The breakthrough of immune checkpoint-targeting therapies has unleashed new hopes and successes for cancer therapy. However, subsets of patients remain who do not show robust responses to immunotherapy. To address this hurdle, combination therapies – coupling agents with distinct mechanisms of action (MoA) – appear promising to enhance treatment success against various cancers.
Choosing a preclinical model to profile new therapies is one of the main challenges in the field of immuno-oncology, as they are expected to predict a faithful translation into clinic, along with anticipating efficacy and tolerability of immunotherapies.
Immunocompetent models featuring humanized immune checkpoints enable the assessment of human-targeted therapies in well-established syngeneic tumor models, allowing investigation in a context of fully functional crosstalk between syngeneic tumor, immune and stroma cells. Importantly, while these models enable profiling evaluation of agents directed toward human targets, results still reflect mouse biology. Alternatively, immunodeficient mice reconstituted with a human immune system offer the possibility to investigate the efficacy and MoA of agents directed against human targets, with the advantage of exploring human biology using human tumor cells lines in a mouse model.
This webinar will demonstrate examples of applicability and complementarity of syngeneic and BRGSF-HIS (Human Immune System) models to assess efficacy and MoA of immunotherapies, either in combination with inhibitory immune checkpoints or as monotherapy.
- Immune checkpoint humanized models enable assessment of human-targeted therapies in well-established syngeneic tumor models, enabling investigation in a context with fully functional crosstalk among syngeneic tumor, immune and stroma cells
- BRGSF-HIS mice, which display functional human lymphoid and myeloid compartments, allow a wide therapeutic window and give the possibility to investigate efficacy and MoA of agents directed to human targets
- Immune checkpoint humanized and BRGSF-HIS models are complementary in assessing efficacy and MoA of immunotherapies
Kader Thiam PhD
Senior Vice President Discovery – Preclinical Models & Services, genOway
Dr Kader Thiam received his PhD for work at The Pasteur Institute, Lille, in cellular immunology and infectious diseases before becoming a fellow in its Department of Peptide Chemistry. There, he focused on regulating immune response using recombinant viruses and synthetic agonists of cytokines, and on intracellular delivery of lipopeptides modulating pharmacological targets.
Kader Thiam joined genOway in 1999, serving first as Scientific Consultant and Head of Immunology, and later as Director of Transgenic Technologies, driving R&D programs to develop alternatives to overcome transgenesis limitations and new models for immune response monitoring and better predictability toward the human situation. He is currently Senior Vice President Discovery – Preclinical Models & Services, overseeing the feasibility, design, rationale and accuracy of genOway’s preclinical models.
Edward van der Horst PhD
Senior Vice President, Sensei Biotherapeutics
Edward van der Horst PhD, is a molecular pharmacologist with a strong focus on antibody drug development across diverse target classes in oncology. He has 20 years of research and development experience from Zenith Epigenetics Ltd., Igenica Biotherapeutics Inc., OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Tularik, Inc. (now Amgen), and U3 Pharma GmbH (now Daiichi-Sankyo). Dr. van der Horst’s contributions and discoveries have led to the clinical evaluation of several novel drug candidates at Igenica Biotherapeutics and OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, as well as to the first clinical stage anti-HER3 antibody at U3 Pharma GmbH.
He received his postdoctoral training at Tularik, Inc., earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry and conducted his master’s thesis at Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology. He graduated with a M.S. of chemistry from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Arjun Surya PhD
Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientific Officer, Curadev Pharma
Dr Surya is a co-founder of Curadev and serves as its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer. He has more than 30 years of research experience and has held leadership positions of increasing seniority in the industry over this period. He has extensive experience in the assessment of drug molecules against several target classes across a range of therapeutic areas.
Dr Surya specializes in building high performance research teams by creating nurturing research environments that value independent thinking and objectivity. His past organizations include SmithKline Beecham, Ranbaxy, and TCG Lifesciences (Chembiotek). Dr Surya has an integrated Masters in Physics from IIT Kanpur and a PhD in Biophysics from Syracuse University, (USA).
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