ESCCA Industrial Partner Presentations & sponsor sessions and events (listed in chronological order)

IPP01 - ESCCA Industrial Partner Presentation
15:00-15:00 hrs. - Hall 1A

Exploring immunodeficiency: current applications and future challenges for flow cytometry
Speaker: Catarina Martins, Invited Assistant Professor of Immunology NOVA Medical School (NMS), Lisbon, Portugal

Immunodeficiency, either developing from inborn errors or resulting from secondary causes, like infection or immunosuppressive therapies, requires a detailed characterization of immune populations, soluble mediators, and crucial functional activities to uncover the underlying defects and functional impairments.
From the laboratory perspective, flow cytometry has proven to be a most valuable tool for the screening and monitoring approaches of patients with primary causes of immunodeficiency. This complex and heterogeneous group of rare diseases, now under the designation of Inborn Errors of Immunity (IEI), requires a timely identification of the inherent condition as often their presentation occurs as a paediatric emergency associated to severe infection. In our experience with paediatric and adult patients along the past decade, flow cytometry has improved the comprehension of several diseases and helped identify biomarkers and characteristic changes used in several classification criteria of IEI, from the basic characterization of lymphocyte subsets to more comprehensive approaches that detail lymphoid and non-lymphoid compartments. Moreover, the ability to respond to different needs in the identification of functional defects also brought flow cytometry to the first line in patient follow up and monitoring.
However, despite the significant progresses made in this field, the need to implement standardized approaches continues in both immunophenotypic and functional settings. Considering the rarity of these diseases and the broad type of manifestations possible, the use of heterogenous panels approaching cell characterization, or the limited access to functional tests, constraints the diagnostic capacity of routine laboratories. Furthermore, despite IEI may represent a small niche in clinical immunology laboratories, more and more clinicians urge laboratories to implement new strategies to monitor immune reconstitution upon interventions like bone marrow transplantation or to follow up their patients ongoing immunotherapies with suppressive effects. This growing need for new, robust, and sustained diagnostic tools will certainly demand the combined efforts of all involved players (clinicians, laboratories, researchers and biomedical companies) in the quest for comprehensive solutions.
Thus, with this talk we aim to explore flow cytometry approaches in the context of IEI and secondary causes of immunodeficiency, with an overall insight into current applications and some of the more evident challenges being faced in the aim to improve patient care.

IPP02 - ESCCA Industrial Partner Presentation 
16:00-16:30 hrs. - Hall 1A

Metaflow an innovative tool for multidimensional data analysis
Speaker: Dr. Kamila Czechowska

Increasing number of dimensions of cytometric data requires progress in appropriate analytical tools development. Currently, there is no solution that would allow for prompt and robust multidimensional data analysis. Metaflow is a cloud-based solution that empowers the user with a suite of proprietary algorithms wrapped up in a smart user interface. This solution created so as to meet regulatory requirements, allows any user to explore their data and with just few clicks only, get robust results.

CSP01 - Corporate Sponsor Presentation
15:00-15:30 hrs. - Hall 1A

Systems level monitoring in children with solid tumors
Speaker: Lakshmikanth Tadepally (Stockholm, SE)

Abstract: 
Qi Chen1*, Linda Ljundblad*2, Jun Wang1, Ziyang Tan1, Jaromir Mikes1, Constantin Mugabo1, Laura Gonzalez1, Anette Johansson1, Gustav Hedberg2, Yang Chen1, Lena-Maria Carlsson2, Klas Blomgren2, Per Kogner2, Tadepally Lakshmikanth1, Petter Brodin1.

1. Unit of clinical pediatrics, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm Sweden
2. Unit of pediatric oncology, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm Sweden

Cancer is still an important cause of death in pediatric patients with solid tumors. These patients undergo an intense, multimodal treatment and long-term survivors often suffer from late effects, both of the disease itself, and due to the treatments given. The field of cancer immunotherapy has advanced dramatically in recent years and impressive results have been reported in selected groups of patients but children with solid tumors have not benefitted from these advances yet. To pave the way for immunotherapies in children with solid tumors, a detailed characterization of immune responses elicited against different types of solid tumors and in relation to clinical outcome is now required. Therefore, we have set out to do a detailed systems-level monitoring of the immune system in children treated for solid tumors (including brain tumors) at the center for pediatric oncology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.

We combine state-of-the-art technologies for systems-level immunomonitoring such as mass cytometry and high-dimensional plasma protein profiling, blood mRNA sequencing and single-cell sequencing of T-cell receptors to characterize the immune system before, during, and after treatment and assessing anti-tumor immune responses. We combine these measurements with machine learning algorithms to identify signatures of favorable and unfavorable responses and clinical complications like neutropenic fevers and immunosuppression.

We aim to identify immune correlates of clinical outcomes, understand the impact of current treatment protocols on the immune systems of children and finally assess the determinants of anti-tumor immune responses in relation to treatment regimens, the tumor characteristics and the baseline immune system of the child. I shall present some of our findings obtained thus far.

IPP03 - ESCCA Industrial Partner Presentation
11:15-11:45 hrs. - Hall 1A

Benefits of adopting new technology in a clinical laboratory
Speaker: Alan Dunlop, Royal Marsden NHS Trust, Sutton, UK

Clinical Flow Cytometry laboratories are seeing increasing workloads, requiring higher complexity assays to be used to diagnose and monitor patients with Haematological malignancies.
Despite this, most laboratories are still heavily reliant on manual processes being performed by a small number of highly skilled scientific staff.
Our service has recently upgraded our equipment and refreshed our testing strategy. We have seen significant benefits by doing so.
DXFlex Flow Cytometers allow us to run 13 colour assays routinely.
By combining Duraclone technology with liquid drop ins, we have reduced the number of tubes run per patient, whilst simultaneously increasing the number of informative antigens being analysed.
We are about to move to the next phase of our transformation which will provide further benefits. The CellMek SPS System and AQUIOS STEM System are both ready to be implemented, which will further reduce time consuming and error prone manual processes.
By fully adopting new technologies, laboratories will be able to adapt to the rapidly changing requirement from the clinical users and adhere to increasing regulatory requirements, whilst giving us capacity to train the next generation of cytometrists.

IPP04 - ESCCA Industrial Partner Presentation
11:15-11:45, Hall 1A

Discover your automation potential with Sysmex workflow consultancy
Speaker: Tanja Tornow, Sysmex Europe SE

One of the challenges many clinical flow cytometry laboratories face is ensuring that the laboratory continues to work efficiently considering changes in personnel and testing demands. This presentation introduces how Sysmex workflow consultants use Lean methodology to review multiple aspects of the laboratory’s workflow, with the aim to identify potential for optimisation by eliminating waste in processes.  We show how this has been applied to two cytometry laboratories with differing testing demands. For each case, a concrete solution for automation of certain steps, and the different optimisation potentials, will be presented.