Currently, there are no robust biomarkers that predict immunotherapy outcomes in metastatic melanoma. Tools which can predict the outcome from current immunotherapies will assist treatment selection and discussions about prognosis with patients, as well as highlighting patients who may be best served with clinical trials from the outset.
Associate Professor Alexander Menzies and Dr Ines Pires da Silva will review the current approach to treatment selection for patients with metastatic melanoma.
In the session they will also:
Associate Professor Alexander Menzies is a Medical Oncologist and Associate Professor of Melanoma Medical Oncology at Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA), The University of Sydney, and Royal North Shore and Mater Hospitals. He has subspecialty interest in melanoma and breast cancer.
He conducts several investigator-led and sponsored clinical trials in melanoma and breast cancer, Chairs the Department of Cancer Medicine at the Mater Hospital and the Melanoma and Skin Group for the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA), and serves as Faculty member for the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and Steering Committee member for the Society for Melanoma Research (SMR).
His main research interests are clinical trials of new systemic therapies for melanoma and breast cancer, biomarkers of response and resistance to systemic therapy, and immunotherapy-related toxicity.
Dr Inês Pires da Silva, MD PhD is a Medical Oncologist at Melanoma Institute Australia & Blacktown Hospital, and Senior Lecturer at The University of Sydney. She received her MD degree at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal) in 2006 and completed specialist training in Medical Oncology at Instituto Português de Oncologia (Lisbon, Portugal) in 2016.
In 2010 she was chosen for the MD PhD Program for Advanced Medical Education and earned a 3-year fellowship grant (sponsored by Gulbenkian and Champalimaud’s Foundations), providing her the opportunity to undertake research at Bhardwaj Lab, part of Interdisciplinary Melanoma Cooperative Group and NYU Cancer Institute (2010-2013). She defended her PhD thesis in tumor immunology, describing how the dysfunction of the protective innate immune mechanisms, including NK cells, can contribute towards melanoma progression. She did two clinical fellowships in melanoma, one at NYU Cancer Institute (2014) and more recently at Melanoma Institute Australia (2017-2019), where she was co-investigator in phase I, II and III clinical trials (neoadjuvant, adjuvant and metastatic) in melanoma.
She has presented her research work in international meetings, and she has published original research and review articles in high-impact journals. Her main research goal is to study mechanisms of innate and acquired resistance to immunotherapy in order to identify new therapeutic targets.
