This multidisciplinary conference will focus on integrating emerging technologies and immunobiology to advance the genetic engineering of immune cells for the treatment of cancer and other pathologies. Main themes include strategies to identify novel immune targets, enhance the function of synthetic and natural receptors for antigen, and genetically engineer and edit T cells and their precursors. The conference will preeminently feature elucidating mechanisms of resistance to cell-based immunotherapies, including the roles of T cell differentiation, signaling and costimultory pathways and epigenetic profiles, as well as the mechanisms that lead to antigen escape in the context of the tumor microenvironment. The emergence of novel, alternative engineered cell types, including natural killer cells and pluripotent stem cell-derived immune cells, and their potential to overcome current barriers to immunotherapy, will also be examined. Overall, this meeting will offer a close examination of the fundamental mechanisms that determine the success of cell-based immunotherapies.