Photoimmunotherapy comes of age at the SPIE BiOS Photonics West

I am delighted to be invited to speak at our 20th anniversary Photoimmunotherapy conference. Our development goes back almost 35 years when any attribution to photosensitized immunology was part of the Dougherty Optical Methods for Tumor Diagnosis and Therapy Conference. Photoimmunology has always being an area of investigation, but was focused on UV-induced biology. An early paper by Levy et al coined the term “photoimmunotherapy” where a photosensitizer was conjugated to an immune agent. My lab soon followed and since then, antibody-sensitizer conjugates have become a popular pursuit. Very sophisticated conjugates are now made worldwide. Canti in Italy and Korbelik in Canada focused on Photodynamic therapy (PDT)- induced cellular immunologic effects. Meanwhile, new PDT-related observations were made in photochemical and photothermal effects with a wide array of applications. These more adventurous studies needed a home. With Steve Jacques, we started a new conference on photochemical, photothermal, and photoimmunological effects. It was Professor Wei Chen’s interest and persistence that led to a full Photoimmunology conference. I will review some of the early work in the field.