Antibodies as Drugs: Immunological Scaffolds as Therapeutics

Keystone Symposia, Silverthorne CO

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant): Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled Antibodies as Drugs: Immunological Scaffolds as Therapeutics, organized by Pablo Umaña, Mark X. Sliwkowski and Martin J. Glennie. The meeting will be held in Banff, Alberta, Canada from February 8-13, 2015. Monoclonal antibodies are now an established class of drugs in oncology and inflammation. In addition, exciting progress has been recently made on next generation, engineered therapeutic antibodies and alternative immunological scaffolds, with the first examples from this class being recently approved by FDA and EMA. This Keystone Symposia meeting will review progress in this area including lessons learned in the clinic and how this can be applied to new targets and drug candidates. The meeting will cover major areas of activity including: 1) Increasing antibody potency via antibody engineering, better engaging immune effector cells, and improvements in targeted delivery of effectors via fusion proteins and via conjugation of cytotoxic drugs; 2) Applying alternative targeting approaches to increase the therapeutic window, such as pre-targeting and site-specific antibody unmasking; 3) Novel antibodies in areas outside of oncology, including infectious diseases, neurology and chronic inflammation; 4) Engineering antibodies and scaffolds for alternative delivery routes and improved disposition; 5) Clinical progress with multi-specific antibodies; and 6) Recent advances on (i) addressing difficult targets such as GPCRs and ion channels, (ii) alternative immunological scaffolds, and (iii) novel antibody library technologies. Opportunities for interdisciplinary interactions will be significantly enhanced by the concurrent meeting on Tumor Immunology - Multidisciplinary Science Driving Combination Therapy, which will be co- located with this meeting. The topic of the meeting is highly relevant to NIAID's mission to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.