In-Person Interactive Discussions

Engage in in-depth discussions with industry experts and your peers about the progress, trends and challenges you face in your research! 

Interactive discussion groups play an integral role in networking with potential collaborators. They provide an opportunity to share examples from your work, vet ideas with peers, and be part of a group problem-solving endeavor.

These will take place IN-PERSON ONLY.

MONDAY august 7: 10:10-10:55 AM EST

Track: Bispecific Antibodies for Cancer Immunotherapy

IN-PERSON BREAKOUT TABLE 1: Challenges and Opportunities of Targeting Agonistic Co-stimulators and Cytokines as Immunotherapy for Cancer
Moderator: Josh Xiao, PhD, Vice President and Head, Research, Binacea Pharma

• What are the challenges and opportunities in targeting co-stimulators for IO?
• What are the challenges and opportunities in targeting cytokines for IO?
• How can we build conditional-active agonistic co-stimulators and cytokines to target only right type of cells in the right place?

IN-PERSON BREAKOUT TABLE 2: How to Design Bispecific Antibodies or Bifunctional Antibody Fusions to Modulate TME
Moderator: Zhinan Xia, PhD, CSO, DynamiCure Biotechnology

• How to normalize tumor blood vessels for better drug delivery into solid tumor?
• How to modulate TME to optimize immune cell’s anti-tumor activity?
• How to reduce hypoxia in solid tumor TME?
• Bispecific Ab ADC better than mAb ADC?

Track: Advances in CAR T Therapy

IN-PERSON BREAKOUT TABLE 3: CAR Ts for Solid Tumors
Moderators: Prasad Adusumilli, MD, FACS, FCCP, Deputy Chief and Attending, Thoracic Surgery; Vice Chair, Department of Surgery; Director, Mesothelioma Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Associate Professor, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical Center

• Solid tumors: What do we know?
• Understanding the TME
• Targets for solid tumors
• Latest efforts to target solid tumors

Track: AI In Cancer Immunotherapy

IN-PERSON BREAKOUT TABLE 4: AI in Antibody Discovery and Engineering
Moderators: Xihao Sherlock X Hu, GV20 Therapeutics  
Xiaole Shirley Liu, PhD, CEO, GV20 Therapeutics

• AI in predicting binders
• AI in predicting epitopes and paratopes
• AI in optimizing antibody affinity and specificity
• AI in humanizing antibodies
• AI in evaluating antibody developability

IN-PERSON BREAKOUT TABLE 5: Data Delicacies: Crafting High-Quality, Consent-Driven Data Products for AI & ML in Biopharmaceuticals
Moderator: Justin Johnson, Executive Director, Oncology Data Science, AstraZeneca Oncology R&D

• Mastering the Data Lifecycle: Best practices for end-to-end data product engineering while ensuring data quality and relevance.
• Data Governance Done Right: Implementing data management strategies to maintain data integrity and consistency throughout the pipeline.
• Streamlined Data Pipelines: Architecting efficient data processing workflows that enable traceability, data integrity, and reproducibility.
• Collaboration is Key: Fostering interdisciplinary teamwork between data scientists, engineers, and domain experts to design robust data products.

Wednesday, August 9: 8:00-8:55 AM est

Track: Emerging Technologies for IO Targeting and Discovery

IN-PERSON BREAKOUT TABLE 1: Overcoming the Tumor Microenvironment for Effective Immunotherapy
Moderator: Kamal D. Puri, PhD, CSO, OncoResponse, Inc.

• What recent developments in targeting TME have influenced the field the most?
• What could tumor-associated macrophage targeting therapies achieve in the next 5-7 years?
• What are some of the challenges and unmet needs in biomarker development for myeloid therapies

IN-PERSON BREAKOUT TABLE 2: Role of the Digital Revolution (AI) in Discovery and Technology Development: Opportunities and Challenges
Moderator: Zohreh Amoozgar, PharmD, PhD, Collaborator and Affiliate, Harvard Medical School

• AI has established its role in diagnostics, and therapy response, what are the opportunities in drug delivery developments?
• Reliability of AI in predicting? How can we prevent a Junk in- junk out the outcome?
• Are our current understanding of machine learning advanced enough?
• What are the ethics in using technology? Are we in control?

Track: Emerging Cell-Based Immunotherapies

IN- PERSON BREATKOUT TABLE 3: The Role of Emerging Cell Therapies in IO
Bruce K. Walcheck, PhD, Professor, Veterinary & Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

• Monotherapies vs. Combinations
• NK
• Gamma deltas
• Myeloid cells

Track: Preclinical and Translational Immuno-Oncology

IN- PERSON BREATKOUT TABLE 4: Inducing Effective Tumor Antigen-Specific Immune Responses – The Resurgence of Cancer Vaccines
Moderator: Johanna Kaufmann, PhD, Executive Vice President, Oncology, Codagenix

• Commonalities and differences between cancer vaccine modalities, ranging from personalized neoantigen vaccines using mRNA to cell-based vaccines to in situ vaccination using pathogens
• Scientific and clinical development lessons from prior waves of cancer vaccine clinical trials that enable the resurgence of the approach
• Future directions for modulation of antigen specificity and quality of T cell responses to cancer-specific antigens

 IN-PERSON BREATKOUT TABLE 5: Selection of Mouse Models for Immuno-Oncology Studies
 Moderator: Michael Brehm, PhD, Associate Professor, Diabetes Center of Excellence, Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

• Discuss pros and cons of available models, including syngeneic and humanized
• Translation of results from mouse models to the clinic
• Discuss the future of modeling immunotherapy in mice