President's Message - July 2020

Dear Colleagues,

As I hope many of you saw recently, SITC announced its intentions to transition the upcoming 35^th Anniversary Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs (SITC 2020) on Nov. 10–15, 2020, from an in-person conference to a fully virtual event. The decision, made with the full support of the SITC Executive Committee and Annual Meeting organizers, will allow our society to convene safely amid the global coronavirus pandemic while sharing and celebrating the continued progress achieved in the cancer immunotherapy field.

SITC 2020 reimagined as a fully virtual experience will ensure the health and safety of our participants and their patients while providing new, unique opportunities to connect with an expanded global audience. In celebration of our society’s 35^th anniversary, we are excited to offer free SITC 2020 registration to all SITC members. Online registration for SITC 2020 reimagined will open in the coming weeks. Join the SITC family or renew your membership today to ensure your eligibility for free SITC 2020 participation. Stay tuned for much more in the coming weeks as we announce new and exciting features of SITC 2020 reimagined as a virtual event.

While the coronavirus pandemic has greatly affected our lives, professionally and personally, it is vital we continue the mission of our great society to improve cancer patient outcomes by advancing the science, development and application of cancer immunology and immunotherapy. One of the means by which SITC strives to achieve this mission is through programs that provide funding and recognize the scientific achievements of our field’s early career scientists. The pandemic has undoubtedly impacted funding for young investigators, and thus, such continued support from SITC is more important than ever. In June, we recognized a record-breaking number of early career scientists as recipients of our society’s 2020 Postdoctoral Cancer Immunotherapy Fellowships and Award.

Thanks to the continued and generous support of our industry partners—Amgen, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech, Inc. and Merck—SITC was able to award six early career scientists with fellowships, totaling $600,000 in one- and two-year awards. In a new collaboration with NanoString Technologies, SITC was also able to offer an award providing access to the company’s spatial profiling technology to further research.

I would like to congratulate this year’s recipients of the 2020 Postdoctoral Cancer Immunotherapy Fellowships and Award:

• SITC-Merck Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Fellowship: Joseph Clara, MD – National Institutes of Health (NIH)

• SITC-AstraZeneca Immunotherapy in Lung Cancer Clinical Fellowship: Jacob Kaufman, MD, PhD – Duke University Medical Center

• SITC-Amgen Cancer Immunotherapy in Hematologic Malignancies Fellowship: Suman Paul, MBBS, PhD – Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

• SITC-Bristol Myers Squibb Postdoctoral Cancer Immunotherapy Translational Fellowship: Li Qiang, PhD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School

• SITC-NanoString Technologies Spatial Profiling Award: Todd Triplett, PhD – University of Texas Dell Medical School

• SITC-Genentech Women in Cancer Immunotherapy Fellowship: Natalie Vokes, MD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

• SITC's Holbrook Kohrt, MD, PhD Cancer Immunotherapy Translational Memorial Fellowship (Sponsored by Genentech): Kipp Weiskopf, MD, PhD – Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research 

To learn more about these individuals and their research, please visit our website. Thank you to all of this year’s SITC Fellowships and Award applicants and sponsors! Please look for a host of new funding opportunities in January.

I would also like to congratulate the 2020 National Cancer Institute (NCI) Immunotherapy Fellowship recipient, John Shin, MD, from Mayo Clinic Rochester. Dr. Shin will be exposed to multiple clinical immunotherapeutic approaches and key opinion leaders in the field of cancer immunotherapy at NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. The NCI Immunotherapy Fellowship is co-sponsored by the NCI of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and SITC and made possible in part by an educational grant from EMD Serono.

SITC will honor this year’s awardees, along with many other young investigators, during our awards ceremony at the 35^th Anniversary Annual Meeting. We will also recognize an additional 35 early career scientists as part of our society’s Young Investigator Awards. These accolades, which include the highly coveted Presidential Award, reward excellence in SITC Annual Meeting oral abstract and poster presentations. We are also eager to recognize the numerous basic scientists, translational researchers and clinicians working to improve cancer patient outcomes.

As a reminder, regular abstracts, Young Investigator Award abstracts, late-breaking abstracts and Immunotherapy Resistance and Failure Pre-Conference Program presentation applications are due by 5 p.m. PDT on Friday, July 31. For a complete listing of SITC 2020 abstract categories, which now includes research on COVID-19 and immunotherapy, please click here.

Finally, I would like to share proudly that the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC) increased its Impact Factor this year to 9.913. This Impact Factor makes JITC the highest ranked fully open access immunology journal and places JITC in top 8 percent of all journals published in the oncology and immunology categories. Congratulations to JITC Editor-in-Chief Pedro Romero, MD, the JITC Editorial Board, its vast collection of reviewers and staff for this honor.

