Program at Glance

8.30 AM – 9:00 AM  Registration Opens WEHI Level 7, Tapestry Lounge

9:00AM - 9:10AM Conference Opens Davis auditorium
Welcome to country
Introduction to MIN and the new MIN committee: Prof. Nick Huntington (MONASH)
Welcome to MIN Reconnect 2022: Dr Lorraine O’Reilly and Dr Cynthia Louis (WEHI)

9:10AM - 10:10AM  Session 1 - Cancer Immunology 1 (Clinical)  Davis auditorium
Chair: Prof. Riccardo Dolcetti (PeterMac)

Dr Oliver Klein: Immunotherapy using checkpoint inhibition in MSI-H cancers - Deciphering mechanisms of an effective anti-tumour immune response.
Dr Clare Slaney: : Enhancing CAR T cell therapy by enabling their interaction with antigen presenting cells.

Short Fast Loud Talks
Dr Debra Meyran: Adoptive transfer of TSTEM-CAR-T cells mediates improved persistence and tumour control.
Dr Kellie Mouchemore: Myeloid cells in breast cancer Using single cell RNA-seq to unravel myeloid heterogeneity in breast cancer

10:10AM – 10:30AM  Session 2 – New Tech Focus Davis auditorium
Chair: Cynthia Louis (WEHI)

Dr Claire Gordon: Australian Donation and Transplantation Biobank
Dr Raymond Yip: Transforming onco-immunology research with spatial omics

10.30 AM–11:00 AM  Morning Tea/Trade Display  Level 7, Tapestry Lounge  

11:00AM – 12.40PM Session 3 – Autoimmunity/Inflammation Davis auditorium
Chair: Dr Julian Vivian (SVI)

Dr Bala Krishnamurthy: T cell exhaustion in autoimmunity.
Dr Charis Teh: Advancing new immunotherapies by supercharging the immune response.
Dr Joshua Ooi: Antigen-specific regulatory T cells to treat autoimmune diseases
A. Prof. Michael Gantier: Taming the immunomodulatory effects of RNA therapeutics.
Dr Colby Zalph: Epigenetic regulation of regulatory T cell development and function

12:40PM - 12:50PM  Short Fast Loud Talk
Dr Tingting Ge: Diabetes induced by checkpoint inhibition in non-obese diabetic mice can be prevented or reversed by a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor

12:50PM - 1:50PM Lunch/Networking/ Trade Display Tapestry Lounge

1:50PM - 2:30PM Session 4 – Cancer Immunology 2 Davis auditorium
Chair: Dr Pouya Faridi (Monash

Dr Lisa Mielke: TCF-1 is a potent checkpoint in colorectal cancer tumour immunity
Prof. Brendan Jenkins: Innate immune pattern recognition receptors as potential therapeutic targets in upper GI cancers

2:30PM - 3:00PM Session 3 - Short Fast Loud Talks
Dr Matthias Mulazzani: Of TRAMs and CARs: What’s blocking the way for CAR T cells against glioma
Dr Ajith Vasanthakumar: Targeting tissue resident Tregs for cancer immunotherapy.
Ms Lizeth Meza: Title: Cbl-b regulates the activation threshold of Natural Killer cells.

3:00PM - 3:30PM Afternoon Tea/ Trade Display Level 7, Tapestry Lounge  

3:30PM - 5:00PM Session 5 – Infectious Diseases/ Immunotherapy for Infections/ COVID Davis Lecture Theatre
Chair: A/Prof. Ashraful Haque (PDI)

Dr Jeremy Anderson: Immune response to RSV response in preterm infants.
Prof. Katherine Kedzierska: Immunity to respiratory infections: tackling human immunology to newly emerging viruses.
A/Prof. Michelle Tate: Therapeutic targeting of host responses to limit the severity of influenza virus infections.
Prof. Terry Nolan: Getting two next generation SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates into the clinic without a commercial sponsor: trials and tribulations

4:50PM - 5:00PM  Closing remarks Davis auditorium
Chair: Dr Lorraine O’Reilly/Dr Cynthia Louis

5:00PM - 7:00PM Networking Drinks & Canapés Level 7, Tapestry Lounge