2019 Speaker Biographies by Name

Dr. Abate-Daga completed his undergraduate studies at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina), and his PhD in Health and Life Sciences at the Pompeu Fabra University and Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona, Spain). He then completed his postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Drs. Rick Morgan and Steve Rosenberg, at the Surgery Branch of the National Institutes of Health. In 2015, Dr. Abate-Daga joined Moffitt Cancer Center, as an Assistant Member of the Department of Immunology. The Abate-Daga lab combines technologies from systems and synthetic biology, and basic immunology, to study the molecular events that govern the function of genetically-modified T cells. His group is interested in understanding how a new generation of immune receptors can be designed to outperform the current products. Dr. Abate-Daga’s team is also interested in identifying novel targets, and in taking advantage of the unique biological properties of gamma/delta T cells for cancer therapy.

Neeraj Adya has over 18 years of experience in the area of Precision Medicine. He is currently at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) as a Pharmacodiagnostics (PDx) Lead, enabling development of Companion/Complementary diagnostics in various therapeutic areas, including Oncology, Cardiovascular, and Fibrosis. In this role, Neeraj provides PDx leadership for complementary/companion diagnostic development, facilitating delivery of all diagnostics by working with external diagnostic business partners. Prior to that, he was at Abbott Laboratories for over 15 years where he led cross-functional teams to develop blood screening diagnostics products for infectious diseases as well as molecular diagnostics intended as companion diagnostic (CDx) with multiple Pharma partners. Neeraj received his PhD in Molecular Biology from Case Western Reserve University. Subsequently, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Human Genome Research Institute in NIH.

Dr. Andrew Allen is a co-founder of Gritstone Oncology and serves as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors. He was a co-founder of Clovis Oncology where he served as executive vice president of clinical and preclinical development and chief medical officer. Prior to that, he was chief medical officer at Pharmion Corporation, which was sold to Celgene Corporation for $2.9 billion following the development of Vidaza™ for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndromes and Thalomid™ for the front-line treatment of multiple myeloma. Previously, Dr. Allen served in clinical development leadership roles at Chiron Corporation and Abbott Laboratories, and worked at McKinsey & Company, where he advised life science companies on strategic issues. He currently serves on the board of directors of Epizyme and Cell Design Labs. Dr. Allen received a medical degree from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in immunology from Imperial College London.

Rodabe Amaria, MD, joined the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center as an Assistant Professor in July 2013 in the department of Melanoma Medical Oncology. She is a clinician specialized in the care of patients with advanced stage melanoma. Dr. Amaria co-directs the biospecimen collection efforts in the melanoma clinic and has helped build an infrastructure conducive to obtaining serial blood samples and tumor biopsies in patients undergoing treatment to elucidate biomarkers of response and resistance. She is involved in the development of neoadjuvant protocols in melanoma which allows for longitudinal tumor collections to understand changes in the tumor microenvironment in response to a specific treatment. She has an interest in translational immunotherapy research with a focus on understanding mechanisms of resistance to immunomodulatory therapies. Since joining MDACC, Dr. Amaria has been involved with enhancing the adoptive cell therapy program using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes. The hope of the program is to better understand how T cell therapy can be applied to help more patients with melanoma and make ACT more widely accessible to patients.

A dynamic and well-published immunologist with broad expertise in the areas of vaccine development, autoimmunity and tumor immunology, Dr. Anderson joined VBI full time in 2009 from Harvard Medical School, where he held a position as Assistant Professor. As a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of VBI, Dr. Anderson is an inventor of much of the Company’s intellectual property and actively manages its ongoing expansion. Dr. Anderson holds a PhD from Harvard University and a BS from the University of California at Davis.

Dr. Andresen is Chief Scientific Officer and a co-founder at Torque. Prior to joining Torque, he held positions at the prestigious Technology University of Denmark (DTU), including Professor and Head of Department at DTU Nanotech and Head of the DTU Center for Nanomedicine and Theranostics. Dr. Andresen has founded several cancer medical technology and biotechnology companies in Europe focused on chemotherapy and radiation therapy and has pioneered multiple technologies that are in ongoing clinical trials. Dr. Andresen has more than 20 years of research and development experience in the fields of organic chemistry, biophysics, advanced materials engineering, and cancer biology and is an author on more than 100 research or review articles and multiple patent applications.

Dr. Philip M Arlen is the President, CEO and Chief Medical Officer of Precision Biologics. Dr. Arlen spent 11 years at the National Cancer Institute, USA, most recently as the Director of the Clinical Research Group for the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Oncology. At the NCI, Dr. Arlen focused on the development of a programmatic approach to vaccine clinical trials conducted at the NCI as well as at numerous other Cancer Centers throughout the U.S. During his tenure at the NCI, Dr. Arlen was the Principal Investigator and/or Associate Investigator on numerous clinical trials involving the use of cancer vaccines and other immunostimulatory molecules. Dr. Arlen remains on the clinical staff at both the NCI Clinical Center as well as the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He has authored or co-authored over 100 peer reviewed manuscripts in internationally known scientific and medical journals. Dr. Arlen received an NIH Award of Merit for major contributions to the field of cancer immunotherapy in 2003. He is a board-certified medical oncologist and received his BA from Emory University and his MD from Medical College of Georgia, School of Medicine.

Dr. Roger R. Beerli, PhD (CSO, NBE-Therapeutics AG) has over 15 years of experience in discovery, engineering and preclinical development of therapeutic antibodies. Previously he has led R&D activities related to therapeutic antibody development at Cytos, Switzerland, and later at Intercell, Austria. Roger is a renowned expert in mammalian cell based antibody expression and display for the discovery of fully human therapeutic antibodies. He was the main architect and inventor of Cytos' eMAB® mammalian cell antibody development platform, which, under Roger's leadership, was successfully used for the development of fully human therapeutic antibody candidates against numerous targets, including Nicotine and Influenza A, both at Cytos, and also later at Intercell, after the platform had been acquired by Intercell. Roger Beerli studied molecular biology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and obtained his PhD for work at the Novartis-associated Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland, for research on ErbB receptor tyrosine kinases. Afterwards he performed postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, USA, in the lab of Prof. Dr. Carlos F. Barbas III. Here he specialized in phage display for protein and antibody engineering and was among the first to demonstrate artificial regulation of endogenous genes using engineered transcription factors. Roger Beerli has published widely in the areas of protein discovery, protein engineering and antibody development, and he is co-inventor on numerous patents and patent applications.

Dr. John Bell and his team have been investigating cancer-fighting (oncolytic) viruses at Ottawa Hospital Research Institute for more than 10 years. Through his work with BioCanRx, Dr Bell and his team are focused on translating promising cancer immune therapy approaches using novel viral vaccines against specific tumour antigens, and by the use of engineered immune cells modified to recognize a patient's own tumour. In addition, researchers from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI), the University of Ottawa (uOttawa), Jennerex Inc. and several other institutions reported promising results of a world-first cancer therapy trial in renowned journal Nature. The trial is the first to show that an intravenously-delivered viral therapy can consistently infect and spread within tumours without harming normal tissues in humans.

Dr. Berzofsky pioneered characterization of B- and T-cell epitopes and their modification to make epitope-enhanced vaccines, discovered the importance of T cell avidity in viral/tumor clearance, pioneered use of defined molecular adjuvants to alter quality of immune responses, advanced mucosal HIV vaccines, discovered NKT cell regulation of tumor immunity, and blocked negative regulation by TGF-beta, IL-13, and regulatory cells to enhance tumor immunity and vaccine efficacy. He translated these strategies to clinical trials in prostate cancer, melanoma, and HER2-positive cancers. As chief, he oversees the Vaccine Branch’s basic, translational, and clinical research in cancer and retroviral vaccines and immunotherapy.

Dr. Bilusic directs the NIH Hematology Oncology Fellowship, which provides fellows with a strong clinical grounding in hematology and oncology as well as a comprehensive introduction to clinical, laboratory and translational research. His current research interests focus on tumor immunology and development of treatment options for prostate cancer and other genitourinary tumors using novel targeted agents, therapeutic cancer vaccines, antibodies, or immune modulators.

Jeroen Blokhuis, PhD, is the Director of BD and Partnerships at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He establishes collaborations between PICI and other nonprofit organizations, biotech and pharma companies to enable a smarter and more coordinated cancer immunotherapy research effort. Jeroen completed his postdoctoral training in structural biology and immunology at Stanford University. Prior to joining PICI in 2016, he co-chaired the biotech/genomics investment committee at Life Science Angels, and he continues to be an adviser to life science VCs and angel investors.

Genevieve M. Boland, MD, PhD, FACS is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Melanoma Surgery Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Her primary clinical focus is on melanoma and cutaneous oncology. She undertook combined MD/PhD training, completing a PhD in Cell and Tissue Engineering at the National Institutes of Health focusing on signaling pathways in adult, human mesenchymal stem cells. She graduated cum laude from Thomas Jefferson University as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society and completed her general surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital. Following this, she completed a clinical fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology and a combined research fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She joined the MGH Division of Surgical Oncology and is focused on the clinical management of melanoma patients. She is board certified in General Surgery and Complex General Surgical Oncology, and she is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Boland has received many awards including the American Surgical Association Foundation Fellowship, the Association of Women Surgeons Research Fellowship, the Harvard Catalyst Medical Research Investigator Training Award, the Karin Grunebaum Cancer Foundation Fellowship, and the Society of Surgical Oncology Clinical Investigator Award. She is Director of the Surgical Oncology Research Laboratories and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Her laboratory is currently focused on molecular profiling of melanoma, characterization of molecular and immunological changes that occur during immunotherapy, and the identification of circulating biomarkers of cancer.

Adrian Bot, MD, PhD is the Vice President of Translational Medicine at Kite, a Gilead Company, developing genetically engineered cell products for oncology indications. Dr. Bot obtained his MD in Romania in 1993 and his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in 1998. Subsequently, he was a Guest Scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. Prior to his appointment as Chief Scientific Officer at Kite Pharma in 2011, and then Vice President of Translational Medicine, Dr. Bot served in various senior R&D management positions at MannKind Corp and Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp.

Pam joined Genocea in July 2016 as Senior Vice President, Immuno-oncology. Here, she leverages her expertise in cancer biology and immuno-oncology to guide the development and strategic direction of Genocea’s oncology pipeline. Pam’s previous positions include Vice President of Oncology Discovery at Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, Vice President of Janssen oncology at Johnson and Johnson Innovation, and founding Head of Research at the Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Her broad skillset also comes from drug discovery experience working in applied genomics at Bristol-Myers Squibb and oncology research done at Merck Research Laboratories. Pam earned a B.A. in biology at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, a doctorate in cellular biology at Stony Brook University, and completed a post-doctorate fellowship at Stanford University.

