Live Satellite Symposia
Friday, October 2, 2020
12.30 - 13.00 hrs
Quanterix Satellite Symposium
Ultra-sensitive Peripheral Cytokine Profiling with Simoa® Planar Technology for Safe and Personalized Cancer Immunotherapy​
-
Paula Perin, Billerica, MA, USA
Immunotherapy represents a turning point in personalized and targeted treatment of cancer. In spite of great successes, a substantial proportion of patients present primary or developed therapeutic resistance. Furthermore, approaches such as immune checkpoint inhibition can be associated with immune-related adverse events, with autoimmune manifestations ranging from chronic to acute. Also, the use of adoptive T-cell therapy can be associated with excessive immune activation leading to cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity. Hence, there is an unmet clinical need for biomarkers that are informative on therapy outcome, long term prognosis, and the risk of immune-related toxicity. Given the complexity of the immune system, such biomarkers should be comprehensive while still readily available for simple implementation into clinical practice. Cytokine profiling in peripheral blood fulfills this requirement but relies on accurate and reproducible assays to ensure consistency of measurement at baseline, over the course of treatment and post-therapy. The Ultra-sensitive Simoa® planar technology (SP-X Imaging and Analysis System) can be used to measure healthy levels of up to 10 key cytokines (Th1/Th2/Th17) in one multiplex assay, allowing for accurate quantitation well above the assay limit of detection; an essential property for robust immune-monitoring of cancer patients. In this presentation, we will discuss how researchers have applied this technology to uncover biomarkers predictive of treatment response, as well as provide new insights into cancer immuno-pathogenesis. The SP-X allows measurement of baseline and early changes of cytokine profiles that can evolve into severe immune-related adverse events, or that can lead to cytokine release syndrome, and therefore can be implemented as a powerful tool in the development of safe and personalized cancer therapies. ​
Saturday, October 3, 2020
09.00 - 09.30 hrs
Fluidigm Satellite Symposium
Imaging Mass Cytometry to Understand Intercellular Organisation of the Microenvironment in Breast Cancer
-
Dr Raza Ali, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge
Dr Raza Ali will be discussing his work on understanding intercellular organization of the microenvironment in breast cancer using mass cytometry.
Saturday, October 3, 2020
11.45 - 12.15 hrs
Lunaphore Satellite Symposium
Rapid hyper-plex staining and simultaneous imaging for immunophenotyping of tissue sections
-
Diego Dupouy, Lausanne, Switzerland
The simultaneous detection of biomarkers on tissue samples plays a fundamental role in the study of the tumor microenvironment. Multiplexed immunofluorescence tools have demonstrated to be key enablers in these endeavors. Available techniques to perform high-plex staining require intensive manual handling, are highly time consuming, or require special labeling of primary antibodies. Here we present a highly automated, extremely rapid hyper-plex approach to stain and image tissue samples using label-free primary antibodies in combination with off-the-shelf fluorescently labeled secondary antibodies.​
On-Demand Satellite Symposium
nanoString Satellite Symposium
Tumor microenvironment determines the survival of pancreatic cancer patients
-
Dana Mustafa, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Rational: Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly aggressive disease associated with very poor outcome. Most PDAC patients die within the first two years, and only a small subgroup of patients survive for many years. So far, factors and pathways underlining long-term survivorship in PDAC are not known. In a previous study we showed that high CD8/FoxP3 ratio is associated with a favorable outcome. Therefore, we aimed to reveal the immune-related key players that drive the long-term survivorship in PDAC patients.
Methods: The immune-related gene expression profiles of 10 PDAC patients who survived for ≥ 5 years was compared to that of 10 PDAC patients who survived for ≤6 months. Samples were profiled using the PanCancer Immune Profiling Panel of nanoString technology. Subsequently, a subgroup of samples was measured by the GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP) to determine the spatial location of the immune cells.
Results: The immune microenvironment in long-term survivors was altered differentially than that of the short-term survivors. B cells were found to be highly expressed in long-term survivors by gene expression profile. The presence of B cells was confirmed by the GeoMx DSP at the protein level. B cells infiltrated to the stroma together with T cells and antigen presenting cells in long-term survivors.
Conclusion: This is the first comprehensive study that compares the expression and the spatial infiltration of immune cells in long-term survivors PDAC patients. Our data demonstrate that long-term survivorship of PDAC patients is influenced by the presence of B cells in the tumor microenvironment. The role of B cells in PDAC disease is controversial. However, our study supports that B cells interact with other compartments of the immune system and drive long-term survivorship in PDAC patients.
