Recorded February 17, 2016

Sponsored by

Webinar Description:

Cancer immune therapies have recently demonstrated exciting clinical benefits for a number of cancer types. Somatic mutations in an individual's cancer cells encode neoantigens. Clinical responses to cancer immune therapies including T cell transfer and checkpoint blockade are primarily mediated by neoantigen specific reactivity. Advances in next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics prediction allow for the rapid and affordable identification of neoantigens in individuals, which have profoundly impacted immuno-oncology drug development.

In this webinar, Dr. Victor Velculescu will highlight efforts that his group and colleagues at PGDx have pioneered for whole exome sequencing and neoantigen prediction. Dr. Drew Pardoll and lab have used this approach to identify intratumoral mutations in lung and colorectal cancer patients who have received anti-PD-1 immunotherapy. Dr. Theresa Zhang will describe how this approach, which utilizes a streamlined neoantigen prediction pipeline, ImmunoSelectTM R, allows for prioritization of thousands of epitopes that result from somatic mutations into a selection that are most likely to produce adaptive responses. These results and experiences will illustrate how correlates of a response to immunotherapy may better identify patients who will benefit from anti-PD-1 and other forms of immune therapy.

Learning Objectives:

• Overview of Cancer Genomics
• Understand how neoantigen prediction can adapt response to immunotherapy in certain populations
• Learn more about PGDx technologies for advancing the value of prediction for response to immunotherapies

Speaker Information:

Dr. Victor Velculescu, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Oncology and Co-Director of Cancer Biology Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center

Founder, Personal Genome Diagnostics

Dr. Velculescu is Professor of Oncology and Co-Director of Cancer Biology at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and a co-founder of Personal Genome Diagnostics. He has a B.S. from Stanford University, and M.D., Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Drew Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D.

Abeloff Professor of Oncology and Director of Cancer Immunology

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center

Drew M. Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D., is an Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. He is director of the Cancer Immunology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Pardoll completed his medical and doctorate degrees, and medical residency and oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.

Theresa Zhang, Ph.D.

VP of Research Services

Personal Genome Diagnostics

Dr. Zhang received BS degrees from Peking University and Bridgewater College and a PhD from the University of Virginia. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in bioinformatics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. Dr. Zhang is a co-author of numerous scientific publications and a frequent presenter at scientific meetings.