Dr. Cascalló is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of VCN Biosciences and one of its founders. Dr. Cascalló is an expert in oncolytic therapies and gene therapy and author of many original scientific papers and reviews in peer-reviewed journals, as well as co-inventor of 6 patents on the use of adenovirus as antitumoral agents. He has been involved in the clinical development of different oncolytic adenoviruses as researcher at the University of Barcelona, the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Merck, and the Virotherapy Group at Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO/IDIBELL). Dr. Cascalló has also acted as Expert for the European Medicines Agencies (EMA) and has received management formation at Cambridge University and IESE Business School.

Saso Cemerski, Senior Director of Translational Immunology at CUE Biopharma, is focused on building preclinical packages for the drugs in CUE’s pipeline and developing adequate translational biomarker strategies to test key hypothesis in the clinic. Prior to joining CUE BioPharma, Dr Cemerski was a part or Xencor, BMS and, most recently, MSD where he led the STING agonist program and participated as a core-team member of the anti-LAG-3 program both of which are currently in the clinic. Dr Cemerski did his postdoctoral training at Washington University in St Louis, where he worked on elucidating how immune synapses control T cell activation.

Dr. Brian Champion is Chief Scientific Officer and member of the Executive Management Team at PsiOxus Therapeutics Ltd, Oxford, UK where he is leading the scientific team in the development of novel oncolytic virus-based, Tumor-Specific Immunogene (T-SIGn) therapies for the treatment of cancer. He was previously Executive Director and Head of Immunology for Pfizer's Vaccine Immunotherapeutics Research Unit in La Jolla, CA, leading the immunology team providing expertise and immunoassays for Pfizer vaccine projects, program leader for an anti-IgE therapeutic vaccine for allergy/asthma, and a member of the leadership team. Prior to this he was Site Head for Pfizer Vaccine Research in the UK. Before joining Pfizer, Dr. Champion was Chief Scientific Officer for Lorantis and Celldex in Cambridge (UK) developing protein and DNA-based, antigen-specific immunotherapeutic approaches to a variety of immunological diseases, including therapeutic vaccines and immunotherapeutic biomolecule approaches for cancer, infectious diseases, allergies and autoimmune disorders. Prior to Lorantis, he was with Glaxo and GlaxoWellcome (UK and USA) for 13 years, focusing primarily on target discovery and validation research for autoimmune, allergic and bone disorders.

Preet M. Chaudhary, MD, PhD is chief of the Jane Anne Nohl Division of Hematology and Center for the study of Blood Diseases at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is also Professor of Medicine, Ronald H. Bloom Family Chair in Lymphoma Research, and Program Director of the USC/Norris Blood and Marrow Transplant Program. Dr. Chaudhary has research interests in several areas of cancer, including cancer drug resistance, biology of normal and leukemic hematopoietic stem cells, programmed cell death and cellular signaling. Current work in Dr. Chaudhary's laboratory is focused on developing novel strategies to improve the outcome of stem cell transplantation and the use of chimeric antigen receptor modified T cells for the treatment of cancer. His laboratory has developed several sensitive assays for detecting the expression and activity of CAR-T cells and used them to develop a next generation CAR-T platform.

Dr. Csiki currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Sensei Bio, a clinical state biopharmaceutical company developing novel immunotherapies. Dr Csiki is a radiation oncologist with over 15 years’ experience in cancer research, drug development and immunotherapy bridging clinical oncology, translational research and business development dedicated to bring forth change for cancer patients. She is currently enrolled in Wharton’s executive General Management Program with focus on strategic innovation. Previously, Dr. Csiki served as Vice of President of Immuno-Oncology Clinical Development at Inovio Pharmaceuticals where she led the advancement of Inovio’s portfolio of DNA-based cancer immunotherapies with focus on the company’s next-generation therapies for aggressive and hard to treat tumors. Prior to joining Inovio, Dr. Csiki was a Clinical Lead for Oncology Clinical Development at Merck & Co. where she worked on multiple solid tumor immuno-oncology programs for pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Previously she spent time at Glaxo Smith Kline as Director of Clinical Oncology in both early and late development groups. Dr. Csiki graduated magna cum laude from the University of Arkansas with degrees in Biology, Psychology and Chemistry and then received her M.D. in Medicine and Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from Vanderbilt University followed by internship in Internal Medicine and residency in Radiation Oncology also at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. After a subsequent Holman Pathway Research Fellowship, she joined University of Pennsylvania as an Assistant Professor in the Perelman Cancer Center where she had an active clinical practice and a translational science laboratory focused on thoracic malignancies.

Dr. Michael Curran is an Associate Professor in the Department of Immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. During his postdoctoral work in the lab of Dr. James Allison, Dr. Curran performed animal studies characterizing the effect of checkpoint inhibitor blockade on cancer progression that led to clinical trials for the first checkpoint inhibitor antibody combination treatment approved by the FDA. Despite the potential for antibody-mediated immunotherapy to provide complete remissions to patients with advanced metastatic disease, the vast majority of human cancers remain resistant. Since starting his lab in 2012, Dr. Curran has been focused on realizing the full potential of cancer immunotherapy. Using studies of murine tumor models resistant to current immunotherapies, such as anti-CTLA4 and ant-PD-1, and samples from patients treated at MD Anderson, he is exploring the mechanisms by which tumors evade immune rejection in order to find new targets for immune therapy and looking for markers to identify the patients most likely to benefit from currently available T-cell directed immune therapies. Ultimately, he hopes to greatly expand the options for immune therapy to cure a larger number of patients and attack a wider range of cancers. Dr. Curran’s studies of 4-1BB agonist antibodies won him the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer’s prestigious Presidential Award.

Dr. Dixit conducted extensive graduate and post-graduate training in Toxicology–Biochemistry with both Indian and US Institutions (Case Western Reserve University, Medical College of Ohio, University of Nebraska) and is board certified in Toxicology from the American Board of Toxicology, Inc. since 1992. In August 2006, Rakesh joined MedImmune, Inc. (an AstraZeneca Biologics company) as Senior Director (R &D) & Global Head of Biologics Safety Assessment, Experimental Pathology, and Laboratory Animal Medicine. In his current position as a Vice President of R &D since 2010, Rakesh is responsible for providing guidance on research and development of biological products; including nonclinical toxicology/safety support for all AstraZeneca-MedImmune biologics products, including monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Rakesh has published more than 60 papers in renowned international journals and has given over 100 invited lectures/presentations/workshops in national and international meetings. Rakesh is one of the most invited speakers in the biotechnology industry. Rakesh’s areas of expertise are mainly in the area of pharmaceuticals and biologics drug development, safety assessment of small molecule drugs, biologics, vaccines and in exploring mechanisms of toxicity and biologics pharmacological activity. Rakesh has helped to bring several blockbuster pharmaceuticals to the market while working at Merck. Rakesh a recognized expert in safety and pharmacology biomarkers and their applications. Rakesh is the Editor-in-chief of Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods and Associate Editor for Toxicology Applied Pharmacology, and Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. Rakesh was selected by his pharmaceutical peers as the 100 Most Inspiring People in Pharmaceutical Industry by PharmaVOICE in 2015. Rakesh also serves as an expert reviewer and in appointed committee for many programs managed by the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and US National Institutes of Health, including National Cancer Institute.

Steve Doberstein leads the discovery, clinical development, and regulatory affairs teams at Nektar and joined the company in January 2010. Prior to joining Nektar, Dr. Doberstein served as Vice President of Research at XOMA, a monoclonal antibody discovery and development company, where he led the discovery and development of multiple antibody drug candidates, from discovery through non-clinical safety, translational medicine and PK/PD. Prior to that, he served as VIce President of Research at Five Prime Therapeutics, a protein and antibody discovery and development company, and Xencor, a leader in protein engineering. He also held senior leadership positions at Exelixis. He received a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was an MDA Postodctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley. Steve also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Nektar India and represents Nektar to the NIH Public/Private Partnership to Address the Opioid Crisis.

Dr. Sean Downing has implemented pathology workflows at several companies in work spanning both proteomics and genomics. Prior to Ultivue, he established PerkinElmer’s CRO laboratory offering a menu of TSA-based staining services. Previously, Sean was one of the principal inventors of the first-to-market, pan-cancer NGS test at Foundation Medicine.

Bob is Executive Vice President, Research, and Chief Technology Officer at Maverick Therapeutics. He is a co-founding scientist of Maverick and has led the design of the proprietary COBRA™ platform for the development of conditionally active T cell engaging therapies for solid tumor indications. Bob is a leader in the emerging field of T cell engagement therapeutics. Bob joined Maverick at its formation when it was spun out from Harpoon Therapeutics as its Senior Vice President, Research Discovery. In 2010 Bob founded Full Spectrum Genetics (FSG) to develop a novel, high throughput mutation profiling system to create detailed structural maps of protein binding sites. In 2015 FSG developed the S4 system for rapidly creating affinity matured antibodies from selected single substitution CDR libraries. Later that year Harpoon Therapeutics licensed that technology and Bob joined Harpoon to help engineer novel T-cell engagement therapeutics. From 1999 to 2010 Bob led the New Technologies and Antibody Engineering groups at Eos and then PDL Biopharma. During this time his group humanized numerous therapeutic antibodies and developed a new antibody engineering platform called PxP. After completing his postdoctoral studies at Genentech in 1989, Bob was one of the founding scientists of Cell Genesys, Inc. where he was responsible for setting up systems to create genetic knockouts in primary human cells. He later became the Director of the Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing (MPSS) project at Lynx Therapeutics and his group was responsible for setting up the first next generation sequencing platform. Bob received his B.A. in Biology from the University of California at San Diego in 1981 and his Ph.D. in Genetics from Stanford University in 1987.

