Speaker Biographies by Company

CoFounder & Head, Target Discovery
Biology at the California Institute of Technology in 2013, where he published and patented work engineering T cell receptors for adoptive T cell therapy in the laboratory of David Baltimore. Following, he received his Ph.D. in Immunology at Stanford University in the laboratory of K. Christopher Garcia in 2017, publishing work on technology to identify the specificities of T cell receptors for application in oncology and further work on the molecular- and systems biology-focused characterization of T cell receptor recognition of immunological targets. At Stanford, Marvin received his PhD degree with an additional core focus in Computational Immunology. Marvin has had prior work experience at the National Cancer Institute. His primary focuses are in immunology, structural biology, protein engineering, systems biology, bioinformatics, and algorithms for the application of therapeutic- and early- discovery in immuno-oncology. He is currently Head of Target Discovery at 3T Biosciences since co- -founding the company in 2017.

Distinguished Research Fellow, Foundational Immunology
Tariq Ghayur received his PhD (1987) in Immunology from McGill University, Montreal, Canada and did his post-doctoral training at McGill (1987-’88) and Dana Farber Cancer Institute (1988-’90). He joined AbbVie Inc. in 1990. Tariq has worked on both small molecule and therapeutic antibody discovery programs and from 1998-2004 led two therapeutic antibody discovery project teams and delivered 2 drug development candidates. From 2011-2016, Tariq led the dual variable domain Ig (DVD – Ig™) Initiative and the Novel Biologics group at AbbVie. Currently, he leads the Foundational Immunology group. In addition to therapeutic antibodies, novel biologic formats and antibody generation technologies, his areas of interest are inflammation, intracellular trafficking, antigen processing and presentation, lymphocyte biology, cytokine biology and glyco-biology.

Senior Principal Research Scientist
Mike obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh in Prof. Bob Baxter’s lab and then moved to Brown University in RI to pursue postdoctoral research with Prof. David Cane on engineering polyketide synthases to produce “unnatural” natural products. He was an early employee of the biotech company Phylos Inc., founded by Brian Seed and Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak to advance the utility of mRNA display in the discovery of high affinity binding proteins through in vitro selection. There he successfully applied mRNA display towards the identification of drug-binding proteins using tissue-derived libraries. Since joining Abbott Laboratories in 2004 and now AbbVie, he has helped provide key molecular/cellular pharmacology support and project leadership to both small molecule and biologics drug discovery programs within Immunology Discovery. He currently leads a group within Global Biologics Discovery that is focused on the identification of novel biologic therapeutics to treat patients with cancer, autoimmune disease or neurological disorders.

Senior Scientist
I got my Bachelor’s in Chemistry and Philosophy at Creighton University in Omaha working in synthetic organic chemistry. I then went to the University of Minnesota, where I received my Ph.D. working under Will Pomerantz developing protein-observed fluorine NMR as a ligand discovery technique. Since then I’ve been working in the high-throughput protein engineering group at AbbVie Bioresearch Center to design, produce, and analyze proteins in high-throughput.

Senior Scientist III, Global Biologics
Wendy Ritacco is a Senior Scientist at Abbvie and specializes in design and optimization of conditionally activated biologics. She dedicated to the creation of efficacious treatments without deleterious side effects. She received her MS from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and has more than 25 years biopharmaceutical industry experience.

Senior Research Fellow
Fiona Harding trained as an immunologist as the University of Rochester and the University of California, Berkeley. Her specialty is cellular and molecular immunology. Her postdoctoral activities included the characterization of the costimulatory molecule CD28 In Dr James P Allison’s lab. Fiona has over 25 years’ experience in biotechnology and industry, starting her career at GenPharm International (now Medimmune/AstraZeneca) characterizing early humanized mouse models that lead to the generation of the HuMab mouse. She developed and patented an in vitro screening method for the identification of immunogenic T cell epitopes in therapeutic proteins (the iMune Assay) while working at Genencor International (now DuPont). Fiona joined PDL in 2005 and has been working at Abbott/AbbVie since 2010. Fiona has worked on many programs and projects, and is currently leading multiple discovery, pre-clinical, and clinical stage immuno-oncology programs.

Senior Principal Research Scientist Biologics Discovery
Dr. Yoshiko Akamatsu received Ph.D. in Biophysics from Kyoto University and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She was an Associate Professor in the University of Tokushima, Japan, before she decided to move to the US to work at a biotech company in 2003. Since then, she has been conducting research in the area of antibody and protein engineering in PDL BioPharma, Facet Biotech, Abbott and Abbvie.

Co-Founder, Head, Business Development
Kevin Heyries holds a PhD in biochemistry (Uni. of Lyon) where he developed microfluidics for antibody analysis. During his postdoctoral work (Uni. of British Columbia), he developed high throughput microfluidics systems for digital PCR and single-cell genomics. Dr. Heyries was instrumental in the development of AbCellera’s technology, where he is now leading business development and strategy.

Vice President, New Technology Development
Dr. Oleh Petriv received his PhD in Cell Biology at the University of Alberta in Canada. Later he studied design and manufacturing of microfluidic chips, worked on high-throughput single-cell PCR and sequencing methods. Oleh is one of the co-founders of AbCellera, a company focusing on monoclonal antibody discovery based in Canada. In 2018 he brought his experience of R&D and technology development to AbCheck and leads a team developing entirely new and unsurpassed methods of antibody discovery by functional criteria.

Head, Nanobody Explorative Technologies
Carlo Boutton obtained his PhD in 1999 at the University of Leuven (Belgium) on a subject that investigated the physico-chemical behavior of proteins under high-electromagnetic (laser) fields. After his PhD he joined Algonomics (currently Lonza) where he contributed to the development of EpiBase: a platform to predict and identify T-cell epitopes in biologics. In 2003 he joined Tibotec (subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson) where he was involved in several anti-HIV and anti-HCV projects. He joined Ablynx in 2007 where he focused on improvements of the Nanobody platform and new therapeutic applications for Nanobodies, including bispecifics, immunotherapeutics and ADCs. After the acquisition of Ablynx by Sanofi he holds the position of Head Nanobody Explorative Technologies. Together with his team he is working on a next generation Nanobody platform.

CSO
Ian’s background is firmly in the engineering and development of therapeutic antibodies. Having solved the first NMR structure of a human antibody fragment (UCB-Celltech, University of Leicester) Ian oversaw therapeutic research projects covering technology validation, drug discovery and optimization (MedImmune, AstraZeneca) before joining Absolute Antibody at its founding in 2012.

CSO
After his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from Texas A&M, Colby joined MassBiologics. There, he led programs to discover and advance mAbs for the prevention, treatment or diagnosis of infectious and endogenous diseases. He later joined the Kanyos Bio Protein Engineering team to develop therapeutics based on a novel antigen-specific immune tolerance platform. Colby joined Abveris Antibody as Chief Scientific Officer to usher in new antibody discovery tools and build a premium discovery engine.

CSO
Dr. Nora Mineva is the Chief Scientific Officer and a co-founder of Adecto Pharmaceuticals, a start-up developing the first targeted treatment against ADAM8-positive cancers and a companion diagnostic to identify patients who can benefit from it, with a focus on triple-negative breast cancer as the first indication. She holds a Ph.D. in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine from Boston University School of Medicine and a B.A./M.A. in Biology from Clark University. Dr. Mineva is involved in company management, business development, investor relations, and fundraising efforts in addition to therapeutic and diagnostic development. She is a graduate of the NIH I-Corps Business Training Program and MassBio’s MassConnect Entrepreneur Mentorship Program.

COO
No bio available

Associate Director Antibody Engineering
I received my PhD from University of Michigan Ann Arbor in protein crystallography. I then did a postdoc at The Scripps Research Institute where I studied broadly neutralizing HIV-1 antibodies, solved crystal structures of such antibodies bound to viral envelope glycoproteins and peptide antigens. After taking a scientist position at Adimab LLC, my focus on antibody engineering blossomed into a bispecific antibody discovery and optimization and cell selection approaches for membrane protein targets. Currently, as Director of Antibody Engineering, my work on bispecifics and membrane protein targets continues alongside platform optimization, antibody format research and development, and developability.

Head Tumor Immunology
D. Olive has been a pioneer and leader in the co-signalling field since 1990. His work is dedicated to tumor immunology with a major emphasis on innate immunity and co-signalling molecules. Selected major breakthroughs: 1) Identification of signaling pathways involved in CD28 and ICOS costimulatory molecules; 2) Demonstration that BTN3A1/CD277 is a major inducer of Vg9Vd2 response; 3) identification of the function of BTLA and HVEM in the regulation of immune function; 4) Identification of molecular mechanisms associated to NK cells impairment in AML patients; 5) first identification of alteration of NK cells in the tumor bed in breast and prostate cancer; 6) First in man clinical trial using anti-KIR mAbs in AML patients; 7) Deciphering of of ICOS ICOSL interaction in the regulation of Tregs in lymphomas.

Associate Professor, Biochemistry
Jonathan Lai is Professor of Biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. Dr. Lai received his undergraduate training in Biochemistry at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, then obtained his PhD in Chemistry and Biophysics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2004. From 2004-2007, he was Helen Hay Whitney Post-Doctoral Fellow in Biological Chemistry at Harvard Medical School. He began his independent lab at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2007. His group has broad interests in peptide, protein, and antibody engineering with application of these methods to discovery of new immunotherapies and vaccines.

Executive Director, Bioanalytical Development
Mark Ma is Executive Director of Bioanalytical Development at Alexion Pharmaceuticals. His group provides bioanalytical and Biomarker support to Alexion projects, including large molecule, small molecule, and RNAs. Before Alexion, Mark was a director of large molecule bioanalytical sciences at Amgen. Mark has been active in American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and service as chair of PK assay group within Ligand Binding Assay committee. Mark had held several academic research positions with UCLA and MMRI. His professional career outside of industry includes being a reviewer for several scientific journals and giving lectures to local colleges/universities.

Vice President Discovery
Peter Ellmark joined Alligator Bioscience in 2008 and is VP Discovery since 2018. He holds a PhD and an associate professorship in Immunotechnology at Lund University and has more than 15 years’ experience of developing antibodies for immunotherapy of cancer. Dr. Ellmark´s research interest is focused on developing mono- and bispecific antibodies for tumor directed immunotherapy of cancer.

Senior Director & Head
Tom Van Blarcom received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, where he worked on the development and application of cell surface display systems for antibody engineering. Afterwards he joined the Protein Engineering Department at Pfizer’s South San Francisco location where he continued to develop novel technologies for antibody engineering including cell surface display, synthetic antibody library design and library synthesis technologies and applied them to improve the development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies and CAR T cells. Since then, he has continued his work on CAR T cells by joining Allogene Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of allogeneic CAR T cell (AlloCAR TTM) therapies for cancer. At Allogene, Tom oversees all protein engineering activities and contributes to various aspects of CAR T cell design and engineering.

Co-Founder and CEO
Tina serves as co-founder/CEO of Ally Therapeutics, an innovative company dedicated to solving the immune response barriers for gene therapy. She spun the company out of the Wyss Institute at Harvard, where she had supported the foundational research as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Prior, Tina was a private equity investor at TPG Capital, where she evaluated potential investments $1Bn+ in size across commercial pharma and other sectors of the healthcare industry. Before that, Tina was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, where she advised healthcare companies on key transactions including mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt financings, and other strategic alternatives. Tina received her MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and her BA, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.

Group Leader, Assay Biology & Scientific Liaison, Assay Biology,
Dr. Segaliny is a founding scientist of Amberstone Biosciences. She currently serves as the Head of Assay Biology and Scientific Liaison at Amberstone, where she spearheaded the efforts in developing cutting-edge microfluidic-based approaches to enable the discovery of transformative immunotherapeutics. She has 10+ years of experience in cancer biology/immunology.

Director, Oncology Research
Tara Arvedson, Executive Director in Oncology Research at Amgen, has led multiple T cell therapeutic programs and is currently responsible for a large portfolio of T cell therapeutic assets and platform strategy. She received her Ph.D. at Caltech and was later a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow at UC San Diego.

Principal Scientist, Antibody Discovery
Dr. Mei-Yun Zhang obtained her B.A. in Genetics and M.S. in Biochemistry from China Agricultural University, and Ph.D. in Natural Science from Aachen Technical University, Germany. After a postdoc training in NCI, NIH, she was promoted to Scientist. She was appointed Assistant Professor and served as a Faculty member in the Department of Microbiology, The University of Hong Kong. She then moved on to biotech industry and joined Amgen in 2015 as Principal Scientist, Antibody Discovery Lead at Amgen China R&D Center. She has conducted extensive basic research in cancer and infectious diseases and led biologics drug early discovery throughout her career. She has 56 peer-reviewed publications and holds 7 issued patents or patent applications. Since she joined Amgen, she has been focused on developing innovative technologies for antibody discovery and established camelid single domain antibody platform and antibody phenotypic screening platform at Amgen.

Principal Scientist, Discovery Attribute Sciences
Iain Campuzano works in and manages a core analytical research group within Amgen Research. He has invented/co-invented six mass spectrometry related patents and published over 50 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. He has also presented and organised/chaired sessions at multiple international conferences such as ASMS, ASMS Sanibel, PEGS, Discovery on Target and PITTCON.

Medical Director, Global Drug Developmentelopment
Sandra Garces is Rheumatologist with more than a decade of clinical experience, focused on the use of biologic therapies in the treatment of patients with chronic inflammatory diseases. She did her PhD in the Gulbenkian Institute of Science with a thesis entitled “Clinical Relevance of Drug Immunogenicity”. She developed an algorithm that uses information on drug concentrations and immunogenicity to help guide therapeutic decisions towards more cost-effective therapeutic strategies in clinical practice. In 2016 she joined Eli Lilly & Co. where she has worked on the assessment of the clinical relevance of IMG across different programs. She recently joined Amgen as a clinical research director in 2019.

Scientist, Pharmacokinetics & Drug Metabolism
Mei has worked in biotech industry for 20 years after she obtain her MS from Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University. She is currently a Senior Scientist in the Pharmacokinetics & Drug Metabolism (PKDM) department at Amgen South San Francisco. Over the years, she has worked in different functional areas across Amgen including Analytical Sciences, Protein Sciences and PKDM. Her experience ranging from chromatographic (such as SEC, CEX, HIC and RP-HPLC), electrophoresis (cIEF, CE-SDS, CE-MS) and mass spectrometry analytical method development, inter- and intra- departmental method transfer such as from Analytical Sciences to QC labs, involved in IND and BLA filing; she is also experienced in small and middle scale protein purification. She implemented Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) techniques into Protein Science and PKDM departments, developed an automated immunoaffinity capture (IA)-CE-MS intact mass analysis biotransformation workflow in PKDM department to support multiple pipeline projects ranging from antibodies, fusion proteins and antibody conjugates in vitro and in vivo as well as other characterization techniques. Currently she leads the large molecule ADME team within PKDM, interacting with Project Team Representatives to support projects and serve as resource for protein characterization, analytical method development, troubleshooting and experiment planning.

Scientist, Cell Line Developmentelopment & Genetic Characterization
Fides Lay received her Ph.D. in Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology from the Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California in 2014 after completing a thesis on the epigenetic regulation of tumorigenesis. She went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles where she developed and implemented high-throughput sequencing-based assays as well as genetic editing tools to study the mechanism of normal and malignant blood development. Fides joined Amgen’s Cell Line Development and Genetic Characterization team in 2018. She is interested in developing better methods to generate and characterize cell lines for multiple biotherapeutics modalities.

Senior Scientist
Christy Thomson received her PhD in Biochemistry from McMaster University where her research focused on protein structure and function. Her post-doctoral research at the University of British Columbia examined the human antibody response to common pathogens such as HCMV and H1N1. Since joining Amgen in 2012, her focus has been biologic discovery. Dr. Thomson is leader of the Antibody Characterization and Discovery Team which brings together diverse expertise and strategies aimed at early identification of B cells specific to target and the development of assays and reagents to differentiate lead antibodies meeting design goals.

Senior Scientist, ImmunoOncology & Molecular Engineering
Dr. Xinchao Yu is a senior scientist and cryo-EM lab head at Amgen South San Francisco. Xinchao received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Boston University with comprehensive training in single particle cryo-EM. During his postdoctoral career at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, he used a combination of X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM to study molecular machineries involved in membrane trafficking processes, as well as honing his expertise in membrane protein expression and purification. With a passion to pursue innovative medicine to help patients, Xinchao joined Amen in 2015 to lead the cryo-EM initiative to set up the cryo-EM infrastructure to support drug discovery. Through extensive cross-functional and cross-sites collaborations, Xinchao and the cryo-EM team have made significant progress to support a number of important research pipelines, including several challenging membrane protein targets.

Founder & Head of Research
Shou-Ching Jaminet, Ph.D., is Founder and Head of Research at Angiex, Inc. Shou-Ching is a molecular and vascular biologist, a leading expert on gene expression profiling and TM4SF1 biology, and discoverer of TM4SF1’s roles in endothelial cell biology. At Angiex, Shou-Ching has led creation of an antibody-drug conjugate for solid tumors that is in preclinical development. Before founding Angiex, Shou-Ching was Director of the Laboratory of Multi-Gene Transcriptional Profiling at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She identified TM4SF1 as a new endothelial cell biomarker; elucidated the role of TM4SF1 in blood vessel formation; demonstrated that TM4SF1 is essential for endothelial cell movement and proliferation; discovered a novel internalization route along microtubules to the nucleus; and discovered novel mechanisms of intercellular interaction mediated by TM4SF1-rich nanopodia that may play an important role in metastasis.

Executive Director
Janice M. Reichert, PhD, is Executive Director of The Antibody Society. She is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of mAbs, a peer-reviewed, PubMed-indexed biomedical journal that focuses on topics relevant to antibody research and development, and co-editor of the Handbook of Therapeutic Antibodies. She has published extensively on development trends for antibody therapeutics, and she has presented her research results as an invited speaker at conferences held worldwide. Dr. Reichert received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and did her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School.

Chief Executive and Science Officer
Dr Deonarain studied at Imperial College and Cambridge University where he carried out PhD research into protein engineering. From 1997-2011 Dr Deonarain was a Principle Investigator at Imperial College in Antibody Technology, which led to some novel technologies being developed commercially. Dr Deonarain now retains an honorary position. He has published over 80 papers and patents in protein/antibody engineering/conjugates. In 2014, he co-founded Antikor Biopharma where he is the CEO leading a team to develop the next-generation of antibody-fragment based ADCs.

Vice President Molecular Biology
Oliver Hill joined Apogenix in March 2006. He is an expert for protein engineering and expression. Prior to his position at Apogenix, he headed the protein expression and purification group at Graffinity Pharmaceutical Design GmbH (Heidelberg, Germany) from 1999 to 2006. At Graffinity Oliver Hill was responsible for delivering a broad spectrum of target proteins for screening on a chemical microarray platform. His work in former, academic R&D positions at the Lower Saxony Institute for Peptide Research (Hannover, Germany; 1992-1996) and the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology (Jena, Germany; 1997-1998) included gene hunting, protein engineering and the development of recombinant phage display technologies. Mr Hill studied biology at the University of Hannover where he also received his Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry in 1997.

