UM hosts Dr Stanley Ho Memorial Lecture on personalising vaccines for cancer prevention

MACAU, July 29 - In celebration of the 45th anniversary of the University of Macau (UM), the UM Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), in collaboration with the Dr Stanley Ho Medical Development Foundation (SHMDF), the Centre for Personalised Medicine (CPM) and St Anne’s College of the University of Oxford, hosted the 2026 Dr Stanley Ho Memorial Lecture. The event featured Tim Elliott, Kidani Professor of Immuno-Oncology and director of the Centre for Immuno-Oncology at the University of Oxford, who delivered a lecture entitled ‘Personalising Vaccines for Cancer Prevention’. The lecture was well attended by UM faculty and students, researchers, healthcare professionals, and members of the public, who were keen to explore recent advances in cancer immunology and the potential of personalised vaccines for cancer prevention.

Ge Wei, vice rector of UM, thanked SHMDF for its long-standing support of the university. He outlined UM’s recent achievements and its future development plans. He added that the lecture would promote international academic exchange and research collaboration, and contribute to medical innovation and the cultivation of medical professionals.

Ian Huen, vice-chairman of the Board of Trustees of SHMDF, highlighted the foundation’s commitment to advancing healthcare innovation and international collaboration. He noted that this year’s memorial lecture was particularly significant, as it was held at UM for the first time, having previously been hosted at the University of Oxford. He added that the event would provide an important platform for academic exchange between Macao and the international medical research community.

During the lecture, Prof Elliott discussed how advances in immunology are opening new avenues for personalised cancer prevention. Drawing on over three decades of research experience in antigen processing and presentation, he used different coloured chocolate balls and chocolate beans to demonstrate how T cells recognise and distinguish abnormal cells from healthy ones. He further explained how this mechanism can be used to design personalised vaccines for individuals with specific cancer susceptibilities or pre-cancerous lesions.

Prof Elliott also highlighted recent progress in the identification of tumour-specific antigens, and discussed strategies for developing safe and effective vaccine targets that do not trigger harmful autoimmune responses. He further examined the potential of preventive cancer vaccines to halt cancer development at its earliest stages, and analysed the scientific, clinical, and ethical challenges that must be overcome to implement personalised cancer prevention in clinical practice.

Prof Elliott is a world-renowned expert in cancer immunology. He studied biochemistry at the University of Oxford and completed his PhD in cancer immunotherapy at the University of Southampton. After conducting postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he returned to the University of Oxford as a Wellcome Trust Fellow, where he demonstrated the critical role of antigenic peptides in stabilising major histocompatibility complex class I molecules for cell surface expression. Prof Elliott later founded the Southampton Centre for Cancer Immunology and, in 2020, returned to the University of Oxford as the Kidani Professor of Immuno-Oncology, where he continues to research the mechanisms of cancer immune responses, focusing on antigen presentation and T-cell immunity in cancer.

The lecture was moderated by Vinay Tergaonkar, chair professor in UM FHS. The event was also attended by Helen King, principal of St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford; Anneke Lucassen, director of CPM, University of Oxford; Edwin Drummond, director of development of St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford; Philip Li and Janice Tsang, members of the Board of Trustees of SHMDF; Michael Ching, director of operations (Macao) of SHMDF; Poon Kai Tik, director of operations (Hong Kong) of SHMDF; Kenrick Fok, research director of SHMDF; Michael Hui, vice rector of UM; Xu Cheng-Zhong, dean of the UM Faculty of Science and Technology; Chen Xin, director of the UM Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences; and Xu Renhe, associate dean of UM FHS.