President's Message -- February Fireside Chat with BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin, MD

 Dear Colleagues,

One of my hopes over the next two years as your society President is to have sit-down conversations with some of the leading experts in cancer immunotherapy, and even potentially, the greater global scientific field. These “fireside chats” will seek to celebrate the work accomplished by the individual (and his/her team) in cancer research, and discuss the ornate hurdles that remain present to any number of challenges in their line of work.

This month, I am extremely pleased to welcome SITC member, Ugur Sahin, MD. CEO of BioNTech SE, Dr. Sahin and his company collaborated with Pfizer Inc., to produce and receive emergency use authorization for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in record time. I spoke to Dr. Sahin this month, in my first fireside chat, to discuss his background as an academic professor and researcher, the obstacles his company has had to overcome to develop an extremely effective vaccine and his expectations for the months ahead as a billion or more humans seek to receive protection from this virus.

I’m featuring a portion of the Q&A below for this month’s President’s Message, but please visit SITC’s COVID-19 Resources page on SITC CONNECT to watch the entire discussion.

Click here to watch the full interview

 

Question: How did you get this vaccine to U.S. FDA (emergency use authorization) in less than a year? Even the experts everywhere were saying it would take three to five years to get a vaccine initially, and here you did it in 11 months. How did you get that done?

Dr. Sahin: When we started our project, we expected this would really become a global pandemic. Our goal from the very beginning was to develop a vaccine and make it available in less than one year. We named our project Lightspeed, and the idea behind this designation was that we should not lose any time, so we did not have time to waste.

We implemented a 24/7 research program. When we started, we did not know what the best vaccine candidate was, so we started with 20 vaccine candidates. We did the full pre-clinical testing immunogenicity operation of these candidates. We even GMP toxicology study, because this was a pre-requisite from the Paul-Ehrlich Institute to evaluate that. We did the GMP manufacturing, and then we started the program just a few days later.

We submitted our documents on April 20 and three days later we had the approval to start the clinical trial in Germany. We did a partnership with Pfizer. Our plan was to have a serious approach to get all of the immunogenicity data from Phase 1. We understood that two vaccines provided really strong antibody and T-cell responses. We made the decision on July 24 for one of the candidates, and on July 27 the Phase 3 clinical trial started.

Question: What’s the future hold for RNA vaccines and infectious disease? Do you see that this technology is going to start to take over, and how many different epitopes can you put in there? Do you think you’re going to one day make a COVID-flu combination vaccine for example?

Dr. Sahin: The technology has extremely broad versatility, so you can combine. In our cancer trials, we are already combining four antigens, or six antigens. And this is of course possible in the same way for infectious disease vaccines. You can combine several antigens for one virus or combine antigens for different viruses.

Another key advantage of mRNA is to be able to make faster vaccines, so the manufacturing itself takes less than two weeks, then we have about two additional weeks for quality control and sterility testing, so that means you can in principle deliver a vaccine, from scratch, within four to six weeks. This is of course important advantages compared to the viral vector vaccines or the recombinant protein vaccines.

Question: How long do you think people will be immune for after having taken an RNA-based vaccine? Do you know from your cancer studies, can you predict with the COVID vaccine, is it going to be years?

Dr. Sahin: In principle we have to ask the question in different ways. The first lesson is what is needed to avoid infection at all? The prediction here is to avoid infection, you would need higher neutralizing antibodies, which are the key to avoiding infection. If you ask the question how long is protection for avoiding severe disease, this will be much longer. Avoiding severe disease can already be happening by having sufficient number of memory cells so that the immune response can kick on early, and even if you get infected, it’s not as severe disease because the immune system can catch up and control the virus infection in a few days. I think this is the way how vaccines work – if the immune response is quick, it can prevent severe disease; if the immune responses is very strong it can prevent infection.

Here at the moment in the pandemic situation, we are of course interested in both. First of all we would like to prevent infection, because if we prevent infection we will also prevent transmissions. But the second best thing we can do is prevent severe disease and thereby avoiding people dying from the infection. The latter could be accomplished, if the goal is the latter, then I believe such vaccines could have a memory effect for years. If we really want to avoid infection, then every year a booster might be useful.

