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AACR21 Preview: Discovery Science Driving Clinical Breakthroughs

Arthur N. Brodsky, PhD

The world’s largest cancer research conference—the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR21)—is going virtual for the second straight year, beginning on April 10. The theme of this year’s conference is “Discovery Science Driving Clinical Breakthroughs.”

During the first, six-day portion of the meeting, a number of CRI scientists will highlight the latest science in cancer immunology and reveal what might lie in store for the future of immunotherapy. In all, the contributions of more than 40 CRI doctors and researchers will be featured in more than 30 talks and 40 posters, and some will also share their insights as part of a dozen panels.

On April 10, in the “Immuno-oncology and Cell Therapy Trials” plenary session, work led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator and a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, will be featured in a talk titled “T cell inflammation in the tumor microenvironment after agonist CD40 antibody: Clinical and translational results of a neoadjuvant clinical trial.”

A second immunotherapy-focused plenary session, “Leveraging the Immune System in the War on Cancer,” will take place on April 14—and five CRI scientists will be giving these prestigious talks.

First, Anjana Rao, PhD, of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology—a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, a former CRI fellow, and the recipient of CRI’s Frederick W. Alt Award—will be discussing “Transcriptional networks in tumor-infiltrating T cells.” Next, Sergio Quezada, PhD, a former CRI fellow who is now at the University College London Cancer Institute, will be focusing on “Targeting regulatory T cells in cancer: From mechanisms to new therapies.”

Following Quezada will be Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). A cell therapy pioneer who is member of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Clinical and Scientific Advisory Committee and the recipient of CRI’s 2012 William B. Coley Award, Sadelain’s talk is titled “On the road to synthetic immunity: novel CAR designs,” a reference to the CAR T cell therapy field he helped create.

Ignacio Melero, MD, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Foundation for Applied Medical Research in Spain, will chronicle “Twists and turns in translation of CD137 (4-1BB)-based cancer immunotherapy,” before Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, concluding the session. Bhardwaj—a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator, a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, and the recipient of CRI’s 2015 Frederick W. Alt Award—will provide a recap of the session and take a look at opportunities for the future.

Below are other current CRI scientists whose work will be featured at AACR21, and be sure to check on our blog after the conference for our overall recap of AACR21!

Iannis Aifantis, PhD, of New York University, a former CRI fellow who received CRI’s 2014 Frederick W. Alt Award, will be giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Ido Amit, PhD, a CRI Technology Impact Award recipient at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, is involved work that will be discussed during two talks.

Valsamo ‘Elsa’ Anagnostou, MD, PhD, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at Johns Hopkins University who shared her liquid biopsy expertise during our recent webinar, is leading work presented in a talk and three posters. She is also involved in work that will be presented in another talk and poster.

Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, will be giving two talks—including a prestigious plenary talk—as well as serving as a panelist. She is also involved in work presented in another talk.

Katie M. Campbell, PhD, a CRI fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is involved in work presented in a talk and a poster.

Marcin Piotr Cieslik, PhD, a CRI Technology Impact Award recipient at the University of Michigan, is involved in work presented in a poster.

George Coukos, MD, PhD, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland, is giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Douglas T. Fearon, MD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at Weill Cornell Medicine, is giving a talk.

Thomas F. Gajewski, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago, who is a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, former CRI CLIP Investigator, and the recipient of CRI’s 2017 William B. Coley Award, will be giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Sacha Gnjatic, PhD, a CRI Clinical Team Leader at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is involved in work presented in two posters.

Jhanelle Gray, MD, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at Moffitt Cancer Center, is involved in work presented in two posters.

Philip D. Greenberg, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington, who is a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the recipient of CRI’s 2011 William B. Coley Award, will be discussing a plenary session.

Nir Hacohen, PhD, a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and a CRI-Wade F.B. Thompson CLIP Investigator at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Rizwan Haq, MD, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Ping-Chih Ho, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland, will be giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Stanley Huang, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at Case Western Reserve University, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Morgan Huse, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), is involved in work presented in a poster.

Carl H. June, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, who is a CRI Scientific Advisory member, CRI grantee, and the recipient of CRI’s 2012 William B. Coley Award, will be giving a talk and is leading work presented in another talk.

Susan M. Kaech, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, is giving a talk, serving as a panelist, and involved in work presented in a poster.

Christopher A. Klebanoff, MD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at MSKCC, is giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Lewis L. Lanier, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, who is a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the recipient of CRI’s 2002 William B. Coley Award, is involved in work presented in a talk.

Tak W. Mak, PhD, of the University Health Network in Canada, who is a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and a CRI CLIP Investigator, will be giving a talk, serving as a panelist, and is involved in work presented in a poster.

Thomas Urban Marron, MD, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is presenting two posters and is involved in work presented in a talk and two other posters.

Ludovic Martinet, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Institut National de la Santé et de La Recherche Médicale in France, is leading work presented in a poster.

Ignacio Melero, MD, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Foundation for Applied Medical Research (FIMA) in Spain, is giving a prestigious plenary talk and leading work presented in a poster.

Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, who is an associate director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, is giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Sergio Quezada, PhD, a former CRI fellow who is now at the University College London Cancer Institute, will be giving a prestigious plenary talk, and is leading work to be presented in a poster. He is also involved in work that will be presented during a talk and in a poster.

David A. Reardon, MD, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, of UCLA, who is the current AACR president, a member of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership, and recipient of CRI’s 2019 William B. Coley Award, will be giving the AACR presidential address, in addition to leading work presented in two posters. Other work by Ribas will be presented during a talk and in three posters.

Alexander Rudensky, PhD, of MSKCC, who is a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, a CRI CLIP Investigator, and the recipient of CRI’s 2015 William B. Coley Award, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, of MSKCC, who is a member of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Clinical and Scientific Advisory Committee and the recipient of CRI’s 2012 William B. Coley Award, will be giving a prestigious plenary talk and is leading work presented in a poster.

Andrea Schietinger, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at MSKCC, is giving two talks, serving as a panelist, and is involved in work presented in a poster.

Stephen P. Schoenberger, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, will be giving a talk and serving on a panel.

Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the recipient of the 2018 William B. Coley Award, will be giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Manuel Valiente, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Fundacion Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas Carlos III in Spain, is giving a talk and serving as a panelist.

Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, of the University of Pennsylvania, who is a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator and a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, is leading work that will be featured in a plenary talk and is involved in work presented in two posters.

Qiwei Wang, PhD, a CRI-Bristol Myers Squibb fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is presenting a poster.

E. John Wherry, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, who is an associate director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the recipient of CRI’s 2016 Frederick W. Alt Award, will be giving a talk and is involved in work presented in a poster.

David R. Withers, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, is involved in work being discussed in a talk.

Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, of MSKCC, who is an associate director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and chair of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Clinical and Scientific Advisory Committee, is involved in work presented in two posters.

Yun Wu, Ph.D., a CRI Technology Impact Award recipient at the State University of New York Buffalo, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Cassian Yee, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, who is a CRI-Chordoma Foundation CLIP Investigator and a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at MSKCC, is giving a talk.

XingXing Zang, PhD, a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is involved in work presented in a poster.

Yu Zhu, PhD, a CRI fellow at Stanford University, will be presenting a poster.

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