​22nd TRCCC Annual Meeting

Immunotherapy: The Force Awakens 

Seven Springs Mountain Resort 
Seven Spring, Pennsylvania.
February 13-15, 2019.

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​Robert Vonderheide new UPenn Abramson Cancer Center Director

Robert Vonderheide, an expert in can­cer immunotherapy and translational research and member of TRCCC, was named director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the Uni­versity of Pennsylvania. He is the Hanna Wise Professor in Can­cer Research at the Perelman School of Medicine, and currently serves as the Abramson Cancer Center’s (ACC) associate director for translational research and executive director of its Translational Centers of Excellence Program. He will begin his new role on July 1. Through a focus on novel immunother­apies for pancreatic cancer, melanoma, breast and ovarian cancers, Vonderhe­ide has mapped new models for speed­ing translational research. He has led studies that demonstrated the role of agonist CD40 antibodies, paving the way to ongoing late-stage clinical trials. His work on vaccine-based approach­es for cancer treatment and pre­vention has been supported by the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute and the Basser Center for BRCA. Vonderheide has also served among leaders of an interdisciplinary team which defined a promising therapy employing both radiation and immu­notherapy drugs that together mount a vaccine-like attack against cancer cells in patients with advanced mel­anoma. His research has appeared in Nature, Science, Cell, the New England Journal of Medicine, and other leading medical journals. Vonderheide is also vice chair for re­search in the Division of Hematolo­gy-Oncology, and he serves as co-di­rector of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Penn. He is also co-leader of the Stand Up to Cancer— Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Convergence Dream Team.

At the 17th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy, Daniel J. Powell Jr., Ph.D., associate professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Abramson Cancer Center, was presented with The Outstanding New Investigator Award. The Outstanding New Investigator awards are presented to individuals whose early achievements in the field demonstrate remarkable distinction. Dr. Daniel Powell's important contributions to T cell-based cancer therapy include elucidation of the role of CD27 in human T cell memory, development of a novel dual signaling approach to CAR-T cell therapy to limit toxicity, and identification of CD137 as a marker of naturally occurring tumor-reactive T cells. Click here to read more.