About Workshop
This 3-day workshop provides a focused introduction to immune modulation in oncology, with special emphasis on the PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint pathway, tumor immune escape, biomarker analysis, and directed genetic engineering approaches. Participants will learn how immune checkpoint signaling influences cancer progression and how tools such as CRISPR, CAR-T concepts, and computational analysis can support next-generation cancer immunotherapy research.
The workshop also includes basic hands-on activities using free tools such as Google Colab, Python, NetworkX, BioPython, Pandas, and visualization libraries.
Aim
The aim of this workshop is to provide researchers, academicians, and industry professionals with conceptual and practical knowledge of PD-1 checkpoint modulation, tumor immune response, and genetic engineering strategies used in modern cancer immunotherapy.
What Participants Will Learn
- To introduce the fundamentals of cancer immunology and immune modulation.
- To explain the role of PD-1/PD-L1 signaling in tumor immune escape.
- To understand immune checkpoint blockade and its clinical importance in oncology.
- To explore biomarkers involved in immunotherapy response and resistance.
- To provide basic computational exposure to immune checkpoint pathway mapping and biomarker visualization.
- To introduce CRISPR-based and immune-cell engineering approaches in cancer therapy.
- To discuss CAR-T, TCR-T, and engineered T-cell strategies in next-generation immunotherapy.
- To highlight current challenges, safety concerns, and future directions in cancer immunotherapy research.
Structure
📅 Day 1: Fundamentals of Immune Modulation & PD-1/PD-L1 Signaling in Oncology
- Focus: Understanding cancer immunology, immune surveillance, tumor immune escape, and the biological importance of PD-1/PD-L1 signaling in oncology.
- Introduction to cancer immunology and the role of the immune system in identifying and eliminating tumor cells.
- Understanding tumor immune evasion, immune suppression mechanisms, and immune checkpoint pathways in cancer.
- Exploring PD-1 and PD-L1 signaling pathways and their importance in T-cell regulation and cancer progression.
- Learning about T-cell activation, T-cell exhaustion, immune escape, and clinical checkpoint blockade therapy.
- Overview of immune checkpoint inhibitors and limitations such as resistance, relapse, and non-response.
🛠️ Hands-on:
- Create a simple immune checkpoint interaction network using Google Colab.
- Map important cancer immunology markers including PDCD1, CD274, CTLA4, LAG3, TIGIT, CD8A, IFNG, and FOXP3.
📅 Day 2: Tumor Microenvironment, Biomarkers & Immunotherapy Response Analysis
- Focus: Analyzing the tumor immune microenvironment, immune-related biomarkers, and computational approaches for immunotherapy response prediction.
- Understanding the tumor immune microenvironment and the role of immune cells in cancer progression and therapy response.
- Exploring T-cell infiltration, regulatory T cells, macrophages, and immune suppression in cancer.
- Learning key biomarkers used in cancer immunotherapy, including PD-L1 expression, tumor mutational burden, and microsatellite instability.
- Understanding immune-related gene expression signatures and biomarker-based patient stratification in oncology.
- Introduction to computational immuno-oncology and challenges in predicting response to immune checkpoint inhibitors.
🛠️ Hands-on:
- Work with a sample gene-expression dataset and perform basic analysis of immune checkpoint markers.
- Load gene-expression data, identify immune-related genes, visualize checkpoint marker expression, and create bar plots and heatmaps.
- Interpret basic biomarker patterns for immunotherapy response analysis.
📅 Day 3: Directed Genetic Engineering for Next-Generation Cancer Immunotherapy
- Focus: Understanding genetic engineering strategies used to improve immune-cell function and develop next-generation cancer immunotherapies.
- Introduction to genetic engineering in cancer immunotherapy and CRISPR/Cas9 applications in immune-cell engineering.
- Understanding PD-1 knockout strategies in T cells and engineering immune cells for improved anti-tumor response.
- Exploring CAR-T cell therapy, TCR-T cell therapy, and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte-based immunotherapy concepts.
- Learning synthetic biology approaches for cancer treatment and strategies to overcome resistance to PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint therapy.
- Discussing safety challenges including off-target effects, immune toxicity, and ethical concerns in genetic engineering.
- Future trends in AI-assisted immunotherapy, personalized cancer vaccines, and engineered immune-cell platforms.
🛠️ Hands-on:
- Perform an educational CRISPR guide RNA screening simulation using Google Colab and a sample DNA sequence.
- Understand the logic of CRISPR target identification, find possible guide RNA regions, and apply basic ranking criteria.
- Interpret guide RNA selection conceptually and discuss safety and ethical considerations in genetic engineering.
- This activity is designed for educational and computational learning only, not for wet-lab protocol design.
Important Dates
Registration Ends
4:30 PM
Workshop Dates
2026-07-23
5:30 PM
5:30 PM
What You Will Gain
Outcomes
- Understand the biological role of PD-1/PD-L1 signaling in cancer immunotherapy.
- Explain how tumors escape immune surveillance through checkpoint pathways.
- Describe the mechanism and importance of immune checkpoint inhibitors.
- Identify key biomarkers associated with immunotherapy response and resistance.
- Perform basic immune checkpoint pathway mapping using free computational tools.
- Analyze and visualize sample immune-related gene-expression data.
- Understand the role of CRISPR and genetic engineering in immune-cell therapy.
- Explain the concept of PD-1 knockout, CAR-T cells, TCR-T cells, and engineered T-cell strategies.
- Discuss translational challenges, safety limitations, and future opportunities in cancer immunotherapy.
- Apply foundational knowledge of computational immuno-oncology for research and academic purposes.
Who Should Attend
- Researchers working in cancer biology, immunology, biotechnology, and molecular biology
- Academicians and faculty members from life sciences, biomedical sciences, and biotechnology
- PhD scholars and postgraduate students interested in oncology and immunotherapy
- Industry professionals working in biotech, pharma, diagnostics, and biomedical research
- Medical and clinical research professionals interested in cancer immunotherapy
- Bioinformatics and computational biology learners exploring immuno-oncology data analysis
- Students and professionals interested in CRISPR, CAR-T, and genetic engineering applications in cancer therapy