Designing What’s Next: PICI’s 2025 Spring Scientific Retreat

PICI CEO Dr. Karen Knudsen shares her reflections on her first PICI Spring Scientific Retreat—where bold ideas and collaboration take center stage.

Over three days in Northern California, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy convened the 2025 PICI Spring Scientific Retreat—an invitation-only, semi-annual, summit designed to accelerate progress at the leading edge of immunotherapy. The event brought together more than 120 participants from across the PICI Network and beyond, including immuno-oncology investigators and clinician-scientists, biotech and venture leaders, and innovators in data science and technology.

Dr. Karen Knudsen, PICI’s new Chief Executive Officer, opened the retreat by welcoming the community and reaffirming our mission to turn all cancers into curable diseases. Her remarks set the tone for a gathering focused not on reflection, but on direction—on the ideas, partnerships and strategic moves that will define the next wave of discovery.

PICI creates the conditions for meaningful, real-time collaboration across institutions, timelines and disciplines that often operate in isolation. The retreat provided space not only for strategic debate and scientific foresight but for candid exchange, surprising alignment and peer-level dialogue—where barriers don’t just fall away, they no longer apply.

Each retreat is built not as a recap but as a lever—designed to pressure-test early signals, clarify scientific priorities and drive collective action across the network. The Spring 2025 meeting delivered on that promise, providing a forum where timelines accelerated, silos dissolved and the field’s sharpest minds aligned around what comes next.

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“This retreat was pure PICI energy in action—120+ brilliant minds converging across disciplines and turning individual insights into collective breakthroughs in immunotherapy. When Stanford’s data flows seamlessly into Penn’s trials, when UCLA’s engineering accelerates Dana-Farber’s discoveries, that’s the PICI Network effect that changes everything for patients.”

– John Connolly, PhD, PICI Chief Scientific Officer

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Understanding Complexity: From Biology to Strategy

To better understand and influence the immune system’s interplay with tumors, the retreat prioritized five interconnected themes:

• Decoding Complex Biology: Using spatial modeling and multiplexed imaging to study immune-tumor dynamics within the microenvironment
• Applying AI to Immuno-Oncology: Using machine learning to inform trial design, antigen selection and translational strategy
• Reprogramming Immune Function: Developing T cells with greater endurance and function under challenging tumor conditions
• Sharpening Immune Target Recognition: Studying how immune cells identify or overlook tumor targets to inform therapeutic design
• Mapping Immune Microenvironments: Profiling immune cell types, locations and activity across tumor sites]

Together, these focus areas reflected a shift—from describing complexity to deliberately designing through it.

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“The retreat confirmed immunotherapy has reached a defining moment where we can look forward to designing through biological complexity rather than just describing it. The convergence of advances in basic immunology, AI-guided data analysis and molecular design, spatial biology, and next-gen cell engineering demonstrates we are now in position to transition experimental promise to applied patient impact.”

– Ira Mellman, PhD, PICI President of Research

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Translating Discoveries: Turning Insights into Action

Several programs highlighted how discovery is being actively translated:

• Stanford: Shared how single-cell data from CAR T-treated patients is being used to model therapeutic response
• UCLA: Described strategies using dual-targeting CARs and cytokine-enhanced constructs for solid tumors
• Dana-Farber: Traced the evolution of the NeoVax program and its expansion to broader tumor types
• Gladstone-UCSF: Discussed mRNA-LNP vaccine designs that aim to boost immune response via co-delivered cytokines
• Stanford and MIT: Showed how AI models are supporting antigen discovery and clinical design

The takeaway: data is no longer the endpoint—it’s the entry point for smarter design, informing every step from early discovery to clinical execution.

Where the Science Is Headed

Throughout the retreat — across site updates, spotlight talks and panel discussions — investigators shared scientific priorities that reflect where the field is heading and how it’s being advanced across the PICI Network:

• Smarter Cell Therapies: Crystal Mackall, MD (Stanford), and Saar Gill, MBBS, PhD (Penn), shared strategies for improving the persistence and adaptability of engineered T cells in hostile tumor environments
• Next-Generation Vaccines: Catherine Wu, MD, and Patrick Ott, MD, PhD (Dana-Farber), outlined advances in neoantigen-based vaccines to broaden antigen targeting and elicit more durable immune responses
• Predictive Biomarkers: Carl June, MD, and E. John Wherry, PhD (Penn), presented emerging approaches to translating mechanistic insights into clinical trial design, while Ansuman Satpathy, MD, PhD (Stanford), highlighted new applications of single-cell and spatial profiling to decode immune response signatures
• Strategic Combinations: Rizwan Romee, MD (Dana-Farber), and Taha Merghoub, PhD (Weill Cornell), discussed combination approaches to dismantle tumor resistance mechanisms by pairing immunotherapies with metabolic agents and targeted therapies

What stood out wasn’t just the diversity of approaches but how interconnected they’ve become—enabling faster iteration, smarter trial design and greater shared velocity across the network. Each presentation reflected a common goal: designing immunotherapies that are more precise, inclusive and durable.

Building the Systems That Power Progress

The retreat wasn’t just about ideas—it was about alignment, progress and real-world execution. Sessions were designed to break silos, stress-test plans and drive action across disciplines:

• New cross-center pilots were scoped and seeded
• Trial endpoints and design frameworks were refined
• Regulatory strategies were compared and pressure-tested
• Connections between founders, operators and researchers were deepened
• Shared challenges were prioritized—spanning tissue access, scale-up, data interoperability and reproducibility

These themes carried into working sessions focused on toxicity, timelines, biomarkers and startup strategy. In a field that often rewards individual progress, this was a visible show of collective acceleration.

What Comes Next: From Momentum to Movement

The energy from the retreat is already driving coordinated action. Across the PICI network, shared priorities are being fast-tracked into real initiatives—designed not just to advance science but to operationalize impact:

• Rolling out the Analytics Hub: A network-wide platform integrating clinical, molecular and patient-reported data to support faster, more precise decisions
• Launching new therapeutic consortia: Focused efforts in cell therapy, vaccines and biomarker development, co-designed by scientists, clinicians and operators
• Streamlining regulatory pathways: Sharing data, evidence standards and early insights to accelerate the first-in-human trial pipeline
• Expanding shared infrastructure: Developing interoperable tools, models and standards that reduce duplication, support collaboration and accelerate translation across institutions
• Linking data to clinical execution: Aligning data workflows with clinical trial needs to streamline design, enrollment and analysis in real time

The Spring 2025 Retreat sharpened priorities, clarified strategy and reinforced what makes PICI distinct: the ability to bring together brilliant minds from diverse disciplines to debate, collaborate and build. It’s the kind of environment that’s helped incubate ventures like ArsenalBio, shape regulatory strategy and surface insights that may not emerge in isolation.

Patient impact remains the measure of progress. At PICI, that impact is accelerated not just by scientific discovery but by the systems, partnerships and venture-minded execution that turn ideas into therapies. With shared infrastructure, cross-disciplinary insight and clear scientific focus, the network is rapidly advancing progress toward our mission—moving breakthroughs from bench to bedside to business with intention and speed.

We’re grateful to every participant who shared their time, insight and continued commitment to our mission to turn all cancers into curable diseases. PICI breaks down barriers and unites the network—but it’s what this community builds together that defines the work.