UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center will host its 44th annual scientific symposium on March 18-19, 2020, at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

if you have questions about the symposium, please contact Elneter “Melissa” Stroud Mack, Operations Manager, Office of Director, at 919-966-0509 or emstroud@med.unc.edu

Register

“The Yin-Yang of Immunity in Cancer”

Organizers

Jenny Ting, PhD, Lishan Su, PhD, and Albert S. Baldwin, PhD

Agenda

Wednesday March 18

 8:50 a.m. — Welcome — Shelley Earp, MD, UNC Lineberger Director

“Broad targets of immunotherapy”

9 – 9:40 a.m. — Irving Weissman, MD. Director, Stanford Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Clinical Investigation in Cancer Research. Stanford University. “Normal and Neoplastic Stem Cells: Therapies for Autoimmune and Deficiency Disease and Targets for Immunotherapies” 

9:45 – 10:15 a.m. — Lishan Su, PhD. Professor, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina. “The pDC/IFN axis in chronic virus infection and cancer immunotherapy”

10:20 – 10: 40 a.m. — Break

10:45 – 11:15 a.m. — Victor Engelhard, PhD. Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, and Director, Carter Immunology Center, University of Virginia. “Immune Cell Infiltration and Tertiary Lymphoid Structures as Determinants of Antitumor Immunity”

11:20 – 11:50 a.m. — Mary Jo Turk, PhD. Professor, Dartmouth University School of Medicine. “Generating host-wide resident memory T cell responses to cancer

11: 55 a.m. – 12: 25 p.m. — Yisong Wan, PhD. Associate Professor, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina. “TGF-beta signaling in T cell function and tumor immunity”

12:30 – 1:20 p.m. — Lunch

 “Checkpoint inhibitors and other immunoregulatory mechanisms”

1:30 – 2:10 p.m. — Arlene Sharpe, MD, PhD. George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology and Chair of the Dept. of Immunology.  Harvard Medical School. “The Biology Behind PD-1 Checkpoint Blockade”

2:15 – 2:45 p.m. — Yuliya Pylayeva-Gupta, PhD. Assistant Professor, Dept. of Genetics, University of North Carolina. “Immunomodulatory mechanisms in pancreatic cancer”

2:50 – 3:00 p.m. — Abbvie Presentation

 3:05 – 3:30 p.m. — Break

 3:35 – 4:05 p.m. — Jennifer Martinez, PhD. Principal Investigator, Inflammation and Autoimmunity Group, National Inst. of Environmental Health Sciences. “The double-edged sword of non-canonical autophagy”

4:10 – 4:40 p.m. — Dimtry Gabrilovich, MD, PhD. Christopher M. Davis professor, The Wistar Institute. “Regulation of tumor progression by myeloid-derived suppressor cells. Servant of all masters”

Thursday March 19

 “Beyond conventional immunotherapy”

9:00 – 9:40 a.m. — Tak Mak, PhD. Director of the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Professor in the Departments of Medical Biophysics and Immunology at the University of Toronto. “Beyond immune checkpoint blockade: emerging strategies”

9:45 – 10:15 a.m. — Giorgio Trinchieri, MD. Vice-Chairperson, Laboratory of Experimental Immunology, National Cancer Institute. “Cancer and the Microbiome”

10:20 – 10:45 a.m. — Break

10:50 – 11:20 a.m. — Jenny Ting, PhD. William Rand Kenan Distinguished Professor, Dept. of Genetics, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina. “Innate immunity, microbiota and cancer” 

11:25 – 11:45 a.m. — Weiping Zou, MD, PhD. Charles B. de Nancrede Professor of Pathology, Immunology, Biology, and Surgery, University of Michigan. “Metabolic impact on cancer immunity and therapy“

11:50 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. — Florencia McAllister, MD. Assistant Professor, MD Anderson Cancer Center. “The role of the gut-tumor microbial axis in modulating the immune response”

12:30 – 1:30 p.m. — Lunch