Overview
The “In Vivo Engineering of Immune Cells for Cancer Immunotherapy” virtual workshop will be held on May 5 and 6, 2025. This meeting is open to the public and free to attend, but registration is required to access the event virtually.
Adoptive cellular therapies (ACT) for cancer involve complex and laborious processes, including leukapheresis, ex vivo manipulation and expansion of immune cells, and GMP cell manufacturing and production, which hampers the clinical accessibility. In contrast, the in vivo engineering of immune cells (IVEIC) approaches bypass the tedious, complex and costly process of ex vivo immune cell production by reprogramming specific immune cells in situ, thus offering a true off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapy. The IVEIC approach takes advantage of advances in in vivo gene delivery technologies using viral vectors or non-viral nanocarrier-based vehicles to deliver genetic materials of interest to immune cells, and in gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 and base-editing systems for precision gene modifications in immune cells. We envision a parallel development of in vivo cellular immunotherapies along with ACT to allow faster and broader access for patients with both hematologic and solid tumors.
Workshop Organizers
- NCI Planning Committee:
- Zhang-Zhi Hu, MD, Connie Sommers, PhD, DCTD/DTP/IOB
- Carolina Salvador Morales, PhD, DCTD/CIP/NSDB (now at NIGMS)
- Minkyung Song, PhD, DCTD/CTEP
- Jerry Li, PhD, DCB
- Jonathan Franca-Koh, PhD, Jian Lou, PhD, OD/SBIR Development Center
- Co-Chairs:
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| Matthias Stephan, MD, PhD (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) |
Fyodor Urnov, PhD (University of California, Berkeley) |
Conference Objectives
- Bring together investigators from multidisciplinary fields of immuno-oncology, gene and cell engineering, and nanomaterial delivery, to present the latest research on in vivo engineering of immune cells, and to identify gaps, opportunities, and future directions.
- Provide an educational opportunity to students, trainees and early-stage investigators from multidisciplinary fields to learn and aspire to the new promising immunotherapy approaches.
- Provide timely information of discussion on comparisons between ex vivo versus in vivo immune cell engineering approaches for cellular immunotherapy to the public free of charge.
Links to Recordings:
- Day 1 - https://nci.rev.vbrick.com/#/videos/45dba5a4-8105-4e32-b720-8e956b41a190
- Day 2 - https://nci.rev.vbrick.com/#/videos/22c85d44-0b32-4f5a-8886-0a3c2a9362cb
Registrants have been e-mailed the password to access the links. The talk by Justin Eyquem in Session I unfortunately was not presented.
Day 1 (May 5, 2025)
| Segment | Time Stamp | Speaker | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introductions & Keynote | 00:00 | Zhang Zhi Hu NCI |
Welcome |
| 03:37 | Marc Ernstoff NCI |
Welcome | |
| 05:39 | Matthias Stephan Fred Hutch Cancer Center |
Introduction | |
| 14:45 | Carl June Univ of Pennsylvania |
Keynote: Paving the way to in vivo CAR T cell engineering | |
| Session I | 56:37 | Matthias Stephan Fred Hutch Cancer Center |
Introduction |
| 57:30 | Wilson Wong Boston Univ |
Self-amplifying RNA for in situ immune cell engineering | |
| 01:19:52 | Samuel Lai Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill |
Combining chemical and virological approaches to enable direct in vivo engineering of circulating immune cells | |
| 01:50:48 | Gabe Kwong GA Tech and Emory School of Medicine |
In vivo engineering of antigen-specific T cells for immunotherapy | |
| 02:12:19 | Yevgeny Brudno Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill |
Implantable biofactories for bedside CAR T cell therapy | |
| 02:34:10 | Session 1 speakers | Panel Discussion | |
| Session II | 02:53:47 | Fyodor Urnov Univ of CA Berkeley |
Introduction |
| 02:59:17 | Fyodor Urnov Univ of CA Berkeley |
A platform for on-demand immune system gene editing: From Mendelian disease to cancer immunotherapy | |
| 03:18:00 | Wen Xue Univ of MA Medical School |
CRISPR-based in vivo genome editing | |
| 03:34:31 | Charles Gersbach Duke Univ School of Medicine |
Epigenetic programming of T cells | |
| 03:58:21 | Session 2 speakers | Panel Discussion |
Day 2 (May 6, 2025)
| Segment | Time Stamp | Speaker | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Session III | 00:47 | Saar Gill Univ of Pennsylvania |
Introduction |
| 09:25 | Matthias Stephan Fred Hutch Cancer Center |
In vivo macrophage reprogramming: Localized BiTE secretion for retargeting T cells to tumor | |
| 29:59 | David Curiel Wash Univ in St Louis School of Medicine |
Targeted adenoviral vectors for gene delivery to B cells | |
| 49:49 | Daniel Getts Myeloid Therapeutics |
Powering anti-tumor immunity through mRNA programming | |
| 01:10:10 | Cristiana Pires Asgard Therapeutics |
The next step for in vivo reprogramming: Transdifferentiating tumor cells into dendritic cells for immunotherapy | |
| 01:37:14 | Session III speakers | Panel Discussion | |
| Session IV | 01:51:24 | Connie Sommers NCI |
Introduction |
| 01:52:09 | Tom Whitehead Emily Whitehead Foundation |
The Whitehead family journey and paying it forward | |
| 02:06:07 | Adrian Bot Capstan Therapeutics |
Translation of a novel, broadly applicable in vivo immune cell engineering technology | |
| 02:28:55 | Kevin Friedman Kelonia Therapeutics |
Precision in vivo engineering: CAR T generation with iGPS particles | |
| 02:54:13 | Saar Gill Univ of Pennsylvania |
In vivo lentiviral-based engineering of T and NK cells | |
| 03:14:42 | Ryan Crisman Umoja Biopharma |
Unlocking the potential of CAR T cell treatment | |
| 03:31:54 | All speakers |
Panel Discussion |
If you have any questions about the workshop, please contact Zhang-Zhi Hu (zhang-zhi.hu@nih.gov).