Lectures and seminars Pediatric Oncology Seminar

Speaker

Petter Brodin, 

M.D., Ph.D, Professor of pediatric immunology; Pediatric Rheumatology, Astrid Lindgrens children’s hospital, Dept. Women and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet & Garfield Weston Chair, Dept. Immunology & Inflammation, Imperial College London, UK.

Title

"Systems-level Immunity in Children with Solid Tumors (The ISAC study)."

Summary

Immune responses against tumors are required for cure in patients with cancer and antitumor immune responses are systemic in nature. Human immune system composition and functions are influenced by age, sex, and environmental factors such as the microbiome. Significant advances have been made in recent years to potentiate anti-tumor immune responses through immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors, but only very few children with solid tumors have benefitted from these advances. To improve this situation, better understanding of developing immune systems in children must be obtained in general and in children with cancer in particular. We must understand how different tumors stimulate or counteract productive anti-tumor responses and learn how current treatment protocols impact developing immune systems in children. Here we present a systems-level analysis of systemic immunity in children within a pan-cancer cohort in children with solid tumors, the determinants of variation and predictors of complications such as neutropenic fever. We also report immune system differences that track with genetic aberrations in tumors and finally, we contrast anti-tumor immune responses in children with those of adult patients. We believe that this resource will guide better precision immunotherapies in children in the future. 

Speaker

Charlotte Gran, MD specialist in clinical chemistry. Postdoc in Jovan Antovic group at MMK with a research focus on the development of extracellular vesicles assays.

Title

"Assays for extracellular vesicles."

Summary

Extracellular vesicles are small particles found in almost all bodily fluids. They are produced from multiple cell types with platelet EVs being the most common. As their composition can make them procoagulant, we are investigating different methods to assess the subtypes of EVs and their effects on coagulation.

Moderator

Susanna Ranta