Oncology seminars

Wei Wei and Sizun Jiang discuss how spatial multiomics reveals interactions among cancer, immune and stromal cells and the cell states associated with treatment outcomes. Their findings connect melanoma and small-cell lung cancer with the organisation of local tumour ecosystems. The session considers how immune checkpoint blockade prepares melanoma tissue for combination treatment, coordinated macrophage and T-cell states, clonal evolution and lineage plasticity, and the relationship between spatial architecture and immune checkpoint pathways. It also examines the use of AI foundation models and agents in spatial-omics analysis and systems immunology to investigate immune responses and potential therapeutic targets.

T-cell engagers can be developed for both cancer and autoimmune disease, but differences in target cells, disease biology and therapeutic goals require different preclinical strategies. Wanjun Yuan and Haiqiao Sun compare model selection and evaluation endpoints, from T-cell engagement and tumour killing to B-cell depletion, immune reconstitution and safety. A case-based exchange examines how the same target may call for different studies across indications, including assessment of cytokine-release signals and the effects of dose and exposure on experimental design.

Jang Hyun Park discusses how adaptive immunity monitors the central nervous system through lymphoid structures in skull bone marrow. The study identifies germinal-centre-like formations containing follicular-helper-like T cells that promote B-cell activation and humoral responses through CD40L, IL-21 and interferon-gamma signalling. In mouse models, these cells respond to CNS-derived antigens and contribute to anti-tumour immunity in the brain. The findings establish a local site of antigen-specific CNS surveillance and raise questions about its role across neurological diseases.

This panel examines why strong immunogenicity in cancer-vaccine development does not always translate into clinical benefit. Prasun Chakraborty, Nora Disis and Timothy Spear compare delivery strategies aimed at the immune system or the tumour and discuss trade-offs between platforms. The programme considers how manufacturing limits and combination regimens constrain feasible approaches, and how delivery decisions influence immune activation, clinical translation and production at scale.

Basic research, technological advances and clinical observations can converge to produce major therapeutic breakthroughs. Examples from lung cancer, spinal muscular atrophy and hemophilia illustrate how curiosity-driven science contributed to medicines including osimertinib, risdiplam and emicizumab. The lecture follows discoveries across the decades between initial biological insights and effective treatments, examining the persistence, unexpected findings and collaboration across disciplines that made these advances possible. It considers how biological, clinical and technological research connect in the development of new medicines.

Anthony Letai discusses how understanding programmed cell death can guide the selection of cancer treatments. The seminar explains how apoptotic signalling can be measured and how these measurements can identify drugs capable of killing cancer cells. Hybrid: New Research Building Auditorium, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, and Zoom. Monday 5 October 2026, 16:30–17:30 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Use the attendance registration form or the event’s Zoom link on the organizer page. Organized by Georgetown’s Distinguished Scientist Seminar Series. Letai is Director of the National Cancer Institute. An in-person reception follows the seminar.

MIT Biology Colloquium Series talk by David Bilder (University of California, Berkeley), hosted by Yukiko Yamashita, on invertebrate oncology and the ancient evolutionary origins of tumor-host interactions.

Michelle M. Li examines how computational analyses can preserve the biological context of a proposed treatment, including cell type, disease state, genetic background and patient characteristics. She introduces Medea, an AI system that combines biological software, predictive models and literature retrieval while checking intermediate steps and reconciling evidence. The seminar presents evaluations involving cell-specific target selection, cancer-cell synthetic lethality and immunotherapy response. A separate yeast experiment tests predictions against previously unpublished measurements of gene-pair interactions under DNA-damaging treatments. The research addresses whether an agent can transfer useful evidence between contexts while recognizing when that transfer is unsupported. Reported comparisons cover predictive performance, computational failures and the ability to abstain. This recording retains the original seminar date.

Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology Seminar by Christine Brown, PhD (Deputy Director, T Cell Therapeutics Research Laboratories) on developing and refining redirected CAR T cells for malignant brain tumors, including glioblastoma, tumor heterogeneity, immunosuppressive microenvironments, delivery routes, and manufacturing.

Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell explain how peripheral immune tolerance prevents the immune system from attacking the body. Sakaguchi follows the identification of regulatory T cells, the CD25 marker, and the relationship between central tolerance and active suppression of self-reactive cells. He considers how changing regulatory T-cell activity could support cancer treatment and transplantation. Brunkow describes genetic investigation of scurfy mice, identification of FOXP3, and the connection between mutations in this gene and human IPEX syndrome. The work establishes a molecular basis for the development and function of regulatory T cells. Ramsdell traces the move from these basic discoveries toward therapeutic strategies, including engineering a patient’s regulatory T cells to target inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis. He discusses early clinical investigation and the ambition of restoring immune balance; these approaches are presented as developing treatments rather than established cures.

Emmanuelle Passegué examines why mechanisms that maintain blood-forming stem cells in early life can contribute to their deterioration with age. The lecture connects cell-cycle control, marrow support, inflammation, metabolic regulation and cellular memory to altered self-renewal and blood-cell production. It also considers genomic instability, clonal hematopoiesis and progression toward leukemia.

Stephen Quake describes how circulating cell-free nucleic acids became a basis for non-invasive diagnostics. Combining genome knowledge with high-throughput sequencing made liquid biopsies useful in pregnancy, transplantation, infection and cancer. The lecture follows the development of blood-based tests that can replace some invasive tissue-sampling procedures.

Astrocytes release glutamate by regulated exocytosis in health and disease Vladimir Parpura, International Translational Neuroscience Research Institute, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, P.R. China Parpura will present you with the evidence that astrocytes, a subtype of glial cells in the brain, can exocytotically release the neurotransmitter glutamate and how this release is regulated. Spatiotemporal characteristic of vesicular fusion that underlie glutamate release in astrocytes will be discussed. He will also present data on a translational project in which this release pathway can be targeted for the treatment of glioblastoma, the deadliest brain cancer.

Stephen Quake revisits the origins of genetic variation, connecting classic bacterial experiments with modern single-cell genomics. The lecture asks how mutations accumulate during human life, how they contribute to cancer and how tumour evolution can be reconstructed. It illustrates how measurements of individual cells help address these questions.

Studies of families with inherited breast-cancer risk led to BRCA1 and subsequently many other susceptibility genes. This seminar examines how large-scale sequencing and population studies have refined tumour associations and penetrance estimates. It moves from a simple dominant-inheritance model toward multifactorial risk, considering genetic and environmental modifiers that could support individualized surveillance and management.

Spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) is a diffuse optical measurement technique that can quantify tissue optical absorption and reduced scattering on a pixel by-pixel basis. Measurements of absorption at different wavelengths enable the extraction of molar concentrations of tissue chromophores over a wide field, providing a noncontact and label-free means to assess tissue viability, oxygenation, microarchitecture, and molecular content. In this talk, I will describe openSFDI, an open-source guide for building a low-cost, small-footprint, multi-wavelength SFDI system capable of quantifying absorption and reduced scattering as well as oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentrations in biological tissue. The openSFDI project has a companion website which provides a complete parts list along with detailed instructions for assembling the openSFDI system. I will also review several technological advances our lab has recently made, including the extension of SFDI to the shortwave infrared wavelength band (900-1300 nm), where water and lipids provide strong contrast. Finally, I will discuss several preclinical and clinical applications for SFDI, including applications related to cancer, dermatology, rheumatology, cardiovascular disease, and others.