Dr. English is Chief Scientific Officer of Tilos Therapeutics. Prior to joining Tilos she was Vice President and Head of Discovery Research Immuno-Oncology Translational Innovation Platform (IONC TIP) at EMD Serono/ Merck KGaA. Her previous positions include Head of Research at the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, VP of Kinase Biology at ArQule, Oncology Site Lead for External Discovery at Merck and head of Pfizer's Kinase Center of Emphasis. Dr. English began her career in industry at Schering-Plough Research Institute in Oncology Discovery. Dr. English earned a BS in biochemistry at KSU, a PhD in neurobiology from UNC, and trained as a post-doc at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, is Director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her current research focuses on discovering and developing new treatments for type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. Dr. Faustman's type 1 diabetes research has earned her notable awards such as the Oprah Achievement Award for “Top Health Breakthrough by a Female Scientist” (2005), the "Women in Science Award" from the American Medical Women’s Association and Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company for her contributions to autoimmune disease research (2006), and the Goldman Philanthropic Partnerships/Partnership for Cures “George and Judith Goldman Angel Award” for research to find an effective treatment for type 1 diabetes (2011). Dr. Faustman earned her MD and PhD from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and completed her internship, residency, and fellowships in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Medical School, University of Tuebingen, Germany (2005-2011); Doctor of Medicine, Dept. of Pediatric Hematology/ Oncology, University of Tuebingen, Germany (2011); Resident and Physician Scientist, Dept. of General Pediatrics, Hematology/Oncology, University Children’s Hospital Tuebingen, Germany (2011-2015); Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Laboratory of Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD; MSKCC, NY (since 09/2015); Selected Awards & Fellowship: Research fellowship of the Care-for-Rare Foundation (2015-2016); Research fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG, 2016-2018); Erna Brunner Prize (awarded for research achievements in Pediatric Oncology/ Hematology) 2017

Agnete B. Fredriksen is Co-Founder and joined Vaccibody in 2007. She holds a MSc, PhD from Institute of Immunology, Rikshospitalet Medical Center in Oslo where she designed and developed the first Vaccibody vaccine molecules. She received the King’s Gold Medal for her PhD thesis describing Vaccibodies. Her focus is on cancer vaccines from idea to clinical development. Previous employment includes Affitech AS and Medinnova AS. Agnete is author on numerous scientific papers in the field of immunology, immunotherapy and vaccines. Inventor on several patents in the field of immunotherapy. She is board member for the BIA programme of NRC stimulating research in the Norwegian industry.

Dr. Gameiro is a Staff Scientist and Head of the Immunomodulation Group in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology, NCI. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the State University of New York at Buffalo, NY. Dr. Gameiro's research interests include immune modulation; tumor microenvironment; tumor immunology. The Immunomodulation Group examines how emerging therapeutics can modulate the immune system to exert potent antitumor activity, with particular emphasis on how the mechanisms involved can be exploited to maximize antitumor activity in combination regimens with novel immunotherapies and other anticancer modalities. These studies form the rationale for novel hypothesis-driven clinical interventions.

Christian Gieffers joined Apogenix in 2006 as Director Analytics/Protein Chemistry. Since 2018, he has been accountable for the preclinical development of early drug candidates as VP Early Drug Development. He is responsible for the functional and biochemical characterization of respective development candidates and for clinical/preclinical assay development of Apogenix´s lead candidate APG101/Asunercept. In addition, he significantly contributed to the development of the HERA-Technology platform. Prior to Apogenix he worked for three years as a Senior Scientist on Alzheimer’s Disease at Affiris AG in Vienna, Austria. During this time, he developed epitope-specific monoclonal antibodies and established a screening platform for the identification and of peptides used for vaccine development. Christian Gieffers studied biology and received his Ph.D. in the department of Biochemistry at the University of Bielefeld (Germany); following post-doctoral studies on mitotic cell cycle regulation at the Institute for Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Glorioso is the Emeritus Chair and Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is a founding member and former president of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. He is a fellow of the American Society of Microbiology and the AAAS. Dr. Glorioso’s contributions to science include defining antiviral immune responses to HSV infection, the genetics of HSV pathogenesis and latency, and mechanisms of HSV infection. He is a leader in the gene therapy field, providing novel vector technologies for treatment of animal models of disease and to the development of manufacturing methods for use of HSV vectors in patient clinical trials. He is co-founder of Oncorus Inc. Cambridge, MA and Coda Biotherapeutics, San Francisco, CA. These companies are developing HSV vectors for treatment of cancer and chronic pain respectively.

Stefan Glueck, MD, PhD, is V.P. Global Medical Affairs, at Celgene Corporation since October 2014, and a medical oncologist with focus on breast cancer. He has overseen oncology activities worldwide, as well as the Immuno-Oncology Program in solid tumors and hematology. Recently, his job requirements have shifted to include Early Assets. He previously served as a Sylvester Professor in the Department of Medicine at Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Florida until September 2014. From 2003–2008, he was the Clinical Director of the Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute, and from January 2009 - December 2010 Assistant Director of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Chief, Division Hematology & Medical Oncology. He has authored or co-authored over 270 articles.

Joel Goldstein received his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) in 1991. He then did his postdoctoral work at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) on antibody fusion proteins prior to joining Medarex in 1994. His role at Medarex was initially to develop bispecific antibodies and fusion proteins using recombinant methods, which then evolved into developing antibody production platforms for manufacture. Joel moved back to BMS in 2009 where he continued to lead a team developing manufacturing cell lines for the company’s biologics programs. He then joined Celldex in 2014 to help manage R&D efforts, including establishing antibody engineering and bispecific antibody design strategies.

Paola is widely regarded as a scientific leader in the field of immuno-oncology and is responsible for directing the clinical and translational research program at Cold Genesys. Paola earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Ferrara (Italy) in 2001 before moving to the U.S. to pursue her interests in oncolytic Herpes Simplex Virus-based vectors for the treatment of recurrent malignant glioblastoma. After four years of post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Paola joined the Departments of Neurological Surgery and Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where she developed the next-generation Oncolytic HSV-based vectors armed with novel payload combinations that altered the tumor microenvironment (TME) to promote the development of anti-tumor immunity. As an NIH funded principal investigator, she carried out pioneering work to combine the use of retargeted HSV vectors with cellular microRNA regulation of viral genes in non-tumor tissue to limit vector oncolytic activity to brain tumors. Her academic research produced several key patents that provided the core technologies to establish a start-up oncolytic vector company, Oncorus, Inc. in Cambridge, MA as company co-founder, scientific advisory board member and early stage director of company research.

Dr. Jijie Gu received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. He had his post-doctoral training in Tumor Immunology and Cancer Biology at Harvard University. He joined Abbott Laboratories and later AbbVie in 2002. Currently he is Director, Head of Target Validation and Lead Discovery, Immunology Research at AbbVie Cambridge Research Center. Dr. Gu has more than 17 years of industry experience in target discovery and drug discovery, with expertise in therapeutic antibody generation, protein engineering, and biologics discovery, preclinical and early clinical development. Jijie contributed broadly to various antibody technology platforms and drug development pipeline in Immunology, Oncology and a few other therapeutic areas at Abbvie. As a project leader or a function head, he has initiated and delivered several drug development candidates into clinical development. Prior to his current role in target discovery, Jijie is research fellow, head of Oncology Biologics at AbbVie Global Biologics for many years. He authored many peer reviewed articles and is an inventor for several issued and filed US and international patents. He is also on the editorial board of mAbs journal.

Dr. Hanash’s interests and expertise focus on the development and application of integrated approaches to the molecular profiling of cancer, with particular emphasis on the development of blood-based markers to identify subjects at increased risk of developing or harboring cancer and for tumor classification and monitoring response to treatment.

Brent Hanks, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University with a dual appointment with the Duke Cancer Institute. Dr. Hanks completed his medical degree along with a Ph.D. in tumor immunology while in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hanks went on to complete his internal medicine residency training and his hematology and oncology fellowship training at Duke University. He now manages a basic and translational research lab focusing on understanding biochemical mechanisms of tumor-mediated immune evasion and immunotherapy resistance in cancer with particular areas of focus on Wnt and TGF-beta signaling, immunometabolism, dendritic cell tolerization, and the recruitment of myeloid-derived suppressor cells. In addition to his research efforts, he is also a medical oncologist and manages patients with advanced skin cancers including melanoma and Merkel cell carcinoma.

Dr. Christopher Harvey is the Director and Head of Preclinical Sciences and the Vopratelimab Scientific Lead at Jounce Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA, USA. Prior to joining Jounce Therapeutics, Dr. Harvey was a fellow of the America Cancer Society and Instructor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Harvey received his B.S. from Georgetown University and his PhD from Johns Hopkins University.

William Hastings completed his PhD in Immunology at Boston University School of Medicine, where he studied B cell development and function. His postdoctoral work was performed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and focused on the role of TIM-3 in autoimmunity and human T cell polarization and function. He then worked as a scientist at EMD Serono where he helped discover and develop novel therapies for immune oncology including Avelumab (anti-PD-L1) and other checkpoint inhibitors. For the past five years he has been an Investigator/Lab Head in the Exploratory Immuno-Oncology disease area at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. At Novartis he has worked on IO drug discovery and development from target discovery through early drug development (Phase I/II).

Dr. Haymaker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Translational Molecular Pathology at MDACC. Her lab is focused on assessing ways to modulate intratumoral APCs to improve antigen presentation and costimulation to tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, thus improving response to cellular and antibody-based immunotherapies in solid tumors. In addition, she is actively involved in the immune monitoring of clinical trials performed at MDACC through both the collaboration–based Translational Molecular Pathology-Immunoprofiling lab (TMP-IL, operational director) and the Oncology Research and Immune-monitoring core (ORION, Director).

Christopher Helsen holds a master’s degree in biochemistry from the Technical University Munich, Germany and a doctorate from the University of Toronto in biochemistry. He is the primary inventor of the T-cell Antigen Coupler (TAC) technology and founding scientist of Triumvira. Chris has in-depth experience in biochemistry, cell biology and protein science. He has worked so far on a variety of research topics such as spider silks, chaperones and yeast prions. As Director of Research and Development at Triumvira, Chris is now managing the development of new TAC products and ancillary technologies.

Dr. Eric Holland earned a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Chicago and a medical degree from Stanford University. He completed a neurosurgery residency at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine and a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. His postdoctoral training included work with two Nobel laureates: Dr. Paul Berg, who pioneered recombinant DNA technology at Stanford, and Dr. Harold Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Holland was recruited to Seattle from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he directed the Brain Tumor Center and built one of the nation’s most successful research and clinical programs. As a neurosurgeon and physician–scientist, he addresses the molecular basis of brain tumors to develop new, more precise approaches to their treatment. He specializes in glioblastoma, the most common brain cancer in adults, has developed mouse versions of brain cancer that mimic how tumors behave in humans, and has identified tumor cells that are resistant to standard therapies. These research findings have led to clinical trials for new drugs and drug combinations. At UW Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Dr. Holland and his colleagues will help usher in an era of precision treatment for cancer patients. Dr. Holland has received the American Brain Tumor Association Research Award, among other honors. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a member of the editorial boards of Virology, Molecular Cancer Research, the Journal of Molecular Medicine and Neoplasia.

I am an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Medical Director of the Immune Effector Cell therapy program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I treat lymphoma patients and lead both industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated trials in lymphoma, including CAR T-cell trials.

Dr. Jenkins completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia in 2002 and his MD/PhD at the Medical University of South Carolina in 2012. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2014 and his clinical oncology training in the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center in 2017. He conducted his post-doctoral research in David Barbie's lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where he developed a novel platform to study ex vivo response to PD1- blockade using organotypic tumor spheroids. In 2018, he joined the faculty at the MGH Cancer Center in the Center for Melanoma and Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Jenkins is the inaugural Termeer Early Career Investigator in Systems Pharmacology and a member of the Laboratory for Systems Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. The Jenkins laboratory uses sophisticated tools and techniques to study and investigate the complex and dynamic interactions between cancer cells and the immune system.

