BSI Immune Therapies 2024 roundup
The British Society for Immunology (BSI) ran their first Immune Therapies Summit at the end of November, which Courteney Arthur and Dr Rhiannon Jenkinson attended. It was a great couple of days and fantastic to discuss science and catch up with people we knew, as well as network and make new connections.
There were some excellent talks across different therapeutic areas, including immune-oncology, autoimmunity, inflammation and neuro-inflammation and the cross-disciplinary conference approach led to interesting discussions and questions. In addition, the breakout focus sessions led to some stimulating discussions within small groups. I attended the targeting innate immunity and beyond checkpoint inhibitors focus sessions, and the discussion was wide-ranging. Having the chance to discuss different perspectives from different viewpoints was a real plus, from the challenges faced from early drug discovery through to clinical trials and then through to the clinician’s perspective of the real-life experience of treating patients with approved therapies.
In terms of the therapeutic modalities and biomarker strategies utilised, these were wide-ranging; the use of vaccines was discussed across oncology, neurodegeneration, and infectious disease. The use of cellular therapy strategies to deplete B cells in patients suffering severe auto-immune disease was inspiring in terms of the positive clinical outcomes for many of the patients for a review, see DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-024-01139-z. Hearing a fantastic synopsis of the IL-23 pathway from its discovery through to its targeting for treating inflammatory diseases was a great example of the translation of blue skies research into clinical treatments. The keynote presentation on viral immunotherapy highlighted several innovative strategies with oncolytic and non-oncolytic viruses for mobilising an anti-tumour response in solid tumours resistant to ICI and how this approach can also target distal metastases.
Finally, three really interesting talks one on how targeting the right therapy to the right patients is key for efficacy; if targeting a specific pathway fails in the clinic but has been positive all the way through discovery and the appropriate biomarkers upregulated in the clinic, how this could be a combination of the right pathway but wrong molecule, potentially the wrong subset of patients or the wrong stage of disease. The second on repurposing of drugs between autoimmune and oncology indications. The third on how understanding biomarkers and the use of biomarkers can help us transition away from ‘imprecision’ medicine in the treatment of arthritis and IBD.
From a CRO perspective, hearing the scientific advances in developing new therapeutics and the challenges people are facing and the research solutions they utilise is inspiring and gets the scientific juices flowing in terms of assays we can develop to support our client’s drug discovery programs.
The BSI should be commended on their approach at enabling discussion, and I’m excited to see how they develop this approach in future conferences.
