Current immunotherapies are ineffective in nearly 80% of cancers that are weakly immunogenic (“cold”). Pancreatic cancer is a classic cold tumor with the lowest immunotherapy response rate of all cancers (<2%), and can accurately model the cold tumor microenvironment. To identify novel immunotherapeutic strategies for pancreatic cancer, our approach is to investigate the mechanisms conferring immunity in rare pancreatic cancer survivors with hot tumors. This seminar will discuss our work on how neoantigens and group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) promote immunity in pancreatic cancer and present our efforts to translate these finding to patients, to thereby provide broader immunotherapeutic concepts for cold tumors.
(Refreshments will be served at 9:45 AM)