Cell microarray screening of monomeric and heterodimeric plasma membrane proteins together with tethered secreted proteins expressed in human cells enables rapid discovery of primary receptors as well as potential off-targets for a variety of biologics including: peptides, antibodies, proteins, CAR T and other cell therapies. Case studies will demonstrate the power of the technology for identifying novel, druggable targets as well as for IND-enabling specificity screening and safety assessment.

Approaches that could address this limitation by engineering aßT cells, such as chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cells, are being investigated intensively, but these approaches have other issues, such as a scarcity of appropriate targets for CAR T cells in solid tumours. Consequently, there is renewed interest among translational researchers and commercial partners in the therapeutic use of T cells and their receptors. Clinical translation of diverse strategies with T cells and their receptors will be discussed.

Gamma delta-T cells are innate-like lymphocytes that sense stressed cells and form a part of the immune surveillance mechanism, their infiltration into tumors is associated with a positive prognosis. Butyrophilin-3A (BTN3A), a stress sensing surface protein is required for activation of human gamma 9 delta 2-T cells in response to malignant or infected cells. ICT01 is a clinical stage anti-BTN3A monoclonal antibody that selectively activates gamma 9 delta 2-T cells. The presentation will cover preclinical discovery and development of ICT01 and illustrate the clinical development strategy and biomarker findings in the cancer patients. Finally, the presentation will cover the potential clinical applications for the ICT01 program.

• NEW DATA - This Presentation Contains New Data​

This talk will focus on a novel neoantigen (NeoAg) identification platform we have developed to identify immunogenic cancer mutations and the TCRs that recognize them. The IPV (Identify-Priortize-Validate) platform combines HLA-agnostic bioinformatic filtering of matched tumor/normal sequence data with functional analysis of autologous lymphocytes to enable functional validation of NeoAg and specific TCRs at a significantly higher efficiency than previous purely-predictive approaches, and does so using routinely-available clinical samples.

Gamma-delta T cells display potent cytotoxic activity with preferential activity against tumor cells and provide a very promising effector cell modality. Advances in the monitoring and activation of gamma-delta T cells for the development of novel immune-oncology approaches in therapy of cancer will be discussed.

T-cell receptor (TCR)-mediated immunotherapy holds great promise for the treatment of cancer. A prerequisite for successful therapy is the availability of highly tumor-specific targets in combination with potent and safe TCRs. At Immatics, the TCR and target platforms XCEPTOR® and XPRESIDENT® work in concert to deliver TCR candidates for clinical applications. We will provide data for the process of developing TCR candidates, as well as data from our clinical ACTengine® trials.

In my talk, I will discuss the technological developments in the field of allogeneic CAR T cells and summarise the results of the early clinical trials highlighting the promise and challenges of this exciting new therapy.

Va24-invariant Natural Killer T cells (iNKTs) are attractive carriers of chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) due to their inherent antitumor properties and preferential localization to tumor sites. Unlike conventional T cells, iNKTs are not alloreactive so that banked third-party iNKT products can be used for "off-the-shelf" immunotherapy. We will present interim results from the ongoing, first-in-human clinical trials of autologous and allogeneic CAR-iNKTs in patients with neuroblastoma and B-cell malignancies, respectively.

•    NEW DATA - This Presentation Contains New Data

•    NEW TALK - This Presentation Will be Given for the First Time

Avoiding the induction of Graft versus Host disease is a key attribute required for Allogeneic CAR T cell therapy. Strategies that utilize the co-expression of either an interfering peptide or shRNA alongside the CAR itself are now in the clinic and have delivered initial proof of principle that non-gene edited Allogeneic CAR T therapy is feasible and suitable for further clinical development.