Bethany Mattson
Director, Innovative Medicine Oncology Johnson & Johnson
Seminars
Wednesday 29th July 2026
Panel Discussion: Overcoming Challenges with Access to Tissues & Patient Samples to Build Better Patient-Derived Tumor Models & Enhance Translational Success
3:40 pm
- Highlighting why high quality, well annotated patient derived samples are essential for building tumor models that truly reflect human disease and improve translational confidence
- Delving into how collaboration between drug developers, clinicians, and model providers accelerates access to the right tissues at the right time and strengthens preclinical decision making
- Discussing practical strategies to overcome ethical, logistical, and operational barriers i tissue procurement to enhance reproducibility and boost trust in model‑derived data
Wednesday 29th July 2026
Overcoming the Limits of Humanized & Syngeneic Models to Better Assess Immuno-Oncology Candidates & Combination Strategies
9:00 am
- Discussing the feasibility challenges of humanized systems, from rebuilding balanced immune compartments to navigating cytokine driven xenoreactivity and the impact on interpreting safety and tolerability
- Spotlighting when humanized (CD34+) versus syngeneic models best capture T-cell biology, revealing where each system succeeds and falls short to model PD L1 mediated resistance, effector function enhancement and durability
- Demonstrating how combination strategies are stress tested across models, highlighting why checkpoint blockade requires pre-existing T-cell infiltration, where costimulation excels, and how model choice shapes translational confidence
