ASCO19 Preview: Caring for Every Patient, Learning from Every Patient

Beginning Friday, May 31, one day before the kickoff of the Cancer Research Institute’s seventh annual Cancer Immunotherapy Month, Chicago will again play host to the largest clinical cancer conference in the world: the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO19). The theme of this year’s meeting is “Caring for Every Patient, Learning from Every Patient,” and it’s clear that the diverse offerings reflect this imperative.

The many presentations and posters at this year’s conference involve significant efforts to develop effective treatments for more patients as well as understand why certain patients respond and others don’t—and to better characterize the biomarkers that might help doctors predict who will respond to treatment.

The work of more than 50 CRI scientists and doctors will be featured at the conference—through more than 30 talks and more than 130 posters—and together their work will highlight some of the most promising immunotherapy advances in a variety of cancers. Below are some of the exciting presentations featuring work by CRI scientists that we are looking forward to most at ASCO19.

• A clinical science symposium talk involving Jedd D. Wolchok, M.D., Ph.D., of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and F. Stephen Hodi, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, will focus on the ability of two biomarkers (interluekin-6 and C-reactive protein) to predict which patients with melanoma will benefit from either PD-1 checkpoint immunotherapy alone or combined PD-1 and CTLA-4 checkpoint immunotherapy. Another clinical science symposium talk involving Georgina V. Long, M.D., Ph.D., of the Melanoma Institute Australia, and Richard A. Scolyer, M.D., will also focus on biomarkers for predicting melanoma patient responses to checkpoint immunotherapy using comprehensive molecular profiling.
• A clinical science symposium talk involving Michel Sadelain, M.D., Ph.D., of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will focus on regional delivery of CAR T cells in combination with PD-1 checkpoint immunotherapy for patients with cancers of the pleural space.
• A clinical science symposium talk involving Georgina V. Long, M.D., Ph.D., will focus on a combination immunotherapy strategy targeting both PD-1 and GITR in patients with advanced cancers.
• A poster discussion presentation involving David A. Reardon, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, will focus on a vaccine targeting the survivin protein in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma, a deadly type of brain cancer.
• A poster discussion presentation involving F. Stephen Hodi, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, will focus on combining immunotherapies targeting the CD47, PD-1, and HER2 pathways in patients with advanced cancers.
• A poster discussion presentation involving John M. Kirkwood, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Jeffrey S. Weber, M.D., Ph.D., of New York University Langone Medical Center, will focus on the use of adoptive cell immunotherapy in melanoma patients who were resistant to PD-1 checkpoint immunotherapy.
• A poster discussion presentation involving Scott J. Antonia, M.D., Ph.D., of the DCI Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, will focus on using a blood-based tumor mutational burden biomarker to predict responses to combination checkpoint immunotherapy and chemotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
• A poster discussion presentation involving Georgina V. Long, M.D., Ph.D., of the Melanoma Institute Australia, and Antoni Ribas, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, will focus on analyzing biomarkers in the tumor microenvironment to determine relationships between various signaling pathways and clinical outcomes in melanoma patients treated with combination checkpoint immunotherapy and chemotherapy as a first-line treatment.

Get further perspective on the role immunotherapy will play at ASCO19 in STAT's latest podcast, featuring an interview with Jill O'Donnell-Tormey, Ph.D., CEO and director of scientific affairs at the Cancer Research Institute. To stay up to date regarding the latest news coming out of ASCO19, be sure to follow our blog for daily recaps! 

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