Please consider submitting your research to JITC or becoming a reviewer as the journal furthers its mark as a respected source for research in oncology.

Sincerely,

Mario Sznol, MD

SITC President

President's Message - May 2020

Dear Colleagues,

The global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is evolving rapidly and many questions remain unanswered. The pandemic has added a great level of uncertainty to our lives and understandably for the Society’s plans and activities for at least the next several months. Nevertheless, we are actively adapting to new realities, so we can continue our basic mission to improve outcomes for cancer patients by advancing the science, development and application of cancer immunology and immunotherapy.

From witnessing events at my own institution and speaking to colleagues around the world, the pandemic has disrupted or completely halted lab work for many and is significantly affecting the day-to-day management of patient care in many of our institutions. On behalf of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), I would like to thank the countless health care workers and researchers working around the clock to overcome this pandemic.

SITC members in the nearly 50 countries where our membership extends are playing important and active roles in the response to COVID-19, lending their expertise in clinical care, clinical trial methodology and immunology.  SITC as an organization is using its comprehensive professional network and infrastructure to facilitate information exchange, particularly as it relates to the impact of COVID-19 on delivery of cancer immunotherapy and the use of immune modulators to treat COVID-19 patients. The importance of cancer research has not diminished, and we continue to advocate for our field.

In March, SITC launched a pair of open-to-the-public online communities focused solely on the coronavirus. Members and nonmembers can participate in online discussions of patient management and care as it relates to COVID-19 and considerations for basic and translational research. Access to the forums is available through With a free SITC CONNECT login. Please consider sharing your expertise and lessons learned involving COVID-19 within these forums.

Based on preliminary observations from non-randomized clinical data, SITC recently published a statement calling for expanded access to anti-IL-6/IL-6R therapies for the treatment of COVID-19 patients in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC). The statement was co-authored by several of our colleagues, and encourages the pharmaceutical industry, health authorities and institutional IRBs to work creatively and collaboratively to expand access to anti-IL-6 therapies for critically ill patients with COVID-19, while waiting for results from controlled randomized trials. SITC also produced an additional publication titled, “The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Perspective on Regulation of Interleukin 6 Signaling in COVID-19-related Systemic Inflammatory Response.” The analysis reviews additional investigational therapies that could be explored as approaches to reduce the severe and damaging inflammatory response observed during COVID-19 infection.

One of the key outstanding questions for many of our clinicians is the impact of PD-1/PD-L1 blocking antibodies on the course of COVID-19 infection. At this time, there are no clear data which indicate changes to the risk-benefit ratio of immune checkpoint inhibitors during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are both theoretical increased risks (for example, hyperinflammation during infection) and potential benefits (improved clearance of the virus and lower morbidity/mortality). A summary of considerations was shared with SITC by colleagues at Genentech-Roche and has been posted here for your review.

To access all of the COVID-19-related resources from our society, and those from other reputable sources, please visit SITC’s COVID-19 resources webpage to track the latest news, participate in online discussions and more.

SITC leadership remain as committed as ever to achieving our society’s strategic goals. This is why I ask that if you have ever considered joining the SITC family (or if you have not yet renewed your membership for 2020), please do so now. COVID-19 is affecting our organization in many ways, and I know SITC and its members will come out of this stronger than ever.  We greatly appreciate your commitment to our society and the support your membership provides to SITC in these difficult times.

As part of the benefits of a membership, SITC recently made available to its members free access to enduring materials from the Cancer Immunotherapy Winter School, hosted this past January in Houston. The program, in its second year, provided attendees with a deep understanding of the core principles of tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy and examined developing areas in the field. SITC also provides free access to dozens of online courses for patients, clinicians and researchers. Please visit SITC Cancer Immunotherapy connectED, our society’s online education portal, to engage with the society and continue learning from the comforts of your home.

Finally, SITC will soon commence its 2020 election to choose the future leaders of our society. Beginning May 6–20, SITC regular and emeritus members current in their dues will cast their votes for our next Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer and three At-Large Directors. I would like to thank this year’s candidates and those completing their terms later this year (including Secretary/Treasurer Kim A. Margolin, MD; as well as At-Large Directors Paolo Antonio Ascierto, MD; David Kaufman, MD, PhD; and Douglas G. McNeel, MD, PhD). SITC’s future is bright and in good hands with my colleague and friend, Patrick Hwu, MD, set to assume role of SITC President in January. Continue reading this month’s Immune Monitor for a complete listing of the 2020 SITC Election candidates.

Thank you all for the many ways you are positively affecting patient outcomes during these uncertain times. I wish you the best of health and happiness and look forward to seeing you at a future SITC program.

Sincerely,

Mario Sznol, MD
SITC President