Q&A with Jaime Rodriguez-Canales, M.D., FEBP
Dr. Rodriguez-Canales is a Senior Pathologist at MedImmune, and Course Director for the recent Multiplex Immunofluorescence in Immune-Oncology Symposium, a Bio-Trac program cosponsored by Medimmune & PerkinElmer (now Akoya Biosciences).
After a successful first annual Symposium and Workshop, we had the opportunity to catch up with Course Director, Dr. Rodriguez-Canales, to discuss his feedback on the event and the importance of Multiplex Immunofluorescence in the field of Immune-Oncology.
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[BioBuzz] Why is multiplex immunofluorescence important to the field of Immunotherapy?
[Dr. Rodriguez-Canales] Cancer immunotherapy is an ongoing biomedical revolution as it has been just recognized with the Nobel awards to Jim Allison and Tasuku Honjo. A key tool for the development of cancer immunotherapy is the immunoprofiling of tumor tissues to identify potential new predictive biomarkers than can help to choose the right therapy for individual patients. In this regard, multiplex immunofluorescence and multispectral analysis has become one of the most important tools for immunoprofiling of patient tissues in clinical trials.
What Makes this Symposium Unique?
To the best of my knowledge, our course is unique, composed not only by a symposium but also a laboratory workshop on multiplex Immunofluorescence and its applications to immuno-oncology.
Who participated in this inaugural event?
For the symposium, we had the opportunity to congregate the top scientists in the field, from major cancer centers such as the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, Johns Hopkins Medical School, MD Anderson Cancer Center, National Institutes of Health, and Yale University. We also counted with the valuable participation of companies leaders in the field like Definiens and Indica Labs. The course was organized by myself and Mike Surace, both from the Laboratory of Pathology at MedImmune, along with Cliff Hoyt of PerkinElmer and Mark Nardone of Bio-Trac.
Why is this topic important for your work at MedImmune?
Medimmune is now one of the leaders in the field of immuno-oncology and immunoprofiling, and this course represents a unique opportunity to interact with key scientists in the field and explore potential collaborations in pathology and immuno-oncology.
What can people expect in the future around this course?
Due to the success of our course and the great feedback that we are receiving, we are planning to continue with this course annually, keeping the topics updated to the new developments in the field. The collaboration between Bio-Trac, MedImmune and PerkinElmer provided to be a winning recipe which we look forward to replicating in the future.
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For more on MedImmune, please visit their website www.medimmune.com. For more on Bio-Trac workshops please visit www.biotrac.com
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Over the past 11 years, Chris has grown BioBuzz into a respected brand that is recognized for its community building, networking events and news stories about the local biotech industry. In addition, he runs a Recruiting and Marketing Agency that helps companies attract top talent through a blended model that combines employer branding and marketing services together with a high powered recruiting solution.
