Fahar Merchant
Chief Executive Officer Medicenna Therapeutics
Seminars
Thursday 19th February 2026
Panel Discussion – Future Directions in GBM Models
12:30 pm
- Moving beyond traditional models to accurately replicate the TME and immune system of the human brain
- Outlining the technological innovations that are needed to make glioblastoma models truly predictive
- Standardizing models to ensure they are credible for regulatory submission and inform personalized medicine
Thursday 19th February 2026
Panel Discussion – Leveraging Advanced Liquid Biopsies as a Next Generation Diagnostic Technique for GBM Assessments
3:00 pm
- Discussing the limitations of traditional liquid biopsies using ctDNA for GBM monitoring
- Exploring innovative techniques to capture and analyse circulating tumour cells from blood or CSF samples
- Assessing the clinical utility liquid biopsies for GBMs to inform active genetic mutations and methylation status for treatment guidance
Tuesday 17th February 2026
Moving Towards Standardized Preclinical & Translational Study Methodology to Advance the Next Generation of Glioblastoma Models
2:00 pm
- Join this workshop to collectively work towards standardized and effective preclinical GBM models to ensure convincing preclinical data is produced to reduce regulatory bottlenecks
- Acknowledging the current limitations with preclinical and translational models that mimic the human immune system for immunotherapy research in Glioblastoma
- Discussing strategies to overcome the challenges of in preserving cellular and mutational diversities in primary tumours to overcome the prolonged development time
- Advancing the use of K9 models as an improved model for paediatric Glioblastomas
- Exploring patient-derived glioblastoma organoid models to recapitulate the heterogeneity of glioblastomas to overcome the complexities of developing effective therapeutic strategies
- Evaluating the practical applications of glioblastoma organoids for rapidly testing patient-specific treatment strategies involving correlating mutation profiles with drug responses to advance personalized therapies
Thursday 19th February 2026
Accelerating GBM Drug Development with Innovative Patient-Derived Models of the TME
10:00 am
- Advancing organoids and xenografts for high-throughput screening and biomarker identification to effectively evaluate novel therapeutic strategies and reduce failure risk
- Discussing the maintenance of genetic and molecular heterogeneity of human tumors to provide a more predictive platform for preclinical research
- Modelling recurrent tumors with patient-derived models to replicate selection pressure from prior therapies
