Post Conference “Beyond Oncology” Focus Day
8am - 9am: Opening Panel: A Review of the Non-Oncology Cytokine Landscape
This opening panel of the “Beyond Oncology” focus day will look to provide an overview of pre-clinical and clinical landscape for cytokine targeted therapies outside of the oncology field.
Panelists include:
9am - 9:30am: Engineered Cytokine/Antibody Fusion Protein For Targeted Expansion of Regulatory T Cells
• Anti-cytokine antibodies bias the activities of IL-2 towards effector or regulatory cell phenotypes through multi-tiered structural and molecular mechanisms
• Cytokine/antibody fusion proteins (immunocytokines) present a stable and translationally relevant approach for targeted immune modulation.
• Regulatory T cell-expanding immunocytokines mitigate autoimmune disease development and pathogenesis.
Speaker
Jamie Spangler
Professor
John Hopkins
9:30am - 10am: Targeting Biological Synergy At the Receptor Level – Multi-specific Cytokine Inhibitors
• Design and Development of multi-specific cytokine inhibitors
• Importance of targeting biological synergy to optimize therapeutic outcomes
• Advancing candidates into the clinic and beyond
Speaker
Bruce Steel
CEO
Equillium
10am - 11am: PANEL: Leveraging Heightened Understanding of COVID Pathology & Cytokines Storm for Cytokine Targeted Therapies
This panel will examine novel drug development efforts to target cytokines as a treatment for COVID-19 and leverage the heightened understanding of CSS from the COVID field.
This panel will address:
• Uncovering the immunopathological characteristics of COVID-19 and associated CSS and how this can leveraged for managing CSS with other cytokine targeted therapies
• Better understanding the initiation and signalling pathways of CSS to develop more effective treatment strategies for COVID-19
• Discuss the induction, function, downstream signalling, and existing and potential interventions for targeting cytokines or related signal pathways
Panelists include:
11am - 12pm Morning Break
12pm - 12:30pm: Exploiting Protein Engineering to Gain Mechanistic Insight into Cytokine Functional Pleiotropy
• How cytokine-receptor binding properties are translated into signalling
• How biased signalling responses influence gene expression by cytokines
• How we can use cytokine surrogate ligands to uncouple cytokine functional pleiotropy and toxicity
Speaker
Igancio Moraga
Principal Investigator
The University of Dundee
CONCLUDING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: Leveraging Learnings to Further the Field of Cytokine Targeted Therapies
12:30pm - 2pm
This roundtable will look to dissect and assess the days learnings from previous sessions outlined above. The aim is provide a discursive platform whereby actionable insights can be taken away and leveraged to better inform drug development decision making.