 It was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking conversation, and I am very thankful for Dr. Sahin for his eagerness to share his experiences and lessons learned thus far from developing the coronavirus vaccine. I hope you enjoy listening to the entire discussion on the SITC website, and I look forward to other engaging fireside chats with cancer leaders in the future!

Sincerely,

 

Patrick Hwu, MD

SITC President

President's Message - September 2020

Dear Colleagues,

Sincerely,

Our society continues its preparations toward our fully virtual 35^th Anniversary Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs (SITC 2020), scheduled for Nov. 9–14, 2020. Please take note that the SITC 2020 meeting registration fee has been waived for ALL SITC members. You can become a member or renew your membership during the SITC 2020 online registration process.

Also, to accommodate for the COVID-19 impact on cancer immunotherapy research this year, the late-breaking abstract (LBA) submission period will be opened to everyone. SITC will not require an LBA application to be submitted beforehand. Previously submitted LBA applications will automatically be invited to submit a full LBA during the LBA submission period, Sept. 8-22, 2020, at 5 p.m. PDT.

In addition to the intense preparations for the Annual Meeting, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer continues to make progress on its objectives for this year. Educating clinicians on all aspects of cancer immunotherapy is one of our main objectives and directly serves the goal of improving patient outcomes. This past month the Certificate in Cancer Immunotherapy Program was launched, and is being offered online via our society’s SITC Cancer Immunotherapy connectED platform. The SITC certificate consists of eight learning modules all of which offer relevant education credits (CME, CNE, CPE and MOC).  After successful completion of the modules, the SITC Graduate in Cancer Immunotherapy (SITC-G) designation is granted and identifies a healthcare provider who has completed specialized training in cancer immunotherapy.

The first of eight modules, presented by Robert Ferris, MD, PhD (Director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Hillman Cancer Center, long-time SITC member and past At-Large Director), is now online. It covers basic concepts of immunology, including innate and adaptive immune responses. The other seven module topics, which will be launched in the weeks ahead, include:

·         Basic Cancer Immunotherapy Concepts

·         Immune Checkpoint Blockade

·         Managing Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Adverse Events

·         Other Approaches, including Cytokines, Vaccines, Immune Cell Engagers

·         Oncolytic Viruses and Intralesional Therapy

·         CAR T Cell and Cellular Therapy

·         Implementing Cancer Immunotherapy in Clinical Practice

SITC executive leadership, faculty and staff have put many months of effort in the planning and continued execution of this exciting new SITC program. I would like to thank all of those involved in the Certificate in Cancer Immunotherapy program, including Executive Director Tara Withington, CAE, and Past President Howard L. Kaufman, MD, FACS, both of whom championed this effort and the need for such a program for multiple years.

To learn more about eligibility requirements to earn your Certificate in Cancer Immunotherapy, please click here. SITC members receive a 20 percent discount on all Certificate in Cancer Immunotherapy modules, so if you haven’t yet, please be sure to join the SITC family to take advantage of this exclusive member benefit.

Mario Sznol, MD

SITC President

President's Message - August 2020

Dear Colleagues,

By this time, you are probably already aware that we will hold our society’s 35^th Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs (SITC 2020) as a fully virtual event. We’ve made several recent announcements involving SITC 2020, including:

• Online registration is now open, please register today
• SITC members can attend the entire SITC 2020 for free – join SITC or renew your membership today
• The dates for SITC 2020 are finalized, beginning and ending a day earlier, now Nov. 9–14, 2020
• Deadlines to submit abstracts to SITC 2020 have been extended to Aug. 25, 2020, by 5 p.m. PDT – click here to learn more about SITC 2020 abstract information

Our preference was to find a way to safely convene in person. However, the coronavirus pandemic is still active, the course of the pandemic over the next several months is difficult to predict, and the safety of our members, their families, and our patients is our highest priority. Therefore, the decision to go virtual became necessary. We understand that a virtual event removes the prospect of the invaluable, sometimes spontaneous in-person conversations that can lead to important insights, collaborations, and for some members, important career opportunities.  But we hope and are working very hard to make the 2020 Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting a truly unique, highly productive and beneficial experience for all of this year’s attendees. And perhaps by going virtual we can expand the opportunity to connect to a much broader group of our members around the world.

