How Humanized Mouse Models Enforce Preclinical Studies in Immuno-Oncology

In this webinar, attendees will learn more about the advantages of humanized mouse models for preclinical studies in immunology and oncology, how they can be used to study cancer therapies in vivo and a novel RNA-based cancer-specific therapeutic strategy to overcome intrinsic resistance to immune checkpoint blockade.

In the first part of this webinar, explore several case studies that demonstrate the advantages of using humanized mouse models to decipher different mechanisms of action such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, ADCC, T cell engagers and cell therapies.

In the second part of the webinar, explore the use of humanized mouse models transplanted with melanoma PDX to study a novel long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) LISR-based therapeutic strategy. Per the PanCancer Atlas, copy number gains at the genomic region p11.21 of chromosome 12 correlate with poor patient survival and occur in 60 percent of melanoma patients. The locus is highly expressed in patients not responding to immune checkpoint blockade and encodes for the primate-specific lncRNA LISR. LISR is incorporated into ribosomes and contributes to the generation of drug-tolerant melanoma cells already associated with resistance to both targeted and immune therapies. As a consequence, down regulation of LISR leads to strong anti-tumour immune responses in melanoma in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo and re-sensitises to the immune checkpoint blockade. Mechanistically, LISR contributes to melanoma immunogenicity by affecting the translation of the checkpoint inhibitor PDL-1 and the assembly of the glycocalyx.

The featured study identifies an RNA-based cancer-specific therapeutic strategy to overcome intrinsic resistance to the immune checkpoint blockade. Register for this webinar to discover advantages of humanized mouse models for immunology and oncology preclinical studies, including the study of a novel long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) LISR-based therapeutic strategy.

Speakers

Dan Georgess, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, TransCure bioServices

Dan Georgess is an experienced scientist, team leader and project manager. He is dedicated to promoting cross-functional efforts to overcome outstanding challenges in therapeutics development. He joined TransCure as Project Leader and now oversees the Alliance Management Team. Through his Marie Curie PhD training at ENS de Lyon, Suzan G. Komen postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and his tenure-track leadership of the Cancer Invasion and Metastasis Cluster at the Lebanese American University, Dan has developed cutting-edge ex vivo and in vivo platforms and co-authored 15 peer-reviewed publications.

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Eleonora Leucci, PhD, Professor, Laboratory for RNA Cancer Biology, Department of Oncology, KU Leuven

Eleonora Leucci received her PhD in medical biotechnology from the University of Siena in 2007. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at BRIC, University of Copenhagen, where she studied non-coding RNAs. Later, she worked as a Marie Curie/VIB postdoctoral fellow in Chris Marine’s lab at VIB, and then as FNRS research associate at ULB, studying the role of lncRNAs in skin cancer. Since 2017, she leads the Laboratory for RNA Cancer Biology and heads the PDX platform TRACE at KU Leuven. In 2018, she was awarded the “Melanoma Research Alliance Young Investigator Award” to study long non-coding RNAs important for therapy resistance.

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