As we approach the start of the Cancer Research Institute’s ninth annual Cancer Immunotherapy Month (CIM)in June, we’re looking ahead at the 2021 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO21), which will take place virtually from June 4-8. This year’s theme is “Equity: Every Patient. Every Day. Everywhere.”
The largest clinical cancer conference in the world, which this year is anticipating more than 60,000 registrants, ASCO21 will showcase the latest advances in cancer immunotherapy and how they are improving care for patients, among other areas. The work of more than forty CRI scientists and physician-scientists will be highlighted, whose research has contributed to more than twenty talks, fifty posters, and a number of online-only publications.
Some of the most exciting topics that will be discussed during the conference include:
- Updates on the effectiveness of novel immunotherapy approaches, such as inhibiting the LAG-3 immune checkpoint in melanoma, an oncolytic virus therapy in brain cancer, and a treatment that targets the immunosuppressive TGF-β pathway in solid cancers
- Promising data regarding new adoptive cell therapy approaches, including engineered T cell receptor (TCR) and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) strategies in sarcoma and melanoma, respectively
- An update from CRI’s PRINCE pancreatic cancer trial that is evaluating combinations of checkpoint immunotherapy, chemotherapy, and a treatment that stimulates the CD40 immunomodulatory pathway
- Long-term follow up data of PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy outcomes in patients with melanoma and lung cancer
- Comprehensive analysis of the impact that COVID-19 has had on cancer patients
- Discussion of strategies to address healthcare disparities and the effectiveness of community outreach and engagement efforts aimed at recruiting Black cancer patients to clinical trials
Regarding the human side of medicine, CRI ImmunoAdvocate Mary Elizabeth Williams will discuss her book A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles: A True Story of Love, Science, and Cancer during this year’s ASCO Book Club event. The session will be moderated by Ann H. Partridge, M.D., M.P.H., and will also feature Jedd D. Wolchok, M.D., Ph.D., an associate director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council who led the immunotherapy clinical trial that saved Williams' life.
Below is a list of work from other CRI scientists that will be featured at ASCO21. Be sure to check back on our blog after the conference for our recap of these and other promising immunotherapy research and treatment developments from ASCO21!
Nobel laureate James P. Allison, Ph.D., director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, contributed to two posters:
Valsamo ‘Elsa’ Anagnostou, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at Johns Hopkins University who shared her liquid biopsy expertise during our recent webinar, contributed to two posters and one online publication:
Julie R. Brahmer, M.D., a member of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership at Johns Hopkins University, contributed to one poster and one online publication:
Joshua D. Brody, M.D., a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is presenting one poster and leading work being presented in another poster:
Margaret Callahan, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, contributed to two posters:
George Coukos, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland, led work being presented in one poster:
Greg M. Delgoffe, Ph.D., a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, contributed to one poster:
Stephanie K. Dougan, Ph.D., a CRI Technology Impact Award recipient at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, contributed to one poster:
Charles G. Drake, M.D., Ph.D., a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center, contributed to two posters:
Gavin P. Dunn, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR at the Washington University School of Medicine, contributed to three posters:
Lawrence Fong, M.D., a member of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Clinical and Scientific Advisory Committee at the University of California, San Francisco, led work being presented in one poster, and contributed to one poster discussion along with four other posters, and three online publications:
- Results of an ongoing phase 1/2a dose escalation study of HPN424, a tri-specific half-life extended PSMA-targeting T-cell engager, in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC)
- The impact of prior radiation therapy on outcome in a phase 2 trial combining sipuleucel-T (SipT) and ipilimumab (Ipi) in patients (pts) with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC)
- TNB585.001: A multicenter, phase 1, open-label, dose-escalation and expansion study of tnb-585, a bispecific T-cell engager targeting PSMA in subjects with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer
- A phase (Ph) 1b/2 study of ribociclib (R) in combination with docetaxel (D) plus prednisone (P) in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC)
- Phase II study of pembrolizumab-based therapy in previously treated extrapulmonary poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinomas: Results of Part B (pembrolizumab + chemotherapy)
- Immunogenic priming with 177Lu-PSMA-617 plus pembrolizumab in metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC): A phase 1b study (Terence Friedlander, M.D., of UCSF, who spoke at the 2020 CRI Virtual Immunotherapy Patient Summit, is also involved in this work.)
- Pembrolizumab (pembro) versus investigator’s choice of paclitaxel, docetaxel, or vinflunine in recurrent, advanced urothelial cancer (UC): 5-year follow-up from the phase 3 KEYNOTE-045 trial
- Rate of skeletal-related events (SREs) for abiraterone acetate (AA) versus enzalutamide (ENZ) in prostate cancer: A population-based study using the SEER-Medicare database (Terence Friedlander, M.D., of UCSF, who spoke at the 2020 CRI Virtual Immunotherapy Patient Summit, is also involved in this work.)