To provide researchers with more time to prepare their SITC 2020 abstracts for our reimagined virtual meeting, we will extend the submission deadline for regular and Young Investigator Award abstracts, late-breaking abstract applications and presentation applications for the Immunotherapy Resistances and Failure program until Aug. 25, 2020, at 5 p.m. PDT. This extension provides nearly a month of additional time for colleagues to prepare their work for viewing in the virtual poster hall and potentially as a recorded presentation. Click here to view the updated abstract timeline and related important dates for SITC 2020.

As this is SITC’s 35^th Anniversary Annual Meeting, one of the many highlights will be three keynote opening addresses from highly accomplished scientists in our field. I have the privilege to introduce several of the SITC 2020 faculty, including the following keynote presenters:

Richard V. Smalley, MD Memorial Award and Lectureship:

• Gordon Freeman, PhD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) – “The PD-L1/PD-1 Pathway: Discovery and New Insights”
• Lieping Chen, MD, PhD (Yale School of Medicine) – “Why Were We Interested in Immunity Within the Tumor Microenvironment in the 1990s?”
• Arlene Sharpe, MD, PhD (Harvard Medical School) – “Discovery of New IO Targets and Mechanisms Leveraging CRISPR”

 Keynote Address:

• Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD (Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University) – “Turning Immunologically Quiescent Tumors into Immune Responsive Cancers”

35^th Anniversary Keynote Address:

• Helen E. Heslop, MD (Baylor College of Medicine) – “T cell Therapy of Cancer”

These presentations and many more, including late-breaking research, reflect the very high scientific quality of the SITC 2020 meeting. You can access the meeting without cost if you are an SITC member,  so if you have not yet done so, join the SITC family or renew your membership for 2020 and beyond by  completing the SITC 2020 online registration.

Planning for SITC 2020 consumed much of our leadership’s recent discussions, but we continue to focus on the long-term future of the society. In mid-July, I was honored to welcome a collection of respected SITC member leaders, representing a variety of professional backgrounds and interests, to the annual SITC strategic planning retreat. The meeting was hosted on the Zoom platform to ensure the safety of all participants. This esteemed group engaged in productive discussions that outlined future society outputs for key scientific issues; considered SITC’s approach to future live and virtual educational programs in our new global environment; and addressed ways to increase our society’s commitment to racial and ethnic diversity. As always, I was impressed by the thoughtfulness of our leaders in addressing opportunities and potential problems for our Society.

An important area of SITC strategic focus is policy and advocacy, and these efforts are particularly important now to ensure continued progress of the immunotherapy community through the global pandemic. SITC-drafted text was incorporated into the Fiscal Year 2021 U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Subcommittee Bill regarding annual financial appropriations for the U.S Food and Drug Administration. Thanks to the efforts of our SITC Policy Committees, 2020 marks the third consecutive year SITC was able to place congressional language which communicates SITC member priorities to the FDA. We invite you to learn more about SITC's policy and advocacy efforts here, and view the FY21 FDA appropriations language focused on combination immunotherapies here.

This year has been a particularly difficult year for everyone with new and unexpected challenges. I would like to thank the entire SITC family–my colleagues on the Board of Directors, Executive Committee, SITC committees and task forces, staff and many others–for your continued dedication and unflinching support of our society. It is this collective effort that will ensure our Society and our field of a bright future.

Sincerely,

Mario Sznol, MD

SITC President

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 - June 2020

Dear Colleagues,

While the global coronavirus pandemic has held our attention since March, this edition of the President’s Message will focus on the greater mission that brings us all together.

