This webinar, brought to you by Axion Biosystems, will be hosted live and available on-demand.
Wednesday, September 16th, 2026
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM ET
Immune checkpoint inhibitors have transformed the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, yet many patients experience limited or short-lived responses. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that influence immune checkpoint activity and therapeutic resistance is essential for developing more effective immunotherapy strategies and identifying patients most likely to benefit from treatment.
In this webinar, brought to you by Axion BioSystems, Dr. Luca Grisetti and Dr. Paola Kučan Brlić will discuss new insights into the molecular regulation of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), donor-specific variability in immune checkpoint inhibitor responses, and emerging immune checkpoint pathways in HCC. Using the impedance-based Maestro Z live-cell analysis system, the researchers monitored immune cell-mediated tumor killing in real time to characterize donor-dependent responses and evaluate potential combination strategies. The speakers will also examine how Aurora kinase A (AURKA) signaling influences PD-L1 stability, explore combination strategies targeting AURKA and PD-L1, and introduce the PVR/Nectin-2 checkpoint axis as a potential therapeutic target to enhance natural killer (NK) cell- and T cell-mediated antitumor responses. Together, these findings highlight new opportunities for mechanism-based combination immunotherapies and precision oncology approaches in liver cancer.
Topics to be covered
- Mechanisms of immune checkpoint inhibitor resistance
- PD-L1 regulation and stability in hepatocellular carcinoma
- Donor-specific variability in immunotherapy response
- Combination strategies targeting AURKA and PD-L1
- The PVR/Nectin-2 immune checkpoint pathway
- NK cell and T cell-mediated
- Precision immunotherapy for liver cancer
 | Luca Grisetti, PhD |
 | Paola Kučan Brlić, PhD |