CEO
Philipp completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Basel (Switzerland) in Nanoscience, graduate studies at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in Biomedical Engineering and PhD studies in materials and protein engineering at ETH Zurich. Three years post-doc at Prof. Roger Schibli’s lab at PSI Villigen (Switzerland) focused on antibody-drug conjugates followed by being a PSI Founder Fellow for two years at PSI Villigen that resulted in the incorporation of Araris Biotech AG in January 2019 and since June 2019 CEO of Araris.

Principal Scientist
PhD in cell biology. 10 years’ experience in antibody engineering. Was responsible for pre-clinical development of ARGX-115, targeting GARP-TGFβ1, for immuno-oncology, until AbbVie took over for clinical development. Lead scientist TGFβ-related projects and project leader on the ARGX-118 project for severe asthma.

Executive Director & Professor, Molecular Sciences
Joshua LaBaer is one of the nation’s foremost investigators in the rapidly expanding field of personalized diagnostics. His efforts focus on the discovery and validation of biomarkers — unique molecular fingerprints of disease — which can provide early warning for those at risk of major illnesses, including cancer and diabetes. Formerly founder and director of the Harvard Institute of Proteomics, LaBaer was recruited to ASU’s Biodesign Institute as the first Piper Chair in Personalized Medicine in 2009.  The Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics (VGPCPD) has a highly multidisciplinary staff of molecular biologists, cell biologists, biochemists, software engineers, database specialists, bioinformaticists, biostatisticians, and automation engineers.  VGPCPD applies open reading frame clones to the high throughput (HT) study of protein function.  In addition, his group invented a novel protein microarray technology, Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Array, which has been used widely for biomedical research, including the recent discovery of a panel of 28 autoantibody biomarkers that may aid the early diagnosis of breast cancer. LaBaer earned his medical degree and a doctorate in biochemistry and biophysics, from the University of California, San Francisco.  He completed his medical residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a clinical fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, both in Boston. He has contributed more than 150 original research publications, reviews and chapters. LaBaer is an associate editor of the Journal of Proteome Research, a recent member of the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors, Chair of the Early Detection Research Network Steering Committee and recent president of the U.S. Human Proteome Organization.

Scientist, Bioassay, Impurities and Quality, Analytical Sciences
No Bio Available

Senior Research Scientist, Protein Science & Discovery Biology
Since joining AstraZeneca in 2017, Saleha has worked on and produced high quality protein reagents for a number of early discovery projects. Her specific focus within the team is in the area of protein QC and sample preparation for specialist downstream applications. More recently, she has been developing and prosecuting biochemical assay strategies for screening and hit dicovery. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Saleha studied Biochemistry at the University of York, followed by an MSc in Bioscience Technology with a short time also spent at CRUK at the London Research Institute. She completed her PhD and first Postdoc at the University of Leicester in partnership with UCB Pharma. Her work looked into characterising the structures and function of antagonists of the Wnt signalling pathway using NMR, EM and several other biophysical techniques.

Scientist I, ADPE
Amit Kumar received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Houston. He then pursued postdoctoral work at University of Texas southwestern Medical Center where he worked on design and synthesis of molecular imaging probes and therapeutic agents for various diseases. He joined AstraZeneca in 2016 and is currently working on antibody-drug conjugates and novel conjugation modalities for oncology applications.

Senior Scientist
Sarav Rajan obtained his PhD from McGill University and a post-doctoral fellowship from the University of Toronto, specializing in the use of phage display to isolate therapeutic antibodies. He has been at AstraZeneca in the department of Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering for over 7 years where he has earned several distinctions, including company-wide innovation awards. He currently manages a team in Maryland that has pioneered a novel discovery platform that captures and screens the natively-paired antibody repertoire from millions of B cells.

Founder & President
Masha Fridkis-Hareli, MSc, PhD, is an immunologist, consultant and inventor with over 20 years of experience in academia and industry. She is a Founder and President of ATR, LLC, a translational research company providing scientific consulting and laboratory services in immunoassay development to research institutions and the biotechnology industry. During her post-doctoral training at Harvard University, she designed and developed a group of novel compounds for treatment of autoimmune diseases. After serving as Principal Investigator at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Dr. Fridkis-Hareli transitioned to industry where she held a variety of positions with increasing responsibilities at Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals, Charles River Laboratories, Taligen Therapeutics and Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Fridkis-Hareli is a co-author of over 100 publications and 17 issued patents. She is an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School, Northeastern University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Framingham State University, where she teaches biotechnology and immunology courses at the graduate biotechnology programs.

Co-Founder, CCO
As ATUM’s Co-Founder and CCO, Dr. Gustafsson oversees most of the company's external communications. Prior to co-founding ATUM, Dr. Gustafsson led, managed and collaborated with key strategic teams at Maxygen Inc. Before Maxygen, Dr. Gustafsson worked as a scientist at Kosan Biosciences, a number of research, teaching, and post-doctoral positions at UCs Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and at University of Umeå. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology/Biochemistry from the University of Umeå, Sweden.

CSO & Chief Scientist
Dr Peter Hudson, FTSE, BSc Hons (Adelaide, Australia), PhD (MRC-LMB, Cambridge, UK). Peter is CSO of Avipep P/L (Melbourne) and Avipep Therapeutics P/L (Boston) and recently led a large oncology consortium to complete the first Phase 1 clinical trial of a novel engineered antibody (AvibodyTM) targeting prostate and ovarian cancer. Peter has co-founded four Australian biotech companies Evogenix Pty Ltd (2001), Avipep Pty Ltd (2005), CarTherics Pty Ltd (2015) and IsoClide Med Pty Ltd (2017). Peter is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland and was formerly a Chief Research Scientist and Program leader in CSIRO (1990-2008) and Deputy CEO and Scientific Director of the CRC for Diagnostics (1995-2007). He was also Director for Business Development in the AIBL Alzheimer’s Disease consortium and the CRC for Mental Health (2009-2012). Peter was elected to the Australian ATSE Academy and has been awarded the AMRAD Biotechnology and CSIRO Chairman’s Medals.

Associate Professor
Gur Yaari is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering of Bar Ilan University, Israel. He received his BSc degree in physics and math, MSc in high energy physics, and PhD in interdisciplinary physics, all from HUJI. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University. Yaari joined the faculty of Engineering in 2013. His current research interest focuses on the development of computational and statistical tools to process and analyze high-throughput biological data, with a special spotlight on the adaptive immune system.

Senior Staff Scientist, Molecular & Cellular Immunology Biologics Research
Pedro E. Paz, PhD heads the Immunoprofiling Group in Biologics Research at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. He received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in Molecular Cell Biology- Immunology from University of California - Berkeley. He is responsible for the immunogenicity assessment of biotherapeutics in the drug development pipeline.

Assistant Professor Pathology & Immunology, Center for Cell & Gene Therapy
Dr Mamonkin is a faculty member at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine. The primary focus of his laboratory is development of novel therapeutic platforms for patients with difficult-to-treat hematologic malignancies and alloimmune complications.

PostDoc Associate, Gene Therapy Center
Dr. Watanabe is an Instructor at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine with a long-standing interest in the development of novel immunotherapeutic strategies. His research areas include developing T cell-based approaches for the treatment of both hematological malignancies and solid tumors. Since joining CAGT, he has been focusing on optimizing genetic engineering strategies to maximize the potency of tumor-targeting T cells and developing novel T cell-based therapeutic platforms.

Managing Director, Industry Special Services
Sheila Magil has over 20 years of experience in quality and analytical method development for biologics, peptides and small molecules. Her expertise includes quality assurance, protein and peptide biochemistry and analytical development. She was formerly Senior Manager of Analytical Development and Quality Control at Biomeasure, Inc., and previously held positions at Waratah Pharma, Alkermes, Bion and HHMI at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Magil has implemented quality systems and has managed external analytical and QC activities for multiple biopharmaceutical products. Dr. Magil holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota.

Managing Director, Bioprocess Technology Group
Frank J Riske, Ph.D., has over 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and has been involved in the development, or improvement, of eight commercial protein products. Prior to joining BPTC four years ago (and more recently the BioProcess Technology Group at BDO; after BPTC acquisition), Dr. Riske was a Senior Director in the Late Phase Process Development Group at Genzyme, a Sanofi company. At Genzyme, Dr. Riske was responsible for the development of late stage downstream processes for recombinant enzymes, monoclonal antibodies, Adenovirus (gene therapy) and the identification and exploration of new technologies, including continuous processing, to streamline and improve purification. Prior to joining Genzyme, Dr. Riske managed the development, implementation and manufacture of a peptide bound within a novel sustained release vehicle, and the development of a next generation process to purify IVIG from plasma (both at Epic Therapeutics). Before Epic, Dr. Riske held positions at Repligen and Hoffmann-LaRoche during which he developed and improved, downstream processes for proteins produced in mammalian cell culture, E coli, and Pichia systems. Dr. Riske was also responsible for the manufacture of MAb fragments at Repligen. Dr. Riske has published over twenty peer reviewed papers and patents and is active in the scientific community as both a mentor to young scientists and as a conference speaker and organizer. Dr. Riske received his B.S. in Biology from Fairfield University, Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Rutgers University and completed a post-doctoral position at Hoffmann-LaRoche.

Associate Professor Nuclear Engineering & Director, Jerry J Cohen Radiobiology Lab
Professor Laster received her B.S. in biology from Stern College for Women, New York, NY and her graduate studies were carried out at Memorial/Sloan Kettering, New York NY, where her major was Diagnostic Cytology. Her Ph.D. studies in experimental pathology and radiation biology were carried out at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY and the Union Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio. Her thesis was on “Binary Systems for the Improvement of Cancer Radiotherapy” and her thesis advisor was Victor P. Bond, M.D., Ph.D. Before joining the faculty of Ben Gurion University, Professor Laster was a scientist in the Medical Department of Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology in the School of Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She served as a visiting professor in the Department of Radiation Physics at the University of Lund, Lund, Sweden, and in the Social Dimensions of Science, Project WISE, at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y.

Technology Development
Anupam Singhal earned his PhD from the University of British Columbia and has over 15 years of experience in nanotechnology and microfluidics at UBC, the University of Toronto and Stanford University.  His work has been cited over 600 times and resulted in several patents for molecular disease diagnosis, antibody discovery, and development of production cell-lines for biologics .  At Berkeley Lights, Anupam leads the development of next-generation platforms for the discovery and development of antibody therapeutics.

Scientific Officer
Corinna Fiorotti obtained her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of New Hampshire before attending Harvard Medical School. Since, she has served as a faculty member at Harvard and has held scientific leadership positions at Eyetech and Pfizer where she focused on developing cell-based assays for the detection of neutralizing antibodies, ADA, and PK assays. She joined BioAgilytix in 2015 as a Business Development Director and was promoted to Scientific Officer in 2019.

CSO
Dr. McNally has an extensive background in bioanalytical assay development and program leadership spanning nearly 20 years working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Prior to joining BioAgilytix, Dr. McNally was Executive Director at CRISPR Therapeutics, where he lead a team of scientists to develop a portfolio of assays to support development of gene-based therapeutic candidates throughout their lifecycle. He has also previously held roles at Genzyme, Pfizer, EMD Serono, and Shire which have given him broad experience in the development of large molecule, gene therapy, and cell therapy biotherapeutics. Dr. McNally is a recognized thought leader in the development and application of bioanalytical methods used in regulatory submissions and is specifically skilled in progression of biotherapeutics from research through clinical development. He has a special interest in the immunogenicity of biotherapeutics and leads an industry-wide working group to address this issue. A key part of his role at BioAgilytix is advising on emerging scientific developments and providing scientific and regulatory guidance. Dr. McNally obtained his B.S. in Biology from Mississippi State University, his PhD Viral Immunology from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport, and his Post-Doc in Viral Immunology from University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Vice President, Biologic Development
Dr. Jennifer Chadwick is an innovative leader with >15 years professional academic and industrial experience in biotechnology, pharmaceutics and life sciences. She is Vice President of Biologic Development at BioAnalytix and formerly tenured Professor and Louise Byrd Graduate Educator in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas. Prof. Chadwick transitioned to industry after founding a company to commercialize technology developed in her academic lab and serving as CSO and Director. She is a recognized expert in analytical development, formulation and stability assessment of biologics and has extensive background in biologic drug discovery, translational research and early/late stage development of complex, emerging therapeutics applied to diverse clinical indications. Her corporate responsibilities have included corporate/scientific enterprise strategy, product development, business development, project management, team building and alliance management, IP portfolio management and early-stage fundraising. Dr. Chadwick has a significant history and ongoing commitment of influential leadership in professional communities and strong engagement in mentoring and career development. She serves as Associate Director, CASSS; Visiting Scholar, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Northeastern University; Editorial Advisory Board member, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Scientific Reports; MassBio Steering Committee for Academic-Industry Relations; Mentor for MassCONNECT; and Co-chair of Mentors, Advisors, Peers and Sponsorship, WIB, Boston Chapter.

President and CEO
Dr. Little is President of BioAssay Sciences (BAS) a globally recognized bioassay consulting company for biologicals and vaccines. BAS specializes in the design, calculation and control of potency and relative potency for bioassays. BAS specializes in In-Vivo and In-Vitro bioassays. BAS works with international companies and health authorities globally to achieve product development goals aligned to ICH and USP guidance. BAS is a strategic partner of SAS/JMP and a division of Thomas A. Little Consulting. Dr. Little has developed specific content courses in statistical methods and data analysis, Bioassay Design and Validation, Quality Risk Management, design of experiments, Robust Optimization, Design Space and Tolerance Design, Assay Development and Method Validation, statistical process control, mixture design of experiments, Stability Analysis and Nonlinear Modeling. These courses are used by a variety of fortune 100+ companies to train their chemists, engineers and scientists.

Head, Bioassay Department
PhD. Head of Bioassay Department at Biocad, Russian Leading Innovative Biotechnology Company. The department is responsible for selection the bioassay strategies and development, validation and transfer bioassays including potency assays in support of drug development pipeline.

CEO
No bio available

Scientist
Amr Ali’s research focuses on leveraging multi-omics techniques to improve bioprocesses as well as developing new analytical methods for characterization of complex therapeutic proteins. He has been at Biogen for 9 years and had many roles throughout his tenure there ranging from raw material analysis, cell culture development and protein characterization. Amr Ali has a PhD in analytical chemistry from Northeastern University as well as a master’s degree in bioinformatics and a bachelor’s in biomedical engineering from Boston University.

Scientist, Analytical Developmentelopment
George has a BS in chemistry and a PhD in Biochemistry. His graduate studies under Prof. Alan Marshall at Florida State University focused on development and optimization of hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry to study protein-protein interactions. Shortly after he graduated, he joined the technical development group at Biogen in 2011 where his job responsibilities focus on the biophysical characterization of proteins and gene therapy products.

Senior Scientist, Antibody Discovery
No bio available

Scientist I, Antibody Discovery
Christina has been a core member of the Antibody Discovery team within Biologics Drug Discovery for over 10 years. She graduated from MIT with a BA in Chemical Engineering and a MA in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. She has extensive experience working with phage and yeast display systems, including the Dyax and Adimab platforms. She has led numerous Antibody Discovery campaigns for a variety of targets, including therapeutic candidates for oncology, autoimmune disease, fibrosis, MS, and neurological indications.

Senior Scientist, Analytical Developmentelopment
I have been working at Biogen since early 2013, participated in the analytical assay development from both biological and chemical perspectives for protein pharmaceuticals as well as AAV-based gene therapeutics. Prior to the current role, I spent 5 years in industry optimizing nucleic acid-based diagnostic instruments and reagents for contagious and inherited diseases, after obtained my PhD degree in Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan and completion of postdoctoral training at MIT and Brandeis University in the field of molecular and cell biology.

Scientist II, Cell Culture Developmentelopment
Yizhou Zhou is a Scientist in Protein Development of Biogen. She leads vector design, genetic characterization, and multi-omics analysis to support cell line and cell culture process development. She obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at the University of Michigan, and worked at Genentech before joining Biogen.

Senior Scientist, Immunogenicity Assessment
Johanna Abend received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2008, where the focus of her research was aimed at investigating cytokine-mediated regulation of the human polyomavirus BKV. She continued her training in virus-host interactions with a post-doctoral fellowship at the NCI/NIH in Bethesda, MD where she investigated cellular targets of Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) microRNAs, with a particular interest in immune-related targets (TWEAKR and IRAK1). Following her post-doctoral training, she worked at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) in Emeryville, CA as an investigator and Project Team Leader for multiple antiviral drug discovery teams targeting polyomaviruses and Hepatitis B virus (HBV) using both biologics and small molecule modalities. After seven years at Novartis, Johanna joined BioMarin in January of 2019 as a Senior Scientist in Immunogenicity Assessment where she has supported the filing of a supplemental BLA for Palynziq, a PEGylated enzyme substitution therapy for the treatment of PKU. Johanna has over 8 years of industry experience in antiviral drug development and immunology.

Associate Director & Senior Scientist II, Translational Sciences & Immunogenicity Assessment
Brian Long received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2004 and pursued post-doctoral training at The Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco where he investigated the role of innate immunity in HIV disease pathogenesis. Following his post-doctoral training, he continued as a Research Scientist in the Division of Experimental Medicine at UCSF where he worked on the development and standardization of humanized mouse models for the evaluation of HIV immunology, therapeutics and drug discovery. Brian joined BioMarin in June of 2014 and is currently an Associate Director in Translational Sciences and Immunogenicity Assessment where he provides immunologic expertise to drug programs across developmental stages and develops immunogenicity and safety strategies for novel biologic therapeutics. Brian has over 20 years of experience in immunology and infectious disease, autoimmunity, cell signaling, cancer biology and drug development.

CSO
Dr. Zhukovsky has over two decades of professional experience in the field of biotherapeutics research and development. He currently applies optimized monospecific and novel bispecific antibody platforms to the development of immunotherapeutics for cancer, with a particular focus on leveraging the biology of immune checkpoint modulators. Currently, Dr. Zhukovsky is the CSO of Biomunex Pharmaceuticals, and he also consults with other biotechnology companies. Previously, he served as the CSO of Affimed Therapeutics; there he was responsible for the advancement of candidate therapeutics from discovery to the clinic, and novel technology development. Prior to that he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Biotherapeutics Department at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. leading antibody discovery efforts in the therapeutic areas of inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases. Prior to that Dr. Zhukovsky was an Associate Director at Xencor, Inc. where he led translational research efforts resulting in several therapeutic candidates targeting malignant B cells. One of these therapeutic antibodies is currently undergoing late-stage clinical trials. Dr. Zhukovsky began his professional career employing phage display technology at Neurex Corporation. He then moved to Lynx Therapeutics (now Illumina, Inc.) to work on the development of genomics technologies before returning to protein/antibody engineering and biotherapeutics development at Xencor, Inc. Dr. Zhukovsky performed a postdoctoral fellowship at Genentech, Inc. He received a PhD in biochemistry from Brandeis University and an MS degree in bioorganic chemistry at St. Petersburg's State University.

