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Welcome to ISCT 2017 London
Cytotherapy, 2017; 19: S1–S2
Welcome to ISCT 2017 London
MIGUEL FORTE1, MARK LOWDELL2 & KATY REZVANI3 1
mC4Tx, Bone Therapeutics, Belgium, 2Royal Free Hospital and University College London, United Kingdom, and University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, United States
3
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” – Samuel Johnson On behalf of the entire ISCT 2017 Organizing Committee, we would like to extend to you a warm welcome to London to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT) and 23rd Annual Scientific Meeting. This is the very first time the conference has been held in London, UK. Regular ISCT attendees will notice a change in the structure of this year’s annual meeting with new “breakout” plenary sessions and more oral presentations by invited speakers and selected abstracts. Themed days will hopefully allow you to better arrange your conference diaries to ensure you have sufficient time for networking and speaking to our commercial partners. London is one of the great cities of the World and we believe that the program agenda over the next 4 days is as dynamic, diverse and multicultural as our host city. Cutting edge basic science remains central to our purpose but, as our field moves ever more into the clinical applications of cellular therapy, we have many sessions dominated by clinical trials’ results; reflecting the rapid maturation of our field. We believe that every session will provide exciting presentations for attendees at all levels. The interaction of people is what makes ISCT such a strong and vibrant society. Connect, Communicate,Translate. These are the keywords for ISCT and its members. London is an ideal host city for the Society’s most significant gathering of our global members and delegates and we very much hope that you find some time to enjoy this vibrant city beyond the conference. For those of you attending the Society’s Jubilee Gala dinner, you will experience an exceptional private cruise on the Thames at dusk, but everyone should take a Thames Clipper day ticket and travel from Docklands to Vauxhall; stepping off on both sides of the river to visit the Tate Gallery, The Globe, Tate Modern, the Tower of London and many more sites. It really is the best way of seeing the city.
London is a major part of the global development of cell, gene and tissue therapies, with a comprehensive research base covering immunotherapy, gene therapy and regenerative medicine; the same diversity as presented in the conference agenda. As usual, the conference opening highlight will be the Presidential Plenary, this year focusing on the breadth of T cell immunotherapies. The three excellent speakers will then go on to chair specialist “breakout plenaries” of their own, which will focus on their specialist fields of anti-viral T cells, CAR-T and gene-modified T cells. The remaining 5 plenary sessions cover non-malignant immunotherapy, cancer immunotherapy, industrial translation, gene editing and tissue engineering. Each plenary also generates its own specialist “breakout plenary” sessions. We believe that this new format allows the plenary sessions to be more broadly educational so that detailed presentations relevant to experts in a field are presented in the breakout plenaries. This year we have also added early morning “Hot Topics” sessions that will provide a less formal setting to encourage interaction between presenters and the audience. The stalwart tracks of Regulatory, Quality/ Operations, and Commercialization remain core to the conference. For 2017 we have increased the number of Oral Abstract presentations, including an ISCT Chief Scientific Officers Abstract Showcase featuring the best abstracts that did not otherwise fit into the new breakout plenary sessions and, as ever, the high quality of poster presentations will provide a stimulating opportunity to interact with fellow attendees. In addition to the conference program, there is an extensive set of pre-conference workshops on Wednesday, May 3rd. These include workshops on Global Regulatory Perspectives, FACT Training, a dedicated Cord Blood workshop in partnership with the Cord Blood Association (CBA) and American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT), as well as an inaugural Cell Processing Track focused on developments in “non-substantially modified” cell
ISSN 1465-3249 Copyright © 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of International Society for Cellular Therapy. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcyt.2017.03.007
S2
M. Forte et al.
therapies. This will start with a joint session in partnership with the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) and close with an afternoon of presentations on the use of flow cytometry for product definition and QC. Finally, the ISCT MSC Scientific Committee have planned an update on the State of the Art in MSC Clinical Trials in cooperation with the European Commission. As ever, we are exceedingly grateful for the support of sponsors for the ISCT 2017 Annual Meeting. More than ever have taken space in the exhibition hall and we encourage attendees to avail themselves of the opportunities to visit exhibit booths and attend corporate symposia, tutorials and the new product theatre, located conveniently in the exhibit hall.The corporate program details can be found in your program guide.These are always informative and the very best way to make connections and learn about the latest technological advances.
Miguel Forte, MD, PhD mC4Tx Bone Therapeutics Belgium
We wish to thank everyone who helped so enthusiastically in the organization of the conference. Despite late night and early morning conference calls, we have been delighted by the commitment of fellow ISCT members to contribute to planning such an ambitious meeting. Our thanks also go out to all of the speakers who have generously agreed to share their experiences at the conference. Thanks are also due to the ISCT Head Office for their tireless efforts in a very challenging year. We are sure that you will have a highly informative and, we hope, entertaining time with us here in London, and thank you for joining us to celebrate the Society’s very special 25th anniversary. Whilst the opening quotation from Samuel Johnson is his most famous comment on London, he went on to say “Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London” – we hope you feel the same when the conference concludes on the 6th of May.
