The CRISPR Revolution: How Genomic Engineering is Transforming Cancer Immunotherapy

CRISPR genome engineering tools are poised to revolutionize medicine, by enabling scientists to manipulate life’s very foundations in order to save lives. These technologies have immense implications for cancer immunotherapy, allowing for entirely new avenues of research and the development of next-generation cell therapies for patients. This webinar, provides an overview of the potential of these cutting-edge tools and how they’re starting to be applied to improve outcomes for more cancer patients.

Topics to be addressed include:

• What exactly CRISPR is, and how it’s used in research and medicine
• Using CRISPR to create better immunotherapies for patients
• Potential safety considerations associated with CRISPR
• The future of CRISPR and genome engineering in medicine

Alex Marson, MD, PhD, is a Cancer Research Institute (CRI) Lloyd J. Old STAR at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he is also a professor of medicine and the director of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology. As a physician-scientist, his lab is focused on adapting CRISPR techniques to human immune cells in order to understand the genetic programs controlling immune cell function and to manipulate T cells to generate cell-based therapies for a wide range of diseases. Dr. Marson’s groundbreaking research has earned him numerous awards, including the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) Young Physician-Scientist Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Career Award for Medical Scientists, and the NIDA/NIH Avenir New Innovator Award. He is also an elected member of both the American Society of Clinical Investigators and the Association of American Physicians.

The Cancer Immunotherapy and You™ webinar series is produced by CRI and is hosted by our associate director of scientific content, Arthur N. Brodsky, PhD. Browse our Cancer Immunotherapy and You™ webinar series playlist on YouTube to see other webinars in this series. This webinar is sponsored by CRISPR Therapeutics and Alkermes.