Background
Adoptive cellular therapies (ACT) for cancer involve complex and laborious processes, including leukapheresis, ex vivo manipulation and expansion of immune cells, as well as GMP cell manufacturing and production. These processes hamper ACT’s clinical accessibility. In contrast, IVEIC approaches bypass the tedious, complex, and costly process of ex vivo immune cell production by reprogramming specific immune cells inside the body. This offers a true off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapy. The IVEIC approach takes advantage of advances in in vivo gene delivery technologies using viral vectors or non-viral nanocarrier-based vehicles to deliver genetic materials of interest to immune cells. It enables gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 and base-editing systems for precision gene modifications in immune cells. While many novel approaches are being developed for ACT, parallel development of in vivo cellular immunotherapies could allow faster and broader access for patients with both hematologic and solid tumors.
Workshop Overview and Goals
The workshop goals were to provide:
- A forum to bring together investigators from multidisciplinary fields of immuno-oncology, gene and cell engineering, and nanomaterial delivery, to present the latest research on in vivo engineering of immune cells, and to identify gaps, opportunities, and future directions.
- Educational opportunities to students, trainees, and early-stage investigators from multidisciplinary fields to learn about new, promising immunotherapy approaches.
- Timely information and discussion on comparisons between ex vivo versus in vivo immune cell engineering approaches for cellular immunotherapy to the public free of charge.
Workshop Recordings and List of Sessions and Speakers
Watch and listen to the recordings of both days of the workshop or find the times of specific speakers and topics using the table below.
Day 1 Recording; Day 2 Recording
Day 1 - May 5, 2005
| Session | Time Stamp | Speaker | Description |
| Introduction & Keynote | 00:00 | Zhang Zhi Hu, NCI | Welcome/ Administrative Remarks |
| 03:37 | Marc Ernstoff, NCI | Welcome | |
| 05:39 | Matthias Stephan, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center | Introduction | |
| 14:45 | Carl June, University of Pennsylvania | Keynote: Paving the way to in vivo CAR T cell engineering | |
| Session 1 | 56:37 | Matthias Stephan, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center | Introduction |
| 57:30 | Wilson Wong, Boston University | Self-amplifying RNA for in situ immune cell engineering | |
| 01:19:52 | Samuel Lai, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Combining chemical and virological approaches to enable direct in vivo engineering of circulating immune cells | |
| 01:50:48 | Gabe Kwong, Georgia Tech and Emory School of Medicine | In vivo engineering of antigen-specific T cells for immunotherapy | |
| 02:12:19 | Yevgeny Brudno, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Implantable biofactories for bedside CAR T cell therapy | |
| 02:34:10 | Session 1 speakers | Panel Discussion | |
| Session 2 | 02:53:47 | Fyodor Urnov, University of California, Berkeley | Introduction |
| 02:59:17 | Fyodor Urnov, University of California, Berkeley | A platform for on-demand immune system gene editing: From Mendelian disease to cancer immunotherapy | |
| 03:18:00 | Wen Xue, University of Massachusetts Medical School | CRISPR-based in vivo genome editing | |
| 03:34:31 | Charles Gersbach, Duke University School of Medicine | Epigenetic programming of T cells | |
| 03:58:21 | Session 2 speakers | Panel Discussion |
Day 2 - May 6, 2005
| Session | Time Stamp | Speaker | Description |
| Session 3 | 00:47 | Saar Gill, University of Pennsylvania | Introduction |
| 09:25 | Matthias Stephen, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center | In vivo macrophage reprogramming: Localized BiTE secretion for retargeting T cells to tumor | |
| 29:59 | David Curiel, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine | Targeted adenoviral vectors for gene delivery to B cells | |
| 49:49 | Daniel Getts, Myeloid Therapeutics | Powering anti-tumor immunity through mRNA programming | |
| 01:10:10 | Cristiana Pires, Asgard Therapeutics | The next step for in vivo reprogramming: Transdifferentiating tumor cells into dendritic cells for immunotherapy | |
| 01:37:14 | Session 3 speakers | Panel Discussion | |
| Session 4 | 01:51:24 | Connie Sommers, NCI | Introduction |
| 01:52:09 | Tom Whitehead, Emily Whitehead Foundation | The Whitehead family journey and paying it forward | |
| 02:06:07 | Adrian Bot, Capstan Therapeutics | Translation of a novel, broadly applicable in vivo immune cell engineering technology | |
| 02:28:55 | Kevin Friedman, Kelonia Therapeutics | Pecision in vivo engineering: CAR T generation with iGPS particles | |
| 02:54:13 | Saar Gill, University of Pennsylvania | In vivo lentiviral-based engineering of T and NK cells | |
| 03:14:42 | Ryan Crisman, Umoja Biopharma | Unlocking the potential of CAR T cell treatment | |
| 03:31:54 | All speakers | Panel Discussion |
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