Head, Immunomodulators
No Bio available

Senior Scientist, Cell Analytics
Dr. Alonzo currently leads the Immuno-oncology characterization and analytics team in the Process and Analytical Development Department at bluebird bio. His research focuses on development of analytical and characterization assays for the CARs T/TCR cell program. Prior to bluebird bio, Dr. Alonzo led efforts developing T cell-based therapies at Agenus (Lexington, MA), and previous to his work at Agenus, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School where he worked on a mouse model of T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Dr. Alonzo received his PhD from the Cancer Biology Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Senior Associate Scientist, Cellular Therapy Mfg & Process Development
Alden Ladd is a scientist II at bluebird bio (Cambridge MA) where he has been employed for six years. During his time at bluebird he has participated in the process development and technology transfer of all of bluebird’s internal oncology programs. Alden is a subject matter expert in cellular process development and scale up, and is currently leading the technology transfer of bluebird bio’s first TCR based therapy for MAGE-A4 positive solid tumors. Alden is also leading in vivo efforts to understand surrogate biomarkers of potency for CAR and TCR based products. Alden holds a degree in biochemistry from Northeastern University.

Director & Head
Ingo Gorr received his Biology degree from the University of Wuerzburg in Germany, followed by a PhD in the Molecular Cell Biology department at the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried/Germany. He then joined Roche first in Basel then in Penzberg and since 2015 he is leading the Early Stage Bioprocess Development (USP&DSP) at Boehringer Ingelheim in Biberach/Germany.

Senior Research Fellow & Group Leader
Dr. Chen obtained his PhD degree in organic chemistry from the University of Mons, Belgium. After postdoctoral training, he joined 3M Pharmaceuticals and then Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals and has worked primarily on metabolite profiling/ID and bioanalysis in support of small molecule drug development. In recent years at Boehringer Ingelheim, he has led a group to provide LC/MS-based bioanalytical support to biotherapeutic development programs, and developed a number of LC/MS assays for quantitation of various biotherapeutic proteins such as nanobodies, Fabs, bispecifics, mAbs, etc. His group also developed immunocapture-LC/MS methodology for simultaneous ADA isotyping and semi-quantitation. His recent research focuses on LC/MS determination of in vivo biomodifications of biotherapeutics and their impact on PK/PD. Dr. Chen has more than 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Vice President Biotherapeutics Molecule Discovery
Dr. Nixon currently is Vice President of Biotherapeutics Molecule Discovery at Boehringer Ingelheim. In this role, he is responsible for early biologic discovery activities. Prior to joining Boehringer Ingelheim, Andy spent 17 years at Dyax including four years as Head of Research and most recently was at Magenta Therapeutics a stem cell transplant company. At Dyax, he focused on biologic drug discovery including peptides, small proteins and antibodies across multiple therapeutic areas including oncology and inflammation. He was a key scientific partner for Dyax’s Licensing and Funded Research Program (LFRP), contributed to numerous antibodies in clinical studies including Avelumab, an anti-PD-L1 antibody and Opicinumab, an anti-Lingo-1 antibody and led from discovery to IND Takhzyro, a plasma kallikrein inhibitory antibody that was approved in 2018.

Biotechnology Consultant
Bonita Rup is a biopharmaceutical development consultant, providing expert advice on bioanalysis, immunogenicity risk assessment, and related regulatory strategy aspects of biopharmaceutical development. Previously she was Research Fellow and lead for the Immunogenicity Discipline at Pfizer, Assistant Vice President of Protein Bioanalytics in Wyeth, and held various positions directing development and application of immuno-ligand binding assay technologies for PK, immunogenicity and protein impurity analysis, and other aspects of biopharmaceutical development. During her career, she has been involved in multiple regulatory filings during preclinical, clinical development and marketing approval of biopharmaceutical products. She has been a member of AAPS, EIP, European IMI ABIRISK consortium, and Biosafe; with these organizations, she has been a co-author for multiple publications related to monitoring immunogenicity and bioanalysis of therapeutic proteins. Bonnie received her B.S. from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Ph.D. from University of Texas, Austin, and conducted postdoctoral research at Duke University and University of Rochester, NY.

Physician, Cardiovascular Medicine
Dr. Giugliano, MD is a Senior Investigator with the TIMI Study Group, Staff Physician in the Cardiovascular Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He graduated Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa (Mathematics) from Dartmouth College (1985), receiving a medical degree at Harvard Medical School (1989). Dr. Giugliano completed residency and chief residency at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (UCLA affiiliate,1989-93) and cardiology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital (1993-6). In 1996, Dr. Giugliano joined the Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a Medicine Research Fellow in the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) Study Group directed by Eugene Braunwald, and completed a Science Masters (Epidemiology) at the Harvard School of Public Health. In 1997, he joined the Cardiovascular Division faculty of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and has served as the principal investigator for 9 multicenter clinical trials at TIMI. His areas of research interests include novel antithrombotic, fibrinolytic agents, and lipid-lowering therapies, and patient outcomes following Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS). He has authored more than 400 articles and chapters, and delivered hundreds of lectures. Dr. Giugliano is the Principal Investigator for the VESALIUS-CV trial of the PCSK9 inhibitor evolocumab in patients at high risk for cardiovascular events with no prior MI or stroke, and also the ENGAGE-AF TIMI 48 trial of the factor Xa inhibitor edoxaban in 21,105 patients with fibrillation. He is also a member of the Operations Committees and Lead TIMI Investigator for the FOURIER trial studying evolocumab in 27,564 hyperlipidemic patients with prior cardiovascular disease; the IMPROVE-IT trial evaluating ezetimibe in 18,144 patients post ACS; and the EARLY ACS trial of eptifibatide in 9492 patients with ACS. Dr. Giugliano serves on numerous Data Safety Monitoring Boards, clinical endpoint committees, and Holter/ECG Core Laboratories. He actively participates in the clinical activities of the Cardiovascular Division, attending in the Levine Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, telemetry unit, and consult services, and sees patients in a busy growing outpatient practice.

Associate Professor of Neurosurgery & Director, Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics & Imaging
No bio available

Director, Process Developmentelopment Analytical & Analytical Developmentelopment
Julia Ding is a director of process analytics and analytical development at Bristol Myers Squibb Devens site. She is leading a diverse and dynamic team responsible for enabling analytics for bioprocess development and characterization, analytical development and assay development in advancing CMC control strategy and developing new technologies , such as PAT for next generation biologic process. Julia Ding also serves in BMS biologic specification committee and comparability council.Prior to joining Bristol Myers Squibb, Julia Ding was a manager at PPD leading a multifunctional analytical development team in quality control testing, assay development, assay validation, assay life cycle management, and product characterization. Julia obtained her Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from Emory University and postdoc from University of California at Berkeley.

Principal Scientist
Daron Forman is currently a Principle Scientist within the Discovery Biotherapeutics Department of Bristol Myers Squibb.  For the last 10 years he has helped to setup an immunogenicity risk assessment core group which utilizes in silico, in vitro and in vivo tools to help select lead drug candidates for further development. He earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Biology and Psychology at the University of Rochester and then joined the lab of Dr. Aldo Rossini at the University of Massachusetts Medical School for his PhD work investigating the effects of viral infection on stem cell transplantation tolerance. After completing his PhD in Immunology and Virology, he joined the lab of Dr. John Iacomini at Harvard University for his post-doctoral work examining mechanisms by which T cells are rendered tolerant in mice reconstituted with retrovirally transduced bone marrow. Prior to BMS, Daron worked at Tolerx trying to understand the mechanisms of action of humanized anti-CD3 and anti-GITR monoclonal antibodies, as well as work on identifying biomarkers for both programs.

Associate Director Preclinical Discovery & Development
Jochem has been at Bristol-Myers Squibb for 14 years in different roles of responsibility focused on biologics drug development. For the last 8 years he has been focused on building a group for pre-clinical immunogenicity risk assessment and mitigation. He received his training at the University of Groningen and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Senior Research Investigator II
Hao is currently a Principal Scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb, who has worked at BMS for 13 year after 4-years postdoc training at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is working as a bioanalytical project lead outsourcing both small molecule and biologics projects in multiple disease areas. Hao has also taken the role as a technical lead for in-house assay development in several bioanalytical areas such as protein bioanalysis by LC-MS and PK/ADA bioanalysis on different assay platforms. He has presented his research work in many scientific conferences and published about 50 peer-reviewed papers. He is now the active members of several academic societies such as AAPS and ASMS.

Senior Research Investigator II
Julie received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry with concentration in biochemistry from Duke University. She did her graduate work with Anna Marie Pyle at Columbia University, focusing on the folding of large catalytic RNAs. She then moved to Boston and carried out postdoctoral work in Susan Lindquist’s lab at Whitehead Institute, using yeast as a model for characterizing the disruption of cellular pathways caused by misfolding of alpha synuclein. She joined Bristol Myers Squibb in 2009 and works in discovery, utilizing in vitro selection methods to identify biologic leads for therapeutic targets.

Senior Scientist
Dr. Ming Zeng is currently working at Bristol Myers Squibb Company leading biologics drug product development analytics teams. Ming received her PhD in Organic/Natural Product Chemistry from Univ of Maryland where her research focus was to develop the first generation of ADCs. She has more than 15 years of extended biologics characterization and method development experience. She was one of the primary authors for Opdivo® and Empliciti® BLA analytical sections.

Professor, Pathology & Lab Medicine
Wafik El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP is Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School and Director of the Joint Program in Cancer Biology at Brown University and affiliated hospitals. He is a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Professor of Medical Science, and Mencoff Family University Professor at Brown. He previously served as Deputy Director for Translational Research, co-Leader of the Molecular Therapeutics Program, Professor of Oncology, and the William Wikoff Smith Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at Fox Chase Cancer Center. From 2010 through 2014, Dr. El-Deiry was the Rose Dunlap Professor of Medicine and Chief of Hematology-Oncology at Penn State. In 2009, El-Deiry became an American Cancer Society Research Professor. He earned MD/PhD degrees from University of Miami School of Medicine and completed internal medicine residency and medical oncology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center. El-Deiry has >400 peer-reviewed publications and 5 edited books. In 2019, his H-index is 111 and he has >66,000 citations in Google Scholar. A practicing Oncologist, his scientific expertise is in cell death, drug resistance in cancer and drug discovery and development. Dr. El-Deiry has trained many students and post-doctoral fellows, physician-scientists, and continues to mentor junior scientists and faculty in basic and translational cancer research.

Vice President Biologics
Dr. Young is the Vice President of Biologics at Calibr, a division of Scripps Research, where he was a member of the founding principal investigators. He currently serves as the lead investigator on multiple bench-to-bedside antibody and cellular therapy-based programs. Dr. Young maintains a research group focused in the development of novel therapeutics at the interface between protein engineering and synthetic biology. This research spans multiple disease indications including cancer, autoimmune, metabolic disorders, and infectious disease. His work has been highly awarded and received support from the Wellcome Trust, NIH (National Cancer Institute), Department of Defense, Mesothelioma Research foundation, American Cancer Society, among others, in addition to receiving backing from major pharma groups which supports clinical translation of programs. His work has resulted in numerous publications and patents with ~2000 citations in the past 5 years. He received a BS in biochemistry from Boston College and a PhD in chemical biology from The Scripps Research Institute as an ARCS scholar. At Scripps, his work was foundational for the development of programs in the Calibr pipeline today, including a bispecific antibody for prostate cancer which will enter clinical trials next year. After receiving his PhD, he completed a postdoc at Harvard Medical School with an NIH fellowship, in the department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology.

Professor & Head, Chemical Engineering
Anne Skaja Robinson became Head of Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Chemical Engineering in 2018. Prior to that, she she served as Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Tulane University for six years, and formerly held the position of Full Professor and Associate Chair at the University of Delaware. Having received both her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Robinson has earned many honors, including a DuPont Young Professor Award, and a National Science Foundation Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering. She is also a fellow of both the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Group Leader, Chemical Biology
No bio available

Assistant Professor & Head, Lab for Disease Mechanisms in Cancer
Kim De Keersmaecker obtained a PhD in the field of cancer biology at KU Leuven (Belgium) in 2008. From 2008 till 2010, she performed postdoctoral research at Columbia University (New York, USA) with Prof. Adolfo Ferrando, studying the role of transcription factor TLX1 in T-cell leukemia. During a second postdoc at KU Leuven (2010-2013), she undertook exome sequencing in T-cell leukemia patients and discovered somatic mutations in ribosomal proteins in cancer. In 2014, Kim received an ERC starting grant and established an independent research lab at KU Leuven studying the role of somatic ribosome mutations in cancer. The excellence of her research is illustrated by publications in leading journals such as Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications and Molecular Cell.

Director, Product Quality
Over the last 16 years, Ken Riker has led Quality teams to develop and execute filing strategies for three successful global filings for biologics. Most recently he led the effort to evaluate the risk associated with the integrated control strategy for Celgene’s first cell therapy product. He lives in the Seattle area.

Senior Director R&D
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, 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 Therapeutics in 2014 to help manage R&D efforts, including establishing antibody engineering and bispecific antibody design strategies for the company’s pipeline.

Vice President Clinical Science
No bio available

Head, Early Discovery
No bio available

CSO
Dr. Magdalena Tary-Lehmann is Co-Founding Scientist and CSO for Cellular Technology Limited (CTL). Dr. Tary-Lehmann received her MD and PhD, both from the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her postdoctoral training in Immunology was at the University of California, Los Angeles. She moved thereafter to Case Western Reserve University, where she was awarded tenure and appointed as Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology. As Chief Scientific Officer for CTL she oversees the performance of immunology assays in CTL’s GCP, GLP- and CLIA compliant contract laboratory for various pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients.

Director, R&D
Peggy Sotiropoulou joined Celyad in 2017. As Director of the R&D department, she leads a broad-ranging internal research program that aims to develop new strategies in CAR T cell design to target haematological and solid malignancies. Prior to Celyad, Peggy spent 17 years in Academic research in oncology and immunooncology. Before moving to industry, Peggy was associate Professor in the Université Libre de Bruxelles, in Brussels, Belgium, leading research in fundamental oncology and published landmark papers in top tier scientific journals. The aim of Peggy in Celyad is to translate cutting-edge research and innovation into actual treatments for patients.

Scientific Services Manager, Biologics
Nels Thorsteinson is a Scientific Services Manager specializing in biologics applications for CCG. He is responsible for providing scientific support, programming custom applications, instructing at workshops, presenting at conferences, and guiding CCG's 3D biologics applications development. Nels majored in biomedical computing and graduated focusing on bioinformatics and computational chemistry.

Instructor, Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapeutics, Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders
No bio available

Director, Translational Research Labs & Assistant Professor, Center for Emerging Technologies Immune Cell Therapy
Dr. Cruz is an Assistant Professor at Children's National Hospital in Washington DC, with over a decade's experience working on cell-based therapies for cancer and infectious disease. He is currently developing NK cell and T cell-based therapies (both expanded and gene modified) for brain tumors and HIV.

Owner and Consultant
Tim Schofield is the Owner & Consultant at CMC Sciences, LLC. Prior to starting his own consulting business Tim worked at: GSK as a Senior Advisor in Global Vaccines Technical R&D, and previously a Director in US Regulatory Affairs; MedImmune as a Senior Fellow in Analytical Biotechnology; Arlenda as US Managing Director and Head of Nonclinical Statistics; and Merck Research Laboratories heading the Nonclinical Statistics department. Tim received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Lafayette College, and a Master of Arts degree in Statistics and Operations Research in 1976 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Tim is a member of the USP Statistics Expert Committee and has participated in industry initiatives related to Quality by Design, analytical method development and validation, stability and specifications. He is the Chairman of the IABS Publications Committee and a Guest Researcher at NIST.

Assistant Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
Samuel Sternberg, PhD, received his B.A. from Columbia University in 2007, graduating summa cum laude, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2014. After serving as Group Leader of Technology Development at Caribou Biosciences, Inc., he moved back to Columbia University, where he runs a research laboratory and is an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. Sam's research focuses on RNA-guided bacterial immune systems (CRISPR-Cas) and on the development of these systems for genome engineering. In addition to publishing his work in leading scientific journals, he recently co-authored a popular science trade book together with Jennifer Doudna, entitled A Crack in Creation, about the discovery, development, and applications of gene-editing technology.

Assoc Prof, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Christopher Alabi began his research career as an undergraduate researcher in synthetic organic chemistry under the direction of Dr. David Schuster at NYU. Upon receiving his B.S. in Chemistry from NYU and B.E. in Chemical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, he went on to pursue a graduate degree in Materials Chemistry at California Institute of Technology with Dr. Mark Davis. He then moved to MIT in 2009 and served as NIH Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Langer and Anderson. Chris Alabi joined the Cornell faculty in 2013 as an Assistant Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He has won several awards during his short tenure at Cornell including the PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Award, NSF CAREER Award, the 2016 Cornell Engineering Research Excellence Award, the 2017 Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year Award and the 2018 PMSE Young Investigator Award. In 2019, Chris Alabi was promoted to Associate Professor with Indefinite Tenure. Research in the Alabi lab seeks to understand how the composition and sequence of a macromolecular chain affects its chemical, structural and biological properties with an eye towards engineering sustainable materials and biomolecular therapeutics.

Application Scientist
With over 10 years of experience in the membrane proteins field, Dr. Rony Nehmé has a deep and solid understanding of GPCRs biology, pharmacology and structural studies. He was an Investigator Scientist in the lab of Prof. Chris Tate (MRC-LMB in Cambridge) prior to joining Creoptix in 2018 as an Application Scientist. He holds a PhD in molecular biology from the Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis in France.

Executive Director & Head, Research & Clinical Assays
Jim McNally is Head of Research, Preclinical and Clinical Assays, CRISPR Therapeutics. He gained extensive experience in immunogenicity strategy, bioanalytical support and scientific oversight of outsourcing of large molecule programs at EMD Serono and at Shire. Previously, he was the lead of the Clinical Assay Development, Validation and Testing bioanalytical group at Pfizer based in Andover, MA. The group was responsible primarily for developing assays to support pharmacokinetic and immunogenicity analysis of the Pfizer large molecule portfolio. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2010, Jim held similar roles in the Clinical Lab Sciences group at Genzyme and Immunobiology group at Repligen. A graduate of the Microbiology and Virology Ph.D. program at LSU Medical Center in 1998, Jim has a special interest in immunomodulation and immunogenicity of biotherapeutics.

