All times are shown in CEST
8:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
9:00 am Nouscom Viral Vectored Vaccines Encoding Many Neoantigens Synergize With Immunotherapies Reverting Tumour Immune Suppression
Synopsis
- Nouscom Cancer vaccines targeting neoantigens:
- Rely on effective neoantigens prediction methods
- Can encode a large number of neoantigens
- Induce a robust neoantigens’ specific CD4 and CD8 T cell immunity
- Cure large established tumours in mice when combined with checkpoint blockade
9:30 am Panel Discussion: Evaluating Combination Therapies
Synopsis
- The hasty evolvement of combination strategies
- Combinational therapies employing both neoantigen-based approaches and immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) are underway to overcome ICB-induced immune resistance and maximize antitumor immune activity
- Investigating the safety and efficacy of neoantigen vaccine therapy plus chemotherapy in adjuvant setting
- Discuss regulatory pathway and limitations to approve two new drugs
- How to identify a clear biologic effect caused by combination
- Improving Clinical Efficacy through Immunotherapy Combinations
10:00 am Extrapolation of epitope prediction from IO onto infectious diseases (lessons learned)
Synopsis
- Differences and synergies between personalized/shared neoantigen identification, and target prediction for infectious diseases
- Exploration of different IO epitope prediction tools and their extrapolation capabilities for general infectious diseases
- Use case: designing an optimal construct for intranasal RNA-based SARS-CoV2 vaccine
10:30 am Targeting antigens to antigen presenting cells induce effective anti-tumor efficacy as monotherapy and as combination therapy
Synopsis
- Vaccibody’s 3 modular format optimized for induction of rapid, strong and broad immune responses
- Tailoring the immune response profile by targeting different receptors on antigen presenting cells
- Combinations and applicability within personalized and off-the shelf cancer vaccines and beyond
11:00 am Morning Refreshments & Networking
PREDICTION & IDENTIFICATION
Examining Binding Affinity of Neo-epitopes to Determine Cancer Vaccination Strategies
11:30 am High-affinity Neoepitope-Specific T Cells Accumulate in Tumours
Synopsis
- NeoAg-specific CD8 T cells cover broad ranges of avidities (structural and functional)
- The structural avidity of neoAg-specific CD8 T cells is higher than that of TAA-specific CD8 T cells
- CD8 T cells bearing high avidity TCR better upregulate tumour-homing receptors,infiltrate tumour and control tumours
12:00 pm Characterizing Epitopes for Cancer Vaccines and T Cell Therapeutics
Synopsis
- Update on current personalized cancer vaccine clinical approach, successes and challenges
- Basic research approaches to enhance presentation of neo-epitopes via various cellular perturbations
- Show casing some high throughput targeted spectrometric tools for further characterizing epitopes for binding affinity various HLA allele and presentation
Identifying Novel Targets to Drive Development of Next Generation Cancer Vaccines
12:30 pm Are Immunogenic Tumours the Best Targets of Tumour Vaccination?
Synopsis
- Identifying the best targets for tumour vaccination
- Tumour infiltration and PDL1expression to identify the tumours that are more sensitive to vaccines
- Assessing non immunogenic tumours
- Outlining considerations for the future of neoantigens
CLINICAL TRANSLATION & MANUFACTURING
Addressing the Importance of Clinical Trial Design and Optimizing Lead Time to Accelerate Development of Neoantigen Therapies
11:30 am Designing the Right Clinical Trial for a Neoantigen Platform
Synopsis
- Evaluation of options for clinical trial design
- How to define better clinical endpoints
- Considerations for in-house development and manufacturing vs outsourcing
12:00 pm Entering clinical trials with a personalized oral bacteria-based DNA vaccine – Overcoming hurdles and challenges
Synopsis
- Selecting the neoantigen prediction technology
- Optimizing the manufacturing process to minimize the time to administration
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements
- Designing the clinical study
Overcoming the Technical Challenges of Personalised Therapy to Allow For Seamless Therapeutic Delivery
12:30 pm Key Considerations & Strategies for Technical Development of Personalised Neoantigen-based Cancer Vaccine and T-Cell Therapy
Synopsis
- Considerations for process design and specifications for a personalized neoantigen based vaccine and a personalized neoantigen based cell therapy.
- Approaches for dealing with human to human variability as well as process variability.
- Key supply chain considerations for ensuring supply of personalized product to the early phase clinical trials
13:00 pm Lunch
2:00 pm TG4050 : Viral immunotherapy meets AI technology
Synopsis
- TG4050 is based on a decade long expertise in designing viral vectors
- Viral immunotherapy constitutes a promising modality harnessing the natural sensitivity of immune system to virus to target cancer cells
- Viruses can be modified to alter their immunogenic properties and enhance anti-tumor activity
- A review of how different viruses can be combined to enhance immunogenicity and optimize lead time
2:30 pm The Impact of Stimulatory and Inhibitory Neoantigens Selected with the ATLAS Bioassay: Clinical and Pre- Clinical Results
Synopsis
- ATLAS identifies stimulatory and inhibitory CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses to neoantigens and common antigens
- Preclinical models show the deleterious impact of inhibitory T cell responses on anti-tumor immunity
- Be careful, common neoantigens may differ from common mutations
- The GEN-009 immunotherapy, designed with personalized ATLAS-identified stimulatory neoantigens has resulted in unprecedented breadth of immune response in the ongoing GEN-009 101 Phase 1/2a clinical trial
3:00 pm Multi-step Screening of Neoantigens’ HLA- and TCR-interfaces Improves Prediction of Survival in Urothelial Bladder Cancer
3:30 pm Journey to CAR T-cell Therapy
Synopsis
• Emily Whitehead’s journey to become the first pediatric cancer patient to receive CAR T-cell therapy
• Establishing the Emily Whitehead Foundation to raise research funding and help more kids like Emily receive
less toxic therapies
• A present day update on the Whitehead family, including news about their new book “Praying For Emily”