June is Cancer Immunotherapy Awareness Month™, and so, first and most important, I would like to thank our members for the countless ways you contribute to advancing and delivery of cancer immunotherapy. Originally founded in 1984 as the Society for Biological Therapy by 40 charter members, SITC has proudly grown to more than 3,000 members representing 48 countries around the globe. Such growth could not have been possible if it were not for the sound, strategic leadership of my predecessors, who maintained their strong belief in this field despite substantial skepticism in other parts of the scientific community and the limited success of earlier therapies. Therefore, with the opportunity presented by Cancer Immunotherapy Month™, I would like to acknowledge all of SITC’s Past Presidents for their guidance, expertise and their continued contributions to our society.

This month, SITC will call attention to the many ways our society, through the contributions and dedication of its members, are positively affecting the field of cancer immunotherapy. On our website and social media channels, including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, SITC will feature a different program, resource or SITC initiative each day of the month. Further, we will celebrate and honor the scientists, clinicians and many others in the field by wearing white on Friday, June 12. You can download SITC’s 2020 “Why I Wear White” flyer, take a selfie with a decorated flyer, and post it to social media. And don’t forget to tag SITC!

SITC staff and meeting organizers continue preparing for our society’s upcoming 35^th Anniversary Annual Meeting (Nov. 10–15 in National Harbor, Md.). We look forward to seeing all of you there and I encourage you to register for what will be another outstanding meeting. We are monitoring world events closely and continue to place the safety of our members as our top priority. Please also note that enduring materials from the 34^th Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs (SITC 2019) are now available by open access to the general public. To access these and numerous other quality resources published from past SITC meetings, please visit the SITC Resource Library.

Finally, I want to bring to your attention again the remarkable progress and success of the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC), our society’s official open access journal. JITC received its first impact factor just two years ago, ranking it as one of the top cancer immunotherapy journals, and is currently receiving a record number of submissions. JITC will now also offer continuing medical education (CME) credits for its reviewers. Continue reading this month’s edition of the Immune Monitor to learn more about this valuable new feature from JITC.

I wish you all a happy and safe beginning to summer.

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

President's Message - March-April 2020

Dear Colleagues,

The letter below was written before the COVID-19 pandemic transformed our lives. First, I hope all of you and your families are safe. For our members involved in delivery of health care, we are grateful for your courage, sacrifice and dedication to your patients. Many in our society are likely turning their attention to research focused on the COVID pandemic and to care of COVID patients. I am aware that many of you are cooperating with your infectious disease, critical care and pulmonary colleagues to secure the resources required to take care of as many infected patients as possible.

At the urging of two of our past Presidents (Jon Wigginton, MD, and Bernard Fox, PhD), the society has already taken steps to enable our members to exchange information on the pandemic, particularly how it impacts cancer care and patients receiving anti-cancer immunotherapy (see below). SITC members have substantial expertise in immunology and clinical trial methodology, and this experience in cancer could help our colleagues to reduce the overall impact of the pandemic. For example, translational studies to define the immunologic responses to the virus and identify abnormal/ineffective responses that fail to clear virus and/or produce immune-mediated pathology could lead to novel therapeutics. Our members are very familiar with the urgent need to find therapies for life-threatening diseases and can advocate to make potentially life-saving medications available to patients. At the same time, we can also advocate for developing therapies based on sound scientific evidence produced in high quality clinical research; in our own field, we are keenly aware of potentially misleading conclusions from anecdotal reports, uncontrolled trials and small randomized studies of therapeutic agents. We live in a time of amazing science, and I feel confident that science will rapidly produce effective diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for this pandemic and the next pandemic we will face in the future.

So, on a note of optimism, we are proceeding with plans for a live Annual Meeting this year. In November, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) will welcome thousands of our most dedicated and accomplished basic scientists, translational researchers, clinicians and others to our 35^th Anniversary Annual Meeting & Pre-Conference Programs (SITC 2020). SITC member registration is officially open. In keeping with our commitment to promote early career development and in celebration of the society's 35^th anniversary, all current student members of SITC will receive free registration to the 35^th Anniversary Annual Meeting.

Please take note that SITC 2020 will take place on new days this year (Tuesday, Nov. 10–Sunday, Nov. 15), and we will return to the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md.