Dr Catherine Owczarek is the Director of the Recombinant Protein Expression Group (CSL Limited) located at the Bio21 Institute in Melbourne, Australia. After gaining a PhD at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Canberra, she completed her post-doctoral studies at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne and then was a Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne. Since joining CSL Limited Catherine has led the CSL Research Group’s efforts in the successful development of programs producing mammalian-derived recombinant proteins using transient expression systems. She is involved in a range of CSL’s early phase drug discovery and development campaigns and has experience in early development clinical development programs of therapeutics for the prevention and/or treatment of human diseases.

Senior Vice President & Head, Product Development
Dr Liu currently serves as Senior Vice President of Curon Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. He obtained his Ph.D. in immunology at University of Oxford followed by several years’ postdoc work at Harvard University before working in biotech industry in early 2000. Dr Liu has extensive experience in the discovery and development of mAbs and Fc-fusion proteins. He was the head of Immunology group of Syntonix Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Biogen, then Sanofi), working on mAb and Fc-fusion molecule discovery programs. Prior to joining Curon Biopharmaceuticals, He was a Senior Principal Scientist of Merck Research Laboratories for 12 years at the department of Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Drug Metabolism (PPDM), responsible for more than a dozen of Merck Biologics programs including monoclonal antibodies and Fc-fusion proteins from discovery to development and regulatory filings.

Director, Oncology Research
Siew Schleyer is currently Director of Oncology Research at CytomX Therapeutics. Prior to joining CytomX, she led biotherapeutics research programs in Oncology at Novartis, where she oversaw large molecule programs from early stage research through entry into the clinic. In addition, she worked at Chiron, identifying and validating novel oncology targets, and has authored publications and patents in the field of oncology. Siew obtained her Ph.D. in Immunology at Harvard.

Assistant Professor, Engineering
Jiwon Lee is Ralph and Marjorie Crump Assistant Professor in Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. He received his BA in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and his PhD degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. His research group is interested in developing cutting-edge technologies for immune profiling to understand how antibody repertoires impact health and disease in the context of infectious disease, autoimmunity, and cancer, then applying this knowledge as a guide for engineering next-generation prophylactics and therapeutics.

Founding Partner & CEO
Jake Glanville is an entrepreneur and computational immuno-engineer. He has developed multiple seminal methods in the fields of high-throughput antibody repertoire sequencing, repertoire decoding algorithms, single-cell TCR receptor & phenotype sequencing, and computationally guided antibody library engineering.

Professor, Pediatric Medical Genetics
Dr. Priya Kishnani is Chief, in the division of Medical Genetics at Duke University Medical Center as well as Director of the YT and Alice Chen Pediatrics Genetics and Genomics Center. Dr. Kishnani moved to the United States in 1991, after completing a residency in Pediatrics in Mumbai, India. She went on to do a second residency in Pediatrics as well as a Fellowship in Genetics and Metabolism at Duke University Medical Center. Shortly after, she joined the faculty at Duke University and has worked as a Professor of Pediatrics in the Pediatrics and Medical Genetics departments. Dr. Kishnani is certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics and the American Board of Biochemical Genetics. She also serves as the Director of the Lysosomal Storage Disease Program, Biochemical Genetics Training Program, and Metabolic Clinic at DUMC.

Director, Experimental Medicine La
Nicoletta Bivi received her Master’s degree in Biotechnology from the University of Trieste in 2003 and subsequently completed a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Udine in 2008. Dr. Bivi joined Eli Lilly and Company in 2012 from Indiana University School of Medicine, where she was an Assistant Professor. In her current role as the Director of Assay Development, Dr Bivi leads a team of scientists who develop novel biomarker, target engagement, and immunogenicity assays to support all therapeutic areas and phases of Eli Lilly and Company’s portfolio. In addition, Dr Bivi’s laboratory contributes to the assessment of pre-clinical immunogenicity risk. Dr. Bivi’s interests include immunoassays and mechanisms of immunogenicity. Recently, her laboratory was the first to demonstrate that pre-existing reactivity assessment of biotherapeutics can predict clinical immunogenicity and the epitope(s) targeted by the anti-drug antibodies. Dr. Bivi is the author or co-author of more than 20 peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Research Scientist, Experimental Medicine Lab
Kristin Hollister, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist in the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine (LEM) at Eli Lilly and Company, where she functions as an immunogenicity Clinical Advisor.  She has worked on numerous clinical development teams from pre-Phase 1 through marketing approval and post-launch activities.  She additionally acts as the Communications Leader for LEM and their assay development and validation work.  Prior to joining Lilly, Kristin earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology, with a focus in follicular helper T cells, from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 2014.  Her pervious roles in the company include work in Clinical Pharmacology, Global Patient Health Outcomes, and submission and launch support in the Biomedicines business unit.

Senior Research Advisor
No bio available

Senior Research Scientist
John Rhoden, Ph.D. is a Principal Research Scientist in the Department of Drug Disposition at Eli Lilly and Company. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from N.C. State University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from M.I.T. under the guidance of Prof. K. Dane Wittrup, after which he joined Eli Lilly and Company in 2012. At Lilly, Dr. Rhoden serves as a large molecule ADME project leader on discovery and early development project teams in a variety of therapeutic areas including oncology, immunooncology, autoimmunity, and kidney disease. Dr. Rhoden’s professional interests lie in using simple mathematical models to understand complex systems, interrogate hypotheses, and guide experiment design and interpretation.

CSO
Dr. Adams is Chief Scientific Officer of Elucida Oncology, a clinical stage company developing antibody-toxin fusion proteins for the treatment of cancer. In this role he is responsible for guiding the development of the company’s pipeline assets. Before moving to biotech, Dr. Adams was the Director of Biological Research and Therapeutics and previously co-led the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, an NCI designated comprehensive cancer center in Philadelphia. Dr. Adams is an immunologist with over 30 years of experience in developing antibody-based agents for the treatment and detection of cancer. He received a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of California at Davis in 1991. He joined Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia where he led a laboratory focused on developing antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates for the treatment of breast, ovarian and renal cancer. Dr. Adams serves on the Editorial Boards of Cancer Immunology Research, MAbs and Cancer Biotherapy & Radiopharmaceuticals. He has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of a number of biotechnology companies including Endo Pharmaceuticals, Symphogen, Avipep, Viventia Bio, AvidBiologics, Xerion, Fabrus, Integral Molecular and YM Biosciences.

Associate Director Drug Metabolism & Pharmacokinetics
Seema Kumar is currently an Associate Director and a DMPK senior project representative at EMD Serono Inc. (a business of Merck KGaA, Germany). In her role, Dr. Kumar is responsible for overall NBE drug disposition support including DMPK/ADME, Bioanalysis (BA) and Immunogenicity strategy for biotherapeutics from the concept generation through discovery and development stages. Previously, Dr. Kumar led regulated Bioanalytical group in BioMedicine Design (formerly PDM-NBE) department at Pfizer. The group provided regulated (GLP/GCP) BA support including assay development, validation and sample analysis for PK, ADA and Nab assessments for pre-clinical and clinical development of Pfizer’s large molecule portfolio. Dr. Kumar also managed Core Automation Team (CAT) engaged in automated large-molecule bioanalysis using Hamilton robotic liquid handlers. Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Kumar had served at roles of increasing responsibility as Director of Quality Control and Director of CLIA certified Clinical Bioanalytical Lab at XBiotech USA Inc. Dr. Kumar holds a PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University and has published several publications in peer-reviewed journals and contributed to several book chapters. Dr. Kumar has also given numerous talks in various national and international scientific conferences and meetings. Dr. Kumar has a special interest in Pharmacokinetics and Drug Disposition of multidomain biotherapeutics.

Graduate Student, Biosystems Science & Engineering
Simon Friedensohn is a PhD candidate in Sai Reddy’s Laboratory of Systems and Synthetic Immunology at ETH Zurich. His research work focuses on developing both experimental as well as computational methods for high-throughput immune repertoire sequencing. He holds a BSc and MSc in Biotechnology from ETH Zurich. Previous to joining the Reddy lab, he completed a scientific internship at Roche where he worked on high-throughput (mi)RNA profiling for comparative genomics.

PostDoc Lab for Systems & Synthetic Immunology, Biosystems Science & Engineering
Dr. Rodrigo Vazquez-Lombardi is a research scientist specializing in therapeutic protein engineering and immunology. As part of his PHRT Postdoctoral Fellowship at ETH Zurich (D-BSSE, Basel), he is currently developing novel tools for use in T cell immunotherapy applications.

Professor, Biology
Kurt Wüthrich is the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Professor of Structural Biology at Scripps Research, La Jolla, CA, USA, Professor of Biophysics at the ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, and Distinguished Senior Professor at the iHuman Institute, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China. For 50 years, Wüthrich groups at the ETH Zürich, at Scripps Research and at the iHuman Institute have used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) for research in structural biology. Contributions include the method of protein structure determination with NMR in solution, and the use of the principles of transverse relaxation-optimized spectroscopy (TROSY) for NMR experiments with large supramolecular assemblies. Applications over the years were focused on differentiation in higher organisms, immune suppression and neuropathology. As of April 2019, research using NMR techniques is continued at ShanghaiTech University, with a focus on transmembrane signal transfer by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). At Scripps Research and the ETH Zürich, projects on the general theme “healthcare in the ageing human societies of the 21st century” are pursued, mainly considering the impact of sarcopenia on the human healthspan. Kurt Wüthrich’s achievements have been recognized by the Prix Louis Jeantet de Médecine, the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and by a number of other awards and honorary degrees.

Prof, Chemistry and Applied Biosciences
Dario Neri was born in Rome on 1 May 1963, but grew up in Siena (Italy). He studied Chemistry at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and earned a PhD in Chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), under the supervision of Professor Kurt Wüthrich (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2002). After a post-doctoral research internship (1992-1996) at the Medical Research Council Centre in Cambridge (UK), under the supervision of Sir Gregory Winter (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2018), he became professor at ETH Zürich in 1996. Dario Neri is currently Full Professor of Biomacromolecules at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich. The research of the Neri group focuses on the engineering of therapeutic antibodies for the therapy of cancer and other angiogenesis-related disorders and on the development of DNA-encoded chemical libraries. Dario Neri is a co-founder of Philogen (www.philogen.com), a Swiss-Italian biotech company which has brought various antibody products into multicenter clinical trials for the treatment of cancer and of chronic inflammatory conditions. Dario Neri has published more than 400 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is the recipient of the ISOBM Abbott Prize 2000, of the Amgen-Dompe’ Biotec Award 2000, of the Mangia d’Oro 2001, of the Prous Award 2006 of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry, of the Robert-Wenner-Prize 2007 of the Swiss Cancer League, of the SWISS BRIDGE Award 2008, of the Prix Mentzer of the French Medicinal Chemistry Society in 2011, of the Phoenix Prize 2014 and of an ERC Advanced Grant in 2015.

Senior Group Leader, Assay Development, Research & Development
Cell biologist at Eurofins DiscoverX overseeing development of cell-based assays for drug discovery and pharmacology, across multiple therapeutic areas and target classes.

Group Leader, Lab of Macromolecules & Interactomes
Dr. John LaCava is an NIH-funded investigator, Research Faculty member at The Rockefeller University, and a Group Leader at the European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing. He focusses on the development of affinity proteomic methods to capture and characterize endogenous macromolecules – lately pursuing molecular pathophysiology and associated perturbations in protein interaction networks.

CEO
Dr. Markus Hildinger (CEO, evitria AG) has over 25 years of experience in engineering and production of antibody-based therapeutics. Recognizing the need for fast and cost-effective generation of antibodies, he founded evitria AG in 2010. Today, his company reaches customers around the globe, serving a broad range of clients from academia to global biopharmaceutical companies. Dr. Hildinger has published more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles and is co-inventor on numerous patents and patent applications.

CSO
Since 2012 Maria Gonzalez-Pajuelo is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at FairJourney Biologics, a company that provides fast and high quality solutions for monoclonal antibodies needs. Maria initiated her career in the antibody field in 2006 at Ablynx, where she worked on the identification of Nanobodies® as Scientist-Team leader until 2012. Maria is co-inventor in 13 patent applications on antibodies and on antibodies technologies and co-author on 13 Peer Reviewed Publications.

Chief Developmentelopment Officer
Bob Valamehr is the Chief Development Officer at Fate Therapeutics, overseeing the company’s early development activities including “off-the-shelf” cell therapy products derived from the company’s induced pluripotent stem cell platform. Previously, Dr. Valamehr was the Vice President of Cancer Immunotherapy at Fate and prior to that played key scientific roles at Amgen, the Center for Cell Control (a NIH Nanomedicine Development Center) and the Broad Stem Cell Research Center developing novel methods to control pluripotency, to modulate stem cell fate including hematopoiesis and to better understand cellular signaling pathways associated with cancer. He has co-authored numerous studies and patents related to stem cell biology, oncology and materials science. Dr. Valamehr received his Ph.D. from the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA, his M.B.A. from Pepperdine University and his B.S. from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA.

Biologist
No bio available

Commissioners Fellow & Biologist, Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research
Dr. Jankowski is a research reviewer with the US Food and Drug Administration in the Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies. He is part of an active research laboratory and his research interests lie in the regulatory-science associated with the licensure of the next generation of therapeutic proteins. A key focus of his research activities has been to understand the immune response to protein therapeutics, which can significantly affect the efficacy and safety of these drugs. He uses a combination of computational, in vitro and ex vivo approaches in his work. Dr. Jankowski received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University, NJ and was subsequently selected for the highly competitive Commissioner’s Fellowship program at the FDA. His research has been published in high impact journals such as Nature and Nature Chemical Biology.

Acting Deputy Associate Director Research, Plasma Protein Therapeutics
Chava Kimchi-Sarfaty currently leads a group at the FDA within the Division of Plasma Protein Therapeutics, Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies (OTAT) that investigates various blood coagulation factors with a specific focus on the genetic determinants of coagulation factor biosynthesis and structure. She is also the Acting Deputy Associate Director for Research of the Office. She reviews and chairs pre-INDs, INDs and BLAs for recombinant proteins and plasma derivatives products such as von Willebrand factor, ADAMTS13, factor VIII, FIX, thrombin and fibrinogen.

Medical Officer, Clinical Evaluation & Pharmacology, Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research
No bio available

Chemist
Dr. Kong has been a biologics quality and immunogenicity reviewer with the Office of Biotechnology Products, Center for Drugs- FDA since 2017. He received his PhD on Structure-Based Vaccinology in 2010 from the University of Oxford, Oxford, England, UK. Since joining the FDA, Dr. Kong has accrued regulatory experience in reviewing innovator biologics and serves as an active member of the Immunogenicity Working Group in the Office of Biotechnology Products.

Research Chemist
Dr. Perry G. Wang worked in the pharmaceutical and medical-device industry from 2000 to 2008. He received his Ph.D. degree at Oregon State University. Dr. Wang currently works at FDA as a chemist. In addition to over twenty peer-reviewed publications, he has edited and co-edited five books: "High-Throughput Analysis in the Pharmaceutical Industry", "Monolithic Chromatography and Its Modern Applications", "Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography (HILIC) and Advanced Applications", "Counterfeit Medicines", and "High-Throughput Analysis for Food Safety". His expertise focuses on high throughput analysis and validation by LC-MS. He prepares and teaches this course in his own capacity but not as an employee of the FDA. He has been invited to teach this course at ASMS since 2015.

CEO
Dr. François-Thomas Michaud co-founded and became CEO of Feldan in 2007 while completing his PhD degree in chemical engineering at Laval University. Through the years, Dr. Michaud and his team worked on a research project that led to the inception of a cell-penetrating proprietary technology, the Feldan Shuttle. This technology, which gives access to a wide range of intracellular therapeutic targets, has the potential to bring a whole new class of therapies to the clinic. Over the years, Dr. Michaud’s value-creating vision shaped the business model of the company, at the center of which resides the Feldan Shuttle. Through his leadership, exceptional human qualities and determination, Dr. Michaud has successfully built in Québec City a sustainable organization that today stands alongside biopharmaceutical global leaders. In addition to position itself as one of the top Canadian SMI-biotech leaders, Dr. Michaud is actively engaged in the business, academic and entrepreneurial communities of the Province of Québec as an administrator, speaker and mentor.

CSO
Dr. Maureen O’Connor-McCourt brings her TGF-beta expertise, which began in her post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Drs. Michael Sporn and Anita Roberts, to Forbius as Chief Scientific Officer. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including over 50 publications in the TGF-β field. Maureen is an expert in the discovery and development of targeted biological therapies. Prior to joining Forbius, Maureen was Principal Research Officer and Section Leader at the Canadian National Research Council (NRC). While at NRC, Maureen served as a Scientific Leader of NRC's Biologics Program, a pan-Canadian network of over 10 research teams. Under her leadership, this program established a successful track record in developing innovative protein therapeutics.

Senior Research Scientist, Clinical Research
My research has always been at the interface of biophysics and immunology and has focused on developing new platform technologies that empower both basic scientists and clinicians to bring new biologics into the clinic. Supporting this I co-developed a robust lentiviral-based protein expression platform called Daedalus, which has completely revolutionized the speed at which we can bring new protein-based biologics into and through preclinical studies. Using this platform, I founded the Molecular Design and Therapeutics Core, which brings these technologies to every investigator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. I now support over a dozen preclinical pipelines with novel, custom-engineered proteins ranging from novel antibody therapeutics to knottin-based peptide-drug conjugates. I now have over 12 years of experience in protein engineering and biophysics, and 5 years of experience managing a highly productive, mammalian protein expression core, which provides not only next generation proteins to investigators but also a rich training environment for research technicians, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Currently I lead multiple immunotherapy drug discovery efforts that involve antibody discovery and engineering for CAR- T cell and bispecific therapies.

Principal Scientist/PM, Team Leader Preclinical Technology and Optimization Team, Center for Advanced Preclinical Research
Internationally recognized expert in advanced methodologies for developing genetically and biologically engineered preclinical murine disease models for studies of the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis, tumor immune response, immune surveillance, and inflammation, mechanisms of drug resistance, implication of cancer stem cells, etc.; and to explore such models for preclinical drug development, disease systems analyses and biomarker discovery. Initiated, supervised, and successfully conducted multiple research projects and independent large-scale research and development programs aimed at investigation of molecular mechanisms governing carcinogenesis, biomarker discovery and preclinical drug evaluation in various mouse models. Oversees the preclinical technology development operations at the Frederick National Laboratory Center for Advanced Preclinical Research – an innovative preclinical cancer modeling and drug development initiative based on genetically engineered murine models – with senior management responsibilities. Co-authored over 70 scientific papers, book chapters and original works in peer-reviewed journals.

CTO
Richard Buick has more than 20 years’ experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and has a PhD in Immunology from Queen’s University Belfast. He joined Fusion Antibodies as a Director and was appointed CTO in 2011, managing all scientific projects and patent portfolios. Fusion Antibodies was admitted to the London Stock Exchange in 2017 and Richard has been expanding the company’s service areas including affinity maturation by in silico design and antibody discovery by B-cell cloning.

