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AACR IO 2026 — Program

Day-by-day program for AACR IO 2026, February 18–21, 2026, JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live.

Reconstructed from Wayback snapshots

The live AACR program pages return HTTP 404. Everything below comes from archived snapshots, listed at the bottom of this page. The Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday snapshots date from January 13–20, 2026 — before the meeting — and still contain "Additional speaker to be announced" placeholders and unnamed short-talk slots. The Saturday snapshot (February 8) is the most complete, including room assignments and named short talks. A final as-delivered program was never archived.

Format, in AACR's words: "a mix of keynote lectures, major symposia, spotlight sessions, educational sessions, special sessions, and poster sessions with exhibits." Note that no special session appears in any archived 2026 program despite the boilerplate.

Wednesday, February 18 — educational day and opening keynotes

Registration opened at noon.

Educational Sessions 1–2, 3:00–4:20 p.m. (parallel)

  • Ed. 1 — All You Need to Know About Studying the Tumor Microenvironment · chair Brian Brown (Mount Sinai)
    • Catherine Sautès-Fridman (Cordeliers Research Centre, Paris) — "Spatial interplay between tumor cells and their microenvironment determines Tertiary Lymphoid Structures formation and their impact on immunotherapy responses"
    • Aaron M. Newman (Stanford) — "Noninvasive profiling of the TME for immunotherapy response assessment"
  • Ed. 2 — Microbiome · chair Marcel R.M. van den Brink (City of Hope)
    • Giorgio Trinchieri (NCI, Bethesda) · Michael C. Wu (Fred Hutchinson)

Educational Sessions 3–4, 4:30–5:50 p.m. (parallel)

  • Ed. 3 — All You Need to Know About Metabolism in IO · chair Vishwa Deep Dixit (Yale)
    • Shixin Ma (Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation) — "You're what you eat: Fueling CD8+ T cells smart"
    • Vishwa Deep Dixit (Yale Y-Age) — "Metabolic control of inflammation and aging"
    • Miguel Reina-Campos (La Jolla Institute for Immunology) — "T cell tissue residency and living off the land"
  • Ed. 4 — How to Artificially Design Genes and Proteins · chair Hani Goodarzi (UCSF)
    • Hani Goodarzi — "Generative biology: Reading and writing the language of life"
    • Second speaker never announced in the archived program

Welcome and Keynote Session 1, 6:00–7:30 p.m. — Jaffee and Greenberg; see Keynotes. Poster Session A / Exhibit Show / Reception, 7:30–10:00 p.m.

Goodarzi chairs the generative-biology session

Hani Goodarzi has a dossier in this corpus on the foundation-models side. His appearance here chairing "How to Artificially Design Genes and Proteins" is the clearest single point of contact between the FM material and this meeting.

Thursday, February 19

Keynote Session 2, 8:30–9:15 a.m. — Rafi Ahmed.

Major Symposia 1–2, 9:30–11:00 a.m. (parallel)

  • MS1 — Cellular Therapies for Solid Cancers · chair Christian S. Hinrichs (Rutgers CINJ) · with Louai Labanieh (Mount Sinai)
  • MS2 — Immune Suppressive Myeloid Cells · chair Marco Colonna (WashU) · Renato Ostuni (IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan) — "Spatial and molecular control of tumor immune microenvironment" (Abstract IA01)

Spotlight on Proffered Papers 1, 11:15 a.m.–12:00 p.m. · chair Nina Bhardwaj Poster Session B / Exhibit Show / Lunch, 12:15–3:15 p.m.

Major Symposia 3–4, 3:15–4:45 p.m. (parallel)

  • MS3 — Regulation of Immune Response to Cancer · chair Padmanee Sharma (MD Anderson) — "From the clinic to the lab: Investigating mechanisms of response and resistance to immune checkpoint therapy" · Patrick Hogan (La Jolla Institute) — "The T cell 'exhaustion' transcriptional program downstream of NFAT" (IA02)
  • MS4 — NK Cells in IO · chair Katayoun Rezvani (MD Anderson) — "Optimizing NK cell engineering for therapeutic efficacy" · second speaker never announced

Spotlight Sessions 1–2, 5:00–6:20 p.m. (parallel)

  • SS1 — Artificial Intelligence and Design of Immune Modulators · chair David M. Reese (Amgen) — "Molecular engineering in the era of artificial intelligence" (IA03) · Gevorg Grigoryan (Generate Biomedicines)
  • SS2 — in situ Vaccination · chair Michael J. Mitchell (UPenn) · Haydn T. Kissick (Emory)

Friday, February 20

Keynote Session 3, 8:00–9:20 a.m. — Vignali and Chen (two keynotes).

Major Symposia 5–6, 9:30–11:00 a.m. (parallel)

  • MS5 — New Breakthroughs in TCR Engineering · chair Owen N. Witte (UCLA) — "Cancer immunotherapy: Target, modality, and timing" · Christopher A. Klebanoff (MSKCC)
  • MS6 — TILs and Maintenance of Immunity · chair Brian Gastman (Iovance Biotherapeutics) · Parameswaran Hari (Obsidian Therapeutics)

Spotlight on Proffered Papers 2, 11:15 a.m.–12:00 p.m. · chair Antoni Ribas Poster Session C / Exhibit Show / Lunch, 12:15–3:15 p.m.

