ABSTRACT
Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled “Emerging Cellular Therapies: Cancer and
Beyond”, organized by Drs. Crystal L. Mackall, Marina Cavazzana and Stanley R. Riddell. The conference will
be held in Banff, Canada from February 8-12, 2020.
After many years of fundamental research, cell-based therapies are now recognized as effective medicines for
treatment of a specific subset of cancers as well as a growing list of autoimmune, degenerative and infectious
diseases. This clinical progress has been propelled by exponential growth in understanding of the underlying
cell biology, and increasingly sophisticated techniques for genetic engineering and for using synthetic biology to
control cellular therapeutics. Cellular therapeutics are now poised for increasing impact both in cancer medicine
and in the treatment of genetic, autoimmune and degenerative diseases. This conference will bring together
fundamental researchers and translational scientists to discuss recent successes and highlight challenges
across the spectrum of emerging cellular therapeutics. Another innovative aspect of this conference is the joint
pairing with the Keystone Symposia conference on “Engineering the Genome” organized by Drs. Vic Myer and
Erik Sontheimer. This unique pairing will provide an outstanding opportunity to cross-fertilize ideas and to
facilitate formation of new collaborations between experts in genome engineering and experts in cell biology,
cell-based therapies and synthetic biology. The conference will provide an opportunity to report emerging
preclinical and clinical insights, present novel platforms, and highlight challenges related to both safety and
efficacy of cell therapies. The broad disease focus will enhance collaborations between the cancer
immunotherapy communities and those focused on developing cell therapies for non-malignant disease.