How can the immune system’s ability to recognize cancer be harnessed in personalized therapies? What determines the effectiveness of cancer vaccines? These questions will be addressed at the next open seminar by Prof. Stephen P. Schoenberger of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and Dr. Lisa H. Butterfield, an expert in cancer immunotherapy.
The seminar will take place on October 1, 2026, at 11:00 AM at the Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Rudolfa Weigla 12, 53-114 Wrocław. The event will also be streamed online, allowing participants to join remotely.
During the first lecture, “Natural T cell Immunity to Cancer Neoantigens,” Prof. Stephen P. Schoenberger will present novel computational and functional immunology tools that make it possible to identify and characterize physiological T-cell responses in individual cancer patients. He will also discuss experience with personalized cancer vaccines designed to target tumor mutations already recognized by the patient’s immune system. This approach builds on the idea that each patient’s tumor carries an individual set of mutations, some of which can be naturally recognized by T cells as neoantigens. Prof. Schoenberger’s research combines bioinformatics and cellular immunology to identify such tumor mutations and the T-cell receptors involved in their recognition. The broader goal of this work is to translate quantitative immunology into personalized cancer treatment.
The second lecture, “Biomarkers of cancer vaccine responses,” by Dr. Lisa H. Butterfield, will examine why cancer vaccines produce strong immune responses in some patients while their clinical effects can vary considerably between patients. Her presentation will focus on vaccines based on autologous dendritic cells and on mechanisms that may influence their ability to generate antitumor immunity. These include costimulation, antigen source, cytokine mediators, and cellular metabolism.
Taken together, the two presentations will offer complementary perspectives on cancer vaccination—from identifying tumor-specific targets naturally recognized by a patient’s immune system to understanding the biological mechanisms and biomarkers associated with an effective vaccine-induced immune response.
Prof. Stephen P. Schoenberger is Professor at the Center for Immunotherapy at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, Director of Translational Science at the San Diego Center for Precision Immunotherapy, and Adjunct Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. His work spans fundamental and translational immunology, with a particular focus on precision cancer immunotherapy. His research has contributed to understanding how CD4+ T cells support CD8+ T-cell effector function and memory, as well as to the development of approaches for identifying tumor neoantigens and the T-cell receptors that recognize them.
Dr. Lisa H. Butterfield is a consultant and advisory board member in cancer immunotherapy. From 2023 to 2026, she served as a Distinguished Scientist in Discovery-Oncology at Merck Research Laboratories, where her work focused on solid-tumor immuno-oncology, cancer vaccines, and biomarkers. Previously, she was Vice President of Research and Development at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Adjunct Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco. Her academic research has focused on cancer vaccines and cellular therapies. She also served as President of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and book chapters.
Online streaming: the link will be added shortly.
