THE CENTRE FOR TRANSLATIONAL CANCER RESEARCH PRESENTS
5th Annual Immuno-Oncology Symposium
Thursday May 30, 2024 - 8:30 to 16:30pm EST
Register Here
Confirmed Speakers:
Israt Alam, PhD: is a Senior Scientist in the Radiology Department at Stanford University. Her research focuses on studying lymphocyte activation with the motivation of developing non-invasive imaging tools, to monitor immune dynamics in response to cancer immunotherapy and in immunopathology. Her work has supported the clinical translation of several nuclear imaging agents (small molecules and a biologic) for early detection of cancer and prediction of treatment response. She has also worked on several biomarker detection platforms for early disease detection. She is currently co-chair of the "Imaging in cell and immune therapies" (ICIT) interest group for the World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS)
Christian Capitini, MD: is a tenured associate professor and chief in the Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Bone Marrow Transplant and the Jean R. Finley Professor in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. He serves as co-leader of the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center and director of clinical innovation at the Forward BIO Institute. He has received many awards for his clinical and research contributions, including the Department of Pediatrics Gerard B. Odell Research Award, the Outstanding New Member Science Award from the Society for Pediatric Research (SPR), and the Janet Rowley Award from the Jonas Center Cellular Therapy Symposium at the University of Chicago. Nationally, Capitini is an active member of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and serves as at-large director. Additionally, he is section editor for the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer and serves on the executive board for the Pediatric Real World chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T Consortium.
Arielle Elkrief, MD FRCPC: is an Assistant Clinical Professor, in the Department of Medicine, Université de Montréal, and a medical oncologist at Centre hospitalier de L'Université de Montréal. Dr. Elkrief is also a principal scientist with CHUM Centre de Recherche. Her lab is interested in the relationships between oncogenic driver mutations in cancer and response to targeted therapies and immunotherapies. Dr. Elkrief is the recipient of a 2023 Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Abby Overacre, PhD: is an Assistant Professor, in the Department of Immunology, and a Member, Tumor Microenvironment Center, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh. Her lab is interested in how the microbiota:immune system relationship impacts cancer progression and immunotherapeutic response in both local and distant tumors.
Ravi Patel, MD PhD: is an assistant professor at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, specializing in the study and treatment of skin, breast, and genitourinary malignancies. Dr. Patel maintains an active, translational research laboratory. Dr. Patel is board-certified in radiation oncology. He completed a combined MD/Ph.D. program at Case Western Reserve University. Upon completion of medical school, he completed a preliminary medicine internship at Akron General Medical Center followed by a residency in radiation oncology at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. During his residency, Dr. Patel received several honors including the RSNA Roentgen Resident Research Award and the ABS HDR Brachytherapy Scholarship and he was invited to participate in the 2016 AACR Molecular Biology in Clinical Oncology Workshop. After residency, Dr. Patel joined the Department of Human Oncology at the University of Wisconsin where he was a Benston Translational Research Fellow. Upon completion of his fellowship, Dr. Patel then joined the faculty at Hillman Cancer Center as a physician-scientist.
Laszlo Radvanyi, PhD: is the President and Scientific Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR). Dr. Radvanyi has extensive cancer research experience in academic as well as in the pharmaceutical industry both in Canada and in the U.S.
Claire Vanpouille-Box, PhD: is an Assistant Professor of Cell Biology in Radiation Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical Centre. She developed a keen interest in anti-cancer treatments based on the combination of immunotherapy and radiation therapy (RT). Her graduate work at the University of Angers (France), studied a new treatment concept that aims at generating a localized RT via the use of nanoparticles during which she became interested in radiation-induced anti-tumor immunity.
She then conducted her postdoctoral training at NYU School of Medicine and at Weill Cornell Medicine whose preclinical studies demonstrated that TGFb is a master regulator of RT-induced anti-tumor immunity and that RT-induced cancer-cell type I interferon is required to elicit durable regression of the irradiated and non-irradiated tumor (i.e., the abscopal effect).
Organizing Committee Members:
Saman Maleki, PhD - Conference Co-Chair - Assistant Professor, Departments of Oncology, and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Medical Biophysics. Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University. Scientist, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR). Translational Immuno-Oncology Scientist, Verspeeten Family Cancer Centre (VFCC), LHSC Research Institute (LHSCRI).
John Ronald, PhD Conference Co-Chair - Associate Professor, Departments of Medical Biophysics and Oncology, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University. Scientist, Robarts Research Institute.
Kimberly Scott, Conference Coordinator - Coordinator for the Centre for Translational Cancer Research, London Regional Cancer Program Wellness, and Resiliency Task Force Coordinator, and Oncology Grand Rounds Coordinator.
