Conference: “From Target to Therapy III”

From Target to Therapy IIILeaders in the field of immunotherapy presented their recent scientific and clinical advances at the Else-Kröner-Symposium “Translational Immunology – From Target to Therapy”. The meeting from October 29-30, 2015 provided again an excellent opportunity for young scientists to present and discuss their own research with international experts in the fields of cancer immunotherapy, inflammation, autoimmune and infectious diseases.

Our conference was generously supported by the Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung and took place in the beautiful historical venue of the Juliusspital in Würzburg, where Rudolf Virchow laid important foundations for modern pathology.

Taming Acute GvHD – New Publication in Blood

In a collaborative project between our team and the group of Prof. Harald Wajant we discovered a mechanism how Fn14 blockade with an ADCC-defective human immunoglobulin G1 antibody reduced acute graft-versus-host disease, a life-threatening complication after allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation, while not impairing immune responses against lymphomas. The publication of Martin Chopra et al. is accompanied by an editorial by David J. MacEwan:

TWEAK-Fn14Chopra M, Brandl A, Siegmund D, Mottok A, Schäfer V, Biehl M, Kraus S, Bäuerlein CA, Ritz M, Mattenheimer K, Schwinn S, Seher A, Grabinger T, Einsele H, Rosenwald A, Brunner T, Beilhack A*, Wajant H*. (2015). Blocking TWEAK-Fn14 interaction inhibits hematopoietic stem cell transplantation-induced intestinal cell death and reduces GvHD. Blood 126(4):437-444.

Editorial: Blood 126(4):429-430.

 

© 2015 by The American Society of Hematology

Successful BioEntrepreneur Boot Camp

BioM Boot Camp 2015 (c) BioM Biotech Cluster Development GmbHProfs. Harald Wajant and Andreas Beilhack participated at the 4th BioEntrepreneur Boot Camp under the leadership of BioM Biotech Cluster Development of the Bavarian State Government, a three-day intensive training program for scientists in the start-up phase for a biotech company. Both scientists were coached by a successful biotech entrepreneur, Prof. Uwe Jacob. On the last day of the training program both scientists presented their business plan together with the other projects of twelve participating teams in front of an expert jury at the Show Down Breakfast. The presentation of the business idea for personalized cancer therapy of Beilhack and Wajant was selected for the first prize. The future start-up company will develop a new drug to regulate the immune system in cancer patients.

Picture: © BioM Biotech Cluster Development GmbH

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