Summit on cell therapy for cancer: The importance of the interaction of multiple disciplines to advance clinical therapy.

The field of cellular therapy of cancer is moving quickly and the issues involved with its advancement are complex and wide ranging. The growing clinical applications and success of adoptive cellular therapy of cancer has been due to the rapid evolution of immunology, cancer biology, gene therapy and stem cell biology and the translation of advances in these fields from the research laboratory to the clinic. The continued development of this field is dependent on the exchange of ideas across these diverse disciplines, the testing of new ideas in the research laboratory and in animal models, the development of new cellular therapies and GMP methods to produce these therapies, and the testing of new adoptive cell therapies in clinical trials. The Summit on Cell Therapy for Cancer to held on November 1 and 2, 2011 at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus will include a mix of perspectives, concepts and ideas related to adoptive cellular therapy that are not normally presented together at any single meeting. This novel assembly will generate new ideas and new collaborations and possibly increase the rate of advancement of this field.