11
Keynote
2020
Januar y
12-2 3
Nano-enabled Immunotherapy for Cancer and the
Treatment of Allergic and Autoimmune Disease
DESCRIPTION
Nanoparticles have made a big impact on the development of immunotherapy for cancer and serious allergic disorders, demon-
strating the ability to develop new therapeutics that are capable of boosting immunogenic effects in the setting of “cold” tumor
microenvironments in solid cancers, as well as the ability to induce tolerogenic effects that suppress antigen-specific immune
hyperreactivity in the setting of asthma or autoimmune disease. In this talk, Professor Nel will describe cancer immunotherapy
from the perspective of inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD) by silicasome carriers and liposomes that provide an endoge-
nous vaccination approach through the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents in combination with other active pharmaceutical
ingredients. Immunogenic cell death leads to the activation of cytotoxic T-cells by the generation of “eat-me” and immunological
danger signals, which can be further propagated at the TMI delivery site by additional interference in checkpoint and immune
metabolic pathways. This intervention can increase the number of immunotherapy responders to checkpoint inhibitors, in addi-
tion to inducing immune memory that can eradicate tumor metastases.
The second part of his talk will focus on the induction of antigen-specific immune tolerance by liver-targeting tolerogenic nano-
particles, which leads to the generation of antigen-specific regulatory T cells and that can suppress allergic inflammation in the
lung and autoimmune disease processes. Moreover, both treatment modalities, i.e., ICD-inducing nanocarriers and liver-target-
ing tolerogenic nanoparticles, can be used on the translational side to generate new therapeutics that can be implemented to
treat two major disease processes by using contrasting design features.
SPEAKER Andre Nel
Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Director of Research at California
Nanosystems Institute (CNSI), UCLA
EVENT FORMAT