Head, Professional Services, Genedata Expressionist
Arnd Brandenburg joined Genedata in 2005 and is heading the Professional Services team of the Expressionist business unit. Before joining Genedata, Arnd worked as a theoretical physicist at DESY, Hamburg, doing research in particle physics and cosmology. He did his PhD in physics at the university of Heidelberg and is a lecturer for bioinformatics and systems biology at the university of Freiburg.

Senior Scientific Consultant, Biologics
Amanda Fitzgerald leads a team of scientific consultants at Genedata, who provide solutions for organizations with large molecule and data management needs. She received her doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and has pharmaceutical industry experience in biotherapeutic discovery and production groups, including scientific support for strategic alliances and development of a high-throughput protein production platform at Pfizer.

COO
Takashi is COO of GeneFrontier Corporation (GFC) since 2010. Takashi got his PhD for the research of cell-free protein expression system at Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2000 and joined in VC in life science industry. At 2003, Takashi was involved in establishment of GFC and fully committed to business development of GFC from the beginning.

Senior Staff Scientist & Senior Director Antibody Engineering
Paul Carter is a Senior Director and Staff Scientist in the Antibody Engineering Department at Genentech, Inc. His research interests focus on creating new antibody technologies and applying them to develop future generations of antibody therapeutics. His accomplishments in drug development include initiating the antibody humanization program at Genentech. He is a co-inventor of 5 antibodies that have entered clinical development including one that later became a commercial product (Herceptin). He is a co-inventor of “knobs-into-holes” technology used to create a one-armed antibody and at least 4 bispecific antibodies that have entered clinical development. He also invented technology for high-level antibody fragment expression in E. coli including a Fab fragment that subsequently became a commercial product (Lucentis). He is an inventor or co-inventor on at least 43 issued US patents. He has published more than 100 scientific publications that together have been cited >15,500 times. He received a BA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and his Ph. under Sir Gregory Winter, PhD and FRS at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. James A. Wells at Genentech. He has over 30 years of experience in biotechnology including Genentech (1986-2000 and 2010-present), Immunex/Amgen (2000-2003), Seattle Genetics (2003-2008) and VLST (2008-2009). His professional experience also includes heading the postdoctoral programs at Genentech, Immunex and Amgen.

Scientist, Cell Biology
No bio available

Senior Scientific Manager, Antibody Engineering
Avinash Gill received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Structural Biology from Dartmouth College and completed his post-doctoral research at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. In his previous roles, he has worked at ImmunoGen, Bio-Architecture Lab and Sutro Biopharma. His research interests include protein purification, biochemical assay development, protein engineering, affinity analysis, automated process development and bioinformatics. Currently he is Sr. Scientific Manager in the Antibody Engineering department at Genentech where he oversees efforts in automated high-throughput protein production, design, implementation and maintainence of automated workflows for antibody discovery and engineering, as well as software development for efficient process management. His research group focuses on developing and implementing automated high-throughput technologies for production and characterization of naturally derived and engineered antibodies, antibody fragments as well as other novel therapeutic formats.

Postdoc Scientist
Dr. Junttila joined Genentech in 2006. Currently his research is focused in developing Genentech’s T cell dependent bispecific (TDB) antibodies and he is responsible of multiple CD3-bispecific molecules in various stages, ranging from early stage research to clinical development.

Scientist, Antibody Engineering
JT received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California Berkeley where he developed novel protein engineering strategies for viral gene therapy. He then completed a post-doc with Jim Wells at the University of California San Francisco where he developed a novel structure-based design platform to generate phospho-specific antibodies. At Genentech, he works in the collaborative environment to discover novel biology and transformative drugs. Our goal is to advance new therapies to patients by tackling challenging targets and engineering around drug delivery barriers.

Director & Senior Scientist, Antibody Engineering
Greg Lazar received his BS in Molecular & Cell Biology and Chemistry from Penn State, his PhD in Molecular & Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and did postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, UK.  Previously he led research groups at Eli Lilly and Xencor.  Currently he is Director and Senior Scientist in Antibody Engineering at Genentech where he oversees antibody technology platforms, high-throughput protein production, and infrastructure for automation, software, and informatics.  His research group is focused on the development of novel antibody technologies to enable next generation therapeutics to treat unmet medical needs in oncology and neuroscience.

Senior Scientist, Early Stage Cell Culture
I am a senior scientist at the Cell Culture department in Genentech. I have been in this role since 2010. My research involves improving/innovating processes that result in generation of cell lines expressing bio-therapeutics (proteins and antibodies used as drugs) that grow better and yield higher titers with better product quality attributes. Bachelor: University of California Berkeley, Molecular and Cell Biology. PhD: Harvard University, in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Post-doctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Post-doctoral fellow at Genentech.

Lead Automation Scientist, BioMolecular Resources
Idris Mustafa is a Lead Automation Scientist and Software Architect, currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, leading departmental automation efforts within the Biomolecular Resources Organization at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. Idris has spent the last 10 years bridging the gap between drug discovery and technology using advanced control machines, building custom algorithms, and expanding his breadth of knowledge. He has also dedicated much of his career to creating software products that increase efficiency in the lab and change the face of the way robots, databases and people interact. Idris' research is at the cutting edge of liquid-handling robotics innovation; leveraging 3D-printing technologies and machine learning concepts to drive productivity. Idris believes his "Faith in God and passion to optimize the human condition", will inevitably lead to future breakthroughs in the world of science and technology.

Senior Scientist, Assay Developmentelopment & Technology
Dr. Kate Peng received her Ph.D. in metabolic biology from the University of California Berkeley.  Following her post-doctoral training at Berkeley, Dr. Peng worked at biotechnology industry with a focus on developing cell-based methods for high-throughput screening of drug candidates targeting GPCRs. Dr. Peng joined Genentech in 2007 and is currently a Group Leader/Senior Scientist in the Department of BioAnalytical Sciences.  Her focus is on development of bioanalytical strategies and methods to enable assessment of the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, immunogenicity of protein therapeutics from early development to clinical as well as post-marketing stages.  Dr. Peng has led bioanalytical effort for supporting the development of protein therapeutics that target cancer immunotherapy, immunology, neurology and cardiovascular disease areas.

Senior Scientific Researcher
Wendy is a principal scientist at Genentech. She leads the Translational Mass Spectrometry group within the research organization. Her group focuses on mass spectrometry-based strategies to help elucidate protein structure and function. She has a particular interest in native mass spectrometry and it's evolving role in the biopharmaceutical industry. During her more than twenty years at Genentech Wendy has co-authored 70 papers and edited two books, and is happy that she continue to learn new things every day.

Scientist
I am generally interested in how protein structural dynamics drives biological activity and using this information to make better drugs and more stable formulations. Mass spectrometry has proven to be a terrific tool for many questions related to these aims. Currently, my group focuses on applications MS to enable covalent drug discovery and as projects progress in the research portfolio, we use hydrogen exchange measurements in a variety of ways to enhance structure-based drug design and SAR efforts. I graduated from North Carolina State University with a B.S. in Biochemistry in 2006 and obtained my Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in 2013 from the University of Pennsylvania. I completed an industrial post-doc at Genentech in 2016 and liked it so much I decided to stay.

Senior Scientist, Discovery
Dr. Manzhu Kang received her Ph. D. from the University of California Los Angeles, with a dissertation focusing on the impact of combinatorial therapy on the evolution of drug resistance. Dr. Kang is a senior scientist of antibody research group at GenScript ProBio. She is in charge of the single B cell screening platform for antibody drug discovery.

Field Application Scientist Manager, CPBU
Sean is currently working at GenScript USA Inc as Manager of Field Application Scientist. He has over sixteen years of research, scientific writing and collaborative experience with the life scientists, and over eleven years of experience in education in the life science community in the best practices for experimental design and data analysis in common research techniques and lab equipment. Sean holds a Ph.D degree and a Masters of Business Administration degree from McGill University, Montreal, PQ.

Head, Bioanalytics
After obtaining her PhD from the University of London in 2001, Claire Davies performed her postdoctoral work at the William Harvey Research Institute (WHRI) at Bart’s and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry and Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston. Over the last 16 years, Dr Davies has led analytical and CMC teams in product development and analytical method development and validation. Currently, Dr Davies leads Bioanalytics, a group responsible for developing methods and strategies to support process development, product characterization and release and stability testing for therapeutic proteins and gene therapy products in preclinical and clinical development.

Professor & Director, Oncology, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Cneter
Dr. Louis Weiner is director of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of 49 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States. He holds the Francis L. and Charlotte G. Gragnani Chair and is professor of oncology and chair of the Department of Oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center. He also serves as the Director of the MedStar Georgetown Cancer Institute, a cancer service line serving patients in the Washington DC and Baltimore metropolitan areas. He is responsible for the operation and development of the cancer center, including its research, clinical, and educational missions. The clinical mission includes leading the MedStar-Georgetown Cancer Network in the metropolitan Washington area. Weiner is known for his laboratory and clinical research focusing on new therapeutic approaches that mobilize the patient’s immune system to fight cancer using monoclonal antibodies and other modalities of therapy. His current research focuses on identifying and therapeutically exploiting mechanisms employed by malignant cells to combat immune destruction. Prior to joining Georgetown Lombardi as director in 2008, Weiner served as chairman of the medical oncology department and vice president for translational research at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, and also served as professor in the department of medicine at Temple University School of Medicine. He is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and founded the AACR Cancer Immunology Working Group. He has served as chair of the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors for Clinical Sciences and Epidemiology and as a member of the NCI Clinical Trials Advisory Committee (CTAC). He also served on the NCI’s blue ribbon panel working group on immunotherapy for the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative and the Advisory Panel of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Research (CSR), which administers NIH research grants. He is recipient of the 2019 AACR Distinguished Public Service Award. Weiner earned his bachelor degree in biology with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. After completing his internship, residency, and service as chief medical resident at the University of Vermont’s Medical Center Hospital, he held clinical and research fellowships in hematology and oncology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.

Investigator, BPRD CI
No bio available

Team Leader, Molecular Design & Engineering
Carlos R. Reis has been working in the Protein Engineering field for over 15 years. During this time, he has worked with several small and large biotech companies at different stages of product development, from discovery to manufacturing. His primary focus has been on protein therapeutics, antibody structure-function relationships, protein and antibody design and developability assessment of biologics during early discovery. He is currently a group leader in Antibody Engineering at GSK located in Stevenage, UK, working at the interface between discovery and development on new protein engineering strategies and technologies to optimize the developability profile of candidate molecules and accelerate their development. Carlos R. Reis received his PhD in Mathematics and Natural Sciences from the University of Groningen, NL, and completed his postdoctoral training in computational biology and cell engineering at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, USA. His main contributions include the development of novel computational protein design methods to generate potent and selective anti-cancer therapeutics targeting TNFR members, the discovery of new regulatory links between therapeutics and endocytic trafficking and the design of novel effector-based protein engineering strategies to restore self-tolerance in autoimmunity. He is passionate about science, mentorship and applying innovative protein design principles to engineer effective therapies that can potentially save lives.

SVP R&D Goverance Chair, and Therapeutic Area Head for Oncology
Dr. Axel Hoos is Senior Vice President, R&D Governance Chair, and Therapeutic Area (TA) Head for Oncology at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK). He is responsible for discovery and development in Oncology with focus on immuno-oncology, epigenetics, cell therapies and genetic medicine. As R&D governance chair he oversees technical and funding review committees. He returned GSK to Oncology after the divestment of its marketed medicines to Novartis in 2015 and is responsible for GSK's Oncology portfolio focusing on innovative medicines to deliver transformational benefit to patients. Recent portfolio expansion included the acquisition of Tesaro, a co-development partnership with Merck-Serono, and the in-licensing of the first cell therapy active in solid tumors from Adaptimmune. Dr. Hoos also serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sabin Vaccine Institute (SVI), a Global Health organization, Director on the Board of Imugene, a biotech company, Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) and Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI). His efforts focus on novel therapies for life-threatening diseases, scientific and technical innovation, and business and scientific collaboration. Through his leadership a paradigm for the development of cancer immunotherapies has been defined, which helped launch the field of Immuno-Oncology (Nat. Rev. Drug Discovery 2016, 15(4):, 235-47). Previously, Dr. Hoos was the Global Medical Lead in Immunology/Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where he developed Yervoy (Ipilimumab), the first life-extending therapy and the first checkpoint inhibitor drug in Immuno-Oncology. The discovery of ipilimumab’s scientific mechanism was honored with the Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine to Dr. James Allison in 2018. Before BMS, Dr. Hoos was Senior Director of Clinical Development at Agenus Bio (previously Antigenics), a biotech company. Dr. Hoos holds an MD from Ruprecht-Karls-University and a PhD in molecular oncology from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) both in Heidelberg, Germany. He trained in surgery at the Technical University in Munich and further in surgery, molecular pathology and tumor immunology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He is an alumnus of the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.

Founder & Director
Dr. Juan C. Almagro is an internationally recognized expert in engineering and development of antibody-based therapeutics. In part with support from the National Science Foundation, he founded GlobalBio to provide collaborative services in the areas of discovery, optimization and development of biotherapeutics. Prior to founding GlobalBio, he was a Senior Director at Pfizer and Research Fellow and Head of Antibody Design at Johnson and Johnson. Before joining the Pharma/Biotech industry, Dr. Almagro was Visiting Scientist at Florida International University, Affiliated Visiting Scientist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Visiting Professor at Simon Fraser University and Associate Professor and Group Leader at The National University of Mexico. He has authored over 70 publications, encompassing more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 6 book chapters, and 20 international patents. Dr. Almagro serves as reviewer in Immunology and Protein Engineering journals, as well as for grant agencies in several countries. He has participated in the Scientific Advisory Boards of several Biotech companies, has chaired and given talks and lectures at major domestic and international scientific meetings, and has been expert witness in several Intellectual Property litigations between large biopharma organizations.

Glycotope Service Division
Lars Stöckl joined Glycotope in 2005 and besides other tasks was responsible for the establishment of the GlycoExpress plattform and for setting up the glyco-analytical lab. Since January 2020 he heads the service department of Glycotope. Before the appointment at Glycotope he gained experience in cell line engineering and protein chemistry during his PhD and Postdoc at the Robert Koch-Institute /Berlin, the Charite / Berlin and the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research / London.

CSO
Karin Jooss, Ph.D. has served as our Executive Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer since April 2016. Prior to Gritstone, from May 2009 to April 2016, Dr. Jooss served as head of cancer immuno-therapeutics in the vaccine immuno-therapeutics department at Pfizer, Inc., or Pfizer, a public pharmaceutical company, where she was also a member of the vaccine immuno-therapeutics leadership team and served as head of the immuno-pharmacology team. Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Jooss served as vice president of research at Cell Genesys, Inc., or Cell Genesys, from June 2005 to April 2009, and as senior director of research at Cell Genesys from July 2001 to June 2005. She is on the editorial board of Molecular Therapy and the Journal of Gene Medicine and is a member of the Immunology and Educational Committee of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy and the Industry Task Force of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer. Dr. Jooss received her diploma in theoretical medicine from the University of Marburg in Germany, a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Marburg in Germany and performed postgraduate work in gene therapy and immunology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Vice President Antibody Therapeutics
Dr. Jonah Rainey is currently the Vice President for the Antibody Therapeutics department at Gritstone Oncology. Previously, he was the CEO of Oriole, a consulting and research organization focused on discovery through early development of biologic in San Diego. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Tufts University and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin and the Salk Institute. He has been actively engaged in discovery, research, and development of bispecific antibodies in a biotech setting for 12 years. He is an inventor on several patents and applications describing novel bispecific platforms as well as current clinical candidates that exploit these platforms. Dr. Rainey led or had major contributions to research and early development of at least three current clinical candidates in phase 1 and 2, and led many additional advanced preclinical programs in oncology, infectious disease, autoimmunity, and other therapeutic areas. Industry experience spans small biotech (MacroGenics, MabVax) and large pharma settings (MedImmune/Astrazeneca).

Vice President Regulatory Affairs
Alex Bloom serves as VP Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance at Gyroscope Therapeutics, a UK-headquartered company focused on developing products and surgical delivery devices to preserve sight and fight the devastating impact of blindness. Gyroscope’s leads investigational gene therapy, GT005, is in development to treat the leading cause of blindness, dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD). Prior to Gyroscope, Alex has spent the past decade working on the development and regulation of cell and gene therapies. He has worked on over 40 ATMP programs, including as the regulatory lead for Holoclar®, the first stem cell-based medicine to receive approval in the West. Prior to working in Regulatory Affairs, Alex spent time in manufacturing and process development positions for recombinant protein products. He received his PhD from the University of Sheffield (UK).

Director, Marketing
After earning her Masters in Cell and Molecular Biology, Renee worked several years in drug discovery research at companies like Tularik (Amgen), Bayer, and Schering-Plough. She eventually left the bench to pursue more customer-facing roles in applications and product management for life science analytical tools. She is passionate about promoting new, innovative solutions to accelerate biopharmaceutical development, and her current role as Director of Marketing at Halo Labs enables her to do just that.

Vice President Biology
Dr. Xiaomai Zhou obtained his Ph.D. Degree from Dr. Lew Cantley’s Lab at Tufts University, and did his postdoctoral research in Dr. Joan Brugge’s Lab at ARIAD Pharmaceuticals. He has worked 12 years on ADC research at ImmunoGen, Inc., and 5 years on exploratory therapeutic antibodies at Boehringer Ingelheim. Dr. Zhou has been the Vice President at Hangzhou DAC Biotech in the past 6 years, leading the company's efforts in molecular and cell biology, antibody engineering and production processes, as well as cell-based ADC functional evaluation. He has been involved in leading a series of new ADC projects with the company’s intellectual properties. The first innovative ADC is in phase I clinical trials, and this presentation will be on the attractive features and promising results of the second ADC drug.

Robert Winthrop Professor, Genetics
George M. Church, PhD ’84, is professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, a founding member of the Wyss Institute, and director of PersonalGenomes.org, the world’s only open-access information on human genomic, environmental, and trait data. Church is known for pioneering the fields of personal genomics and synthetic biology. He developed the first methods for the first genome sequence & dramatic cost reductions since then (down from $3 billion to $600), contributing to nearly all “next generation sequencing” methods and companies. His team invented CRISPR for human stem cell genome editing and other synthetic biology technologies and applications – including new ways to create organs for transplantation, gene therapies for aging reversal, and gene drives to eliminate Lyme Disease and Malaria. Church is director of IARPA & NIH BRAIN Projects and National Institutes of Health Center for Excellence in Genomic Science. He has coauthored 450 papers, 105 patents, and one book, “Regenesis”. His honors include Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science, the Time 100, and election to the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

Assistant Professor, Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology
Andrew Kruse an Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard, he completed doctoral training with Brian Kobilka at Stanford University where he studied neurotransmitter receptor structure and pharmacology. Research in the Kruse lab focuses on structure and mechanisms of transmembrane signaling proteins, with a particular emphasis on the development and application of antibody fragments as tools to study signaling receptors. Dr. Kruse is the recipient of a Smith Family Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research, a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship, a Vallee scholar award, and an NIH Director’s Early Independence Award.

