C-MITIE hosts national cancer imaging research meeting

June 29, 2023 — Earlier this month, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Multiparametric Imaging of Tumor Immune Microenvironments (C-MITIE) hosted the Cellular Cancer Biology Imaging Research (CCBIR) Annual Investigators Meeting. C-MITIE develops imaging and data analysis methods to better cancer immunotherapies, and is one of the three centers that’s part of the Cancer Bioengineering Initiative.

Funded by the National Cancer Institute, CCBIR centers aim to further the understanding of cancer by developing new approaches to cell imaging. In addition to UMN, centers are housed at Northwestern University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Texas Southwestern. PIs, Co-Is, and trainees from each center gave talks at the meeting.

More than 85 people from around the country attended the meeting, which featured a keynote from Dr. Teng-Leong Chew, Advanced Imaging Center Director at the HHMI Janelia Farms, entitled, “Challenges and global impact of open access to pre-commercial imaging technologies at Janelia.”

In addition, the meeting featured four scientific sessions, poster presentations, a hosted dinner for meeting participants at Owamni, and bodystorming with the Black Label Movement, a Minnesota dance company. Bodystorming uses choreographic tools and strategies to reframe how people interact with scientific concepts, and was developed by the Black Label Movement and Cancer Bioengineering Initiative co-director David Odde.

Event program

Bodystorming at a meeting — Developed through a collaboration between Carl Flink's Black Label Movement and David Odde and his lab, bodystorming uses choreographic tools and strategies to explore the fundamental biology of cancer in a new way.

Bodystorming — For a bodystorming session at the 2023 CCBIR meeting, the Black Label Movement reimagined the clinical experience of cancer patients in partnership with colleagues from Hennepin Healthcare and embodied the cellular dynamics of T-cell mediated immunotherapies through collaborations with Paolo Provenzano and Riley Manning, an Odde Lab PhD student.

people at a poster session — The 2023 CCBIR meeting featured more than 40 posters covering a wide range of topics related to imaging technologies at the cellular and organ scales and driven by specific fundamental questions in cancer biology.

Person giving a talk at a conference — Jeff Mader, who recently retired as CIO of Sun Country Airlines, gave a talk on his experience as a cancer patient and caregiver, inspiring the CCBIR research community to push hard for patients.