Liquid biopsies, artificial intelligence and cancer vaccines were just a few of the key topics at the 2024 meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research, or AACR, held April 5 – 10 in San Diego. The organization’s 115th meeting drew more than 22,000 researchers, clinicians, patient advocates and others from around the world to hear and absorb findings from more than 7,000 scientific abstracts and over 300 poster sessions.
Baseball was part of the annual science celebration, as well. World-renowned immunologist Phil Greenberg, MD, outgoing president of AACR and the head of the Program in Immunology at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, was tapped to throw out the first pitch at a San Diego Padres game. Fred Hutch is the only cancer center in the world named after a baseball player.
Holder of The Rona Jaffe Foundation Endowed Chair, Greenberg kicked off the meeting by predicting “quantum leaps in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer,” thanks to advances in technology combined with basic, translational and clinical science. In his presidential address, he shared his lab’s progress in engineering immuen cells called T cells to attack solid tumors and later introduced Nobel laureate Jim Allison, PhD, for a discussion of next steps in cancer immunotherapy. Greenberg also sat down with the new National Cancer Institute director, W. Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, for a for a Fireside Chat that touched on everything from the NCI budget to AI in cancer to Taylor Swift.
The six-day meeting went on to feature a slew of promising results. Researchers from Los Angeles’ City of Hope presented data on a new blood test designed to detect pancreatic cancer at an early, more treatable stage (diagnosed at a later stage, it has a five-year survival rate of 3.2%). Others presented hopeful data from two clinical trials of potential cancer vaccines — one for head and neck cancer and one for pancreatic cancer. Both vaccines are designed to be used after surgery; researchers believe targeting the tumors at this stage helps to provide “long-term immune surveillance.”
Fred Hutch clinicians and researchers shared new findings during major symposia, educational sessions and poster presentations. Read on for a quick wrap-up.
Fred Hutch’s Claire Thomas, PhD, MPH, a 2024 AACR NextGen Star and postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Ulrike Peters, PhD, MPH, holder of the Fred Hutch 40th Anniversary Endowed Chair, presented a major symposium session on genetic mutations related to T cells in colorectal cancer.
The second leading cause of death globally, colorectal cancer has a number of different drivers, with 15% classified as exhibiting high microsatellite instability (MSI-high) due to deficient DNA mismatch repair (dMMR). MSI-high tumors result in the accumulation of somatic mutations which create a high neoantigen burden which in turn, elicits a strong T-cell response.
Thomas’ research was aimed at understanding the association between the MSI-high phenotype and the composition of the T-cell response in order to better inform immunotherapy treatment decision-making.
Researchers used participant data from three epidemiological studies within the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium, or GECCO (housed at Fred Hutch): the Ontario Family Colon Cancer Registry, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.
After profiling the T-cell landscape using digital imaging, machine learning and a multiplexed immunofluorescence panel, they had 637 colorectal cancer participants available for the study. Targeted tumor sequencing classified 107 tumors as MSI-high and 106 as hypermutated. Additionally, 98 tumors were both MSI-high and hypermutated. MSI-high tumors had higher densities of epithelial-area CD4+ helper T cells, epithelial-area CD8+ cytotoxic T cells and stromal-area CD8+ cytotoxic T cells compared to MSI-low or stable tumors.
“While it is well known that T cells overall are strongly associated with MSI status in colorectal cancer, the present study improves our understanding of what specific T-cell subsets in what location in the tumor are associated with MSI and hypermutation status,” Thomas wrote in her findings.
Given the high level of T-cell infiltration in MSI-high/dMMR tumors, Thomas said they are more likely to respond favorably to immune checkpoint inhibitors, and that a “more granular understanding of specific T-cell subsets” would improve understanding of underlying biology and help inform targeted immunotherapy treatment decision-making for these tumors.
Funding for this study was provided by the National Cancer Institute.
Epidemiologist Dornell Pete, PhD, MPH, a postdoctoral researcher with Christopher Li, MD, PhD, holder of the Helen G. Edson Endowed Chair for Breast Cancer Research, presented findings from her/their research into stomach cancers among Navajo adults in the Southwest. The Navajo Nation is the largest tribe in the U.S.
