The 11th Annual Meeting of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy today opened in Mainz

More than 670 registered attendees;
over 260 scientific abstracts selected for presentation

Mainz, May 14, 2013 – With the slogan “Advancing Targeted Therapies,” the 2013 Annual Meeting in Mainz again provides a forum for international exchange about new and innovative cancer therapies that monitor and modulate the immune system to actively address cancer. CIMT welcomes more than 720 registered attendees and over 30 international speakers.

This year the scientific program spotlights advanced strategies for targeted immunotherapies. Dedicated sessions on the tumor micro-environment are addressing disease mechanisms and propose strategies to optimize immunotherapies. Exciting recent results combining immunotherapies with other standard cancer treatments are being presented along¬side preclinical and clinical trial results. Sessions on therapeutic vaccination, cellular therapy and improving immunity address recent advances and future applications. In addition, the CIMT Immunoguiding Program (CIP) and the CIMT Regulatory Research Group (RRG) hold discussion sessions focusing on standardized and innovative tools for improving the quality of immunomonito¬ring and facilitating the translation of scientific knowledge to drug development. As every year, CIMT gives young investigators the opportunity to present their work to a large international audience. Chosen from over 260 entries, thirty-six abstracts are presented as short talks.

“By focusing on novel biomarker technologies, personalized medicine concepts and early clinical trials, CIMT is also providing a networking platform for the advancement of immune-oncology discoveries into medical products” says CIMT President Prof. Dr. Christoph Huber. “We are pleased to bring together international opinion leaders from academic institutions, industry and regulatory agencies in one place discuss how to bring better therapies to cancer patients”.

For the first time, CIMT offers a new workshop in which experienced entrepreneurs and experts will discuss translating and developing science into products. Says Dr. Cedrik Britten, CIMT Director Translational Medicine: “It takes tenacity and vast resources to advance scientific innovations into new approved medicines. All aspects of technology commercialization have thus become important, even for translational scientists working at universities and not-for-profit institutes, and we are happy to address these aspects in addition to the scientific program. “

Immudex Takes On International Proficieny Panels Established by CIMT and CIC

Copenhagen, Denmark, Mainz, Germany, and New York, USA – April 23, 2013

Immudex has entered into a strategic agreement with the US Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) of the Cancer Research Institute, and the European Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT), under which Immudex will provide MHC-peptide multimer and Elispot proficiency panel services worldwide.

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The latest issue of our partner journal Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy, Volume 61 Number 10 is now available on SpringerLink.

Community-wide consensus process generates a framework for reporting of T-cell experiments in clinical immunology

Increasing transparency and quality of immune response measurements

Mainz, Germany and New York, NY, USA, July 26th, 2012 – The Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) Immunoguiding Program (CIP) and the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) today announced the publication of a letter in Immunity discussing the results of an unique vetting process that involved multiple international groups and individuals and has now led to publication guidelines that increase transparency of immune response assessments.

Throughout the last three years the Minimal Information About T-cell Assays (MIATA) project was led by the two lead-authors, Cedrik M. Britten (TRON gGmbH ,Mainz, Germany) and Sylvia Janetzki (Zellnet Inc., New-York, USA).  MIATA is complementing systematic and field-wide efforts to provide better  tools for biomarker studies to enhance the development of new cancer immunotherapies.

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CIMT and CIC-CRI organize FOCIS Member Society Symposium on

Actively Personalized Vaccines & Combination Therapies

Mainz, June 4, 2012  – The Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) together with the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) of the Cancer Research Institute for the second time organizes a Members Society Symposium as part of the annual meeting of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies. The symposium takes place on June 20 in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

More than 10 experts from Europe, the United States and Canada are invited to the symposium that features perspectives on actively personalized cancer vaccines and combinations therapies, including clinical development and regulatory perspectives.
Christoph Huber of CIMT and Axel Hoos of CIC will chair the two-part symposium.

For the detailed program, click here.

