Bernhard Hering
Professor of Surgery & Medicine; Executive Director Schulze Diabetes Institute
Seminars
Tuesday 23rd March 2027
Exploring Antigen Selection To Highlight the Resulting Tolerogenic & Inflammatory Outcome for Strategic Disease Selection
Examine how antigens are processed and presented within the immune system, to clarify why some resulting epitopes promote tolerance while others provoke an inflammatory response, and build a shared understanding of the biology underpinning antigen selection to inform strategic disease selection.
This session will:
- Review the criteria currently used to identify a disease-relevant antigens
- Establish what distinguishes a well-characterized target from one that remains poorly understood
- Delineate which indications have the most studied and understood biological mechanisms, to critically assess antigen choices across different ASIT technologies
- Discuss how this underlying biology connects to mechanism-of-action of a drug in the clinic, to later develop more technical discussions in a common foundation, and prepare attendees to engage more critically with the antigen-specific sessions that follow
Wednesday 24th March 2027
Directing Antigen-Specific Therapies to Precise Tissue Sites & Concentrating the Tolerogenic Signal Where it is Needed Most, & Evaluating the Potential of Tissue-Specific Targeting for Safety & Efficacy
4:00 pm
- Examining approaches that direct antigen-specific therapies toward a specific organ or tissue, such as the liver, to consider how this may concentrate the tolerogenic effect at the site where it matters most
- Comparing tissue-specific delivery against systemic administration to explore whether targeting a particular site could reduce activity elsewhere in the immune system to improve safety and tolerability while preserving therapeutic activity where it is needed
- Discussing how tissue-specific targeting might influence dosing frequency and route of administration to consider what this could mean for patient burden and trial design
