AACR 2023 Preview: Advancing the Frontiers of Cancer Science and Medicine

On April 14, the 2023 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR23) kicks off in Orlando, bringing together tens of thousands of healthcare professionals, including researchers, oncologists, bioinformatics specialists, and patient advocates.  

This year’s conference, themed “Advancing the Frontiers of Cancer Science and Medicine”, highlights how much progress has been made. 

Many members of the CRI Network are sharing their research, which is helping us to fulfill the promise of immunotherapy. There are signs that exciting next-generation immunotherapies, such as personalized vaccines, are starting to bear fruit. Thanks in part to their efforts, we are on the verge of the next significant wave of progress. 

A shining example is E. John Wherry, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania. On April 17, he receives the 2023 AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology in recognition of his career contributions to the field. We’re speaking with Dr. Wherry, who was first funded as a CRI fellow in 2000 and now an associate director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, prior to his lecture, to hear more about his career and the importance of CRI’s support. Dr. Wherry is also giving a major symposium talk delving into his concept of “immune health” as well as strategies to use immune cells as ‘biosensors’ and the basis for immune profiling of cancer and beyond. 

Complementing new treatments is an ever-improving ability to capture and analyze information about the cancer ecosystem, including the interactions within the tumor microenvironment and the impact of the bacterial microbiome. Insights gained through new technologies offer a wealth of opportunities as far as improving patient care. For example, blood tests, also known as liquid biopsies, can identify genetic abnormalities in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). This can help determine the best course of treatment for individuals, as well as enable monitoring in patients during treatment. 

On April 18, Valsamo Anagnostou, MD, PhD, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, provides an update on a CRI-funded phase 2 trial exploring the potential advantages of ctDNA blood tests during immunotherapy compared to current tissue biopsy and imaging methods. This could drastically improve doctors’ decision making during immunotherapy, allowing them to determine in a more timely manner if a patient is responding to treatment, or whether alternative avenues should be discussed and possibly pursued.

The following are some of the dozens of CRI scientists and physicians whose work is being featured at AACR23: 

• Ido Amit, PhD, a CRI Technology Impact Grantee at the Weizmann Institute of Science, is chairing a major symposium and giving a talk on “The power of One: Immuno-oncology in the age of single cell genomics” 

• Valsamo Anagnostou, MD, PhD, a CRI Clinical Investigator and the study chair of a CRI-funded phase 2 trial, will be presenting a poster highlighting the latest data from the trial, “A ctDNA-directed, multi-center phase II study of molecular response adaptive immuno-chemotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer: Analysis of Stage 1 of CCTG BR.36.” Additionally, Dr. Anagnostou is giving a major symposium talk on “Genomic landscape of response and resistance to immune checkpoint blockade” 

• Yvonne Y. Chen, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the University of California, Los Angeles, helped lead a clinical trials minisymposium talk on “Phase 1 trial of CD19/CD20 bispecific chimeric antigen receptor-engineered naïve/memory T cells for relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma.” Dr. Chen is also giving a forum talk on “Synthetic biology for CAR protein engineering”  

• Greg M. Delgoffe, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the University of Pittsburgh, is giving a major symposium talk on “Leveraging metabolism to improve cancer immunotherapy” 

• Stephanie Kristin Dougan, PhD, a CRI Technology Impact Grantee at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is chairing two minisymposia—on “Immune-based Biomarkers for Prognostic and Predictive Benefit” and “T Cells and the Tumor”—and is giving a major symposium talk on “Lowering the TCR signaling threshold with a DGKa/z dual inhibitor potentiates anti-tumor immunity” 

• Malay Haldar, MD, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the University of Pennsylvania, is giving a major symposium talk on “Regulation of macrophage and dendritic cell differentiation in the tumor microenvironment” 

• Carl H. June, MD, a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council at the University of Pennsylvania, is receiving the “AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research” and giving the corresponding lecture 

• Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, a former CRI Clinical Team Leader at the Melanoma Institute of Australia, led work being featured in a prestigious clinical trials plenary talk, “KEYMAKER-U02 substudy 02C: Neoadjuvant pembrolizumab (pembro) + vibostolimab (vibo) or gebasaxturev (geba) or pembro alone followed by adjuvant pembro for stage IIIB-D melanoma.” Dr. Long also led work being presented in a minisymposium talk on “Longitudinal microbiome-immune dynamics in melanoma patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy” 

• Amanda W. Lund, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at NYU Langone Health, is giving a major symposium talk on “Tumor-associated lymphatic vessels and T cell transit through the tumor microenvironment.” Dr. Lund also led work being highlighted in a minisymposium talk on “Melanoma-shed, lymph-borne CSPG4 conditions the pre-metastatic lymph node niche” and is giving an educational session presentation on “The lymph-borne melanoma proteome conditions lymph nodes for metastasis” 

• Lydia Lynch, PhD, a recent CRI CLIP Investigator at Harvard Medical School, is giving a major symposium talk on “The impact of dietary lipids fueling antitumor immunity” 

• Ignacio Melero, MD, PhD, a former CRI CLIP Investigator at Clínica Universidad de Navarra (Spain), is giving a major symposium talk on “Interleukin-8, neutrophils and NETs in a druggable collusion against cancer immunotherapy” 

• Ira Mellman, PhD, a CRI Scientific Advisory Council member and the recipient of last year’s AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award, contributed to work being discussed in a minisymposium talk on “Anti-TIGIT antibody tiragolumab leverages myeloid cells and regulatory T cells to improve PD-L1 checkpoint blockade” 

• Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, a CRI Scientific Advisory Council member at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, is giving prestigious plenary talk on “Targeting myeloid cells in cancer” 

• Kole T. Roybal, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the University of California, San Francisco, is giving a major symposium talk on “Towards the development of synthetic immunity to cancer” 

• Megan K. Ruhland, PhD, a recent CRI fellow now at Oregon Health & Science University, is giving a major symposium talk on work she led: “Dendritic cell intrinsic androgen receptor signaling reduces dendritic cell function and anti-tumor immunity” 

• Andrea J. Schietinger, PhD, a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, is giving the “AACR-Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship” 

• Shivani Srivastava, PhD, a recent CRI fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, led work being highlighted in a minisymposium talk on ”NKTR-255, a polymer-conjugated IL-15, dramatically improves ROR1 CAR-T cell persistence and anti-tumor efficacy in an autochthonous model of ROR1⁺ lung cancer” 

• Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator and Scientific Advisory Council member at the University of Pennsylvania, contributed to work being featured in a major symposium talk on “Agonistic anti-CD40 converts regulatory T cells in to Type 1 effector cells within the tumor microenvironment” 

• E. John Wherry, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, is receiving the 2023 AACR-CRI LJO Award, CRI’s highest scientific career honor, and giving the corresponding lecture. Dr. Wherry is also giving a major symposium talk on “Immune cells as ‘biosensors’ and the basis for immune health profiling of cancer and beyond” 

These presentations are just a small slice of what’s in store at AACR 2023. Be sure to check back on our blog on April 17 for our interview with Dr. Wherry, and after the conference for our meeting recap.