The second cellular therapy of cancer symposium, 27-29 March 2009, Milan, Italy.

Abstract

The second Cellular Therapy of Cancer Symposium, held in Milan, Italy last March, buoyed by the success of the Inaugural 2006 meeting in Manchester, UK, again brought together leading Wgures in cellular therapy research. The increase in delegate numbers registered in Milan surely reXected the rising interest in the Weld fuelled by recent high proWle publications demonstrating the success of adoptive cell therapy in cancer patients. The meeting was organized by members of the FP6 ATTACK consortium and hosted several scientiWc sessions spanning the research in cellular therapy in commercial and academic environment, the issues of TCR transfer and engineering and of redirected T-cell homing, subset representation and survival, and the latest pre and clinical development. The meeting also hosted a EU-sponsored talk given by Rosanna D’Amario, who summarized opportunities of career development within the FP7 People Programme. The meeting began with invited speakers from the commercial sector describing recent advances in the translation of laboratory studies to the clinical setting. Shahriar Yaghoubi (Stanford University School of Medicine, USA) described how adoptively transferred cells could be monitored in patients using PET imaging. Transferred cells can be imaged following direct labeling or through the use of imaging reporter genes such as the herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase PET reporter gene, which enable long-term visualization of therapeutic cell location, as well as survival or proliferation. Klaus Kuehlcke (Eufets AG, Germany) discussed GMP production of retroviruses, and methods for the expansion of therapeutic cells for clinical trials and Cliona Rooney (Baylor College of Medicine, USA) detailed how the Wilson Wolf bioreactors could be used to grow vast numbers of cells at densities of 8–11 £ 10 cells/cm. John Campbell (Miltentyi Biotech Ltd.) described how the company have generated “Peptivator” 15 amino acid peptide pools to generate antigen speciWc T-cells and Therese Croughs (Cytheris) presented data from several clinical trials using IL-7 to promote anti-tumor immune responses. The important role that cytokines and lymphodepleting chemotherapy can play in cellular therapy was discussed by several speakers. Charlie Surh (The Scripps Research Institute, USA) described how using cytokine/cytokine antibody complexes can reduce the eVective dose of cytokines required and can induce T-cell activation and non-lymphopenia induced homeostatic proliferation. Pamela Ohashi (Ontario Cancer Institute, Canada) presented data showing how IL-7 can enhance vaccine induced immune responses through multiple mechanisms such as the induction of Th17 cells, antagonization of TGF and inhibition of the negative regulator of T-cell activation, cbl-b. Luca Gattinoni (NCI, Bethesda, USA) and Reno Debets (Erasmus Medical Centre, The Netherlands) described how IL-21 could induce a more naive phenotype in ex vivo expanded T-cells and Luca demonstrated how this could be mimicked with a GSK3 inhibitor inducing T-cells with a naive/stem-cell like phenotype which were more potent in vivo. Michael Jensen (City of Hope National Medical Centre, USA) discussed how IL-15, in combination with selection for CD62L, leads to the generation of central memory T-cells which show enhanced engraftment in animal models. Host lymphodepletion has been shown to induce the proliferation and engraftment of transferred T-cells and Naomi Taylor (Institute de Genetique Moleculaire de Montpellier, J. S. Bridgeman · D. E. Gilham · R. E. Hawkins · E. J. Cheadle (&) Cellular Therapy Group, Department of Medical Oncology, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK e-mail: echeadle@picr.man.ac.uk