Xiaomo Jiang completed her PhD training at UT Southwestern, and postdoctoral training at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. Currently she is an investigator at Immuno-Oncology, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. Her team focus on two areas, 1) biological understanding of immune checkpoints to support clinical development of immune checkpoint antibodies, and 2) investigating novel immuno-oncology targets and small molecule drug discovery.

Maria Karasarides, PhD, is an Executive Director, ImmunoOncology Development, at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Regeneron, Dr. Karasarides was a senior leader in the ImmunoOncology Late Stage Clinical Group at AstraZeneca where she oversaw the clinical strategy and scientific development of novel immunotherapy (durvalumab and tremelimumab) based combinations with a key focus on identifying tumor-host interactions that propagate the anti-tumor immune response. ImfinziTM (durvalumab) has been granted accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in urothelial carcinoma. Dr. Karasarides’ experience spans academic research, medical affairs and clinical development with a special focus on Immune-Oncology. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Dr. Karasarides was a senior leader at early-stage companies within the Cambridge biotechnology hub, where she worked on the development of small molecule inhibitors, nanoliposomal chemotherapies and inducible gene therapy platforms across multiple tumor types. Prior to that she was with Bristol-Myers Squibb, NJ, where she was an integral member of the ipilimumab (Yervoy®) team and played a key role in the approval of Yervoy®. Yervoy® is approved by FDA, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and other Health Authorities, and is the first therapy to extend survival in metastatic melanoma. She continued at Bristol-Myers Squibb as the brivanib Global Medical Lead, responsible for Global Medical Affairs Strategy, and later went on to establish and lead the US brivanib Medical Affairs team. Before joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Karasarides focused on the signaling mechanisms that drive and maintain oncogenic signaling validated through inducible/conditional mouse models and primary organotypic cultures. During her tenure at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK, she worked with Richard Marais and Chris Marshall on BRAF mutations and delineated BRAF as a therapeutic target in melanoma. Dr. Karasarides holds a PhD in biology/biochemistry and conducted her graduate research at the Cleveland Clinical Foundation, Cleveland, OH focusing on RAS /PI3K signaling followed by post-doctoral fellowships at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK, and the Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Boston, MA.

Noriyuki Kasahara is Principal Investigator at the Brain Tumor Center at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Previously he was a Professor of Cell Biology & Pathology at the University of Miami and served as Co-Leader of the Viral Oncology Program at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. Past positions also include Professor of Medicine & Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he was Director of the UCLA Vector Core & Shared Resource facility at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center for over a decade. Prior to this, he also established and directed Vector Core facilities as faculty at the University of Southern California (USC). Dr. Kasahara has more than 30 years of experience and has authored more than 140 peer-reviewed articles in the fields of gene therapy and genetic engineering. He pioneered the development of tumor-selective retroviral replicating vectors (RRV) for gene therapy of cancer, now in first-in-human multi-center clinical trials sponsored by Tocagen, Inc.

Dr. Katz is a board-certified internal medicine physician and director of clinical applications for Calviri, Inc. In this role, Dr. Katz has been instrumental in setting up early-phase clinical trials for FAST Vaccines (Frameshift Antigens for Specific Therapy), for multiple indications including pediatric brainstem tumors as well as adult head/neck and non-small cell lung cancers. Dr. Katz’s medical training was completed at Georgetown University Hospital; he continues to practice inpatient hospital medicine at the University of California – San Diego. He is also the founder of Clinical Strategy, LLC, and is a nationally-recognized clinical educator, having taught at over twenty US medical schools. Dr. Katz’s background in translational research includes previous work in biochemistry and neuroimaging, ongoing drug discovery work for neurodegenerative disease at the University of Pennsylvania, and oncology diagnostics and therapeutics at Calviri and the Biodesign Institute in Arizona.

Dr. Howard L. Kaufman has been a leading authority on tumor immunotherapy for the treatment of melanoma. He led the first successful phase III trial of an oncolytic herpes virus in patients with melanoma resulting in the first FDA approval of an oncolytic virus. He also completed a clinical trial demonstrating therapeutic responses of a new PD-L1-directed monoclonal antibody in patients with Merkel cell carcinoma. Dr. Kaufman has maintained a funded laboratory in tumor immunology for nearly 20 years. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and received his MD degree from Loyola University, completed a residency in General Surgery at Boston University and fellowship training in Tumor Immunology and Surgical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute. He has previously held appointments as Chief, Division of Surgical Oncology and Associate Director, Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University and Director, Rush University Cancer Center.

Dr. Kaur is an internationally recognized investigator with expertise in basic, and translational, Neuro-Oncology research involving many aspects of cancer biology, response and resistance to therapeutics. Following the completion of her PhD at Emory University in 1999 she subsequently pursued a research post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Erwin van Meir in understanding basic mechanisms of hypoxia-elicited changes in gene expression and function and implications for brain tumors. She was recruited to the Ohio State University in 2005 as a junior faculty, where she was promoted to the level of a tenured Professor in 2013, and then recruited to University of Texas health Science Center at Houston in 2017.

Christopher Kemball received his BA in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University and his PhD in Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis from Emory University. He conducted postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Dr. J. Lindsay Whitton, where he investigated how coxsackievirus impairs antiviral T cell immunity and modifies cellular autophagy using a mouse model of infection. In 2011, Chris joined Agensys, Inc. (an affiliate of Astellas Pharma) as a scientist in the department of Discovery Research, where he led preclinical research programs focused on the development of bispecific antibodies and next-generation antibody drug conjugates. Chris joined Genentech, Inc. in 2018 and is presently a scientist in the Department of Biochemical & Cellular Pharmacology, responsible for supporting biochemical and cellular characterization of protein therapeutics for immuno-oncology.

Dr. Kirkwood received his medical degree in 1973 from Yale University and completed postgraduate work at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Harvard University. He joined the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in 1986 as director of the Melanoma Center and as professor and chief of the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In 1996, he was named vice chairman for clinical research in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Kirkwood’s research has focused on melanoma, a cancer that kills more than 7,000 people in the United States each year. Under Dr. Kirkwood’s direction, the Melanoma Center has developed new and effective treatment approaches for this disease. He has received international acclaim for leading a multicenter study developed on the basis of his pioneering work with biological treatments for melanoma that has provided the first adjuvant, or additional, therapy for treating patients with high-risk melanoma, a type likely to recur despite surgery.

David Kirn is a biotechnology entrepreneur, physician-scientist and leader in therapeutic viral vector R&D. He is co-Founder, CEO & Chairman of both 4D Molecular Therapeutics, a leader in targeted AAV gene therapy, and IGNITE Immunotherapy. He is also Professor of Bioengineering (adjunct) at UC Berkeley. He co-founded four companies in the field, and received the Johnson & Johnson Entrepreneur Innovator Award from the J&J Innovation Center.

Dr. Keith L. Knutson is currently Professor in the Department of Immunology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and Director, Mayo Clinic Florida Cancer Research Program. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in Physiology and Pharmacology in 1995 and completed two post-doctoral fellowships in immunology, one at the University of British Columbia and the other at the University of Washington. He was a 2004 recipient of a Howard Temin Award from the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Knutson’s current interests and research focuses on the immunology and immunotherapy of breast and ovarian cancers. Interests are in both the basic immunobiology and clinical translation, including clinical trials. The laboratory conducts research on cancer vaccines focuses on augmenting T cell immunity using peptide and virus-based vaccines. These vaccine strategies are primarily aimed at preventing the patients from relapsing after optimal conventional therapies. Dr. Knutson is currently (1) a member of the Integration Panel of Department of Defense’s Ovarian Cancer Research Program, and (2) a Susan G. Komen Scholar.

Dr. Konry’s laboratory at Northeastern University is focused on developing novel Bio-MEMS approaches to advance point of care diagnostics, cell culture and drug screenings. She has developed Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) devices that integrate several laboratory functions such as real time monitoring of target clinically relevant analyte, proteomics, genomics, cell-cell interactions as well as cell secretion and surface monitoring of single cells on a micro-chip. Her single cell project was awarded with several industrial grants, NIH, Tufts CTSI and DFCI/NEU Joint Program in Cancer Drug Development grants. For analyzing immune-tumor cell interactions in dynamics with single cell resolution, she received a competitive BD Biosciences immunology research award and was nominated as Phase 1 Finalist of Follow That Cell Challenge/NIH.

Arthur M. Krieg, MD, has worked in the oligonucleotide field since the 1980s. Most recently he founded Checkmate Pharmaceuticals to develop novel oligonucleotides for cancer immunotherapy, where he currently serves as CSO. Prior to that role Art was CSO at Sarepta until July 2014; co-founder and CEO at RaNA Therapeutics from 2011 to 2013; CSO of Pfizer’s Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Unit from 2008 to 2011; and co-founder, CSO of Coley Pharmaceutical Group from 1997 until its acquisition and incorporation into Pfizer in 2008. Art discovered the immune stimulatory CpG DNA motif in 1994, which led to a new approach to immunotherapy and vaccine adjuvants. Based on this technology he co-founded Coley Pharmaceutical Group in 1997, discovering and taking 4 novel oligonucleotides into clinical development. Art co-founded the first antisense journal, Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, which he edited for 16 years, and the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society, for which he recently served as President. He is a Professor in the University of Massachusetts RNA Therapeutics Institute and he serves on the scientific advisory boards of several companies developing oligonucleotide therapeutics. Art graduated from Haverford College in 1979, received his MD from Washington University in 1983, and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota in 1986. He was a Staff Fellow at the NIH in the Arthritis Institute from 1986 to 1991, when he joined the University of Iowa, becoming Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology. He has had 19 years of patient care experience, although his focus has always been on basic research and teaching. Art left academia and joined Coley full-time in 2001. He has published more than 250 scientific papers (h-index = 125) and is an inventor on >50 issued US patents covering oligonucleotide technologies.

Joseph Krueger, PhD serves as a VP for Advanced Pathology Services. Prior to joining Invicro, Dr. Krueger was Chief Scientific Officer at Flagship Biosciences. Dr. Krueger completed his postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute and UCSD after earning his PhD in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University.

Doron Levy is a Professor of Mathematics and the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Levy held positions at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the University of Paris 6, and the Ecole Normale Superieure Paris. Dr. Levy was named a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher by the University of Maryland (2013). He is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2014), and a Pauli Fellow at the Wolfgang Pauli Institute in Vienna (2015). His research focuses on biomedical applications of mathematics: Cancer dynamics, drug resistance, immunology, imaging, and cell motility. He is a member of nine editorial boards. Dr. Levy has been a plenary and keynote speaker in many national and international conferences, including the keynote speaker in the American Mathematical Society briefing to the US Congress, and the SIAM representative in the Coalition for National Science Founding Meeting on Capitol Hill.

