Cancer Ends Here: Reflections from Parker Institute Fall Scientific Retreat

In September, the Parker Institute network gathered in Southern California for our Fall Scientific Retreat. These twice-yearly retreats are core to our mission to develop and accelerate access to breakthrough cancer therapies. They bring together our entire ecosystem: Parker Institute scientists, CEOs of our portfolio companies, fellow investors, and key strategic partners from industry and beyond. While the retreat features only unpublished data and is held under the Chatham House Rule, here are some highlights to share:

Science at the Leading Edge

• Clinical efficacy: Always a highlight, the clinical session reported game-changing trial data in cancers including prostate, HPV-associated cancers, and leukemia. This session goes to the heart of why the Parker Institute exists: to increase access to potentially lifesaving therapies.
• Next-generation immunotherapies: From in vivo immune engineering and novel immune biologics to engineered T cell receptor therapies driving complete responses in late-stage solid tumors, years of work are coming to fruition.
• The future of cancer vaccines: New approaches aim to generate multi-cellular immune responses, creating durable anti-tumor immunity across the entire body.
• T cells in brain cancer: Research on T cells in glioblastoma, one of the hardest cancers to treat, sparked some of the most strategic discussions of the meeting.
• Neuro-immune interactions: An innovative session showed how the nervous and immune systems evolved together, including evidence that sensory neurons communicate directly with immune cells.
• Immuno-metabolism in cancer: Parker researchers are treating metabolism and diet as study variables and probing how the microbiome shapes a patient’s response to immunotherapy.
• Early career presentations: Funding breakthrough ideas from early career investigators is central to our model. At this retreat, our early career investigators reported novel findings on how the tumor microenvironment influences immune response and highlighted cutting edge technologies for targeted gene engineering and early biomarker detection. 

Advancing Innovation

Our focus on innovation and entrepreneurship — aimed at moving science into clinical impact — was stronger than ever. More investors joined us this year than at any prior retreat, reflecting the maturity of Parker Institute science and our reputation for de-risking scientific innovation. Our fellow investors were fully integrated into the science , including dedicated discussions on the next wave of company builds and on milestones across our existing portfolio. Since 2016, Parker Institute BioVentures has built or invested in 17 portfolio companies that together have raised more than $4 billion. Bringing investors into the conversation early helps promising science find the partners and capital it needs to reach patients.

Among our guests was an angel investor who generously committed $5 million to our mission, saying, “the work that’s being done here is absolutely historic, and for the 10th anniversary, I would like all of us to give back to the Parker Institute.”

Looking Ahead

We are deeply grateful to the scientists, innovators, investors, and partners who make this work possible. As the Parker Institute marks ten years, our purpose has not changed. We exist to collapse the timeline between discovery and cancer cures, and to get science to people, including the patients and communities who have been left behind for far too long.

The ultimate measure of our success is a world that no longer needs us. Cancer Ends Here.