Instructor, Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology
I received a PhD in pharmaceutical Sciences from Northeastern University, and postdoc fellowship training at Harvard Medical School. Currently, I’m a group leader at Brigham and Women’s hospital in the Engineering in Medicine Division, Department of Medicine.

Vice President ADC Research, Cell Biology & Biochemistry
Dr. Torsten Hechler is the Vice President ADC Research and as such Head of Biochemistry, Bioanalytics and Cell Biology at Heidelberg Pharma Research GmbH, a pharma company located near Heidelberg (Germany), mainly conducting research and development of anti-cancer drugs. He obtained his diploma degree in biology in 2003 followed by a PhD in microbiology at the Technical University Darmstadt. For his postdoctoral studies at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg he switched in 2008 the field towards virology. In 2011 he joined the team of Heidelberg Pharma as a group leader and started his work on the development of new ADCs based on the RNA polymerase II inhibitor alpha-Amanitin. He is currently responsible for the ADC Research at Heidelberg Pharma with focus on the development of new Amanitin based ADCs for clinical development.

Research Group Leader, Recombinant Protein Expression
I am a Biochemist and did my PhD in Biotechnology in Amsterdam at the Free University. Since 1990 I developed my career in protein expression and purification, starting at the German Research Institute for Biotechnology (GBF) in Braunschweig Germany investigating gene expression and biochemical engineering. After the renaming of the institute into the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) my research focus changed to integrative structural biology. I am currently Head of the Protein Sample Production Facility (PSPF) at the HZI and Research Group Leader for recombinant protein expression.

Director, Center for Cellular Immunotherapies, Translational & Correlative Studies Lab
In 1998 Dr. Lacey moved to the Beckman Institute of the City of Hope, where, as an Associate Research Professor and Principal Investigator in Don Diamond’s Laboratory of Translational Vaccine Research, he studied viral and tumor immunity. During this period he was the recipient of investigator awards from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, NIAID and NIDDK. In 2010, he assumed the Directorship of the Clinical Immunobiology Studies Laboratory at the Beckman Institute. In 2012 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently Director of the Translational and Correlative Studies Laboratory. The TCSL supports numerous Phase I and II trials of engineered cellular therapies for cancer, infectious and autoimmune disease by performing molecular, cellular and biochemical assays on manufactured cellular products and on patient samples.

Director Protein Products & Assays
Dennis Karthaus received his master`s degree in biotechnology from the Univ. of Applied Sciences in Bremerhaven. During his thesis he worked on the development of protein purification platforms and in cell line development. In 2012, Dennis Karthaus joined IBA Lifesciences. He's leading the department for protein purification & assays and is responsible for the development of products & technologies for protein expression, purification and analysis.

Key Account & Technology Officer
No bio available

Researcher Cancer Virotherapy, Cancer & Human Molecular Genetics
Ramon Alemany did his PhD in Biology at the University of Barcelona. Since 1993, he held postdoctoral positions at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Baxter Healthcare, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 2001, he joined the Catalan Institute of Oncology/Institute of Biomedical Research of Bellvitge. He is author of numerous papers on oncolytic adenoviruses, co-founder of VCN Biosciences, and former President of the Spanish Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.

CSO
Bruce received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and pharmacology from Tufts University School of Medicine and his B.S. in Chemistry from Washington University in St Louis. He is a co-inventor on more than 35 U.S. patents and patent applications, and he has a co-authored more than 55 scientific articles. Bruce brings to IGM more than thirty-five years of research, development and management experience in large and small biotechnology companies, including his extensive experience in many phases of early stage drug discovery and development. This experience spans target selection and discovery, in vitro biochemistry, in vivo efficacy models and all other aspects of the pre-clinical development of antibodies and proteins as therapeutic agents.

CSO
Bob Lutz serves as Chief Scientific Officer of Iksuda Therapeutics and has extensive experience in the development of antibody-based therapeutics. With more than 25 years’ experience, Bob was previously Vice President of Translational Research and Development at ImmunoGen, where he was responsible for all early-stage ADC development programs and directly the clinical pharmacology, biomarkers, pharmacology and toxicology departments. While at ImmunoGen, Bob was responsible for bringing multiple ADC candidates through development and was ImmunoGen’s research lead for the FDA-approved trastuzumab emtansine.

Chief Scientific Officer
An Song, Ph.D, is Senior Vice President of Development Sciences at Immune-Onc Therapeutics, Inc., accountable for translational development of Immune-Onc’s portfolio, including preclinical PKPD and toxicology evaluation, clinical pharmacology, bioanalytical and biomarker/diagnostic development and certain analytical aspects of technical development. Prior to Immune-Onc, An was a Senior Director in BioAnalytical Sciences at Genentech, where she led the Assay Development and Technology group for the company’s large molecule portfolio globally. During her 16-year tenure at Genentech, An contributed to, and oversaw 40+ IND/CTA and BLA/MAA regulatory filings for products including Rituxan@, Avastin®, Herceptin®, Lucentis ®, Kadcyla®, and Tecentriq®. Additionally, she played a significant role for the development and approval of Ocrevus®. An holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Nanjing University in China. She received her PhD. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Indiana University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in immunology at Stanford University. Upon completion of postdoctoral work in T-cell activation she joined Stanford as a Research Assistant Professor and as faculty of the Immunology Program. An has published a number of original manuscripts, review articles and book chapters, as well as contributed to several industry white papers on immunogenicity and antibody Fc effector function evaluation. She is an active member of American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientist (AAPS), having served as an executive member of the Biotech Section and the chair of Therapeutic Product Immunogenicity (TPI) Focus Group/Community.

President & CEO
Anton is a biomedical professional, scientist, innovator, entrepreneur and venture capitalist with more than 15 years of industry and academic experience in research and drug development. At ImmunoBiochem Corporation, Anton is leading the development of a new class of tumor microenvironment-targeted anti-cancer therapeutics. Anton was formerly the Director of Drug Development at Armour Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of anti-cancer therapeutics for prostate, breast and ovarian cancers. Throughout his career, Anton worked on R&D and consulting projects with several biopharmaceutical companies developing biological therapeutics and immunotherapies in oncology. Anton has expertise in cancer research, immunology, chemistry, regenerative medicine and gene therapy, and authored more than 25 peer-reviewed publications and patents. Anton obtained his PhD, MSc, and Hon. BSc degrees in medical biophysics, immunology, and biological chemistry at the University of Toronto, where he also completed postdoctoral work and his MBA at the Rotman School of Management. Anton was also a trainee of the CIHR Training Program in Regenerative Medicine (TPRM), Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network. Anton was a founding board member, and former CCO and organizing committee member of the Canadian Science Policy Centre (Toronto, ON) – a national organization promoting science policy in Canada. Anton has led several venture capital investments in biomedical and healthcare companies at GreenSky Capital.

Founder & CTO
Sofie Pattijn (CTO and founder, ImmunXperts) has over 20 years of experience in the field of immunogenicity assessment (vaccines and biotherapeutics) and in vitro assay development. She has extensive hands-on lab experience and has managed and coached several In Vitro teams over the last decade. From 2008 till 2013 she was Head of the In Vitro Immunogenicity group at AlgoNomics (Ghent, Belgium) and Lonza Applied Protein Services (Cambridge, UK). Prior to that, she worked at Innogenetics, Belgium for over 15 years.

Executive Vice President & CSO
Dr. Lamb was first to describe the association between relapse-free survival and gdT cell recovery in bone marrow transplant patients. For 26 years, most recently as Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cell Therapy Laboratory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Lamb developed the scientific support for gdT cell-based immunotherapies. Today, this work has brought us to the first clinical trials for allogeneic gdT cell therapy in leukemia patients undergoing haploidentical stem cell transplants and the first gene-modified gdT cell therapy for glioblastoma. Dr. Lamb currently directs clinical and translational research strategy and operations for Incysus Therapeutics.

Executive Director & Head, IO Antibody Research
Patrick Mayes, PhD, is Executive Director, Head of Biotherapeutic Research at Incyte. Dr. Mayes was previously Director of Biology and was an Early Development Leader for the Immuno-Oncology and Combinations discovery performance unit at GlaxoSmithKline. He has developed novel therapeutic antibodies which modulate innate and adaptive immune responses utilizing a variety of biotherapeutic platforms including Fc-engineered monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), bi-specific mAbs, domain antibodies (dAbs) and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and has initiated and lead programs combining immune targeted therapies as well as others combining immunotherapies with tumor targeted agents.

Executive Director Antibody Discovery
No bio available

Consultant
Dr. Lambert graduated from Christ’s College, University of Cambridge (England, UK), with a degree in Natural Sciences in 1972. He then went on to earn a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (1976) from the University of Cambridge, working on enzyme structures under the supervision of Professor Richard N. Perham. Dr Lambert’s postdoctoral training was at the University of California, Davis, working on ribosome structure in the laboratory of Dr Robert R. Traut (1976-1980), and at the University of Glasgow, Scotland working on the arom multienzyme complex in the laboratory of Dr John R. Coggins (1980-1982). In 1982, Dr. Lambert joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, working on the ImmunoGen-funded programs to develop antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and immunotoxins as anti-cancer therapeutics. Dr. Lambert joined ImmunoGen in 1987 when the company established independent research laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After working in a variety of roles at the company, Dr. Lambert served as Chief Scientific Officer from 2008 until 2015. In 2016, he became a Distinguished Research Fellow at the company until his retirement at the end of 2017. He served on the Executive Committee of the company as Executive Vice President, Research, from 2008 until 2016, followed by a year (2017) on the Executive Committee in an Emeritus capacity. During Dr Lambert’s tenure in leadership roles at ImmunoGen, the company invented the ADC technology that resulted in the Genentech/Roche drug, Kadcyla® (approved in 2013 for treating HER2+ breast cancer), as well as numerous other ADCs taken into clinical development. One of these is ImmunoGen’s promising drug candidate, mirvetuximab soravtansine, an ADC currently in a phase 3 trial for the treatment of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Dr Lambert is the author/co-author of over 120 peer-reviewed scientific publications. In 2016, Dr Lambert was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). In 2018, he was appointed as an Honorary Professor of Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK.

Professor, Chemistry
Martin F Jarrold obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Warwick in England, and then went to the University of California, Santa Barbara as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow. After several years in California, he joined the Physics Research Division of AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. In 1992, he moved to Northwestern University to become a Professor in the Chemistry Department. While at Northwestern he performed pioneering work on ion mobility mass spectrometry. In 2002 he moved to Indiana University as Professor and Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair. His recent work at IU has focused on developing charge detection mass spectrometry.

Asst Prof, Emergency Medicine
Dr. Alves received his PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. The research he conducts, while spanning many disciplines, is centered on the development of translational technologies, treatments, and techniques that can be utilized to have a positive impact on people’s lives. He has extensive experience in: site-specific antibody modification, oriented antibody immobilization for advanced diagnostics, nanoparticle delivery, and packaging of pharmaceutical agents/enzymes to treat various diseases. Currently, Dr. Alves is an Assistant Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine in the Department of Emergency Medicine with a joint appointment at Purdue in Biomedical Engineering. His multidisciplinary background affords him a unique perspective to tackle complex medical device and therapeutic development problems.

Founder
Dr. Bramhill has over 20 years’ experience in biologics, both in large biopharma and startup biotech companies. He has expertise in isolating and improving antibodies using phage display and other display systems and is an inventor on library design for small scaffolds and bi-specific formats. He also has experience in diverse expression systems for producing antibodies, antibody fragments and scaffolds. He has taught numerous technical courses for over 15 years at international conferences and served as a Key Opinion Leader for major BioPharma companies.

CEO & CMO
After an academic career as a transplant surgeon, RJ Tesi joined industry to develop novel therapies to manipulate the immune system; first focusing on immunosuppression and autoimmunity within the adaptive immune system and more recently on the innate immune system in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Tesi is the CEO and CMO of INmune Bio, a NASDAQ company (INMB).

Director, Research
Salvatore Valitutti, MD, former full professor of immunology at the University of Toulouse, France is Director of Research at INSERM. He has been working for more than twenty years on T lymphocyte activation by antigenic determinants displayed on antigen presenting cell (APC) surface and has acquired uncommon expertise on in vitro and in tissue study of human primary immune cells. Dr. Valitutti has been member of the Basel Institute for Immunology in Basel, Switzerland where he contributed to the understanding of basic mechanisms of T lymphocyte activation. More recently, in Lausanne (Switzerland) and in Toulouse (France), Dr. Valitutti has contributed to define the structure, dynamics and function of immunological synapses, formed by both helper and cytotoxic T cells. His research team develops, at the INSERM U1043 in Toulouse, a multi-disciplinary research program in which, biologists in collaboration with clinicians, computer scientists and mathematicians, investigate different aspects of the intercellular communication occurring at immunological synapses in human health and disease.

Vice President, Antibody Discovery
Ross Chambers is Vice President of Antibody Discovery at Integral Molecular. He pioneered the use of DNA immunization for antibody production and developed Integral Molecular’s B-cell cloning system for antibody isolation. Before joining Integral Molecular, Dr. Chambers was Director of R&D at SDIX, where he directed the discovery of thousands of commercial antibodies.

President & CEO
Ben Doranz (President and CEO, Integral Molecular) has expertise in membrane proteins and antibodies, with 80+ publications, in journals including Cell, Science, and Nature. Dr. Doranz cofounded the company and has led all aspects of the company’s growth since its inception, bringing five different technologies from research to market.

Head of Innovation, Innovation & Protein Engineering
Jonathan Davis, PhD is Head of Innovation at Invenra, Inc. Headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, Invenra is focused on discovery and development of human IgG-like multispecific antibodies for immuno-oncology and autoimmune disorders. A thought leader in the field of bispecific antibodies for over a decade, Dr. Davis has 18 years of industry experience (Bristol-Myers Squibb, EMD Serono) as a protein engineer and platform developer focusing on antibodies and multispecific biotherapeutics, covering a wide variety of therapeutic areas. Dr. Davis holds a PhD in biophysics from UC San Francisco, which he followed with a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

CEO & Founder
John McCafferty was one of the founders of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT, now Medimmune) in 1990 and published the first paper/patent describing antibody phage display. After 12 years at CAT he returned to academia at the Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge. In 2012 John formed IONTAS, a small innovative biotechnology company using phage display to develop novel antibody therapeutics. IONTAS have also developed a novel technology for construction of very libraries in mammalian cells by using CRISPR/Cas 9 and TALE nucleases to efficiently direct the integration of a library of antibody genes into single genomic locus within a population of cells.

Director, Regulatory Affairs
William leads the orphan drug unit within GRA and serves as the US Agent for multiple Investigation of New Drugs, New Drug Applications and Supplements. William provides strategic advice to clients on regulatory strategy, leads regulatory projects and specialty designation requests, provides CMC technical writing and reviews for new applications (INDs, NDAs, BLAs) in rare disease space; interacts with Regulatory Agencies (FDA, Heath Canada, etc.) He has also served as the Regulatory Project lead for numerous NDA 505(b)(2) applications approved by the US FDA. William has prepared NDA 505(b)(2), INDs, supplements and life cycle management submissions (in eCTD) with an emphasis in CMC for NDAs and INDs. He has provided RA Assessments for change control for pharmaceutical products ensuring regulatory compliance, as well as CMC strategies as they relate to new applications and supplements. He has completed GAP analyses as they relate to CMC content. William is familiar with the requirements for pharmaceutical labelling to ensure that it is sufficient for submission to FDA (container labels, package inserts and metadata for SPL format). He has knowledge of regulations in Asia Pacific and Latin America for both pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Director, Antibody Engineering, Bispecifics & CAR T
Raj Ganesan received his Ph.D. at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Raj is a Protein/Antibody engineer with extensive industry experience (Genentech, MedImmune and Boehringer Ingelheim) in the Design, Development and Characterization of Monoclonal Antibodies, Multi-Specific Biologics and CAR-T. Since 2017, Raj is leading the pre-clinical discovery of biotherapeutics at Janssen R&D (Johnson and Johnson), primarily focused on bispecific antibodies and CAR-T therapies.

PostDoctoral Research Fellow, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Elissa Leonard attended Harvery Mudd College, where she received her B.S. in Biomolecular Systems and Design, and developed novel bioreactor designs for corneal tissue engineering with Dr. Elizabeth Orwin. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin, where her research focus shifted to engineering therapeutically relevant autoimmune T cell receptors under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Maynard. Currently, Dr. Leonard is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where she has continued research in protein and immune engineering with Dr. Jamie Spangler. Currently, her work focuses on engineering antibody-cytokine fusion proteins that can shift the immune balance and promote anti-tumor or pathogen-clearing immune activity. She is also revisiting her regenerative engineering roots by engineering of growth hormones for applications in osteogenesis.

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Jamie Spangler earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and went on to complete a PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT under the supervision of Professor K. Dane Wittrup. She conducted postdoctoral training in Professor K. Christopher Garcia’s lab at Stanford University School of Medicine, and then launched her independent research group at Johns Hopkins University in July 2017, jointly between the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Spangler’s lab, located in the Translational Tissue Engineering Center at the School of Medicine, applies structural and mechanistic insights to re-engineer existing proteins and design new proteins that therapeutically modulate the immune response. In particular, her group is interested in engineering immune molecules such as antibodies, cytokines, and growth factors for targeted treatment of diseases such as cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders. Dr. Spangler’s work has been recognized with honors including a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Career Development Fellowship, a V Foundation Scholar award, and a Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund Discovery award.

Director, CAR T Site Liaison
Jean joined Johnson and Johnson in 2008 after more than 20 years in the health care industry, at a university based medical institution, developing cell-based therapies. During that time, she was responsible for leading the integration of cell and gene therapy regulations into J&J’s internal quality standards. She developed internal training programs to educate organizations within the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Sectors of J&J. She also played a key role in the development of J&J’s compliance strategies relating to cell-based products. Jean’s responsibilities included; the deployment and maintenance of the R&D compliance program for all GMP aspects within J&J’s Pharmaceutical Sector and the development of the quality and compliance strategies to support all new platforms that are in-licensed or developed within the Sector. More recently, Jean assumed a new role in Apheresis Operations, supporting cell collections used in CAR-T manufacturing and leading internal efforts to build organizational infrastructure in support these novel products.

CMO
Elizabeth (Beth) G. Tréhu, M.D, FACP, is Chief Medical Officer of Jounce Therapeutics, a clinical stage immuno-oncology company dedicated to transforming the treatment of cancer by matching the right immunotherapy to the right patient. Dr. Tréhu designed and conducted her first cancer immunotherapy clinical trials in the early 1990s as an assistant professor and translational researcher at Tufts University School of Medicine, where her research focused on reducing the toxicity of high dose interleukin-2. She has held oncology leadership positions in drug development from IND through post-marketing at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Genzyme Corporation, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, and Promedior, Inc. and joined Jounce in 2015 to build and lead the clinical organization.