Major Symposia 7–8, 3:15–4:45 p.m. (parallel)

  • MS7 — In vivo T Cell Engineering – Are We There Yet? · chair Justin Eyquem (Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology) · Kevin Friedman (Kelonia Therapeutics) · Haig Aghajanian (Capstan Therapeutics)
  • MS8 — Neuro-Psych-Immunology in IO · chair Lili Yang (UCLA) — "From brain to cancer: Harnessing serotonin and antidepressants for immunotherapy" · Wolf Hervé Fridman (INSERM U1138, Paris) — "Neuromediators in the tumor microenvironment: GABA modulates tumor immunity and impairs response to immunotherapy"

Spotlight Sessions 3–4, 5:00–6:20 p.m. (parallel)

  • SS3 — Novel T-cell Engagers · chair Paresh Vyas (Oxford) · Patrick A. Baeuerle (Cullinan Therapeutics)
  • SS4 — Systems Immunology · chair Garry P. Nolan (Stanford) · Linghua Wang (MD Anderson) — "A multiscale view of tumor ecosystems: From single-cell states to functional immune niches and communities"

Friday afternoon is the day to read

MS7 and MS8 running in parallel is the meeting's most distinctive hour. MS7 is a full symposium on in vivo T-cell engineering staffed almost entirely by company speakers; MS8 is neuro-psych-immunology, a theme that barely exists at other IO meetings. SS4 immediately after, with Nolan and Linghua Wang, is the single-cell and spatial slot — see Themes.

Saturday, February 21 — half day

The most completely archived day, including room assignments and named short talks.

Keynote Session 4, 8:00–9:00 a.m., Diamond Ballroom 5-10 — Fred Ramsdell.

Major Symposia 9–10, 9:15–10:45 a.m. (parallel)

  • MS9 — Dendritic Cells in Immune Responses to Cancer · chair Stefani Spranger (Koch Institute/MIT) — "Not all anti-tumor immune responses are alike: How dendritic cells shape anti-tumor T cells" · Max Krummel (UCSF) · Diamond Ballroom 5-10
    • Short talk — Daniel G. Chen (UCLA): "Inflammatory spatial niches distinguished by antigen presentation and interferon response programs explain the high immune response rate of desmoplastic melanoma: Comparison of biopsies from SWOG S1512 and S1616"
    • Short talk — Ross Ward (Mount Sinai): "Leveraging cDC1 populations for enhanced mRNA cancer vaccination"
  • MS10 — T-B Cell Crosstalk in the Tumor Microenvironment and in Immune Response Across Cancers · chair Tina Cascone (MD Anderson) · Diamond Ballroom 4
    • Nikhil Joshi (Yale) — "Investigating T cell immunobiology using genetically engineered models" (IA04)
    • Tullia C. Bruno (UPMC Hillman) — "Unleashing the immunotherapeutic potential of B cells inside and outside of tertiary lymphoid structures"
    • Anna Dimberg (Uppsala University) — "Characterization and induction of tertiary lymphoid structures in glioma"

Closing Keynote Session, 11:00–11:45 a.m. — Alexander Marson. Closing remarks 11:45 a.m.

Committees

Scientific Committee (20 members, chaired by Bhardwaj and Ribas): Rafi Ahmed (Emory) · Sebastian Amigorena (Institut Curie) · Lisa H. Butterfield (Merck) · Lieping Chen (Yale) · Luca Gattinoni (Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy, Regensburg) · Carl H. June (Penn) · Susan M. Kaech (Salk) · Lewis L. Lanier (UCSF) · Alexander Marson (UCSF) · Ira Mellman (Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy) · Avery D. Posey (Penn) · Michel Sadelain (Columbia) · Catherine Sautès-Fridman (INSERM U1138) · Andrea Schietinger (MSKCC) · Padmanee Sharma (MD Anderson) · Ton Schumacher (NKI) · Marcel R.M. van den Brink (City of Hope) · Robert Vonderheide (Penn Abramson) · E. John Wherry (Penn) · Catherine Wu (Dana-Farber)

Clinical Trials and Late-Breaking Abstracts Committee (13 members): Renier J. Brentjens (Roswell Park) · Tina Cascone (MD Anderson) · Jason A. Chesney (Louisville) · George Coukos (Lausanne) · Charles G. Drake (Janssen) · John B.A.G. Haanen (NKI) · Patrick Hwu (Moffitt) · Harriet Kluger (Yale) · Quynh-Thu Le (Stanford) · Ignacio Melero (Clínica Universidad de Navarra) · Adekunle Odunsi (UChicago) · Katayoun Rezvani (MD Anderson) · Pedro J. Romero (Novigenix / Lausanne)

Early-career presenters named in AACR's recap

From the March 6 blog post: Nina Barceló-Genestar (PhD candidate, IDIBAPS), Wan Sang Cho (postdoc, Stanford), Megan Priestley (postdoc, MIT).

Gaps in this reconstruction

  • Speaker names for the second MS4 slot (NK cells) and the second Ed. 4 slot were never published.
  • All short-talk speakers for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are unrecoverable — the snapshots predate their assignment. Only the two Saturday short talks are named.
  • No "special session" appears in any archived program despite the format boilerplate.

Sources — Wayback snapshots

Fetch with curl --compressed; web.archive.org is blocked to WebFetch in some harnesses and the main page is gzip-encoded.

Page Snapshot URL
Meeting overview (committees, theme) 2026-02-20 https://web.archive.org/web/20260220134901id_/https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-io-2026/
Wednesday Feb 18 2026-01-16 https://web.archive.org/web/20260116131033id_/https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-io-2026/wednesday-february-18/
Thursday Feb 19 2026-01-20 https://web.archive.org/web/20260120211850id_/https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-io-2026/thursday-february-19/
Friday Feb 20 2026-01-13 https://web.archive.org/web/20260113194008id_/https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-io-2026/friday-february-20/
Saturday Feb 21 (most complete) 2026-02-08 https://web.archive.org/web/20260208104125id_/https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-io-2026/saturday-february-21/
Abstracts policy / embargo 2026-02 https://web.archive.org/web/20260220000000id_/https://www.aacr.org/meeting/aacr-io-2026/abstracts/