Scientific Spotlight Sessions

CAR-T Manufacturing Across Nations: From Low-to-Middle-Income Academic Platforms to Frontier Innovations in Global Access

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) -T cell therapy has transformed the treatment of many hematologic malignancies, yet access remains deeply unequal worldwide, and the science of how these products are manufactured is still unevenly understood. CAR-T products directed against the same antigen can differ in vector design, T-cell composition, culture duration, and manufacturing workflow — differences that are not merely operational but biologically meaningful, shaping product phenotype, expansion, persistence, and toxicity. This session will examine CAR-T manufacturing as both a scientific variable and a determinant of global access, pairing two complementary perspectives: a cross-center view from academic programs in lower-resource settings and a high-income view on what manufacturing science must develop next to broaden access. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for weighing centralized versus decentralized manufacturing models and transferable lessons from academic programs that they can apply in their own institutions. 

Dr. Fernando Gibran-Nunes will present a comparative, cross-center overview of how academic programs approach CAR-T manufacturing to broaden access to cellular therapy. Drawing on perspectives gathered from academic platforms in middle-income countries across Latin America and the Middle East, the talk synthesizes how these centers weigh centralized and decentralized models of manufacturing and the operational and biological trade-offs each entail. He will examine the challenges, priorities, and emerging solutions voiced by academic manufacturers working in lower-resource settings, and what their shared experience reveals about the science of manufacturing as a determinant of global access to CAR-T therapy. 

Dr. Sarah Nikiforow will offer a perspective from a high-income setting, focusing on manufacturing innovations that could lower barriers to CAR-T access in low- and middle-income countries. She will consider what the field should prioritize next in CAR-T manufacturing science — moving from frontier development toward practical deployment — to make cellular therapies more broadly available

Speakers:

Fernando Gibran-Nunes, MD
Hospital Sirio-Libanês
São Paulo, Brazil
Centralized and Decentralized Models of CAR-T Manufacturing: Insights from a Latin American Academic Platform on the Science of Global Access

Sarah Nikiforow, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Boston, MA
From Frontier to Field: Manufacturing Innovations That Could Lower Barriers to CAR-T Access in LMICs

Decoding Macrophage Diversity in Lymphomas: Spatial Insights and Immunotherapeutic Implications

T cell–directed therapies have transformed the treatment of both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, yet responses remain heterogeneous and many patients relapse. Across subtypes, the differentiation state of the T-cell compartment is emerging as a key determinant of outcome: exhausted T cells (TEX), spanning progenitor and terminally differentiated states with distinct proliferative and cytotoxic capacity, accumulate in the lymphoma microenvironment and associate with impaired response to T cell–engaging therapy. What drives T cells along this trajectory within intact tissue remains unresolved. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) have emerged as leading candidate orchestrators of this process, offering a unifying framework for microenvironment-mediated resistance. This session offers a timely lens on macrophage–T cell interplay as a central axis of immune evasion in lymphoma: attendees will learn how cutting-edge spatial biology is revealing macrophages as both a driver of immunotherapy resistance and a rich source of potential therapeutic targets in lymphoma.

Dr. Anand Jeyasekharan will discuss how macrophage heterogeneity shapes T-cell exhaustion in aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He will present a spatially resolved whole-transcriptome atlas of CD68+ macrophages across reactive lymphoid tissue and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, defining signatures that map to distinct microanatomical niches, including the germinal center dark zone, and that carry independent prognostic significance. He will then examine how dark zone–like macrophage states associate with TEX phenotypes and the composition of the surrounding immune infiltrate, extending these findings to primary central nervous system lymphoma, where TREM2+ lipid-laden macrophages emerge as a convergent immunosuppressive population.

Dr. Tomohiro Aoki will discuss macrophage– Hodgkin and Reed–Sternberg (HRS) cell crosstalk in classic Hodgkin lymphoma, where malignant cells constitute only a small fraction of the tumor mass within a highly immunosuppressive microenvironment. He will present single-cell, spatial multi-omic, and functional studies defining heterogeneous macrophage populations that support HRS cell survival, promote immune evasion, and drive resistance to chemotherapy and immunotherapy, and how these insights inform strategies to disrupt macrophage-mediated immune suppression

Speakers:

Anand Devaprasath Jeyasekharan, PhD, MBBS, MRCP
Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore
Singapore, Singapore
Dark Zone Macrophages as Mediators of T-Cell Exhaustion and Immunotherapy Response in Lymphoma

Tomohiro Aoki, MD, PhD
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre - University Health Network
Toronto, ON, Canada
Macrophage–HRS Cell Crosstalk Driving Immune Evasion and Therapy Resistance in Hodgkin Lymphoma