Pete (she/they) conducted this research under the mentorship of Fred Hutch/University of Washington epidemiologist Amanda Phipps, PhD, MPH, and others; she/they also received an AACR Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award to share the research at the conference.
As a member of the Navajo Nation, Pete decided to research the health burden of Helicobacter pylori, a bacterial infection that’s often acquired in childhood via person-to-person contact and is strongly linked to stomach cancers.
“Stomach cancer has been declining overall in the American Indian/Alaska Native population,” she/they said during the talk, “but there are disparities in the Southwest. The incidence in the Navajo Nation is 3.2 times higher than that of the white population of the Southwest.”
Pete dug into this disparity with the Navajo ABID Study (abid' is the Navajo word for stomach), conducting a community-based cross-sectional study in 2021. She/they gathered demographic, health and dietary information from mailed questionnaires; study participants also provided stool samples which were then analyzed for both H. pylori as well as the cagA gene, which has been linked to more gastrointestinal disease severity.
Out of nearly 100 people, Pete found nearly 60% had H. pylori infections, twice the prevalence of the U.S. white population. In addition, among those infected with H. pylori, nearly 77% tested positive for the cagA gene, four times the prevalence in white people.
Given the high burden of these infections, Pete said it’s crucial to use culturally tailored health education strategies and interventions to reduce H. pylori infections and stomach cancer risk.
“We’re working with the community to raise awareness of these findings,” she/they said. “[Getting] information back to the community is important.”
Funding for this study was provided by National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the Tribal Researchers' Cancer Control Fellowship Research Award.
— Fred Hutch / University of Washington epidemiologist Dr. Dornell Pete
Louisa Goss, an epidemiologist who works with Burcu Darst, PhD, also presented a mini-symposium on a cohort of low-risk prostate cancer patients on active surveillance within the Canary Prostate Active Surveillance Study, or Canary PASS.
Active surveillance is the preferred management strategy for people with low- or favorable intermediate-risk prostate cancer, but it requires frequent and potentially costly visits to a cancer clinic. Goss and colleagues investigated whether a multi-ancestry polygenic risk score, or PRS, could identify which patients could safely reduce surveillance intensity. The researchers applied a previously developed PRS (derived from 451 prostate cancer risk variants) to more than 1,200 prostate cancer patients undergoing active surveillance.
Nearly 40% of the patients upgraded, that is, developed more aggressive cancer, during the median 5.3 years of follow-up; the PRS was significantly associated with increased risk of upgrading, and adding it to a model of clinical risk factors “slightly improved the ability to detect risk of upgrading.”
In conclusion, Goss and colleagues found that a high PRS was associated with an increase in upgraded — or potentially more aggressive — prostate cancer. These risk scores, she said, could help lessen the intensity of surveillance for those with lower-risk prostate cancer, reducing the burden of active surveillance.
Funding for this study was provided by National Cancer Institute, the Andy Hill Cancer Research Endowment Distinguished Researchers Program, a Fred Hutch/University of Washington SPORE Career Enhancement Program award, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Institute for Prostate Cancer Research.
In addition, the annual meeting featured the following Fred Hutch science and scientists:
Diane Mapes is a staff writer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. She has written extensively about health issues for NBC News, TODAY, CNN, MSN, Seattle Magazine and other publications. A breast cancer survivor, she blogs at doublewhammied.com and tweets @double_whammied. Email her at dmapes@fredhutch.org. Just diagnosed and need information and resources? Visit our Patient Care page.
Molly McElroy, a senior media relations specialist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, has written about science, education and policy topics at the University of Washington and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Reach her on Twitter @mwmcelroy.
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Are you interested in reprinting or republishing this story? Be our guest! We want to help connect people with the information they need. We just ask that you link back to the original article, preserve the author’s byline and refrain from making edits that alter the original context. Questions? Email us at communications@fredhutch.org
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