News & Highlights

Dr. Nicholas Sanfilippo covers about treating Radiation Oncology patients as individuals. 

Attendees From Around The Globe

States represented

Attendee background

Post Conference Survey Results

Feedback regarding the speakers overall:

• Great speakers/excellent content and presentations
• It is expected that there are differences between speakers, but some speakers were very engaging and making their presentations amenable.
• Outstanding
• Sandra Demaria put together an excellent program of speakers
• Some lectures could benefit from either more time of delivery or more focus.
• Terrific mix of experts in Radiot-biology-therapy and other disciplines that interface with "radio-immune-therapy"
• Their talent and professionalism exuded through presentation and questions
• Don't try to put too much information in a 30 minute talk, but give the audience the time to understand the information provided on the slide
• Very good range of speakers including clinical and pre-clinical experts, I don't think outcomes are available for many clinical trials of immunother/RT combinations apart from PACIFIC but if they are this would be an added bonus, and ideally would include presentation of both toxicity and efficacy outcomes. Debate lots of fun, suggest this is repeated for more specific topics.

Comments regarding the time of year for future conferences:

• Even a few weeks later into the Fall would be nice in terms of climate
• I missed the entire first day because it was on the Jewish Holiday
• It will be difficult with international travel. What about videoconferencing?
• Keep the same
• Move away from ASTRO times.
• Same date should be good
• Spring
• There is overlap with the ASTRO Conference
• Too close to ASTRO and RRS meetings

Recommendations for how future ICIRC programs could be improved:

• A bit more focus on clinical application of immune therapy please
• A social event including all attendees was missing in this conference.
• A warmer room! (reduce air conditioning...)
• auditorium was excessively cold, and now I am sick.
• Don't suggest the Bentley Hotel as the place to stay.
• Avoid duplicated speakers.
• Greater PR and visibility to increase the size of the audience
• Have a pair of sessions that explain basic radiotherapy to immunologists and immunology to radiation oncologists
• It'd be nice to include a second panel type discussion of areas of future research in radiation oncology/immunology for graduate students and/or post docs.
• larger conference room - perhaps with table set up
• more clinical emphasis, ideas for clinical trials
• More social events to intermingle More protocol opportunities. Alternative locations. Allow for social events
• More social time with reviewing topics and posters from different institutions, a walk of posters with common topics or storyline....
• NYC and Paris are very attractive but expensive to stay.
• Social media coverage
• The auditorium was too strep to go up and down
• The debate could address a more specific topic, for example high dose versus low dose or single dose versus fractionated dose to induce tumor immunogenicity
• Include primer on RT, many attendees don't know radiation physics/biology.
• The room was uncomfortably cold. Other than that I think everything was very well taken care of.
• More clinical slant to the meeting.

Comments regarding the program overall:

• Best meeting I attended all year
• everything was perfect
• Excellent
• excellent and enthusiastic group
• Excellent composition and though provoking.
• EXCELLENT PROGRAM!!
• Excellent, very information, good speaker, reasonable registration fee,
• Great job! Excellent curriculum.
• Great program
• I have no suggestions for improvement. The conference was outstanding.
• It was very well organized
• It'd be nice to have a digital portal to access some of the presentation materials really nice like this
• The conference was well done.
• The poster session was a good part of the meeting, but speakers in general were little interested in talking with poster presenters.
• I particularly liked the "debate" part. We should consider this in future conferences.
• Very good program, current, informative, stimulates thinking.
• very nice workshop!
• Great job! Hard to see how it could be better
• Excellent meetings, very good refreshments, exciting location

As of 9/12/17 at 3 pm Eastern time, the conference has sold out. If you are interested in being notified of registration cancellations, please contact Jane Yuen at jay2009@med.cornell.edu

Please submit your abstracts of 500 words to Elizabeth Hammerschmidt at eah2006@med.cornell.edu. The presenter will be notified about acceptance and presentation requirements by July 31st.  Final submission date is July 28th. 

The Institute Gustave Roussy and Weill Cornell Medicine have partnered to address this exciting challenge by establishing a joint yearly conference for leading international experts to present cutting edge findings spanning from basic to translational and clinical research on the subject of “Immunotherapy and Radiotherapy Combinations”. Alternating the meeting location between Paris and New York City best promotes the field by facilitating international interactions and collaborations. The first meeting took place at Gustave Roussy last year , with more than 300 participants attending. Topics discussed ranged from basic to clinical-translational research. The meeting is an ideal covenant for multidisciplinary exchanges on radiotherapy and immunotherapy and enables direct interaction of industry with academia.

Building on this initial success, the next meeting is scheduled to take place at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City from the 21st- 23rd of September 2017. 

Please contact Elizabeth Hammerschmidt with any questions or inquiries at EAH2006@med.cornell.edu or 212-746-3933.

Please check back for continual updates and online registration.

rocro_quarterly_dec2020.pdf

rocro_2020_q_3.pdf

Dr. Himanshu Nagar feelings on telling patients they're cancer free. 

Abstract Winners

(Photo Left: Roger Sun, M.D., Ph.Dc.; Right: Linda Hammerich, Ph.D.)