Dr. Qingcong Lin is SVP of Biocytogen and CEO of Biocytogen Boston. Dr. Lin worked at Pfizer as a principal research scientist II and group leader of antibody engineering group, then he joined Shenogen Pharma Group as SVP. Before joining Pfizer, he worked at Wyeth and Harvard Medical School as Director of Gene Modification Lab. Dr. Lin received Ph.D. from Albert-Einstein College of Medicine and completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School.

Wei Lin, MD, is Senior Vice President of Clinical Development and Head of Oncology Programs at Nektar Therapeutics. In this role, he leads development strategy and study oversight of the company’s immuno-oncology candidates and other oncology programs. Dr. Lin has nearly a decade of experience in oncology, with expertise in lung and head and neck cancers. Prior to joining Nektar, Dr. Lin served as the Global Development Leader for cancer immunotherapy in lung and head and neck cancer at Genentech. During his seven years at Genentech, he held several senior leadership positions of increasing responsibility including Global Clinical Leader of Cancer Immunotherapy in lung and head and neck cancer, where he led a team of 20 medical directors and clinical scientists and directed clinical development strategy for cancer immunotherapy in lung cancer and executed registration trials in lung cancer and head and neck cancer including the successful readouts of five Phase 3 trials in first-line lung cancer and regulatory filing of three of these trials. In addition, he also served as the Site Head for Oncology Development in Roche Asia Pacific and oversaw the regulatory approval of three oncology products in China. Prior to Genentech, Dr. Lin was a faculty member at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology. Dr. Lin has extensive clinical research experience and has been published in more than 15 peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Lin received a BA in physics from Haverford College and an MD from Harvard Medical School. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a fellowship in medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Paul Macklin is a mathematician, Associate Professor, and Director of Undergraduate studies in the newly-established Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University. His lab works with teams of biologists, modelers, and clinicians to develop and validate sophisticated computer models of multicellular systems, with a focus on cancer, tissue engineering, and synthetic systems. To drive this work, his lab develops open source tools for 3-D multicellular systems biology, including BioFVM (multi-substrate diffusive transport) and PhysiCell (off-lattice agent-based modeling). His lab also develops techniques to ease the use and increase the utility of agent-based modeling, including machine learning-driven model exploration, high-throughput investigations, ad hoc small team crowdsourcing, and cloud-hosted interactive simulators.

Dr. Madan is an Assistant Clinical Investigator at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), conducting clinical research in therapeutic cancer vaccines and genitourinary malignancies. Dr. Madan received his M.D. from the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School in 2001 and completed his internal medicine residency at UMDNJ-University Hospital in June 2004. He joined the NCI Medical Oncology Branch as an oncology/hematology fellow in 2005. He currently holds a joint appointment in the Medical Oncology Branch and the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology. His research interests are focused on immune stimulating therapeutic cancer vaccines and novel therapies in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Targeting immune checkpoint pathways, such as PD-1 and its ligand PD-L1, have shown promising clinical benefit with significantly less toxicity than prior immune therapies. My research interest lies in better understanding the biology of the other B7 family proteins and immunoevasive molecules in addition to PD-1/PD-L1 pathway, and their function in the tumor microenvironment, in order to help guide treatment decisions and improve patient outcomes.

Ms. Malloy Foerter brings nearly thirty years of experience in clinical research previously with Syneos Health (previously inVentiv Health/Pharmanet-i3) and Covance. Prior to joining OncoSec Kellie served as Executive Vice President and General Manager, Clinical Solutions at Syneos Health. As a member of the Syneos Health Clinical executive leadership team, Ms. Malloy Foerter was responsible for the development and growth of multiple portfolios across therapeutic areas which included a strong focus on oncology and hematology trials, for the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies. She has held multiple positions of increasing responsibility, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Clinical Research. Prior to Syneos Health, she held Clinical Monitoring and trial support roles at Covance. Ms. Malloy Foerter has a Bachelor of Science degree from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA.

Dr. Matsuzaki joined the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center staff in April 2011 as Assistant Professor of Oncology and Director of the Immune Analysis Shared Resource. Dr. Matsuzaki earned a PhD degree from Osaka Prefecture University in Japan in 2004 and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Institute for Genetic Medicine at Hokkaido University in Japan and Department of Gynecologic Oncology in Roswell Park. Dr. Matsuzaki has a broad background in immunology research, having analyzed functions of T cells and dendritic cells using murine models, as a postdoctoral fellow in Japan, to currently having expanded her research to analyze tumor antigen-specific immune responses in cancer patients. She has cloned several tumor antigen- and neoantigen-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, and characterized parental T cells and the TCR gene-engineered T cells in vitro and in vivo xenograft model.

Sean is a biotech innovator and entrepreneur who defies established approaches to biomanufacturing and drug development. While earning his degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology, McClain began developing a revolutionary new protein expression platform. McClain has since invented several patented technologies and under his leadership AbSci has grown into a global leader in the biomanufacturing industry.

As VP, Business Development, Brian is a member of the executive team and responsible for identifying and engaging new, strategically aligned opportunities for developing novel Humabody therapeutics in-house or through collaboration. He has over 23 years’ experience in biotechnology, first at Cambridge Antibody Technology in the team developing Humira® mAb with BASF (Abbott), then assessing new biologics opportunities in business development for CAT and AstraZeneca, before coordinating collaboration and licensing opportunities. From 2007, Brian provided strategic consulting in biologics drug discovery, project management and due diligence for clients including Crescendo, Heptares, Algeta, BerGenBio, Imperial Innovations, Apex Healthcare Consulting and Alacrita. Brian has a BSc in Microbiology from the University of Bristol, a PhD in Vaccine Development from the University of Southampton, and an MBA from the Open University.

Lance Miller, PhD, completed his doctorate at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2001. He studied the molecular biology of breast cancer at the National Cancer Institute, where he first worked with microarray technology and established a DNA microarray core facility for the institute. He later helped develop the Genome Institute of Singapore, part of a multi-billion-dollar project that established a multi-institutional biomedical research program for the government of Singapore, similar to the National Institutes of Health. He was recruited to join the cancer biology department of Wake Forest School of Medicine in 2008.

Michael Milone is an Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the School of Medicine. He earned his MD and PhD in 1999 from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. His doctoral work focused upon the unique interactions between plasmacytoid dendritic cells and viruses that stimulate abundant type I interferon production by this dendritic cell subset. He went on to post-graduate medical training in internal medicine, laboratory medicine and transfusion medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Milone continued his scientific research studies during a post-doctoral fellowship pursuing adoptive immunotherapy of cancer with Dr. Carl June at the University of Pennsylvania. This work has led to an open Phase I study of artificial antigen receptors in patients with B cell leukemia and lymphoma. Joining the faculty in 2007, Dr. Milone's laboratory continues to focus upon genetic engineering and adoptive immunotherapy of cancer with new approaches based upon work within the NCMDIR that began in 2008 when he joined the nanomedicine initiative as the center's clinical collaborator.

Dr. Milos co-founded Medley Genomics to deliver novel data analytics to decipher heterogeneity of complex diseases with an initial focus in oncology. Immediately prior, Patrice was CEO of Claritas Genomics, a pediatric molecular diagnostic company spin-out from Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Milos was Boston Site Head for Pfizer’s Centers of Therapeutic Innovation, establishing academic-medical center partnerships to advance novel therapies to treat human disease. She was also SVP/CSO for Helicos BioSciences in Cambridge, MA, and Executive Director for Pfizer Inc, responsible for leading genomics supporting the Pfizer portfolio in precision medicine. Currently, Dr. Milos serves on the Board of Directors for Rhode Island’s BIO Affiliate, recently the European Commission funded ULTRAPLACAD External Advisory Board and is Senior Advisor to Binx Health and SeqLL. Patrice earned her MS/PhD at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with postdoctoral fellowships at Brown and Harvard.

Dr. Greg Motz is the Director of Immunopharmacology at Unum Therapeutics where he leads a research team responsible for the development of novel chimeric receptor T-cell therapeutics for oncology. His team is responsible for various stages of early development, ranging from discovery to IND. Prior to Unum, he worked at Novartis where he developed next-generation improvements for CD19 CAR-T (KYMRIAHTM) which led to several patents. He received his training in immunoncology and T-cell therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Motz has authored numerous publications and reviews in leading journals on the topic of immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment.

Dr. Philipp Mueller received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Basel in 2009 (Biozentrum, Prof. Jean Pieters), with a major focus on the immunology of infectious diseases, immune cell signaling and in vivo models of immune cell function as well as development. During the last 10 years his research has been dedicated to cancer immunology and immunotherapy. He has worked and published in high ranking journals on the immune-promoting properties of targeted agents, Antibody-Drug-Conjugates, bispecific antibody formats as well as agonistic antibodies, such as anti-CD40, and their therapeutic combination with immune-checkpoint blockade. Dr. Philipp Mueller is currently leading a research/project team as Principal Scientist within the Cancer Immunology & Immune Modulation Department of Boehringer Ingelheim (Biberach an der Riß, Germany) with a major focus on next generation oncolytic viruses and novel cancer vaccine concepts.

Mulvey holds a PhD in Virology from Ian Mohr’s lab at NYU Langone Medical Center. Mohr and Mulvey discovered, patented, and characterized the first oncolytic virus capable of resisting the anti-viral effects of innate immunity. This intellectual property was licensed to create talimogene laherparepvec (T-Vec), which was bought by Amgen for $1B and recently became the first FDA approved oncolytic virus. Mulvey is currently a founder and CEO of BeneVir and an inventor on all BeneVir patents protecting T-StealthTM, the first oncolytic virus to resist both innate and adaptive immunity. Prior to BeneVir, Mulvey spent 8 years at Sequella, Inc., a clinical stage anti-infectives company. At Sequella, he patented and developed a molecular diagnostic and licensed it to a major clinical diagnostics company. In addition, he designed and executed clinical trials and was involved in the development of Sequella’s antibiotic pipeline from preclinical to clinical.

Dr. Muthusamy received his PhD in Cancer Biology and continued as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Vermont, eventually becoming a Research Assistant Professor in Pathology. In 2008 he joined Yale School of Medicine as a junior faculty in the Department of Dermatology. He has discovered a number of novel genes and pathways, which are now targeted for melanoma therapy in the clinic. His current interests lie in modeling cancers in mice and targeting tumor specific molecular pathways to reverse disease.

