ImmunoOncology is an innovative area of research that seeks to help the body’s own immune system fight cancer. The goal is to address the unmet need for long-term survival in patients with advanced cancers.
ImmunoPET for profiling immune cells and immune responses
Anna Wu, Professor, Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, Co-Associate Director, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
This talk looks at how to combine antibodies and PET imaging to look at the immune system responses. Challenges within this technology are identified and how immunePET can be useful in profiling immune cells and immune responses.
Molecular Imaging Agents for Dose-Exposure Response in Cancer Immunotherapy
Sridhar Nimmagadda, Radiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
This talk will cover dose-exposure-response relationships. Dose is something that we know very well, and we know how much we are giving a patient. Response is also something we are very familiar with whether it be measuring blood glucose levels or a change in glucose metabolic rate in tumors following therapy. But when it comes to exposure particularly really looking at target engagement at the tumor in the case of solid tumors, it can be trickier. In the case of cancer immunotherapy agents most of the action really seems to be happening at the tumor. Therefore having an understanding of how target engagement really relates to the dose that we are giving of a therapeutic agent and its relevance to response could have implications in terms of optimizing dose for single agent or combination therapies, and also in the long run reduce toxicity. To be able to measure that type of target engagement at the solid tumor particularly in a comprehensive way under standard clinical workflow we need a highly specific imaging agent. That’s where molecular imaging comes in in this aspect of immunotherapy. This talk intertwines these areas and addresses these issues.
Imaging Immunity – Developing a Spatiotemporal Understanding of Innate and Adaptive Responses to Pathogens, Tissue Damage, and Tumors
Ronald N. Germain, Lymphocyte Biology Section, Laboratory of Systems Biology, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
This talk uses multiphoton intravital imaging to visualize the immune system in action and a multidisciplinary approach to understand the immune system and provide answers to some key questions in immunotherapy: What are the cellular dynamics involved in various normal and pathologic immune responses in vivo and how do these dynamics relate to function?
How does tissue micro-anatomy affect/contribute to effective host defense / auto immunity?
What are the molecular signals that guide immune cell positioning and movement, control cell-cell interactions, and regulate activity in complex tissues?
How do these various factors come together to regulate immune responses to cancer?
A Patient’s Perspective
Lora Kelly, BSIE, BSN, RN, Central Pennsylvania National Pancreas Foundation Chapter Chair
A mother speaks directly to doctors and researchers about her personal journey to becoming a pancreatic cancer survivor.
Harnessing Intravital Microscopy to Understand the Realtime Dynamics of Immune Cells in the Tumor Microenvironment
Mark Headley, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
This presentation describes some of the work that has been done in the preclinical setting looking at intravital microscopy methodologies to interrogate the role of the immune system in the inflammatory process in tumor development.
Learning Objectives
- Basic understanding of the fundamentals of 2-Photon Microscopy for Intravital imaging
- Learn notable findings made possible by Intravital imaging of mice in tumor inflammation
- Understand latest methods and what is happening now with Imaging immune-tumor interactions in the lung early metastatic niche