Description

A keynote lecture by Andre Nel, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Director of Research at California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI), UC.

Nanoparticles have made a big impact on the development of immunotherapy for cancer and serious allergic disorders, demonstrating the ability to develop new therapeutics that are capable of boosting immunogenic effects in the setting of “cold” tumor microenvironments in solid cancers, as well as the ability to induce tolerogenic effects that suppress antigen-specific immune hyperreactivity in the setting of asthma or autoimmune disease. In this talk, Professor Nel will describe cancer immunotherapy from the perspective of inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD) by silicasome carriers and liposomes that provide an endogenous vaccination approach through the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents in combination with other active pharmaceutical ingredients. Immunogenic cell death leads to the activation of cytotoxic T-cells by the generation of “eat-me” and immunological danger signals, which can be further propagated at the TMI delivery site by additional interference in checkpoint and immune metabolic pathways. This intervention can increase the number of immunotherapy responders to checkpoint inhibitors, in addition to inducing immune memory that can eradicate tumor metastases.

The second part of his talk will focus on the induction of antigen-specific immune tolerance by liver-targeting tolerogenic nanoparticles, which leads to the generation of antigen-specific regulatory T cells and that can suppress allergic inflammation in the lung and autoimmune disease processes. Moreover, both treatment modalities, i.e., ICD-inducing nanocarriers and liver-targeting tolerogenic nanoparticles, can be used on the translational side to generate new therapeutics that can be implemented to treat two major disease processes by using contrasting design features.

THE KEYNOTE LECTURE SERIES

The keynote lectures are signature events taking place as part of a series of main lectures aligned with the program’s theme. Since 2010, 140 eminent international guest speakers, Nobel laureates, entrepreneurs, academics and distinguished local and regional leaders and decision-makers have addressed the audience.

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Watch the podcast interview with Andre Nel!