Olivier Nolan-Stevaux is a Principal Scientist in the Department of Immuno-Oncology Research at Amgen in South San Francisco, California, focused on creating novel and effective anti-cancer therapies. He joined Amgen in 2009, after completing his post-doctoral training at UCSF studying mouse models of pancreatic cancer and his PhD training at the MGH Cancer Center in Boston, MA. At Amgen, Olivier has led a research group and international teams dedicated to the pre-clinical development of several bi-specific T cell engager antibodies targeting a range of malignancies, including AMG 424, currently in Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of Multiple Myeloma, and multiple programs against kidney, prostate, lung and breast cancer at different stages of the pre-clinical pipeline. Olivier’s team also developed genetically engineered mouse models to study the mechanism of action and resistance to T cell engager therapies in vivo.

Dr. Norton grew up in Hyde Park, New York and received her BA in mathematics from Bard College. She received her PhD from Rutgers University in BioMaPS (Center for Quantitative Biology) partially funded by a NJCCR Graduate Fellowship. She completed an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. She was also a participant in WhAM! A Research Collaboration Workshop for Women, an international collaboration which published their research findings in the book: Dynamical Systems with Applications to Biology and Medicine.

Dr. Kelly Oliner is Senior Director of Translational Medicine, Diagnostics and Regulatory at WuXi NextCODE. At WXNC, Kelly is focused on partnering with Biopharma clients to develop practical companion diagnostic strategies. Prior to joining WXNC in 2018, Kelly was a Deputy Director of the Division of Immunology and Hematology Devices in FDA’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostic Devices and Radiological Safety. She earned her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Molecular Genetics with Bert Vogelstein, MD and has worked at Somatix Therapy Corporation, Chiron Corporation, Protein Pathways and Amgen. While at Amgen, Dr. Oliner led biomarker development efforts for clinical programs from early preclinical stage to marketed products including several clinical biomarker efforts that successfully led to approved companion diagnostics.

Sari Pesonen gained her PhD in biology (University of Turku, Finland) in 2007. She continued her academic career in the University of Helsinki in a research group focusing on development of oncolytic viruses for cancer immunotherapy. Sari is a co-author in 60+ peer-reviewed research papers. She was leading clinical science in biotech company Targovax (previously Oncos Therapeutics) between 2013-2016. In 2016, Sari co-founded a University spin out company Valo Therapeutics.

Laurent Poirot is an immunologist with over 14 years of experience in biotech. In graduate school, he studied immunology in the laboratory of Diane Mathis and Christophe Benoist (Université de Strasbourg, France and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA). His PhD thesis focused on the pathogenic mechanisms of autoimmune diabetes. In 2004, he joined the Genomics Institute of the Novartis research foundation (GNF, San Diego, CA) as a postdoctoral fellow where he performed high-throughput genetic/genomic studies in immune cells (cDNA/siRNA screens, mouse mutagenesis, microarray databases). In 2009, he joined Cellectis (Paris, France) where he first studied gene therapy approaches in hematopoietic stem cells and developed gene editing tools for CAR T-cells. In 2013, he became Head of Early Discovery and in 2018, Vice President of Immunology division. His team develops innovative tools to improve immunotherapies based on gene-edited CAR T cells. He splits his activities between Paris and New York.

Dr. Pruteanu-Malinici uses Bayesian statistics and frequentist statistical learning techniques to analyze large scale pharma- genomics assays, in order to (i) discover genomic correlates of sensitivity and resistance to cancer drugs, (ii) prioritize biomarker selections in key genes and pathways and (iii) find key phenotypes predictive of clinical response. One major focus area is CAR-T therapies both in the manufacturing and clinical spaces: statistical lead across manufacturing/clinical development programs, biomarker identification of response and/or in-vivo/in-vitro proliferation, as well as regulatory filling.

John Quackenbush received his PhD in theoretical physics from UCLA in 1990. Following a postdoc in physics, he received an NIH fellowship work on the Human Genome Project. He spent two years at the Salk Institute and two years at Stanford University before moving to The Institute for Genomic Research in 1997. John joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2005, where he uses computational and systems biology to better understand the complexities of human disease. John has numerous awards including recognition as a 2013 White House Open Science Champion of Change.

Christophe Quéva, PhD, Oncorus’ Chief Scientific Officer, is responsible for directing and advancing the company’s development programs of next-generation immunotherapy platform of oncolytic viruses. An industry veteran, Christophe has nearly two decades’ immuno-oncology experience and successful portfolio-building track record from target identification and development through regulatory approval.

Dr. Andreas Raue develops new therapeutic strategies for cancer treatment by combining in vivo and in vitro experimentation with systems and computational biology modeling. Currently, he is director at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, where he leads the immuno-oncology research. Dr. Raue received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Freiburg where he applied computational modeling and analysis to biological and medical problems.

As Managing Director and Chief Medical Officer Carsten Reinhardt is responsible for Immunology, Translational Development, Clinical Development and Regulatory Affairs with a focus on T cell receptor identification/engineering and Immatics' bispecific T cell engaging product portfolio. Carsten Reinhardt joined Immatics Biotechnologies GmbH in October 2009 from Micromet, Inc. (Bethesda, MD), where he was Chief Medical Officer and a member of the management board. Previously, as International Medical Leader at Hoffmann-La Roche (Basel, Switzerland), Carsten Reinhardt had global responsibility for the development of Herceptin®. Prior to his tenure at Roche, Carsten Reinhardt was Head of Clinical Development at Fresenius Biotech (Munich, Germany). Carsten Reinhardt received a Medical Degree in 1994 from the University of Munich, Germany and, in addition, completed a PhD thesis in Cellular Immunology at the Institute of Immunology in Munich, Germany (summa cum laude). He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Hematology, the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy as well as of the European Society of Medical Oncology and is Visiting Professor for Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of Basel.

Dr. Riaz obtained his MD and a MSc in Bioinformatics from Stanford University and completed clinical training in radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering. He is an Associate Director of the Immuno-Genomics and Precision Oncology Platform at MSKCC and develops novel computational techniques to interrogate genomics data to predict outcomes after immuno-therapeutics in cancer. He focuses on how mutational processes and tumor clonality influence the production and immunogenicity of neo-antigens. In his clinical capacity, he specializes in the treatment of head and neck cancers.

Dr. Marco Ruella obtained his medical degree with high honors, Italy and completed his specialization in clinical hematology at the University of Torino. He was attending physician at the Hematology and Cell Therapy Division of the Mauriziano Hospital and was Instructor at the Biotechnology School at the University of Torino. From 2012, he was a post-doctoral fellow, and then an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Center for Cellular immunotherapies (Dr. June and Dr. Gill). In 2018, Dr. Ruella was appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies and Scientific Director of the Lymphoma Program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ruella’s research is focused on the study of the mechanisms of relapse after chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CART) immunotherapies with the goal of rationally design innovative combined immunotherapies for relapsing/refractory leukemia and lymphoma. Dr. Ruella was awarded the inaugural SITC EMD-Serono Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Fellowship (2014), the AACR-BMS Oncology Fellowship in Clinical Cancer Research (2015), the ASH Scholar Award (2016), a NIH K99-R00 award (2017), the “Paola Campese” Award Leukemia Research (2017), the Cancer Support Community Award (2018) and more recently the 2018 American Society of Hematology Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement. Dr. Ruella is the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications on targeted immunotherapies for hematological cancers and is an inventor in several patents on CART therapy.

Dr. Russell is the CEO of Vyriad. He is also the Richard O. Jacobson Professor of Molecular Medicine at Mayo Clinic and Vice President of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. He obtained his MD from the University of Edinburgh in 1982 and since that time has relentlessly pursued the goal of effective oncolytic virotherapy. He specialized clinically in hematology, then undertook his PhD training at the Royal Marsden hospital where he was the first to engineer both retroviral and parvoviral vectors to deliver interleukin genes for cancer immunotherapy. He then moved to Cambridge, England where he led a research team in the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology, developed a novel method for antibody affinity maturation using phage display libraries, pioneered the display antibody domains on retroviral vector particles and on recombinant measles viruses, and founded Cambridge Genetics, a biotechnology/drug discovery company. In 1998 he moved to Mayo Clinic where he founded the Department of Molecular Medicine, built a comprehensive oncolytic virotherapy program, developed innovative engineering approaches for targeting, arming and noninvasively monitoring OV infections, and orchestrated the GMP manufacture, preclinical pharmacological/toxicological testing, IND filing and clinical translation of a number of oncolytic Measles and Vesicular stomatitis viruses for several different cancer indications. He cofounded two oncolytic virotherapy companies which merged in 2015, thereby establishing Vyriad as the first multi-platform OV company.

After graduating from Fordham University with a BS in Biology, Catherine spent a year at the University of Oxford on a Fulbright Fellowship, studying the role of the immune system in autoimmune diseases. During her PhD in Immunology at Harvard University, Catherine was part of the team that first described TIM-3, now known as a critical checkpoint protein. Catherine did a short postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF, after which she spent 5 years at the University of Bristol in England, studying the role of IL-10 Tregs in autoimmune regulation with a fellowship from the UK Multiple Sclerosis Society. Catherine returned to the US and Boston in 2012; she was Director of Immunology at a biotech startup (CoStim Pharmaceuticals) developing therapeutic antibodies against checkpoint proteins for cancer treatment. CoStim was acquired by Novartis in February 2014, and Catherine has continued there as the research lead on the Novartis TIM-3 and LAG-3 programs.

Currently completing a fellowship in Melanoma and Translational Research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada working in the laboratory of Dr. Pamela Ohashi. Our work focuses upon immuno-metabolism, particularly understanding the influence of core metabolic pathways on T cell function. We aim to leverage this understanding to identify metabolic manipulations that can alter T cell activity and enhance the anti-tumor immune response, particularly in the context of cellular therapies. Clinically, I am involved in patient care and clinical trials in the Melanoma and Cell Therapy groups. We are currently in the process of translating our findings in murine models to human cell therapy protocols.

Dr. Sardesai founded Geneos after building Inovio Pharmaceuticals into a Phase III cancer and infectious disease immunotherapy company serving as its Chief Operating Officer. He held positions of increasing responsibility after joining the company in 2006 where he helped formulate the company’s product development and growth strategies and reorganized the company into a DNA vaccine and immunotherapies company. For Inovio, Dr. Sardesai drove multiple M&A and licensing transactions to consolidate key technologies, establish the corporate footprint, and develop its immunotherapies platform and product pipeline. He led the strategic out-licensing of Inovio’s pipeline products to secure major licensing deals totaling over $1 Bn with pharma partners. Dr. Sardesai was previously the founder and President of NVision Consulting Inc., a firm providing strategic counsel to entrepreneurial life sciences companies. He served as Director of Research and Development at Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc., where he oversaw the expansion of the company’s oncology portfolio. Products developed under his leadership include groundbreaking new tests for mesothelioma (MESOMARK™), bladder cancer and a multi-marker test for ovarian cancer (HE4). Dr. Sardesai received a PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and an MBA (entrepreneurship and finance) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the recipient of the Shils-Zeidman Award in Entrepreneurship. He was awarded fellowships at the Scripps Research Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Sardesai received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Dr. Sardesai has authored over 120 peer-reviewed manuscripts and was recently recognized by PharmaVoice magazine as one of the top 100 most influential and inspirational leaders across the life sciences industry (2015).

