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Thursday, September 10th, 2026
08:30 – Welcome and registration
08:45 – Introduction
Ibrahim Yakoub-Agha and Suman Mitra
09:00 – INCa’s strategy for innovative therapy
Bruno Quesnel (INCa, Paris, France)
SESSION 1: AI, Synthetic Biology, and the Future of CAR-T Cell Therapy
Chairs : Suman MITRA (Lille, France), Luca Simula (Paris, France) & Simon Baldacci (Lille, France)
09:20 – Synthetic Receptors for tumor environment-responsive T Cells
Leo Scheller (Regensburg, Germany)
09:40 – Use of Machine Learning in hematology
Julian Zoller (Heidelberg, Germany)
10:00 – AI-guided CAR designs
Tanveer Ahmad (Delhi, India)
10:20 – Design of synthetic promoter for control gene expression
Velia Siciliano (Naples, Italy)
10:40 – 11:00 Coffee break
SESSION 2: Academic CAR-T Bioproduction
Chairs: Arnon Nagler (Tel Aviv, Israël) & Christian Chabannon (Marseille, France)
11:00 – Next-Generation CAR-T Strategies and Academic Clinical Translation for Hematological Malignancies
Juan Roberto Rodriguez-Madoz (Navarra, Spain)
11:20 – Karolinska experience
Mattias Carlsten (Stokholm, Sweeden)
11:40-12:15
Keynote Lecture: Stem-like anti-CAR-T cells therapy
Chairs: Daniel Olive (Marseille, France), Julie Demaret (Lille, France) & Eliane Piaggio (Paris, France)
Luca Gattinoni (Regensburg, Germany)
12:15 -13:30 – Lunch break
13:30 – 14h30
Novartis Symposium
CAR-T cells in Hematology: Optimizing Today, Shaping Tomorrow
Chair: Sylvain Choquet (Paris, France)
13:30 – Is CAR-T now the standard of care in R/R 3L FL?
Guillaume Manson (Rennes, France)
13:50 – Where does CAR-T still make the difference in 3L DLBCL?
David Beauvais (Lille, France)
14:10 – Next-generation CAR-T: how will new platforms reshape
hematologypractice?
Sylvain Choquet (Paris, France)
Pre-clinical session
Chairs: Paul Chauvet (Lille, France) & Marie Duhamel (Lille, France)
14:30 – STAR-T and CAR-T Cellular Therapy for AML
Xiangyu Zhao (Beijing, China)
14:50 – Engineering an Inflammatory Synthetic Transcription Factor to control and reprogram macrophage polarization states
Matteo Marchetti (Naple, Italy)
15:00 – Disruption of the Retinoid-Inducible Nuclear Factor (RINF, alias CXXC5) improves the long-lasting antitumor capacity of CAR T cells
Frédéric Pendino (Paris, France)
15:10 – Targeting CAR T cell motility to enhance the efficacy of immunotherapy against solid cancers
Emma Touzet (Paris, France)
15:20 – Patient-Derived Xenografts and Humanized Mice as Preclinical Platforms for Cell Therapy Development
Jonas Nilsson (Gothenburg, Sweden)
15:40 – 16:00 Coffee break
SESSION 3: Clinical Session I
Chairs: Nicolas Gower (Lille, France), Monica Guzman (New York, USA) & Halvard Bönig (Frankfort, Germany)
16:00 – Cellular composition of the apheresis product can predict manufacturing failure or OOS of commercial autologous CAR T-cells
Miryam Mebarki (Paris, France)
16:10 – How to Best use CAR T cells to cure Multiple Myeloma
Hermann Einsele (Würzburg, Germany)
16:30 – Tuning CAR Affinity: Low-Affinity Receptors to Enhance Persistence and Reduce Toxicity in Pediatric Leukemia
Sara Ghorashian (London, UK)
16:50 – Clinical outcomes of Out-of-Specification CAR T-cell products in hematologic malignancies
Mohamad Karfan Dabaja (Jacksonville, USA)
17:10 – Absence of CAR T-cell infusion despite successful leukapheresis
Elias Benohoud (Lille, France)
19:30 – DINNER
Friday, September 11th, 2026
08:30 – Welcome and registration
SESSION 4: In vivo cell reprogramming
Chairs: Carole-Anne BRUGERE (Paris, France) & Bertrand Nadel (Paris, France)
09:00 – Engineering CAR macrophages in vivo
Philippe Benaroch (Paris, France)
09:20 – Viral envelop engineering for in vivo gene and cell therapy
Yves Gaudin (Paris, France)
09:40 – Synthetic Biology Tools for in vivo Cell Engineering and Next-Generation Therapies
Marc Güell (Barcelona, Spain)
10:00 – 10:20 Coffee break
10:20 – 10:30 Group photo
SESSION UNITC: Upcoming Cellular therapy Technologies
Chairs: Pierre Guermonprez (Paris, France) & Roch Houot (Rennes, France)
10:30 – Allogenic CAR-T cell therapy
Laurie Menger (Paris, France)
10:50 – Targeting Metabolic-Epigenetic Crosstalk to Enhance Cellular Therapies in the TME
Hind Rafei (Texas, USA) – Online
11:10 – Harnessing Naturally Occurring T-Cell Mutations to Supercharge CAR-T Fitness
Jaehyuk Choi (Texas, USA)
11:30 – Tunable BACH2 Dosing to Balance Stemness and Effector Function in CAR-T Cell Therapy
Rahul Roychoudhuri (Cambridge, UK)
11:55 – 12:30
Keynote Lecture: In vivo T-Cell therapy
Chairs: Nicolas Simon (Lille, France) & Capucine Grandjean (Institute Pasteur, Paris)
Christian Buchholz (Langen, Germany)
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch Break
BMS Symposium
The CAR T odyssey in Lymphomas and autoimmune diseases:
Latest Clinical Trial Results and Real-World Outcomes for tomorrow’s Practice
Chair: Olivier Boyer (Rouen, France)
13:30 – CAR-T Cell therapy in lymphomas
Vincent Camus (Rouen, France)
13:55 – CART therapy in autoimmune diseases
Dominique Farge (Paris, France)
14:20 – Q/A
Olivier Boyer, Dominique Farge & Vincent Camus
14:30 – 14:50 Coffee Break
Partners session: What is in the pipeline
Chairs: Suman Mitra (Lille, France) & Ibrahim Yakoub-Agha (Lille, France)
14:30 – Vera Luginbuehl (Novartis)
14:40 – TBC (BMS)
SESSION 6: Clinical Session II
Chairs: Christophe Ferrand (Besançon, France) & Jo Caers (Liege, Belgium)
14:50 – Pioneering Academic CAR-T in Brazil: Clinical Outcomes of Point-of-Care Manufacturing
Diego Villa Clé (São Paulo, Brazil)
15:10 – Re-manufacturing CD8+ central-memory type 2 T-cells predict axi-cel failure in LBCL
Celine Gregoire (Liege, Belgium)
15:30 – Translational Monitoring and Management of CAR-T Cell Toxicities
Stephan Mielke (Stockholm, Sweden)
15:50 – Determinants of Anti-CD19 Response and Resistance in LBCL Prior to CAR-T Manufacturing
Jos Melenhorst (Cleaveland, USA)
Conclusion & rap-up session
Ibrahim Yakoub-Agha & Suman Mitra
End of Symposium – 16:30