Mark Lowdell, PhD, FRCPath, FRBS Royal Free Hospital and University College London United Kingdom
Katy Rezvani, MD, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center United States
Welcome to ISCT 2017 London
MIGUEL FORTE1, MARK LOWDELL2 & KATY REZVANI3 1
mC4Tx, Bone Therapeutics, Belgium, 2Royal Free Hospital and University College London, United Kingdom, and University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, United States
3
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” – Samuel Johnson On behalf of the entire ISCT 2017 Organizing Committee, we would like to extend to you a warm welcome to London to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT) and 23rd Annual Scientific Meeting. This is the very first time the conference has been held in London, UK. Regular ISCT attendees will notice a change in the structure of this year’s annual meeting with new “breakout” plenary sessions and more oral presentations by invited speakers and selected abstracts. Themed days will hopefully allow you to better arrange your conference diaries to ensure you have sufficient time for networking and speaking to our commercial partners. London is one of the great cities of the World and we believe that the program agenda over the next 4 days is as dynamic, diverse and multicultural as our host city. Cutting edge basic science remains central to our purpose but, as our field moves ever more into the clinical applications of cellular therapy, we have many sessions dominated by clinical trials’ results; reflecting the rapid maturation of our field. We believe that every session will provide exciting presentations for attendees at all levels. The interaction of people is what makes ISCT such a strong and vibrant society. Connect, Communicate,Translate. These are the keywords for ISCT and its members. London is an ideal host city for the Society’s most significant gathering of our global members and delegates and we very much hope that you find some time to enjoy this vibrant city beyond the conference. For those of you attending the Society’s Jubilee Gala dinner, you will experience an exceptional private cruise on the Thames at dusk, but everyone should take a Thames Clipper day ticket and travel from Docklands to Vauxhall; stepping off on both sides of the river to visit the Tate Gallery, The Globe, Tate Modern, the Tower of London and many more sites. It really is the best way of seeing the city.
London is a major part of the global development of cell, gene and tissue therapies, with a comprehensive research base covering immunotherapy, gene therapy and regenerative medicine; the same diversity as presented in the conference agenda. As usual, the conference opening highlight will be the Presidential Plenary, this year focusing on the breadth of T cell immunotherapies. The three excellent speakers will then go on to chair specialist “breakout plenaries” of their own, which will focus on their specialist fields of anti-viral T cells, CAR-T and gene-modified T cells. The remaining 5 plenary sessions cover non-malignant immunotherapy, cancer immunotherapy, industrial translation, gene editing and tissue engineering. Each plenary also generates its own specialist “breakout plenary” sessions. We believe that this new format allows the plenary sessions to be more broadly educational so that detailed presentations relevant to experts in a field are presented in the breakout plenaries. This year we have also added early morning “Hot Topics” sessions that will provide a less formal setting to encourage interaction between presenters and the audience. The stalwart tracks of Regulatory, Quality/ Operations, and Commercialization remain core to the conference. For 2017 we have increased the number of Oral Abstract presentations, including an ISCT Chief Scientific Officers Abstract Showcase featuring the best abstracts that did not otherwise fit into the new breakout plenary sessions and, as ever, the high quality of poster presentations will provide a stimulating opportunity to interact with fellow attendees. In addition to the conference program, there is an extensive set of pre-conference workshops on Wednesday, May 3rd. These include workshops on Global Regulatory Perspectives, FACT Training, a dedicated Cord Blood workshop in partnership with the Cord Blood Association (CBA) and American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT), as well as an inaugural Cell Processing Track focused on developments in “non-substantially modified” cell
ISSN 1465-3249 Copyright © 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of International Society for Cellular Therapy. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcyt.2017.03.007
S2
M. Forte et al.
therapies. This will start with a joint session in partnership with the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) and close with an afternoon of presentations on the use of flow cytometry for product definition and QC. Finally, the ISCT MSC Scientific Committee have planned an update on the State of the Art in MSC Clinical Trials in cooperation with the European Commission. As ever, we are exceedingly grateful for the support of sponsors for the ISCT 2017 Annual Meeting. More than ever have taken space in the exhibition hall and we encourage attendees to avail themselves of the opportunities to visit exhibit booths and attend corporate symposia, tutorials and the new product theatre, located conveniently in the exhibit hall.The corporate program details can be found in your program guide.These are always informative and the very best way to make connections and learn about the latest technological advances.
Miguel Forte, MD, PhD mC4Tx Bone Therapeutics Belgium
We wish to thank everyone who helped so enthusiastically in the organization of the conference. Despite late night and early morning conference calls, we have been delighted by the commitment of fellow ISCT members to contribute to planning such an ambitious meeting. Our thanks also go out to all of the speakers who have generously agreed to share their experiences at the conference. Thanks are also due to the ISCT Head Office for their tireless efforts in a very challenging year. We are sure that you will have a highly informative and, we hope, entertaining time with us here in London, and thank you for joining us to celebrate the Society’s very special 25th anniversary. Whilst the opening quotation from Samuel Johnson is his most famous comment on London, he went on to say “Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London” – we hope you feel the same when the conference concludes on the 6th of May.
Mark Lowdell, PhD, FRCPath, FRBS Royal Free Hospital and University College London United Kingdom
Katy Rezvani, MD, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center United States