Charles Swanton, MBPhD, FAACR

Welcome to day five of AACR Annual Meeting 2021! This week’s final Plenary Session—Leveraging the Immune System in the War on Cancer—will focus on innovative approaches to enhance antitumor activity through modulation of T cells and T cell activity, including methodologies to boost antitumor T cell function and eliminate immune suppressive factors and cells in the tumor microenvironment. The session begins at 10:45 a.m. EDT.

Today’s program features more than two dozen companion panel discussions featuring the speakers from On-Demand sessions, who will discuss their sessions and answer questions submitted by attendees who viewed the On Demand program. Check the final program for a complete schedule of today’s live panel discussions.

The editors from several of the top cancer journals will share information and answer questions during four live “Meet and Greet” networking events this afternoon.

• Meet the Editors-in-Chief of Cancer Research Communications: Elaine R. Mardis, PhD, FAACR, and Lillian L. Siu, MD – 9:15 a.m. EDT
• Meet the Senior Associate Editor of Cancer Immunology Research: Karen Honey, PhD – 1 p.m. EDT
• Meet the Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Research: Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, FAACR – 2 p.m. EDT
• Meet the Editors-in-Chief of Cancer Prevention Research: Raymond N. DuBois, MD, PhD, FAACR, and Michael N. Pollak, MD – 3 p.m. EDT

This afternoon’s schedule also includes three in-depth forums, all beginning at 4:30 p.m. EDT.

AACR President Toni Ribas will lead a hot-topic forum on vaccine hesitancy — Building Vaccine Confidence: Best Practices to Combat Misinformation and Vaccine Hesitancy in COVID-19 Vaccines — that will bring together public health officials, scientists, community leaders, and experts on combating misinformation and building vaccine confidence to discuss this important topic. NIH Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, will join the panel.

The forum Cancer Cell Dormancy: The Current Paradigm and the Challenges Ahead to Develop New Therapies will cover the basic science and also emerging clinical applications derived from what has been learned about cancer dormancy.

Finally, panelists will present their understanding of cancer stem cells and engage in a discussion about their implications for cancer biology and treatment during the forum Are There Cancer Stem Cells?

Be sure to consult the final program for the most up-to-date information. Recordings of both live and on demand sessions will be available for registered attendees to watch until June 21.