Greasy Situations: Unraveling Lipid-Mediated Therapy Resistance

Adiposity is associated with the incidence and progression of thirteen cancers, including hematologic malignancies. Cancer cells exhibit altered, context-specific metabolism and metabolic dependencies driven, in part, by genetic alterations and microenvironmental constraints. The purpose of this session is to outline how intrinsic and extrinsic lipids influence therapy sensitivity and resistance in hematologic malignancies. Lipids within the bone marrow microenvironment promote the development and progression of multiple myeloma. Plasma lipid profiles are shaped by acute myeloid leukemia (AML) genetics, and specific lipid species are associated with AML relapse following therapy. This session will review mechanisms of lipid-driven therapy resistance, highlighting lipid-mediated metabolic and signaling pathways that modify anti-apoptotic dependencies and create targetable vulnerabilities. We will discuss translatable approaches that leverage our understanding of the lipidome and cancer metabolism to improve therapy efficacy in hematologic malignancies.

Dr. Courtney Jones will describe how the lipidome can be used to predict therapy response, drive therapy resistance, and can be targeted to overcome resistance in AML.

Dr. Mala Shanmugam will elucidate the mechanistic basis of how fatty acids alter BCL-2 dependence and sensitivity to BCL-2 targeting agents like venetoclax in multiple myeloma.

Speakers:

Courtney L. Jones, PhD
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Cincinnati, OH
Lipids Biomarkers of Therapy Relapse in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Mala Shanmugam, PhD
Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University
Atlanta, GA
Lipids and Therapy Resistance in Multiple Myeloma

Illuminating the Dark Corners in the Genomes of Lymphoid Neoplasms

Despite comprising only 2% of the human genome, protein coding regions have been the primary focus of genomic and functional characterization of somatic alterations in lymphoid neoplasms. However, a significant proportion of pathogenic variants, either germline or somatic, are non-coding and occur in patterns consistent with non-random mutational mechanisms, pointing to their important roles in disease biology. Although previously under-studied, recent discoveries have begun illuminating the key roles of non-coding variants in lymphoid neoplasms. This session will demonstrate the power of integrating genomic profiling with functional genomics to move beyond protein-coding sequence and uncover novel mechanisms of disease with potential translational relevance.

Dr. Jun Yang will explore the functional consequences of non-coding variants with a focus on acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Recent advances in functional genomics, including large-scale CRISPR-based perturbation screens, epigenomic profiling, and single-cell technologies, have made it possible to systematically interrogate the non-coding genome and define the biological consequences of regulatory variation. This talk will highlight salient examples of functional impact of non-coding variants, illustrating how they alter transcription factor binding, chromatin architecture, gene regulation, and ultimately leukemia biology. 

Dr. Laura Hilton will explore the clinical relevance of non-coding variants with a focus on mature B-cell lymphomas, which arise from cells with in-built mutational mechanisms whose physiological role is to generate antibody diversity by mutating and rearranging the immunoglobulin loci. Dysfunction of these mechanisms in lymphomas is both a cause and consequence of genomic rearrangements that alter biology and clinical behavior, and patterns of non-coding variants differ between lymphomas and their subtypes, informing on gene expression patterns that belie distinct biology. This talk will cover the breadth of evidence for the importance of non-coding mutations to lymphoma biology, pathogenesis, and clinical behavior.

Speakers:

Jun J. J. Yang, PhD
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Memphis, TN
Dissecting the Functional Consequence of Non-Coding Variants

Laura K. Hilton, PhD
BC Cancer
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Clinical Relevance of Non-Coding Mutations

Sticky Situations: Glycans in Classical and Malignant Hematopoiesis

Glycosylation is the most common post-translational modification. It occurs on more than half of all proteins and nearly all cell surface proteins yet has been poorly studied historically. With the advancement of novel mass spectrometry technologies, glycosylation research has gained traction. The goal of this session is to highlight fundamental and preclinical advances in the glyco-hematology field that are relevant to benign and malignant disorders. We hope to inspire the audience to consider the role of glycosylation on their protein or disease of interest.

Dr. Marie Hollenhorst will discuss glycobiology of hemostasis and thrombosis. She will discuss her lab's in-depth analysis of platelet glycoprotein glycosylation that has provided insight into glycoepitopes that are relevant for diseases caused by antiplatelet antibodies.

Dr. Anna Marneth will discuss how glycosylation of major hematopoietic growth factor receptors contributes to their function, the role of glycans in chemotherapy resistance and immune evasion, and proof-of-concept studies highlighting the potential avenue of targeting glycosylation in myeloid malignancies.

Speakers:

Marie Hollenhorst, MD, PhD
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, MA
Novel Insights Into the Glycobiology of Hemostasis and Thrombosis

Anna Marneth, PhD
Radboudumc
Nijmegen, Netherlands
Glycans in the Pathogenesis and as a Therapeutic Target in Myeloid Malignancies