Dr. James Gulley - NCI, NIH to Speak at the Cancer Immunotherapy Congress in Boston

BOSTON, USA, April 19, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Dr. James Gulley, an internationally recognized expert in cancer immunotherapy has joined the speaker panel for the Cancer Immunotherapy Congress organized by Markets and Markets Conferences. The congress scheduled for 19th – 20th May 2016 in Boston, USA,  will gather scientists, academicians and professionals from Pharmaceutical, Bio-pharmaceutical, Bio-technology companies and Research institutes working in Drug Discovery, Drug Screening, Oncology R&D, Cancer Immunotherapy/ Immuno-oncology and Immunotherapy R&D.

Dr. Gulley serves within the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) of the National Cancer Institute, USA, as Chief of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, Director of the Medical Oncology Service and Head of the Immunotherapy Section. He spoke to the marketing team at Markets and Markets, a brief pre-event interview, talking about the latest advancements in cancer immunotherapy and how it’s different from the conventional therapies.

Dr. Gulley said, “Immunotherapy does not directly target the tumor, instead it directly targets the immune system that in turn targets the tumor. Furthermore, because immunotherapy can set in motion the dynamic immune system and thus impact the tumor long after it is given, overall survival can be effected despite not effect on early endpoints such as progression free survival”. He further added, “But from a patient’s standpoint, immunotherapy is associated with different toxicities (typically much less intense and fewer) than chemotherapy or other systemic therapy and importantly many patients like the fact that their own body’s immune system is helping them fight the cancer”. Talking about the possibility of combination therapy he added, “It is possible that with effective combination strategies we could see dramatic improvements in the proportion of patients who have durable responses with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

The two day conference will also cover topics such as cellular immunotherapy, predictive biomarkers for response, combinational therapy and toxicity, new immunotherapy targets, pre-clinical & translational and moving beyond current vaccines. The conference will serve as a stage for panel discussions, case studies and Q&A sessions between global experts from academia and industry.

The two day conference will feature speakers representing organizations such as Dendreon Pharmaceuticals, Medical Oncology Service Center for Cancer Research, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Novartis Oncology Translational Research, Discovery Research Jounce Therapeutics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Merck Research Laboratories, Massachusetts General Hospital, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Boston Medical Centre, Harvard Institutes of Medicine. Cancer Genetics Inc. (CGI) have confirmed their presence as Platinum Sponsor and we will be delivering a presentation on their latest offerings. Joining CGI will be Silver Sponsor Median Technologies’ Chief Medical Officer Souhil Zaim and Applied BioMath’s Co-Founder, President and CEO, John Burke. MedGenome  too have recently confirmed their participation as Sponsor at the event.

The conference will be held at the Four Points Sheraton Wakefield Boston and will bring together 150+ global immunotherapy experts under one roof. This will be a great opportunity for the delegates to stay abreast with the latest industry developments.

Source: Markets and Markets