Microbiota and Cancer Immunity

ABSTRACT Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Microbiota and Cancer Immunity, organized by Drs. Giorgio Trinchieri, Jenny P.Y. Ting and Hsing-Jien Kung. The conference will be held in Taipei, Taiwan from March 17-20, 2024. The concept of inflammation being linked to tumor promotion or tumor microenvironment initiation has evolved

to include a complex network of interactions: innate and acquired immune response to the tumor; metabolism in tumor and immune cells; local and systemic effects of the microbiota on tumor predisposition, promotion, response to therapies; and finally, cancer co-morbidities and therapeutic side effects. The metabolic tumor

environment affects the activity and metabolism of immune cells, which modulates tumor progression and the response to therapies, including immunotherapy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Innate signaling also affects the tumor microenvironment, and complex crosstalk involving innate receptors, trained immunity, and class I

Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) regulates both inflammation and anti-tumor immunity. Further, advances in experimental animals, and more recently, in cancer patients, are unraveling the complex interactions between the microbiota at epithelial surfaces and within the primary tumor and metastatic sites with response to

therapy; these insights raise the possibility of predicting patient responses to various therapies and to target microbiota for improving therapy responses, decreasing toxicity and preventing co-morbidity. These new scientific areas featured in this conference program will bring together aspects of cancer biology and immunity

that are often only discussed at separate specialized meetings and will expose the audience of basic and clinical investigators to these new concepts. The conference will also explore the clinical translation of these rapidly emerging insights in cancer immunobiology, which will include a workshop entitled Effects of Race and Ethnicity

on Microbiome: Impacts on Cancer Health Disparities that will focus attention on health equity topics related to cancer and therapeutic responses among ethnically distinct and/or disadvantaged populations.