FOCIS is the leading collaborative forum for education, research and networking across the broad field of clinical immunology. Since its conception in 2001, the FOCIS organization has grown to 52 Member Societies that collectively represent over 65,000 basic and clinician scientists. Each year, the FOCIS meeting brings together these researchers and clinicians from around the world, working in more than 30 clinical specialties and provides them with a forum to gather and share the latest findings, breakthroughs and therapies related to human disease. The FOCIS concept posits that interrelationships between fields sharing clinical immunology expertise will build a better and faster pathway to improve knowledge that leads to new therapies for inflammatory and immunologic diseases.

Anniversary Meeting of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT), May 23-25

CIMT 10th annual meeting is largest European network for research and clinical development of innovative cancer immunotherapies

Mainz, Germany – Highlights of the international meeting which will take place May 23-25 in Mainz, Germany, include highly individualized therapies; antibody treatments; therapeutic vaccines; and innovative diagnostics and drug development through novel genomic and bioinformatic platforms. A record attendance of more than 600 representatives from basic and clinical research organizations, regulatory authorities, biotech and pharmaceutical companies will partake. The congress will be opened by Doris Ahnen, Minister for Education, Science, Education and Culture, Rhineland-Palatine.

With the slogan “the next generation of cancer immunotherapy,” the 2012 Annual Meeting in Mainz provides a forum for the international exchange about new and innovative cancer therapies that monitor and modulate components of the immune system to actively address cancer.

Headquartered in Mainz, CIMT is one of the world’s leading research and communications forums for researchers, physicians, industrial researchers and developers focused on the development of novel cancer immune diagnostics and cancer immunotherapies. At the annual meeting in Mainz, speakers will present the current state of development of highly innovative cancer drugs, including antibody therapies and tumor vaccines. In 10 years, CIMT has become a scientific platform connecting all international centers and research networks of immunotherapy.

“The development of cancer immunotherapy is bound by close interaction between basic research, academic medicine, industry and regulatory authorities. It requires large investments and is increasingly conducted in specialized centers for onco-immunology, “said Prof. Dr. Christoph Huber, Chairman of CIMT.  ”Mainz, with its university, the University Medical Center, an expanding biotech industry, links to the Rhine-Main region, and the regional cluster ‘Cluster for Individualized Immunotherapies’ (CI3) is undoubtedly one of the recognized world leaders for research and development of cancer immuno-diagnostics and therapies. “

This year’s CIMT annual meeting received a record number of new scientific contributions as well as record numbers of international participants from academia and industry.

CIMT-CIP delegate joins Steering Committee of AACR-CIMM

Leiden, March 1, 2012

Dr. Sjoerd van der Burg, co-chair of the CIMT Immunguiding Program, has been appointed as member of the Steering Committee in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Cancer Immunology Working Group (CIMM) for 2012-2014. The mission of the CIMM is to provide a forum for scientists and clinicians interested in cancer immunology and immunotherapy to meet, exchange knowledge and ideas, and discuss the present status and future promise of this important discipline, similar to that of CIMT.

The CIMM helps  AACR to promote, integrate, and widely disseminate the new developments in cancer immunology and immunotherapy to the scientific community.  Dr. van der Burg indicates that his appointment will allow him “to share the mission of CIP within the large community of scientists studying the immunology of cancer and encourage them to join the ongoing harmonization initiatives.”

Independent Proficiency Panels Demonstrate Critical Value of Cross-Laboratory Assay Harmonization

 Guiding and Improving Immune Response Measurements in Early Clinical Studies

Mainz, Germany and New York, NY, USA, Nov. 9, 2011 – The Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) Immunoguiding Program (CIP) and the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) today announced the publication of a joint paper in Science Translational Medicine discussing recent results of independent international, cross-laboratory immune assay harmonization studies. More than 120 academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, contract research, and government laboratories from the United States and Europe have participated in CIMT-CIP and CRI-CIC sponsored proficiency panels to test and compare immune response assays, including measurement variability and reproducibility. The collaboration between both organizations dedicated to cancer immunotherapy has enabled this successful program, which represents the largest in the field and delivers an important practical advance to the research community.

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