Elisa joined Okairos in 2010 as the company’s Clinical Director. Prior to Okairos, she was a Scientist at IRBM / Merck since 1992, where she worked first on Hepatitis C infection and immunity and then as group leader in Oncology. Elisa has been involved in many aspects of Vaccine programs, from the validation of the genetic vaccine platform in pre-clinical models to the design and implementation of clinical trials and the preparation of dossiers for regulatory agencies. Previously, she also carried out research at the ZMBH in Heidelberg, working in the field of malaria infection. She has published several papers in peer reviewed international journals on a range of subjects, including virology, immunology and oncology. Elisa holds a degree in Medicine, residency in Hematology and a master in Scientific and regulatory perspectives of drugs development.

Dr. Schoenberger joined LIAI in 1998 as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Immune Regulation. In 2002, Dr. Schoenberger became an Associate Professor in the Division of Cellular Immunology, and in 2005 gained Tenure. In 2008, he was promoted to Professor. Dr. Schoenberger’s research focuses on the regulation of cellular immune responses. Dr. Schoenberger received his BS from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1987 and his PhD from the same university in 1992. In 1993, Dr. Schoenberger was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Immunohematology at the University of Leiden Hospital, the Netherlands, from 1993-1998. Dr. Schoenberger is a member of numerous grant review panels and a reviewer for many scientific publications. He is also a member of the editorial advisory board for the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Dr. Maria Paola Serra joined Astrazeneca (CPSS Department, Pathology), as a senior scientist in 2017. Her focus is the characterization of the relationship between immune cells and cancer, and to understand the complexity of the tumour microenvironment she is using multiplexing techniques (IHC, IMC, IF). She previously worked at King’s College London as a Marie Curie postdoc fellow understanding how to improve the differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells into hepatocytes to treat liver disease. She obtained her PhD in 2012 at the University of Cagliari (Italy), working on cell senescence and ageing in cancerogenesis and liver repopulation. Dr. Serra has published her works in peer-reviewed journals and has presented her work at several international meetings.

Dr. Shaffer is Director, Head of Discovery at Jounce Therapeutics where he oversees several preclinical stage immunotherapy programs targeting various components of the tumor microenvironment. He obtained his PhD from Baylor College of Medicine where he studied adoptive immunotherapy and T cell engineering before moving to Boston to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Former CMO of Merus, an IO company, which achieved IPO at Nasdaq USA, mid 2016. Dr. Shamsili has been advising cancer biotechs on early drug development since about 2017. Setareh has over 28 years medical and scientific experience of which the last 18 years has been focused on cancer research and drug development. Prior to Merus, Dr. Shamsili was Global Medical Leader Oncology at Astellas Global Research and Development. Her latest academic degree is a PhD in NeuroOncology from the Erasmus Medical University, Netherlands and during her industry tenure she has been in charge of development of a range of anti-cancer medicine from cytotoxics to small molecules and Immunotherapies.

Fiona Sharp is currently leading research focused on enhancing our understanding of immune checkpoint pathways, particularly TIM-3, in the development of anti-tumor immune responses. She has been focused on this work as a lab head in the exploratory immune-oncology group in Novartis since 2014. As a Browne-Coxe fellow, Fiona worked as a postdoc in the Yale Immunobiology/Biomedical Engineering Dept where she worked on developing novel artificial antigen presenting cell (APC) systems for the expansion of T cells ex vivo for adoptive cell therapies. Fiona earned her PhD as an IRCSET scholar from the Dept Biochemistry and Immunology in Trinity College Dublin where she discovered a novel role for the NALP-3 inflammasome in the innate immune response to particulate vaccine adjuvants.

John-William Sidhom is a current MD/PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who has recently completed his PhD and entering his final years of clinical training. His background has been in computational and biomedical engineering, obtaining a bachelor's from the University of Michigan in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics, followed by a masters at Johns Hopkins in Biomedical Engineering in the Center of Bioengineering, Innovation, and Design before matriculating into the MD/PhD program at Johns Hopkins. His doctoral work in the lab of Drew Pardoll focused on the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand the complexity of the immune synapse, developing deep learning models for unsupervised and supervised learning of the genomics data available particularly in the field of cancer immunotherapy.

Dr. Simonin completed his PhD at the University of Bern focusing on biology of membrane transporters. He continued his work on membrane transporters as a postdoctoral fellow responsible for the screening platform of the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bern. Over four years, his team developed functional assays in order to run screening campaigns to identify small molecules modulating transporters function. He joined Numab in 2015 as a scientist where he later became director of the monoclonal antibody discovery team.

Will Singleterry, PhD, Director of Business Development at IsoPlexis, which uses a single cell proteomics platform to accelerate development of therapies by revealing the highly functional cell subsets driving clinical response. Dr. Singleterry manages collaborations between IsoPlexis and Bio-Pharmaceutical partners for clinical trial biomarkers, early stage discovery and biomanufacturing applications.

Dimitris Skokos is a Director in the Immunity and Inflammation department at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals as well as an adjunct faculty Professor at Rockefeller University. He was born and raised in Athens, Greece. In 1998, he double majored receiving degrees in BioMedical Science and Biotechnology, from Ecole Superior in Paris and in Cellular Biology and Physiology from the University of Paris, with High Honors. After earning his Master’s and PhD in Molecular Immunology from Pasteur Institute, he joined the laboratories of Ralph Steinman (Nobel laureate, 2011) and Michel Nussenzweig at Rockefeller University, studying the role of tolerance andimmunity in inflammation. In 2008, he joined Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he and his team are leading Regeneron’s efforts in cancer immunotherapy. Dimitris holds more than 10 patents and 25 publications and was part of the team that developed the recently FDA approved treatment for metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, Libtayo. He has had the honor to work with esteem scientists, George D. Yancopoulos and Roy P. Vagelos.

Dr. Eric Smith received his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Duke University in 1997. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU he joined Regeneron in 2002 as a member of the Antibody and Trap Technologies group, where he worked on cytokine traps and related molecules. In 2008 he became a member of the Bispecific Antibodies team and is currently the Director of Bispecifics at Regeneron.

Dr. Smith is an Assistant Attending in the division of Myeloma and the Director of Clinical Translation for the Cellular Therapeutics Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). His research resulted in the development of human derived chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) vectors for the treatment of advanced myeloma, which are under clinical investigation in 4 independent trials, including a pivotal multi-institution phase I/II. Currently, his research focuses on understanding how the myeloma microenvironment influences CAR T cell biology and function in patients and mice and generating rational next generation CAR constructs with enhanced efficacy for the treatment of myeloma. Research funding has been awarded for his work from an MSK Technology Development Fund, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF), the Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).

Dr. Qinghua Song received his PhD in Statistics from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005. He has worked in world top pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Genentech and Gilead. He has provided statistical analysis support for various projects in drug discovery and development and co-authored multiple scientific papers on application of machine learning, biomarker selection, application of statistical modeling, analysis on data such as -omics, Next Generation Sequencing and High Throughput Screening. Dr. Song joined Kite at 2018 and mainly focused statistical support on translational medicine and research.

Stefani is from Munich, Germany and received her BS/MS in Biology from the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. She continued her doctoral work there under Professor Dolores J. Schendel at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Munich, Institute for Molecular Immunology, receiving her PhD in 2011. She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Pramod K. Srivastava, an accomplished leader in basic and translational research, is the director of the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. Srivastava is a professor and interim chairman of the Department of Immunology, director of the Center for Immunotherapy of Cancer and Infectious Diseases, and part of the leadership team of the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (CICATS). He holds the Eversource Energy Chair in Experimental Oncology. He has earned international acclaim for his groundbreaking work in the immunological function of heat shock proteins and in cancer immunology, is widely published in scholarly journals and serves on editorial boards for several major journals in immunology.

Dr. Suzuki has extensive experience with adenoviral gene therapy for genetic disorders and cancer, as well as a broad background in the development of gene therapy vectors, with specific training and expertise in key research areas relevant to cancer immunotherapy. Since local treatment of oncolytic adenoimmunotherapy remains insufficient to create complete responses to metastasized tumors, his group has been working on combination of oncolytic adenovirus with CAR T-cells, that home to both primary and metastasized tumors, overcoming the limited systemic anti-tumor effects of locally administered adenovirus-based cancer immunotherapies.

Raymond J. Tesi, MD, has been Chairman and Director since the formation of the Company in September 2015. Since, December 2016, Dr. Tesi has been a Director of Savant HWP, an addiction medicine company. From November 2011 until May 2015, Dr. Tesi was CEO, President and Acting Chief Medical Officer of FPRT Bio Inc., a development stage biotech formed to develop XPro1595 for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease and other inflammatory diseases. From November 2010 to October 2011, Dr. Tesi was Chief Medical Officer of Adienne SRL, an emerging biotech in Bergamo, Italy focused on products to treat patients with hematologic malignancy. From June 2007 to September 2010, Dr. Tesi was founder, CEO and President of Coronado Biosciences. Dr. Tesi received his MD degree from Washington University School of Medicine in 1982. Dr. Tesi has been a licensed physician since 1982 and Fellow of the American College of Surgery since 1991. Dr. Tesi’s significant experience with our licensed technology and his experience as a transplant surgeon, entrepreneur, investor and director of start-up biopharmaceutical companies were instrumental in his selection as a member of the board of directors.

Mark Throsby has served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Merus since January 2013 and previously served as the Chief Operating Officer from October 2008 to January 2013. His responsibilities include strategic scientific leadership, management of discovery, pre-clinical research and translational research, business development support, external collaborations and partnerships management. Before joining Merus, from October 2000 to October 2008, he served as a senior scientist and then as director of antibody discovery for Crucell N.V., a biotechnology company specializing in vaccines and biopharmaceutical technology. Dr. Throsby holds a PhD in neuro-immunology from Monash University.

Dr. Tomlins is co-founder and Chief Medical Officer at Strata Oncology. Prior to joining Strata, Dr. Tomlins was an Associate Professor of Pathology at the University of Michigan, where his research focused on using high-throughput techniques to characterize the cancer genome and transcriptome to understand cancer biology and identify clinically relevant biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Among his many contributions to the field is the discovery and characterization of TMPRSS2:ETS gene fusions in prostate cancer.