(Photo Left: Sandra Demaria, M.D.; Right: Linda Hammerich, Ph.D.)

Basic Science Research - Linda Hammerich, Ph.D., Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai 

•  In situ vaccination improves efficacy of PD-1 blockade in unresponsive lymphoma tumors through induction of a highly efficient cross-presenting dendritic cell subset expressing TLR3

(Photo Left: Silvia Formenti, M.D.; Right: Roger Sun, M.D., Ph.Dc.)

Clinical Research - Roger Sun, M.D., Ph.Dc., Gustave Roussy

• Monitoring spatial heterogeneity and temporal evolution of tumor immune infiltrate and clinical outcomes using a radiomics-based imaging tool in cancer patients treated by anti‑PD‑1/PD‑L1

Photo Galleries

9/21, 9/22, 9/23 Presentations - Uris Auditorium

9/21 Poster Session - Belfer 

We Are Weill Cornell Medicine : Dr. Silvia Formenti from Weill Cornell Medicine on Vimeo.

Oncologist Dr. Silvia Formenti has spent her career in medicine fighting for those with incurable diseases. At Weill Cornell Medicine, she leads a team of daring, passionate scientists, who are relentless in their search for a cure for cancer.

Read more...

When Ty Williams was diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer in June 2011, he responded well enough to treatment that he could continue managing a corporate banking group without having to slow down or tell many of his colleagues that he was sick. But about two years later, that changed, as his once-stable disease started progressing rapidly. "When we looked at my scans, my wife and I were shocked," says Williams, now 60. "It was obvious that the cancer had gotten much worse, and that we needed to do something really aggressive if I wanted to live."

Williams's oncologist, Dr. Scott Tagawa, M.S. '10, the Richard A. Stratton Associate Professor in Hematology and Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine, enrolled him in a clinical trial, which involved combining chemotherapy with an experimental method of delivering a toxic payload "directly into the tumor cells, regardless of where they are," says Dr. Tagawa, a member of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. For this to be possible, scientists had to harness a mechanism used by the immune system to find and suppress pathogens. They reprogrammed a protein that typically locates and neutralizes viruses or bacteria to instead seek out prostate cancer cells. They then attached a radioactive agent to it, which would be delivered directly into the cancer cells after the protein attached to its target, says Dr. Tagawa, an oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. For Williams, this cancer-seeking poison arrow, called a radiolabeled monoclonal antibody, "completely turned things around." Today, while he continues to see Dr. Tagawa once a month and regularly undergo treatment, his disease is more controlled — and chronic — than terminal, he says. "When I tell people I have cancer, it's the last thing they would ever believe," Williams says. "Even my family forgets I'm sick sometimes."

Read More..

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Silvia Formenti, an international expert in the use of radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer, is appointed Chair of the newly established Department of Radiation Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College and Radiation Oncologist-in-Chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, effective April 15. She has also been named Associate Director of Radiation Oncology at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell. Dr. Formenti was Chair of Radiation Oncology at New York University Langone Medical Center.

In her new roles, Dr. Formenti will expand and enhance the existing radiation oncology program, building upon its reputation of excellence in translational research to better investigate, target and treat individual patients’ unique cancers. Faculty in the department will investigate precision medicine approaches to radiation oncology, focusing on combining radiotherapy with immunotherapy and other modifiers of the tumor microenvironment to design advanced treatments and therapies that are tailored to each patient’s individual tumor.

A recognized leader in radiation oncology and breast cancer research, Dr. Formenti’s groundbreaking work has transformed the paradigm in radiation biology, demonstrating the efficacy of combining radiotherapy with immunotherapy to control cancer cell growth in solid tumors. She has published more than 170 scholarly papers in high-impact journals such as JAMA and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Formenti received her medical degree in Italy from the University of Milan, where she attained board certification in medical oncology, radiology and radiation oncology. She was awarded a competitive grant from the Italian National Research Council (Comitato Nazionale Ricerca or CNR) to work in human monoclonal antibodies against colorectal cancer at the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. A recipient of an Audrey Meyer Mars career development award from the American Cancer Society, she performed AIDS and lymphoma research, and then completed her residency and attained board certification in radiation oncology.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual campaign to increase awareness of the disease. While most people are aware of breast cancer, many forget to take the steps to have a plan to detect the disease in its early stages and encourage others to do the same. Our doctors encourage all to learn about the disease, and the factors believe greater the risk for developing breast cancer. We have made a lot of progress but still have a long way to go.  

Breast Cancer Symposium Displays Range of Breast Health Care, Developments at Weill Cornell.    At Weill Cornell's seventh annual Breast Cancer Symposium, experts from several Medical College departments spoke to a general audience about the latest breakthroughs, treatments and therapies for breast cancer, presenting the full range of comprehensive care at the Weill Cornell Breast Center.

Dr. Akkama Ravi, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology, spoke about the next advancement in radiation therapy. The new techniques concentrate irradiation to the tumor area and away from the normal tissue. 

http://weill.cornell.edu/news/news/2005/06/breast-cancer-symposium-displays-range-of-breast-health-care-developments-at-weill-cornell.html