Biologic therapy of cancer has come of age. Treatments now available for our patients do not include only surgical excision, or agents that eliminate rapidly dividing cells, radiation and chemotherapy, but have expanded to include biological therapeutics. Along with a far better understanding of tumor biology and molecular abnormalities that lead to uncontrolled growth has come a parallel increase in the understanding of the interaction of the tumor with the host (tumor immunology) and its microenvironment (stromagenesis, angiogenesis.) This dynamic has fostered efforts to inhibit tumor growth by enhancing immune recognition and destruction (immunotherapy) and inhibiting stromal factors critical for tumor survival (anti-angiogenic therapy, etc.) With these therapies has come the recognition of the need for identification of biomarkers to assess their impact. These include the validation of biomarkers that serve as surrogates for treatment potency as well as clinically important endpoints including mechanism of action, tumor regression, survival, and toxicity, what we have recently termed cancer biometrics. Increasingly, the Society for Biological Therapy (SBT) has become the organization where these ideas are fostered and evaluated critically. The Society’s annual meeting is also the forum where basic and clinical investigators from academic, regulatory, and biopharmaceutical venues discuss their common interests. The fact that these ideas and the related investigations do not conform to geographic boundaries and the Society’s fine focus on cancer has recently prompted the SBT to recast itself as the iSBTc, the International Society for the Biological Therapy of Cancer. With this name change has come an expanded and more vital mission. We have striven to have a more international presence, most recently through our association with the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCiS). Immediately preceding the Annual FOCiS Meeting in Paris, the iSBTc will sponsor a Satellite Symposium on Tumor Immunology on May 15th and, with the International Cytokine and Interferon Societies, will co-sponsor a session on enhancing immunity at the FOCiS Meeting to be held in Montreal in July 2004. In the past the SBT was content to engage its membership through annual meetings; the new iSBTc has more recently chosen to employ the expertise of its membership to sponsor Primers on Tumor Immunology and several Workshops. For example, the SBT has coupled with the NCI and FDA to organize Workshops on Immune Monitoring and on Angiogenesis Monitoring to assess the current status of these fields and establish guidelines for their application investigation in preclinical and cancer biometrics clinical trials. In addition, future workshops are planned in the new field of oncometrics, which applies various proteomic, imaging, cytometric, and genomic techniques to blood and tissue to identify biomarkers and surrogates of cancer dynamics and response to therapy. These tools will aid cancer researchers in developing and applying specific treatment approaches to molecularly defined targets and assessing their impact. The iSBTc also has plans to hold Consensus Conferences and to develop position papers on issues relevant to the Society membership. One such conference, on individualized therapy, is planned to immediately follow the 2003 Annual Meeting to be held this fall in Bethesda. In concert with this expanded mission, have come closer ties with the Journal of Immunotherapy. The reports of the Immune Monitoring and Angiogenesis Workshops have been or will be published in the Journal and we intend to rapidly advance findings from the Cancer Biometrics and other Workshops here as well. In addition, position papers stemming from Consensus Conferences will be published in the Journal, as will supplements on areas and conferences of particular interest to the membership. Beginning this year, the Journal Editorial Board has been reshaped to better reflect Society membership and strong consideration has been Journal of Immunotherapy 26(3):185–186 © 2003 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc., Philadelphia
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Jun 27, 2022
Guillermo Docena + 8
Open Access