- Updated results of phase II trial using escalating doses of neoadjuvant atezolizumab for cisplatin-ineligible patients with nonmetastatic urothelial cancer (NCT02451423) (Terence Friedlander, M.D., of UCSF, whospoke at the 2020 CRI Virtual Immunotherapy Patient Summit, is also involved in this work.)
Sacha Gnjatic, Ph.D., a CRI Clinical Team Leader at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, contributed to one poster:
Jhanelle E. Gray, M.D., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at Moffitt Cancer Center, led work being presented in one poster and one online publication, and contributed to one poster discussion and an additional poster:
Justin Guinney, Ph.D., a CRI grantee working on the CRI iAtlas project at Sage Bionetworks, contributed to one talk:
Cristina Gutierrez, M.D., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, contributed to one poster:
F. Stephen Hodi, M.D., a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, led work being presented in two talks and one poster, and contributed to one poster discussion and two additional posters:
- Relatlimab (RELA) plus nivolumab (NIVO) versus NIVO in first-line advanced melanoma: Primary phase III results from RELATIVITY-047 (CA224-047)
- CheckMate 067: 6.5-year outcomes in patients (pts) with advanced melanoma
- An exploratory study of nivolumab (nivo) with or without ipilimumab (ipi) according to the percentage of tumoral CD8 cells in advanced metastatic cancer
- Safety, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic results from dose escalation of SAR439459, a TGFβ inhibitor, as monotherapy or in combination with cemiplimab in a phase 1/1b study
- Pathology of durable stable disease in melanoma patients treated with ipilimumab, nivolumab, or ipilimumab, and nivolumab combination therapy
- Ipilimumab, nivolumab and tocilizumab as first-line therapy for advanced melanoma (Jeffrey S. Weber, M.D., of NYU Langone Health, who participated in a CRI webinar on immunotherapy side effects, led this work.)
Axel Hoos, M.D., Ph.D., of GlaxoSmithKline, a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, contributed to one talk:
Patrick Hwu, M.D., a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council at Moffitt Cancer Center, contributed to one poster discussion:
Elizabeth Jaffee, M.D., a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership at Johns Hopkins University, contributed to one poster and one online publication:
John M. Kirkwood, M.D., a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, led work being presented in two online publications, and contributed to three talks, three posters, and three additional online publications:
Suzanne Lentzsch, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI CLIP Investigator at Columbia University Medical Center, contributed to one poster discussion, two posters, and one online publication:
Georgina V. Long, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI Clinical Team Leader at the Melanoma Institute of Australia, is giving one talk, leading work being presented in one talk and three posters, and contributed to two talks and six posters:
Thomas Urban Marron, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, contributed to three posters:
Ignacio Melero, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI CLIP Investigator at the Foundation for Applied Medical Research (FIMA) in Spain, led work being presented in one poster and is presenting another poster:
Cornelis J. M. Melief, M.D., Ph.D., of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, who is a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and was the recipient of the 2019 AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award, contributed to one poster:
Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI Impact Grantee at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, led work being presented in one online publication, and contributed to four posters:
David A. Reardon, M.D., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, led work being presented in one poster discussion, and contributed to three talks, another poster discussion, and one poster:
Antoni Ribas, M.D., Ph.D., a member of both the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership at the University of California, Los Angeles, led work being presented in one talk, and contributed to three posters:
Stephen P. Schoenberger, Ph.D., a CRI CLIP Investigator at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, contributed to one poster:
Neil H. Segal, M.D., Ph.D., a member of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, contributed to one online publication:
Padmanee Sharma, M.D., Ph.D., a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, led work being presented in one poster, and contributed to another poster:
Craig L. Slingluff Jr., M.D., a CRI CLIP Investigator at the University of Virginia Health System as well as a member of both the CRI Scientific Advisory Council and the CRI Clinical Accelerator Leadership, led work being presented in two posters:
Sumit K. Subudhi, M.D., Ph.D., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center who also spoke at the 2020 CRI Virtual Immunotherapy Patient Summit, led work being presented in one poster, is presenting one poster, and contributed to one poster and one online publication:
Robert H. Vonderheide, M.D., D.Phil., a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, led work being presented in one talk, one poster discussion, and one poster, and contributed to two other posters:
Jennifer A. Wargo, M.D., a member of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, contributed to one talk, one poster discussion, and one online publication:
E. John Wherry, Ph.D., an associate director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council at the University of Pennsylvania, contributed to one poster:
Jedd D. Wolchok, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the CRI Clinical Accelerator Clinical, an associate director of the CRI Scientific Advisory Council, and a CRI Clinical Accelerator Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, is giving one talk, and contributed to one poster and one online publication: