Prof. Giaccia is currently Director of the Oxford Institute of Radiation Oncology in Oxford University.  Until January, 2019, he was the “Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson” Professor in Cancer Biology and Radiation Oncology, Associate Chair for Research & Director of the Division of Radiation & Cancer Biology in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

He was also the Associate Director for Basic Science and leader of the Radiation Biology Program in Stanford Cancer Institute. He also served as the Director of the Cancer Biology Interdisciplinary Graduate Program.

Prof. Giaccia was awarded an American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award, Howard Hughes Junior Faculty Research Award, and the Michael Fry Award from the Radiation Research Society for outstanding contributions on understanding the molecular mechanisms of resistance promoted by the tumor microenvironment.

Additionally, he was the recipient of the 2013 ASTRO Gold Medal. In 2015, he was awarded a NIH R35 Outstanding Investigator Award and was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts and co-authored the sixth seventh & eight editions of the textbook, “Radiation Biology for the Radiologist,” with Professor Eric Hall from Columbia. He received is PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

ABSTRACT

Title: The Past, Present and Future of Combining Radiotherapy and Immune Therapy

Summary: The combination of radiotherapy and immune therapy appears to have added benefit in both controlling tumour growth and increasing survival. 

This talk will provide some historical context for combining these two therapies and discuss what are some of the critical issues for the field to overcome to increase the number of tumours that will benefit from this combination therapy.

In addition to immune cell checkpoint therapy, we will also discuss Natural Killer cells and the potential to overcome their exclusion from the tumour microenvironment and the potential to combine them with radiotherapy.