Lurie Cancer Center Immune Assessment Symposium

Lisa Butterfield, PhD

Dr. Butterfield is an Adjunct Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, University California San Francisco and recently joined Merck as a Distinguished Scientist. Her research is focused on cancer vaccines, immune profiling and cellular therapies for melanoma, hepatocellular cancer and other tumor types. She led the Immunologic Monitoring Lab at the University of Pittsburgh for several years and presided over the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer as their first female President. She has collaborated in biomarker studies within many clinical trials. Among her many publications, she co-edited the SITC textbook “Cancer Immunotherapy: Principles and Practice”.

Sacha Gnjatic, PhD

José Guevara-Patiño MD, PhD

Dr. Guevara-Patiño is a Professor of Immunology and Director of the Immune Monitoring Core at Moffit Cancer Center. Dr. Guevara-Patiño’s research is focused on identifying signaling cues that can be exploited for the benefit of cancer patients receiving T cell-based immunotherapy, by deeply understanding the immune fertile conditions that are necessary to generate robust anti-tumor T cell responses. José Alejandro is specifically interested in understanding the role of RPS6 as well as the effects of tumor-related hypoxia on anti-tumor T cells. In addition, he is implementing machine learning approaches for the development of immunological predictive biomarkers that will permit the stratification of cancer patients receiving immunotherapies.

Herbert Kim Lyerly, MD

Dr. Lyerly is the George Barth Geller Professor of Cancer Research, Professor of Surgery, Professor of Pathology, and Professor of Immunology at Duke University. He is an internationally recognized expert in cancer treatment, and has published works touching on surgery, cancer immunotherapy, and novel cancer therapies. Kim Lyerly is a highly sought advisor and currently serves on the external advisory boards of several renowned U.S. cancer centers. His work is especially focused on RNA-based and viral vaccine development using mouse models, translating findings to the treatment of breast cancer, and understanding resistance to immunotherapy.

Holden Maecker, PhD

Dr. Maecker is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and Director of the Human Immune Monitoring Center at Stanford University. He is a member of the SITC Biomarker task force and co-chairs the FOCIS Human Immunophenotyping Consortium. His research is focused on defining metrics of immune competence in fields including cancer immunotherapy, organ transplantation, allergy, and chronic viral infection. Upscale technologies serve to broadly survey immune features at the cellular level and link them to clinical outcomes. Ultimately Holden aims to create an assay of global immune competence that could predict risk for various immune-related outcomes in health and disease.

Rebecca Obeng, MD, PhD, MPH

Dr. Obeng is a board-certified anatomic pathologist scientist specialized in gastrointestinal and oncologic pathology. She is an Assistant Professor at the Department of pathology, School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, and a member of the Immune Oncology Program. Her research is focused on understanding T cell differentiation and function within the tumor microenvironment, emphasizing the spatial relationships between CD8 T cell subsets and elements of the tumor microenvironment. She also studies the formation and role of tertiary lymphoid structures in antitumor immunity, strategies to improve ICI treatment, and biomarkers to improve patient selection and prognosis for cancer immunotherapy.

Adam Sonabend Worthalter, MD

Dr. Sonabend is a brain tumor neurosurgeon/scientist, who specializes in the care of patients with malignant and benign brain tumors. He is a tenured Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, and the Director of Translational Neuro-Oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He discovered predictive biomarkers for immunotherapy in glioblastoma. He described the use of stem cells for delivery of virotherapy for gliomas, and systems for chronic intra-cerebral drug delivery, concepts currently undergoing clinical testing. He is implementing the use ultrasounds to deliver drugs across the BBB in investigator-initiated trials. He leads a translational brain tumor lab that has been continuously funded by the NIH since 2015.