Dr. Uger has spent the past 18 years developing novel agents targeting the immune system. He began his industry career in cancer vaccine research with Aventis Pasteur, and then joined start-up Trillium Therapeutics (private company) as Director, Research & Development, later serving as Vice President, R & D. At Trillium, Dr. Uger has overseen the growth of the company’s pipeline and guided several compounds from concept to the clinic. His expertise spans both innate and adaptive immunology, and he has overseen programs in the fields of immuno-oncology, autoimmunity and transplantation. He received his Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Toronto.

Dr. van Schooten has over 20 years of biotechnology management experience, including research and development supervision, manufacturing and regulatory operations. Dr. van Schooten co-founded THP, Inc. with Dr. Buelow in 2000 and served as its Chief Executive Officer from 2002 until its sale to Roche Pharmaceuticals in March 2007. From 1993 to1999, he led the development of therapeutics for the treatment of prostate cancer and multiple myeloma at Dendreon. Dr. van Schooten also directed the quality and clinical research programs, leading to the approval of a device and Phase III studies in cancers. Dr. van Schooten studied Immunology at the University of Leiden and the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.

Alexandra-Chloé Villani is a geneticist and immunologist specialized in developing and implementing systems immunology approaches and single cell genomics strategies with the primary goal of advancing our understanding of human immune system regulation. Dr. Villani is currently the Director of the Single Cell Genomics Research Program and a Principal Investigator at the Center for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases and the Center for Cancer Research at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). She is also an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Scientist Affiliate at the Broad Institute, where she completed her postdoctoral fellowship. Dr. Villani has over 19 years of experience in the fields of human genetics, genomics, and systems immunology. During her postdoctoral fellowship, she discovered and characterized novel human blood immune cell populations by developing and implement single cell genomics experimental and analytical strategies, along with complementary functional studies. This groundbreaking work positioned her as an emerging leader in the field of single cell genomics. The Villani laboratory now seeks to establish a comprehensive roadmap of the human immune system by achieving a higher resolution definition and functional characterization of cell subsets and molecular rules governing human immune response regulation, as a foundation to decipher how immunity is dysregulated in diseases. Dr. Villani is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Damon Runyon Innovation Award, the MGH Transformative Scholar Award, the Jonathan Kraft Translational Award, the Lawrence H. Summers Fellowship, and the Janeway Award. Her research has been published in journals including Science, Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Immunology, Nature Communications, and Immunity.

Dr. Wang is the Head of R&D for RNA Medicines at Synthetic Genomics, Inc. Dr. Wang received his PhD from The Scripps Research Institute and is an experienced scientist in cellular immunology and molecular genetics. Dr. Wang leads Discovery and Preclinical groups for a portfolio of programs focused on RNA technologies. He has extensive experience relating to the molecular determinants of immunological memory formation following vaccination and immunotherapies.

Prior to joining eFFECTOR, Dr. Webster was Vice President of Oncology Research at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, where he led the oncology discovery organization in Waltham, MA. In this role he served on the global oncology leadership team accountable for science strategy, leading the transformation to patient-based drug discovery. He oversaw the delivery of a project portfolio spanning discovery and early clinical development. During his tenure with AstraZeneca he was accountable for building a new drug discovery bioscience organization in the US, as well as spearheading the creation of novel partnerships with academia and biotech organizations. Prior to AstraZeneca, Dr. Webster served as a member of the oncology drug discovery leadership team at Bristol Myers Squibb where he led the cell cycle and apoptosis research areas and delivered multiple discovery research projects from inception through early clinical development. Dr. Webster holds a PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University where he studied protein-RNA interactions and translational regulation. Dr. Webster graduated with honors from the State University of New York at Stony Brook with a BS in Biochemistry.

Andrew Weinberg earned his MS and PhD in Biochemistry at Washington State University in 1987. He performed his postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Susan Swain, PhD at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Weinberg and Dr. Swain published several articles on peripheral development of CD4 T cells and the cyotkines involved with determining their lineage fate. Dr. Weinberg moved to Portland, Oregon in 1990 to work at the VA Medical Center on an autoimmune model for multiple sclerosis (EAE) with Arthur Vandenbark, PhD and Halina Offner, PhD During the course of the autoimmune work Dr. Weinberg discovered that the TNF-receptor, OX40, was expressed on autoAg-specific T cells at the site of autoimmune inflammation and was in part responsible for their pathogenic properties. Dr. Weinberg moved to the Providence Cancer Center in 1995 as an independent scientist to focus on tumor immunology. There he discovered that OX40 agonists were potent stimulators of tumor immunity in cancer-bearing hosts. In collaboration with Brendan Curti, MD and Walter Urba, MD at the Providence Cancer Center a human OX40 agonist was tested in a phase I clinical trial.

Daniel Wells is the Senior and founding data scientist at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, where he leads strategic data initiatives. His research is focused on identifying the underlying mechanisms of tumor resistance to immune killing, and in this area, he has contributed to papers published in Nature, Nature Medicine, Cancer Discovery, and other journals. He completed his postdoc in evolutionary developmental biology at UC-Berkeley and a PhD in applied math at Northwestern.

Dr. Whiteside received both her MA and PhD degree in Microbiology from Columbia University, New York, NY. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology (1979). She was as a Fogarty Senior International Fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland (1984-85). At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Whiteside rose through the faculty ranks to become Professor of Pathology with secondary appointments as Professor of Immunology and Otolaryngology (1989-present). She served as Director of the Immunologic Monitoring and Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute for over 20 years. She has authored 586 peer-reviewed papers and review articles and 167 chapters and other articles. She has trained 94 post-doctoral fellows from the United States and abroad. She received an Honoris causa degree in Medicine from The Poznan Medical University in Poland in 2011 and was awarded a Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award by the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer in 2012.

Chan C. Whiting, PhD, is the Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Tempest. Prior to Tempest, Chan was Director and Head of Immune Monitoring and Biomarker Development at Aduro Biotech where she established key partnerships, brought in cutting edge technologies and built up a department of highly effective immunologists that was responsible for all clinical immune monitoring and biomarker development efforts for clinical trials at Aduro. Chan also led the development of Aduro’s personalized medicine program targeting patient-specific neoantigens using Aduro’s attenuated Listeria monocytogenes-based LADD platform. Prior to Aduro, Dr. Whiting has led target identification and validation programs for systems biology companies including Entelos, Inc. and Ingenuity Systems (currently Qiagen) in the development and application of mathematical mechanistic models and other in silico computational tools for autoimmunity, infectious diseases and oncology. Chan received a BS degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Biochemistry and Immunology from University of California, Los Angeles and completed postdoctoral studies at Tularik and Stanford University.

Prof. Dane Wittrup attended the University of New Mexico as an undergraduate, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering in June 1984. Wittrup went on to attend the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where he worked with Prof. James Bailey on flow cytometry and segregated modeling of recombinant populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. After obtaining his PhD in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Biology in 1988, he spent a brief time working at Amgen before becoming an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. He moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in September of 1999, where he is now the C.P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering, in addition to working with the Koch Institute as the Associate Director for Engineering.

Dr. Yan received her medical degree in Shanghai Second Medical School in China. She then completed her MS and PhD training in Molecular and Cancer Genetics at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston Texas, followed by a year of research fellowship. After she completed her IM residency in York Pennsylvania, she moved to Rochester, Minnesota, and started her Hematology-Medical Oncology fellowship training at Mayo Clinic. She completed her fellowship training in summer 2017 and joined as staff in the Division of Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic Rochester. Her clinical and research focus has been on melanoma mmunotherapy, tumor biology and tumor immunology, especially in understanding the mechanisms of immune regulation to provide opportunities for integration of novel immunotherapies into more effective treatments for advanced solid tumors.

Sawsan has extensive expertise in Immunology with focus on autoimmunity and immuno-oncology. Sawsan received her PhD in Immunology from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and she completed postdoctoral training at Stanford University, where she focused on multiple sclerosis, exploring the inhibitory effect of statins on T cell differentiation and the reversal of neuro-inflammation in mice.

Dr. Yu received her PhD in Molecular Immunology from UT Southwestern and went on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University. In 2006, Dr. Yu joined Genentech as a Senior Scientific Researcher in the Immunology department, focusing on autoimmune disease research, and later transitioned to the Cancer Immunotherapy group, where she was promoted to Principal Scientific Researcher. In 2015 Xin joined Amgen as a Scientist in the Inflammation/Oncology department, where she has made important contributions to Amgen’s scientific research and therapeutic pipeline and was promoted to Senior Scientist early this year. Dr. Yu has contributed greatly to the identification and understanding of co-regulatory pathways that modulate immune cell activities, including first-authored paper on identifying TIGIT as a novel T cell checkpoint inhibitor and on demonstrating IGFL1 as a new costimulatory receptor for CD4 T cells. Her research has been published on top peer-reviewed journals. She is also involved in the development of drugs that are currently in clinical trials as immunotherapy for cancers.

Dr. Yuan's research interest is precision oncology and biomarker discovery for immune checkpoint blockade cancer immunotherapy. From 2002 to 2016, He established and led translational biomarker research at Immune Monitoring Facility, as part of Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Some accomplishments of note include the establishment of the state-of-the-art Immune Monitoring Facility involving the immunological monitoring of more than 130 clinical trials at MSKCC, the completion of the immune monitoring for DNA vaccine, dendritic cell vaccine, anti-GITR, CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 blockade antibodies. He and his collaborators first reported several potential biomarkers such as Absolute Lymphocyte Counts (ALC), CD4+ICOShi T cell, NY-ESO-1 antigen-specific immunity, cytokine IL-17, Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells and tumor mutational burden for advanced cancer patients received immune checkpoint blockade therapy. He served as a consultant for the design of the correlative studies for optimal innovative immunologic assessment. Currently Dr. Yuan is Senior Director of Translational Oncology at Merck & Co. Inc. and responsible for translational I-O research to meet the need of clinical I-O drug development. He has approximately 65 peer-reviewed articles, including publications in Science, NEJM, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, PNAS, Blood, Journal of Immunology, Cancer Immunology Research and Clinical Cancer Research. He is a member of SITC, AACR and ASCO. Dr. Yuan is an Associate Editor of the Journal Immunotherapy of Cancer. He served as a Member of the steering committee for the CRI-CIC from 2006 to 2011. He is Group Chair of the SITC Biomarker Task Force.

Since 2018, Dr. Yüz has been a Postdoctoral Researcher at NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute in Reutlingen, Germany. She received her PhD in Biosciences, MPI for Medical Research at the University of Heidelberg; MSc in Biology, LMU, Munich, Germany; BSc in Biology and Chemistry, METU, Ankara, Turkey. Her areas of research are: patient-derived ex-vivo 3D tumor models and their preclinical application in compound efficacy testing; cell interactions between patient-derived tumor cells and autologous T lymphocytes; and modulation of cell-cell communication and signaling with optogenetics.