As in past years, the 2020 Annual Meeting will feature several keynote presentations delivered by investigators whose work opened new areas of investigation and transformed our field. Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD (Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins), will deliver her keynote address titled, Turning Immunologically Quiescent Tumors into Immune Responsive Cancers. And commemorating our society's 35^th anniversary, Helen E. Heslop, MD (Baylor College of Medicine), will describe the current state of T-cell Therapy of Cancer in her keynote address.

We are also very much looking forward to the Richard V. Smalley, MD, Memorial Award and Lectureship, our society's highest award and named in honor of the SITC charter member. This fall, we honor three researchers whose contributions to the area of immune checkpoint inhibitors fundamentally changed the treatment of cancer: Lieping Chen, MD, PhD (Yale School of Medicine), Gordon Freeman, MD, PhD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), and Arlene Sharpe, MD, PhD (Harvard Medical School). I would like to thank this year's keynote speakers for sharing their expertise with SITC 2020 attendees and for their continued contributions in the field.

SITC 2020 will again include workshops and programs for an intense focus on specific scientific topics and for broader educational objectives. Our annual workshop, a pre-conference program, will delve more deeply into the rapidly expanding area of Engineering Immune Cells for Cancer Therapy. This year's industry program will address Immunotherapy Resistance and Failure for immune checkpoint inhibitors. Applications for consideration to present your research during the Immunotherapy Resistance and Failure Pre-Conference Program are also open, and are due on July 31, 2020, at 5 p.m. PDT. The Primer on Tumor Immunology and Cancer Immunotherapy™ is a critical and timely educational program covering the basic principles and a variety of techniques within tumor immunology and immunotherapy. New for this year, the Primer will also touch on emerging therapies and technologies in the field.

In our society's continued effort to provide early career investigators with meaningful professional development and networking opportunities, SITC will again host a workshop on building skills to write successful grants; a Meet-the-Expert Lunch for attendees to connect with leaders in the field in a small group setting; and an evening early career scientist networking event. SITC's Career Connections program will return for a second year and will include a networking reception, on-site job board and other opportunities for attendees to connect directly (and don't forget to peruse our Online Job Board, available year-round). Further, SITC, through support from the Forward Fund, will present 35 travel awards to young investigators this year, recognizing their research achievements. The early career scientists will be honored during the Award Ceremony on Saturday, Nov. 14. I will do my best to pronounce all the names correctly this year.

Please be sure to attend the 35^th Anniversary Reception in celebration of the society's special anniversary year, which will take place the evening of Saturday, Nov. 14, at the National Museum of American History. This will be an amazing night of Washington D.C. fun and frolic and you will be able to celebrate 35 years of immense dedication to discovery and application of cancer immunotherapy with your colleagues in an impressive museum, and the night will include heavy hors d'oeuvres, drinks and dancing. Purchase your tickets through your SITC 2020 registration.

As outstanding research is a perennial highlight at our Annual Meeting, we hope you'll submit your work for consideration as an oral or poster abstract presentation. Submissions are now open for regular abstract and late-breaking abstract applications.

In celebration of our 35^th anniversary, SITC will offer 35 Young Investigator Awards, all recognizing excellence in novel research and providing young investigators with the experience necessary for successful careers. SITC is also accepting research applications on immune checkpoint inhibitor resistance or failure for the opportunity to present during SITC 2020's Immunotherapy Resistance and Failure Pre-Conference Program.

We've covered only a small portion of the agenda that will make SITC 2020 another remarkable Annual Meeting. I will continue to provide updates about programing as the year progresses. Meanwhile, for those who have not yet signed up for a SITC membership in 2020, please do so now to receive access to the exclusive SITC 2020 members-only registration period and access to housing. Public registration opens on April 20. Click here to learn more about SITC 2020 registration or continue reading this month's edition of the Immune Monitor.

I look forward to seeing in National Harbor this Nov. 10–15 for SITC 2020.

 

Sincerely,

Mario Sznol, MD
SITC President