Graduate Student
Julija Mezhyrova studied Biochemistry at the Goethe University Frankfurt and gained additional practical experience at the Paul Ehrlich Institute in Darmstadt and at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She is currently working on her PhD thesis at the Goethe University Frankfurt at the Institute of Biophysical Chemistry. Focus of her thesis is the characterization of bacteriolytic phage proteins, being promising targets for future antibiotic development and for industrial applications in the vaccination of livestock.

Associate Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
Ho Leung Ng completed his BA at Harvard University, PhD at UCLA, and postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley in the areas of structural biology and crystallography. After leaving UC Berkeley, Dr. Ng worked with Brian Kobilka at ConfometRx on GPCR crystallography. Dr. Ng then moved to the University of Hawaii as an Assistant Professor and later to Kansas State University as Associate Professor. His current research focuses on experimental and computational structure-based drug design for GPCRs, nuclear receptors, and kinases. Dr. Ng is also interested in applications of machine learning for chemistry and drug design.

Senior Researcher, Medical Biochemistry & Biophysics
Susanne Gräslund did her doctoral training in Biotechnology at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. After her dissertation in 2002 she worked for three years at Biovitrum AB in the Target Expression & Purification section. In March 2005, Susanne joined the newly started Structural Genomics Consortium group in Stockholm, heading the Biotechnology team responsible for the generic protein production pipeline. She was then recruited to the SGC Toronto site as Principal Investigator for the Biotechnology team in September 2011. In 2015, SGC established a new lab at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm where Dr. Gräslund is now leading a new team to generate recombinant antibodies for target validation and research purposes.

Director, Particle Characterization Core Facility
Amber received her PhD in Chemical Engineering within the Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Program with a specialization in the field of immunogenicity of therapeutic protein aggregates at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Amber also holds a Masters in Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder plus a Bachelors of Science from the Colorado School of Mines. She currently holds the position of Director at KBI Biopharma where she manages the Particle Characterization Core which specializes in analytical methods for quantifying, characterizing and identifying submicron, subvisible and visible particulates. Previously, at Amgen, Amber was a Scientist within the biomolecular structures and interactions group where she supported biophysical characterization of protein products with a specialty in subvisible particle characterization and identification. Prior to Amgen, Amber’s experiences include analytical and formulation development for Merck & Co. and collaborations with BaroFold, Inc. to employ high hydrostatic pressure to refold proteins and control subvisible particles.

Vice President Translational Medicine
Adrian Bot, M.D., PhD is the Vice President of Translational Sciences at Kite, a Gilead Company. Kite is a biotechnology company developing genetically engineered T cell therapies, based in Los Angeles, CA. He has more than 20 years of experience in biomedical research and development. Dr. Bot obtained his M.D. at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Timisoara – Romania and his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Subsequently, he was a Guest Scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and Scientist, Principal Scientist and Director of Immunology Research at Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp. in San Diego. In Nov 2002, Dr. Bot joined Allecure Pharmaceuticals which became MannKind Corp, where he was a Director of Research and Development. He had several other appointments at MannKind: Sr. Director of Translational Medicine, Vice President of Scientific Management and Vice President of Research, prior to the appointment first as Chief Scientific Officer and then Vice President of Translational Sciences at Kite.

Specialist, Orbital Bioreactors
No bio available

Professor & Center Head
Dr. Alessandro Sette has devoted more than 30 years of study towards understanding the immune response, measuring immune activity, and developing disease intervention strategies against cancer, autoimmunity, allergy, and infectious diseases. The laboratory is defining in chemical terms the specific structures (epitopes) that the immune system recognizes and uses this knowledge to measure and understand immune responses.

Executive Vice President & Head
Prof. Paul W.H.I. Parren, (Lava therapeutics) is dedicated to translating antibody biology and immunotherapy knowledge into innovative therapeutics and technologies. Prof. Parren studied Biology at the University of Amsterdam where he obtained a M.Sc. in Experimental Oncology (cum laude) in 1987 and a PhD in 1992. Next, he was a Postdoc, Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in the department of Immunology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, where he interrogated the human antibody response in protection against viral infections. From 2002-2017, he served in the positions of Vice President, Senior Vice President and Scientific Director at the biotechnology company Genmab in Utrecht, where he headed preclinical R&D leading to the development of the approved therapeutic antibodies ofatumumab (Arzerra) and daratumumab (DARZALEX), and several clinically translated technologies aimed at improving antibody therapy including bispecific and effector-function enhanced antibodies. In 2015, he became a Professor of Molecular Immunology at the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden. Since 2018, he is EVP and head of R&D at the biotech Lava Therapeutics where he develops novel bispecificT-cell engagers for cancer therapy. He also provides drug development, patent and investment advice as an independent biotech consultant.

Senior Scientist & Group Leader
Dr. Coleman is a senior biomedical staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and an adjunct professor in the department of Radiation Oncology at University of California Davis School of Medicine and. He received his Ph.D. in molecular biochemistry and cellular biology from Boston University. Dr. Coleman has authored over 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals, published proceedings and book chapters covering a diverse breadth of molecular biology and biochemistry. He has over 19 years of experience in developing biotechnology and characterizing genomic responses of genotoxic stressors such as ionizing radiation.

Chief Business Development Office
Since earning his Ph.D. from University of Virginia, Dr. Jeiwook (Jei) Chae has conducted research both in academic and industry settings, gaining invaluable experience in many aspects of discovery research, animal models for human diseases, and preclinical therapeutic testing. His postdoctoral research at Harvard University was primarily focused on elucidating the mechanism underlying spreading RNAi signals between cells, especially related to cancer biology. His collaborative preclinical research with a leading RNAi therapeutics company, Alnylam, provided important insights for the clinical development of RNAi therapeutics. Subsequently, he joined Bioneer, where he served as Director of Research and conducted preclinical evaluations of a siRNA-based drug technology as well as research into RNAi pipelines involving multiple diseases. As Chief Business Development Officer and VP of Biology at LegoChem Biosciences Dr. Chae currently leads company’s scientific endeavors and has guided academic and industry collaborations, advancing clinical development of pipeline programs including antibiotics, anti-fibrosis, and Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC)-based cancer drugs. He has successfully executed transactions with Takeda/Millennium ($404M+ licensing and collaboration agreement for multi-target antibody-drug conjugate, Mar 2019) and Fosun Pharma (licensing agreement for HER2-targeted ADC, Aug 2015).The primary mission of Dr. Jei Chae and his colleagues in LegoChem Biosciences is to develop a clinically validated ADC drugs using ADC platform technology developed by the company including novel site-specific conjugation and proprietary cancer-selectively activated linker and payload.

Professor, Drug Delivery Technology
Wim Jiskoot is professor at the Division of BioTherapeutics at Leiden University (since 2006), the Netherlands, and scientific advisor at Coriolis Pharma, Martinsried, Germany (since 2013). His main research area is biologics formulation. He coedited 3 books about protein characterization and (co)authored over 300 scientific papers and book chapters.

Senior Researcher, Image Guided Surgery
Kees (short for Cornelis) is a molecular biologist especially focused on cell-cell interactions in cancer. He studied molecular biology in Amsterdam (NL) and obtained his PhD in 1993 at the Leiden University Medical Center, investigating the role of proteinases in cancer. After a post-doc in Leiden, he continued his work at the Università Vita Saluta San Raffaele in Milan (IT). In his Italian period, he visited the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan (IT) and the Finsen Laboratory, a basic cancer research unit in Copenhagen (DK). He returned to Leiden performing cancer-related research projects in the departments of Pathology, Gastroenterology, and Surgery. In 2010, Kees joined the Image-guided Oncologic Surgery group (Head, dr. Alexander Vahrmeijer) within the department of Surgery. His main focus is the evaluation of tumor markers as target for image-guided surgery and the subsequent development of tracers against selected candidates.

Principal Scientist Protein Expression Lab, Cancer Research Technology Program
I am currently leading the recombinant protein production efforts of the RAS Initiative at the Frederick National Laboratory in Frederick, MD.

Associate Director Translational Research
Dina Schneider, Ph.D., is a scientist and an inventor with over-15 years of experience in academia and industry. Dr. Schneider earned her Ph.D. from Michigan State University, and completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan. Her academic career spanned diverse areas of interest, including cellular and molecular immunology, immunotoxicology, inflammation, and molecular biology. In 2011, Dr. Schneider transitioned to industry, where she contributed to numerous projects in synthetic immunology, immunotherapy, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell-based therapy. Dr. Schneider leads the Translational Research group at Lentigen Technology, Inc., a Miltenyi Biotec Company, in Gaithersburg, MD. Her group is focused on pre-clinical development of novel CAR-based therapies targeting hematologic malignancies as well as solid tumors, and on the implementation of CliniMACS Prodigy® clinical platform for preparation of cell-based therapeutics. Her recent work includes the development of novel CAR therapies, three of which are now in clinical trials.

Research Advisor, Protein Biosciences
Steve leads a group at Lilly responsible for the design, engineering, and mechanistic characterization of proteins, antibodies, and antibody-like molecules. Prior to joining Lilly in 2011, Steve held positions at Biogen Idec, Diversa Corp, and Syngenta working as a Protein Chemist/Engineer on antibody and protein therapeutics design and biochemistry. Steve performed his graduate work at SUNY Stony Brook studying protein folding mechanisms. Steve was a NIH sponsored postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute studying the structure, folding, and binding of nuclear co-activator proteins.

Graduate Student, Pharmacy
Dennis Krieg is a pharmacist by training and Ph.D. student in the research group of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Winter at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. In his thesis, Dennis focuses on different aspects of protein co-formulations. His work includes the analytical characterization, formulation development, stability testing and interaction studies of co-formulations for therapeutically relevant cytokines, enzymes and antibodies.

Scientist II
Alexey Berezhnoy is a scientist in the Cell Biology and Immunology group at MacroGenics, Inc., which he joined in 2016 from a faculty position in the Department of Medicine University of Miami. Dr. Berezhnoy has been active in tumor immunology research for the past 10+ years, focusing on novel therapeutic approaches, including multi-specific molecules and tumor-targeted therapies. Dr. Berezhnoy has authored several high-impact publications in the field of immuno-oncology.

CSO & Senior Vice President Research
Ezio Bonvini joined MacroGenics in 2003 after a career at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA, where he last served as the Chief of the Laboratory of Immunobiology and the Acting Deputy Director of the Division of Monoclonal Antibodies. A physician by training, Dr. Bonvini is an expert in immunobiology and drug development, has authored numerous publications in the field of signal transduction, immunology and immune-oncology, and is an inventor on several patents.

Associate Director, Antibody Engineering
Gundo Diedrich received his PhD in Chemistry from the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. He completed his postdoctoral training in immunology at Yale University, and worked as a Research Scientist in antibody discovery at Targeted Molecules, diaDexus, and Medimmune. In 2015, he joined MarcoGenics as Director Antibody Engineering.

Vice President & Head, Biotherapeutics
Charlotte McDonagh joined Magenta Therapeutics in 2017 as Head of Biotherapeutics. She previously served as a vice president at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, where she led discovery and early clinical stage programs. Prior to joining Merrimack, she led therapeutic antibody selection and engineering projects at Seattle Genetics. Charlotte holds a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Leicester, U.K, and an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Bristol, U.K.

Tech Specialist, Nanosight
No bio available

Liaison, Scientific & Entrepreneurial Initiatives; Director, Innovation Services,
Lucie has over ten years of experience in conducting biomedical research. She trained in Rennes, France, at the National Center for Research (CNRS) and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). After graduating with her Ph.D., Lucie moved to the US to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Shriners Hospital (joint appointment) in Boston, Massachusetts. Committed to foster alliances between Academia and Industry, to facilitate the transfer of technology for the benefit of patients, Lucie joined the largest trade association for the life Sciences, MassBio in 2017 and is Director Innovation Services. Within MassBio, in the Innovation Services team, Lucie created and now leads the Academic outreach and Engagement initiatives. Her mission is to leverage MassBio’s community of members and experts with the goal to facilitate company creation and strategic alliances within academic institutions. Over the last two years, Lucie has built several working groups convening leaders from academia and industry, as well as mentoring programs for academic scientists and joined several advisory boards to foster entrepreneurship beyond the Boston region.

Professor in Residence
Soldano Ferrone received his MD and PhD degrees in 1964 and in 1971, respectively, from the University of Milan, Milan, Italy. He has held faculty positions at the University of Milan, Milan, Italy, Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, La Jolla, CA, Columbia University, New York, NY, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY and at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA. Since 2012 he is a faculty member of the Department of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Dr. Ferrone has received many awards and honors. For the last 30 years he has been the member of many review committees including NIH Study Sections, and of the editorial boards of many scientific journals. Furthermore, he is the member of several external scientific advisory boards. Dr. Ferrone’s research program focuses on the molecular characterization of escape mechanism(s) utilized by tumor cells to avoid immune recognition and destruction and on the development of combinatorial immunotherapeutic strategies to counteract the escape mechanism(s) utilized by tumor cells. These studies are greatly facilitated by the large panel of HLA antigen- and human tumor antigen-specific monoclonal antibodies he has developed and shared with the scientific community over the years. He has described the results of his studies in more than 600 papers published in peer reviewed journals. Moreover, he has been the editor of 14 books and the guest editor of 5 special issues of oncology journals.

Research Scientist
No bio available

Research Scientist
Dr. Chen is a surgeon, engineer, and multidisciplinary scientist with a career vision to improve human health. Dr. Chen is currently a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his M.D. degree and medical training (internship and surgical residency) in Taiwan before pursuing an academic path. Dr. Chen obtained his master’s degree in Biotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania and Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He finished his first postdoctoral fellowship in Biomaterial and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Chen recently finished his NIH-sponsored joint postdoctoral fellowship at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) under the co-mentorship of Dr. Timothy Lu (MIT) and Dr. Anthony Rosenzweig (MGH). Dr. Chen’s research is focusing on the development of platform technologies for precision biomanufacturing and cardiovascular translational medicine using genetic engineering and synthetic/systems biology approaches.

Professor, EleCenterical Engineering & Computer Science
David Gifford leads combined computational and experimental programs that apply machine learning to therapeutic development.  His laboratory has developed machine learning methods for designing the complementarity-determining regions of human antibodies that allows for the simultaneous optimization of antibody affinity and target specificity; the discovery of CRISPR gRNAs that can repair disease phenotype without a repair template; and the discovery of novel differentiation conditions to guide stem cells to desired therapeutic fates.   He is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, an Affiliate Member of the Whitehead Institute, and Affiliated Faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Research Scientist
No bio available

CP Dubbs Professor, Chemical Engineering & Bioengineering
Prof. Dane Wittrup attended the University of New Mexico as an undergraduate, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachlor’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.

Assistant Professor of Medicine & Oncology & Senior Consultant
Dr. Kenderian is a physician scientist in the departments of Hematology, Immunology and Molecular Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He is Assistant Professor of Medicine, Oncology and Immunology and he directs the T Cell Engineering Laboratory Program. He work is focused on the development of novel chimeric antigen receptor strategies to enhance their safety, efficacy and application of CART cell therapy and to develop next generation therapeutics. He is an author of over 50 scientific papers and several book chapters. He is an inventor on multiple patents in this field

Assistant Professor, Melanoma Medical Oncology Research
No bio available

Senior Scientist, Biosuperiors R&D
No bio available

Assistant Professor Surgery & Deputy Chief, Thoracic Services
Dr. Prasad Adusumilli is a thoracic surgeon in New York, New York and is affiliated with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He received his medical degree from Guntur Medical College NTR and has been in practice for more than 20 years.

Fellow
Allison Betof Warner, MD, PhD is an Assistant Attending Physician on the Melanoma Service and Early Drug Development Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Betof graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University and went on to graduate with her MD/PhD from the Medical Scientist Training Program at Duke University. She completed her PhD under the supervision of Drs. Mark Dewhirst and Lee Jones, studying the effects of exercise on tumor angiogenesis and chemotherapeutic efficacy. Dr. Betof went on to Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital then Medical Oncology Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she joined the faculty in July 2019. Her research explores how pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic modulations in tumor microenvironment affect tumor immunobiology and immunotherapy.

PostDoc Fellow, Center for Cell Engineering
Dr. Hamieh received his PhD from Rouen University in France. Currently, he is a research associate in Dr. Michel Sadelain lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. His work focuses on understanding the dynamics of CAR T cell anti-tumor response mainly mechanisms governing resistance to CAR T cell therapy and developing approaches to enhance engineered T cells against cancer.

Head, Larson Lab
Steven M. Larson, MD., FACNM, FACR is currently the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Chair; Attending, Molecular Imaging and Therapy Service, Department of Radiology; Co-Leader, Imaging and Radiation Sciences, Member, Laboratory Head, Molecular Pharmacology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Larson’s primary expertise is in radiolabeled drug development and radiopharmacology of diagnostic imaging and therapy in oncology using small molecules and monoclonal antibodies. Dual-boarded in nuclear medicine and internal medicine, his clinical skills center on oncology, cancer immunology, and clinical thyroid cancer. Dr. Larson has extensive experience as an advisor to public and private institutions, having served, among other appointments, as a member of what is now the MEDI grant review committee of NIH, the DOE Office of Science Advisory Committee, and the American Board of Nuclear Medicine, and as Chair of the Radiopharmaceutical Advisory Committee of the USFDA, Co-Chair of the National Research Council of the NAS Committee on Molybdenum-99 production with non-enriched Uranium 235, Chair of the Molecular Imaging Committee of RSNA, and Co-Chair of the Clinical Imaging Steering Committee of the NCI, and Chair of the NIH Clinical “Impact” Study Section, as well as a member of the Academy of Medicine. Dr. Larson has received numerous awards for excellence in nuclear medicine, including the Hevesy Award, Cassen Prize, Wiley Prize (US FDA), and the Saul Hertz Award of the Society of Nuclear Medicine USA. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academies of Science, USA.

Research Fellow
Brian was raised in northern California and got his bachelors degree in immunology at the University of California, Berkeley. Following this, he worked for two years as an IRTA postbac in the laboratory of Dr. Anthony Fauci, under the mentorship of Dr. Susan Moir, studying B-cell dysfunction in HIV and other primary immunodeficiencies. Brian received his PhD from the Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences under the co-mentorship of Drs. Morgan Huse and Nai-Kong Cheung. His thesis work focused on the structure-function relationship of different T-cell bispecific antibody designs. He now works as a research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, primarily studying T-cell bispecific antibodies and pre-targeted radioimmunotherapy strategies.

