13–14 May 2025 | University of Warsaw, Poland
The Third IMMUNO-model Annual Conference took place on 13-14 May 2025 at the University of Warsaw, bringing together an international community of 98 researchers, clinicians, and industry professionals dedicated to advancing preclinical immuno-oncology. Organized within the framework of our COST Action, the meeting was held under the theme “Modeling Immunotherapy for Cancer – Bridging Research to Clinical Application”, emphasizing the translational value of preclinical models in cancer immunotherapies.
The scientific programme featured a rich array of invited lectures, selected oral presentations, and poster contributions, structured across four thematic areas: in vitro, in vivo, in silico, and ex vivo models. The opening keynote by David Fernandez-Antoran introduced an innovative immune-epithelioid culture system that enables long-term in vitro modeling of immune-epithelial crosstalk. This was followed by invited talks from José Alexandre Ferreira, who presented glycoengineered cancer models for immunological profiling, and Lucia Gabriele, who showcased 3D microfluidic systems to investigate immune–tumor interactions and drug responses.
Further contributions in the in vitro session included Natalia Marek-Trzonkowska’s presentation on cellular therapy approaches for non-small cell lung cancer and Thomas Sommermann’s overview of dynamic vascularized organ-on-chip platforms. Selected oral presentations added depth, with Emanuela Senjor reporting on the role of cathepsin V inhibition in glioblastoma and NK cell activity, and Silvia López Borrego presenting the impact of MICA alleles on NKG2D modulation in NK cells.
In vivo modeling was opened by Bozena Kaminska, whose keynote lecture focused on dissecting immune heterogeneity in brain tumors using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics. Invited talks by Catarina Brito and Michal Mikula highlighted, respectively, the use of advanced 3D cultures to simulate tumor microenvironments and the development of patient-derived xenografts for functional precision oncology. A special session included IMMUNO-model network updates, followed by selected oral presentations from Jakub Godlewski, who described the evaluation of vaccine-like particles in glioblastoma models; Tianren Shi, who explored determinants of immune infiltration in triple-negative breast cancer through multi-omic analyses; and Marco Barreca, who introduced a tool for mining public pan-cancer transcriptomic data for immuno-oncology research.
A strong presence of early-career researchers was particularly evident in the selected oral presentations, which showcased high-quality work and cutting-edge methodologies. Their active engagement throughout the conference reflected the growing role of young scientists in driving innovation across the field of immuno-oncology.
On the second day, the conference turned to computational and ex vivo approaches. Johannes Textor’s invited talk emphasized the use of mechanistic in silico simulations to guide clinical trial design. Björn Rotter presented methods for RNA analysis from FFPE tissue and liquid biopsies, and Pablo Conesa-Zamora discussed the use of engineered bacteria to deliver neoantigens systemically. Selected oral presentations by Lucia Juhasikova and Uzma Hasan, respectively, highlighted the use of organotypic slice cultures to evaluate immunotherapy in pancreatic cancer and a personalized ex vivo platform to characterize immune responses in tumor slices.
The closing session on ex vivo models featured invited talks by Gunes Esendagli on T cell migration using microfluidic platforms and Nataliia Beztsinna on the use of patient-derived organoids and fresh tissue cultures for drug testing.
Throughout the event, poster sessions provided an interactive platform for both early-career and senior researchers to share novel findings, with topics ranging from immune evasion and tumor microenvironment remodeling to nanovaccine development and spatial immunomics.
The conference also included working group meetings of the IMMUNO-model network, reinforcing its collaborative spirit. The event successfully showcased the value of integrated, multidisciplinary preclinical modeling in the development of innovative and effective cancer immunotherapies, reaffirming the IMMUNO-model initiative’s commitment to fostering translational research and cross-sector collaboration in immuno-oncology.