabolic Manipulation of Immune Cells to Improve Therapies

Moderator: Sam Saibil, MD, PhD, Translational Research Fellow, Tumour Immunotherapy Program, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

• Opportunities for metabolic manipulation - ex vivo versus in vivo approaches
• Harnessing the potential of "old" reagents and drugs for metabolic manipulation
• Combining metabolic manipulations with other approaches to enhance treatment efficacy

FRIDAY, AUGUST 9
8:30-9:30 AM

Marina II-IV

Table 1

Cytokines as Emerging Targets

Moderator: Kellie Malloy, Chief Clinical Development Officer, OncoSec

• Cytokine selection and evaluation, including Cytokine combinations
• Treatment approaches for Cytokine therapies; protein injections, viral platforms, EP/DNA etc. to ensure safety/tolerability
• Translational medicine and important biomarker targets of response

Table 2

Cytokine Immunotherapies

Moderator: Ravi Madan, MD, Clinical Director, Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, National Cancer Institute

• Can immunocytokines succeed where cytokines did not?
• Can cytokines/immunocytokines be optimally used alone or in combination and in what clinical settings?
• Can cytokine-based therapy supplant immune checkpoint inhibitors as the mainstay of Immune based cancer therapy in the future?

Table 3

Fusion Proteins and Novel Constructs

Moderator: Carolyn Edwards, PhD, Principal Scientist, Crescendo Biologics

• Challenges of screening and characterizing multispecifics
  
• Successes and failures- where next for future constructs?
  
• Can immunogenicity risk be meaningfully evaluated?
• Progress with ligand fusions

Table 4

Engineering Bispecific and Multispecific Antibodies

Moderator: Wim van Schooten, PhD, CSO, TeneoBio

• Designing multi-specific antibodies with novel mechanisms of action
• Criteria for manufacturability of multi-specifics
• Multi-specific antibody platforms

Table 5

Neoantigen Selection and Targeting

Moderator: Andrew Allen, MD, PhD, President and CEO, Gritstone Oncology

• Accurately predicting neoantigens from within a large pool of DNA mutations: 1) Class I vs. Class II, 2) Using T cells vs. in silico approaches
• Priming a potent immune response
• The importance of CD8+ T cells

Table 6

Advances in Personalized Vaccines

Moderator: Nathaniel Wang, PhD, Head of R&D, Synthetic Genomics, Inc.

• How technology platforms impact the magnitude, quality, and frequency of personalized responses
• Integration of shared neoantigens or TAAs into personalized approaches
• Importance of HLA matching in personalized approaches

Table 7

Combination Therapy with Personalized Vaccines

Moderator: Keith Knutson, PhD, Professor, Immunology; Director, Immunology & Immunotherapy Program, Mayo Clinic

• Combining personalized vaccines with FDA-approved immune checkpoint blockade modalities
• Emerging immune checkpoint blockade therapies for use in combination with personalized vaccines
• Alternative combination strategies to improve personalized cancer vaccine efficacy

NEW: Table 8

Integrating Big Data and Machine Learning in Immuno-Oncology: Opportunities and Challenges

Moderator: Patrice M. Milos, PhD, Co-Founder/President and CEO, Medley Genomics Inc.

• The era of big data is upon us. What types of data become key for your research and clinical applications? How are you fully utilizing this data?
• Key to impacting healthcare is our ability to effectively integrate big data with electronic health records. Would you agree? What have your experiences been in this area for immune-oncology? Other disease areas?
• The FDA issued their guidance on Software as a Medical Device in 2017.  What is your experience in considering this guidance in your programs?
• The field of imaging appears to be at the forefront in utilizing machine learning for a variety of oncology applications.  Has this been an area of importance for your work?  What immediate healthcare questions are you applying machine learning to? Examples of successes and failures to discuss?