SITC 2021: Posters Detail Use of MIBI Technology for Immunotherapy Studies

Jan 26, 2022

Every year, the Ionpath team looks forward to one of the leading conferences for immuno-oncology research: the annual meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, better known as SITC. For this year’s event, we were honored to present a poster, and to have other researchers include data from multiplexed ion beam imaging (MIBI™) technology in their posters as well. If you couldn’t attend the event or missed these posters, here are some highlights.

Characterizing the melanoma tumor microenvironment

A poster from scientists at Ionpath and Yale University School of Medicine illustrates a project focused on melanoma in which spatial resolution of protein data provided new understanding of the tumor microenvironment and checkpoint expression in various cell types and populations.

In this project, scientists analyzed 54 melanoma samples taken from FFPE blocks, looking for 30 different proteins using MIBI technology. They used the resulting data to segment and classify individual cells, identifying 32 cell populations and quantifying immune checkpoint markers across each of them.

The team pinpointed abundant populations — for example, tumor cells and immune cells were most common, and within the immune compartment, the most abundant types of cells were M2 macrophages, M2 monocytes, and monocyte-derived dendritic cells. They also identified rare populations, including regulatory T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells. MIBI technology allowed the team to look at tissue structure markers, phenotypic markers, myeloid markers, and lymphocyte markers, and map distinct cell populations that expressed those within the tumor microenvironment. The approach shows how this technology could be used for immune profiling of samples in future studies.

Immunotherapy validation

In two other posters, researchers from leading biopharma therapeutic developers shared data about how the spatial proteomic technology was used in validation studies of candidate immunotherapies. A team from Ribon Therapeutics analyzed biomarkers from preclinical models and patient samples to better characterize the effects of RBN-2397, a PARP7 inhibitor currently in a phase 1 clinical study. With MIBI data, they classified cells and tracked the infiltration of immune cells into areas of the tumor, showing results from two lung cancer patient samples in the poster. With treatment, CD8+ T cells, M1 macrophages, and monocytes showed increased activity. They determined that the PARP7 inhibitor restores key interferon signaling that leads to better adaptive immunity.

Separately, scientists at Northwestern University, MD Anderson, and other cancer centers reported results from clinical studies of VT1021, a cyclic peptide under development by Vigeo Therapeutics for the treatment of various types of cancer. The treatment aims to reduce the immunosuppressive environment around the tumor, making it easier to kill cancer cells. In studies of patients with pancreatic cancer, researchers used MIBI technology to study how the treatment alters the tumor microenvironment. As described in their poster, they found that patients with high CD36 and CD47 counts were more likely to have their tumors shrink, and that remodeling of the tumor microenvironment did occur.

We’re delighted to see continued evidence of the value of MIBI technology for immunotherapy studies, and look forward to seeing results from more customers at future conferences.

MIBI Blog

SITC 2021: Posters Detail Use of MIBI Technology for Immunotherapy Studies

Characterizing the melanoma tumor microenvironment

Immunotherapy validation

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