Cambridge Healthcare Institute's Second Annual Immuno-Oncology Summit Europe

Cambridge Healthcare Institute (CHI)'s second annual Immuno-Oncology Summit Europe, held in London, U.K., comprised three sequential conference tracks focusing on different areas of research in the highly dynamic immuno-oncology field. The summit began with novel approaches to cancer, moved on to immunomodulatory approaches, and concluded with combination immunotherapy. The novel-approaches track concentrated heavily on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapeutics, alongside modified T-cell receptor (TCR)-based approaches. The CAR T-cell topics discussed included the targeting of multiple ligands, new cell culture methods to enhance activity, two-CAR systems to prevent toxicity and cancer escape, and CAR-inducible cytokine release technology to enhance the antitumor innate response. Discussions around modified TCRs included TCR-improvement methods, methods of preclinical assessment, the use of T cells expressing more than one type of TCR in order to target tumors while also mitigating against tumor tolerance, and a MAGE-targeting TCR were also part of the track.