The Immunoscore and Immunoprofile: Assessing Anti-Cancer Immunity as a Biomarker to Stratify Patients for Clinical Trials

There is a significant need for innovative prognostic and predictive biomarkers of recurrence, response to therapy, and survival for patients with cancer. Increasing evidence suggests that the number, type, and location of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in primary tumors have prognostic value, and this has led to the development of an “immunoscore”. The immunoscore concept also has the potential to help predict response to treatment, thereby improving decision making with regard to choice of therapy.

This predictive aspect of the tumor microenvironment forms the basis for the concept of immunoprofiling, which can be described as using an individual’ s immune system signature (or profile) to predict that patient’ s response to standard therapies, novel immunotherapies, and to stratify patients enrolled in clinical trials. However, biomarkers that can be used as predictive factors for these treatments have not yet been clinically validated.

This webinar will demonstrate how image analysis technology, such as Definiens, is particularly well suited to objectively characterize the tumor microenvironment and show how Definiens is being used by the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC)-led global immunoscore initiative, that seeks to validate the immunoscore as a prognostic biomarker for patients with colon cancer.

Speakers

Bernard A. Fox, Ph.D., Endowed Chair and Chief, Laboratory of Molecular and Tumor Immunology, at the Robert W. Franz Cancer Research Center, Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, Providence Cancer Center and Co-leader of the Tumor Immunology Focus Panel, Knight Cancer Institute and Associate Professor, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Oregon Health and Science University

Dr. Bernard A. Fox’s research efforts are divided between preclinical models, the development, performance and monitoring of cancer immunotherapy trials and the training of the next generation of translational investigators. He has served on review committees for the NIH, FDA, philanthropic and governmental organizations in the USA, Europe and Asia, serves on editorial boards of seven scientific journals, consults for the biotechnology/pharma sector and is an internationally recognized expert on cancer immunotherapy. He is past President of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer; Chair, World Immunotherapy Council, and co-founder and CEO of UbiVac, a clinical stage biotech company.

Message Presenter

Carlo B. Bifulco, M.D., Director of Molecular Pathology and Pathology Informatics at the Providence Regional Laboratory and Director of Translational Molecular Pathology at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute

Dr. Bifulco is a surgical pathologist, with subspecialty training and expertise in Molecular Genetic Pathology and Hematopathology. Prior to joining Providence Pathology, Dr. Bifulco served on the Pathology faculties at the University of Florida and at Yale University and completed fellowships in Oncologic Surgical Pathology and Molecular Genetic Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and in Hematopathology at Yale University. His current translational research work is focused on supporting the characterization of the tumor’s immune microenvironment through immunohistochemical and image analysis techniques.

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