Associate Principal Scientist, PPDM
Kun Yang, Ph.D. is currently an Associate Principal Scientist at Regulated PK Bioanalysis within the Department of Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, and Drug Metabolism (PPDM) in Merck Research Laboratories. In PPDM BA, Kun is responsible for critical reagents generation and characterization strategy to support regulated preclinical and clinical studies for biologics and vaccines. In addition, he was a technical lead in the development and validation of bioanalytical assays at Merck. Kun has 10 years’ experience at leading pharmaceutical companies and was working on vaccines, small molecule, and biological drugs. Kun was responsible for the development of clinical and manufacturing processes for new therapeutic protein candidates. Kun’s technical expertise includes preclinical and clinical pharmacokinetics pharmacodynamics, absolute quantification of biologics molecules by immunocapture-LC/MS/MS and LBA in biological matrices to support PK for pre-clinical and clinical studies, and ADME. Kun also has extensive experience with bioprocess (from preclinical batch to clinical batch) including cell culture, purification and analytical characterization, process optimization, process characterization, process scale-up, technology transfer, validation, and biomanufacturing. Kun received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Director, Bioprocess Development
Zhimei Du earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University Medical College, Immunology Program, studying molecular mechanisms in tumor immunology and autoimmune disease areas. After graduation, she joined Robert G. Roeder’s laboratory at Rockefeller University, studying protein chemistry and epigenetic regulation mechanism. She was later recruited by Regeneron’s bi-specific antibody engineering group. Later, she joined Amgen’s Cell Sciences & Technology department, focusing on cell line and Upstream process development. She then joined Teva Pharmaceuticals building the Upstream development team and labs for innovative biologics pipelines. Currently she is the director of Bioprocess at Merck, leading cell line development, cell banking, and cell therapy process development team. She is also the leader and core member of multiple Industrial-wide Consortium teams, setting up road map and establishing industrial common practices in various biotherapeutics development areas, including ADC/Bispeicifics team at BPOD/NIMBLE, IQ comparability team, IQ sequence variant consortium team, IQ and BPOD monoclonality consortium team.

Senior Scientist
Xiaoqing Hua is a Sr. Scientist in analytical method development group at Merck. Her primary focus is on analytics of therapeutic proteins with LC based separation methods, as well as capillary electrophoresis methods such as icIEF and CE-SDS. Before joining Merck, she did internship in Celgene, biologics downstream and analytical process development group, working on analytical method development, process characterization support, and process development support. She has a PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Director, Predictive & Clinical Immunogenicity
Dr. Vibha Jawa obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Immunology with a thesis work studying the immune mechanisms behind autoimmune diseases. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Pennsylvania where she did extensive work on assay development for monitoring the immune response to viral vectors. She then moved to the Bay area where she worked with a gene therapy company evaluating viral vectors for hemophilia therapy. Subsequently, she moved to Southern California where she worked for City of Hope Cancer Centre Stem Cell and Gene Therapy group prior to moving to Amgen in 2003. Until recently she was a Principal Investigator and Clinical Immunology representative on several of Amgen’s drug development teams where she provided input to develop appropriate immunogenicity risk assessment strategies. Her current research interests include evaluating immune response biomarkers for early drug development and efficacy, immunogenicity prediction using in silico, in vitro and in vivo technologies, modeling impact of immunogenicity on PK and PD, antigen processing and presentation and the role of T cells in immune response to drug products.

Assistant Principal Scientist, Predictive & Clinical Immunogenicity
Jad Maamary is an Associate Principal Scientist at Merck and Co., Inc. Dr Maamary is responsible for developing and implementing novel in silico and ex vivo platforms to assess the immunogenicity of biologics, vaccines and tumor-associated neoepitopes. His current work investigates the interplay between immunomodulation and immune receptor cross-reactivity leading to breaking of immune tolerance. Prior to Joining Merck, Dr Maamary completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Rockefeller University under the mentorship of Jeffrey Ravetch. He discovered a novel IgG-Fc receptor on B cells which led to the development of an innovative vaccination regimen that took advantage of pathways involved in autoimmune diseases to enhance the efficiency immunization.  Dr Maamary obtained his PhD in Molecular Virology and Immunology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Under the mentorship of Dr Peter Palese he investigated viral immune evasion and helped conceptualize and develop universal vaccines for Influenza.

Research Fellow
I am a principal scientist in Vaccine Analytical Research Development at Merck Co. I have been in the company for 18 years and have 6 years experiences in working with various therapeutic protein programs. I was responsible in assay developments, CRO transfer, and validation including CMC. And I have been working my other 12 years in vaccine analytical area with similar roles, assay development, validation, and transfer to manufacture plus characterization for BLA. In addition, I have managed biochemistry analytical group for both TP and Vaccine to support fermentation, purification, and formulation areas. This has led me to get involved in establishing several new CE-based technologies to increase efficiency. I hold BS degree from University of Hawaii at Manoa, MS and a Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from the University of Chicago specialized in magnetic resonance (EPR, NMR). I had my postdoctoral experiences at University of Zurich and Harvard Medical School. My current professional associations include committee member in CE Pharm, the American Chemical Society and EPR society, Associate Director in CASSS organization, Distinguished member of Advisory Board at Industrial Pharmaceutical Science at College of Pharmacy in Ewha Womans University.

Principal Scientist, Cell Based Assays, Biologics AR&D
Dr. Junming Yie is a Principal Scientist in the cell-based assay group of the Biologics Anayltical R&D in process development at Merck & Co.. Having been in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry since 2001, Dr. Yie have spent six years at Pfizer and eight years at Amgen before joining Merck in 2015. Considering himself as expert in metabolic diseases, Dr. Yie spent his first 15 industrial years in the discovery research, mainly focused on the metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, NASH, muscular and cardiovascular diseases. During this period, Dr. Yie have worked on more than a dozen projects and have led a few projects from conceptual ideas to the delivery of clinical candidates. Dr. Yie have led projects for delivering two monoclonal antibodies from two different projects, three small molecule candidates, and has been a key contributor for delivering three recombinant protein candidates into clinical development. Having seen enough discovery research, Dr. Yie moved into the current role in the cell-based assay group of Biologics AR&D, and started to learn the knowledge in bioprocess and CMC. Dr. Yie first worked on a biosimilar program, and developed a functional cell-based assay to replace USP<121> rabbit blood sugar bioidentity assay. He learned to appreciate the rigorous criteria of assay development for GMP and GLP purposes. Later on, Dr. Yie and his team has developed serveral cell-based assays for projects in immuno-oncology, virology and metabolic diseases. Dr. Yie is also leading an analytical effort as analytical project leader for a Phase 3 bioprocess development, and has taken the new challenges to expand his knowledge across CMC realm.

Associate Principal Scientist
Marc Bailly obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France in Pr. Daniel Kern’s team. After two postdocs in bioinformatics and human T cell development, Marc joined Merck in 2015 where he focused on high throughput analytical characterization technologies enabling lead candidate selection for biologics programs. Marc also worked at MacroGenics focusing on the DART bispecific platforms. Currently Marc is co-leading the analytical characterization group at Merck South San Francisco site. He is focusing on analytical characterization and high throughput data management using bioassays to facilitate the development of machine learning algorithms aiming at predicting developability profiles of antibodies and other biologics modalities.

Principal Scientist & Group Leader, PPDM
Weifeng has been in the field of immunogenicity for biologics for about 10 years. He had developed cell-based neutralization Ab assays for multiple key product at BMS including Opdivo and Yervoy. He is an active member in AAPS NAb work group as well as EBA NAb team; he is also co-leading the NAb assay drug tolerance subteam at AAPS. After join Merck at the end of 2018, Weifeng is now leading Cell Assay group within PPDM Regulated Immunogenicity to develop neutralizing assays for both biologics and vaccines.

Vice President Immune Oncology
Dr. Plyte is Vice President of Immune Oncology at Merus N.V. in Holland where he is responsible for building a world class pipeline of bispecific antibodies to treat multiple cancers. Using the Merus Biclonics® platform his team are developing bispecific antibodies to many immunological targets for the modulation of the immune system. Prior to Merus, Dr. Plyte was Senior Director of Immune Oncology at Molecular Partners, Switzerland, where his team were using DARPins to modulate immunological targets. At Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany, Dr. Plyte was Director in Cancer Immunology and Immune Modulation where various of his teams worked on the development of biologics to treat cancer, ocular diseases, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases including the development of a blood brain barrier shuttle. He has over 20 years of experience in the Pharma industry.

Senior Product Manager, Cell Design Studio
Suzanne Hibbs earned her BS from Missouri University of Science and Technology, MSc from the University of Missouri, and MBA from Webster University. She has over fourteen years of industrial biotechnology experience that includes ten years of hands-on experience as a Senior R&D Scientist where she genetically engineered cell lines. As a Senior Product Manager, she manages custom cell line engineering product development and oversees the delivery of cellular models to researchers around the world.

Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Knut Niss, Ph.D. has been Chief Technology Officer at Mustang Bio, Inc. since March 2018. He joined Mustang in March 2017 as Vice President of Operations, where he initiated and oversees the establishment of Mustang’s cell therapy manufacturing facility. Prior to Mustang, Dr. Niss was Cell Therapy Asset Leader at Biogen, where he oversaw CMC-related activities for gene-edited hematopoietic stem cell and lentiviral gene therapy programs for sickle cell disease and hemophilia, respectively. Earlier in his career, Dr. Niss was Senior Technical Project Leader at Novartis’ cell therapy manufacturing facility in Morris Plains, New Jersey, where he directed the transfer and implementation of the CTL019 process from Penn to Novartis. He also served as Senior R&D Program Manager at EMD Millipore, where he established processes for the large-scale expansion of adult and pluripotent stem cells. Dr. Niss began his career in senior research positions in Pfizer’s Regenerative Medicine and Immunology groups. He holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Humboldt University of Berlin, and an M.S. in microbiology from the University of Göttingen in Germany. Dr. Niss completed his postdoctoral research at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

CoFounder & Director R&D
Nimish Gera is the Director of Research and Development at Mythic Therapeutics leading multiple projects to engineer and develop novel antibody and antibody-based drugs in oncology and immuno-oncology. Prior to Mythic, Nimish has over ten years of experience in antibody and protein engineering with five years leading bispecific antibody programs in several disease areas such as rare diseases, oncology and immunology at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Oncobiologics. Nimish received his PhD degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from North Carolina State University and a B.Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.

Vice President R&D
Dr. Klingemann is currently VP of Research and Development at NantKwest (NASDAQ: NK), the company he founded in 2002 as ZelleRx based on the core technology of NK-92. He is the former Director of the Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program at Boston’s Tufts Medical Center and the Cancer Center’s Hematological Malignancies Program. Before coming to Boston, Dr. Klingemann served as Director of Bone Marrow Transplant and Cell Therapy at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and was the founding Director of the Sramek Center for Cell Engineering. He has worked as physician, scientist, educator, and administrator in leadership positions for more than 25 years at various academic medical centers in Europe, Canada and the United States and has authored over 170 scientific and medical papers. He maintains a professorship at Tufts Medical Center.

Biomedical Engineer, Biosystems & Biomaterials Division, Biomaterials Group
Dr. Sumona Sarkar is a biomedical engineer in the Biosystems and Biomaterials Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Dr. Sarkar conducts research in the area of measurement assurance to address analytical challenges in cell therapy and regenerative medicine. She is currently serving as an US expert in the Analytical Methods working group of ISO/TC 276: Biotechnology and has been contributing to the development of standards for cell counting and cell characterization.

Research Officer Molecular Modelling, Human Health Therapeutics
Dr. Christopher Corbeil is a Research Officer at the National Research Council Canada (NRC) who specializes in the development and application of computational tools for biotherapeutic design and optimization. He also teaches classes in Structure-Based Drug Design at McGill University. After receiving his Ph.D. from McGill University, he joined the NRC as a Research Associate investigating the basics of protein-binding affinity. Following his time at the NRC he joined Chemical Computing Group as a Research Scientist developing tools for protein design, structure prediction and binding affinity prediction. He then decided to leave private industry and rejoin NRC with a focus on antibody engineering. Dr. Corbeil has authored 25 scientific articles and is the main developer of multiple software programs.

Senior Research Officer
John received a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the National University of Ireland (Galway). He worked for a number of years as a product development chemist in Elan Pharmaceuticals before deciding to pursue higher academic studies in Canada. John holds a Ph.D in Analytical Chemistry from Dalhousie University. He was an NSERC industrial postdoctoral fellow at Merck Frosst in Montreal before joining the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in 1997 as a Research Associate. John is now a Senior Research Officer at NRC’s Human Health Therapeutics (HHT) Research Centre in Ottawa, Ontario. His research focuses primarily on the mass spectrometry analysis of proteins in support of HHT’s biotherapeutics and vaccine development initiatives.

Principal Research Officer, Human Health Therapeutics
Dr. Traian Sulea is a Principal Research Officer who joined the National Research Council Canada as a post-doctoral fellow in 1995. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Parasitology of McGill University since 2012. Dr. Sulea has broad expertise in applying computational approaches to the discovery and optimization of bioactive small-molecules and biologics. He has contributed to the development of computational methods for biomolecular applications, focusing on continuum solvation models and binding-affinity scoring functions. He has applied structural modeling for bioengineering of growth-factor traps and selective tumor targeting, as well as antibody humanization, conjugation, affinity maturation, de novo design, and developability. Dr. Sulea has authored 95 scientific articles and book chapters and is an inventor on 29 patents issued or pending.

Cardiologist
Prof. Drum received an MD PhD from the University of Chicago. After a post-doc in Robert Langer's lab at MIT, he moved to National University of Singapore as a faculty where he studies protein engineering and novel methods of protein folding. While at MIT, he received the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists. In Singapore, he has been a recipient of the Clinician Scientist Award from the National Medical Research Council.

CEO & Founder
Ulf Grawunder is an experienced Swiss Life-Science entrepreneur with over 10 years experience in the therapeutic antibody development industry. With NBE-Therapeutics, he has recently founded his second Swiss Biotech company and is leading NBE-Therapeutics as its CEO since June 2012. Ulf Grawunder has invented two new patent-pending technologies at NBE-Therapeutics that allow the company to develop most highly innovative antibody-based drugs, including next-generation antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) for the therapy of cancer. Before that, Ulf Grawunder co-founded the Swiss Biotech company 4-Antibody, recently sold to U.S.-based Agenus (AGEN), where since 2004 he served as founding CEO and after 2006 assumed the role of CSO. During his tenure at 4-Antibody, Ulf Grawunder raised about CHF 50 million capital for the company, secured two pharma/biotech collaborations with Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany, and Human Genome Sciences, U.S.A. and grew the company to 50 employees. Ulf Grawunder is serving on various Boards of non-profit and for-profit life-science organizations and is vice-president and Board member of the Swiss Biotech Association. Ulf Grawunder holds a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Basel, for work on early B cell development performed at the Basel Institute for Immunology. In addition, Ulf Grawunder holds a Diploma in Technology Entrepreneurship from the Entrepreneur and Business School in St. Gallen, Switzerland (HSG=Hochschule St. Gallen).

Professor & Principal Investigator, Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology
Shohei Koide, Ph.D. is a synthetic protein scientist. His research integrates structure-guided design and directed evolution to design highly functional but still simple proteins. He is the inventor of the Monobody technology, and he has made important contribution to the development of synthetic antibody technologies. His current research focuses on the discovery of cancer therapeutics and on establishing strategies to control "undruggable" targets. Previously he was Professor at University of Chicago and at University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Professor Molecular Immunology, Translational & Clinical Research
Claire’s interest in complement dates back to her undergraduate days when she was inspired by teaching on innate immunity and was intrigued by the ability of a protein-based, soluble system to punch holes in target cells! She obtained her PhD at Cambridge University, UK, and moved to Cardiff, UK, in 1993 as a postdoctoral scientist studying the biochemistry and function of complement proteins in humans and other species. Funding from the Wellcome Trust enabled her to establish a group focused on structure–function relationships in complement activators and regulators with a particular interest in the mechanisms underlying complement dysregulation and disease. Recent work includes functional characterization of complement protein variants/mutants associated with diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), atypical haemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) and C3 glomerulopathy (C3G). This work has led to the concept of the 'complotype' -the influence of complement genetic makeup on inflammation & infection. In 2013, she was appointed as Head of Complement Drug Dicovery at GlaxoSmithKline in the ImmunoInflammation Therapy Area and gained invaluable insight into the process of target and indication validation and drug discovery; she joined Newcastle University in 2016 to further her work in translational research and experimental medicine. With experience both in academia and the pharmaceutical industry, her current research is focussed on therapeutic approaches for modulation or inhibition of the complement cascade, particularly on strategies to target or ‘home’ therapy specifically to disease sites.

CoFounder & President & CEO, Clinical Research
Dr. Tolcher is CEO and Founder of NEXT OncologyTM, San Antonio, Texas, a newly founded Phase I group that seeks to transform early clinical trials. NEXT Oncology’s mission is to accelerate the next breakthrough medicines for cancer and the vision is to be the most successful and respected Phase I program in oncology research. Dr. Tolcher served as President and Co-Founder of START LLC from 2009- 2018, one of the world’s largest Clinical Phase I and early drug development operations in cancer medicine with 5 locations in San Antonio Texas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Madrid Spain; and Shanghai China. Dr. Tolcher is a medical oncologist who has over 25 years’ experience in early drug development and clinical trials. He has been involved in many of the initial phase I studies of new agents that subsequently were FDA approved for the treatment of cancer including pembrolizumab (KeytrudaÒ), copanlisib (Aliqopa), trastuzumab emtansine (KadcylaÒ), regorafenib (StivargaÒ), liposomal vincristine (MarqiboÒ), cabazitaxel (JevtanaÒ), carfilzomib (KyprolisÒ), gefitinib (IressaÒ), erlotinib (TarcevaÒ), and eribulin (HalavenÒ). He is currently the principal investigator on 20 phase I clinical studies, is a reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, and Annals of Oncology. He has chaired the Developmental Therapeutics Review Committee for the American Association of Clinical Oncology Annual Scientific Program. He has a member of over 20 Scientific Advisory Boards for both large and small pharmaceutical companies, as well as a member of the Board of Director for 2 biotechnology companies. Dr. Tolcher has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Clinical Cancer Research, as well as an author of nine book chapters.

Principal Scientist & Leader & Section Head, Gene Therapy
Dr Zhao obtained her PhD at Manchester University and gained her postdoctoral experiences at the University of Oxford, CR-UK Cancer Institute and UCL before joining NIBSC in 2001. She has a strong background in gene therapy, virology, molecular biology, cell biology, cancer research and developmental biology. Her research interests lie in vector development based on Retrovirus, Parvovirus and Baculovirus. She has been an active Expert member of EMA/CAT Gene Therapy Working Party, EDQM/OMCL gene therapy group, ICH and ISO Drafting Group, contributing to the development of European and International Guidance on Advance Therapies.

Chief, Biotherapy
David FitzGerald, PhD serves as Chief of the Biotherapy Section, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, CCR, NCI. His undergraduate degree was from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and he received his PhD from the U of Cincinnati. Dr FitzGerald has a life-long interest in antibody-based therapies with particular emphasis on the development of cytotoxic antibodies for treating cancer. He has played pivotal roles in both the development of recombinant immunotoxins and the use of combination treatments to make immunotoxins more effective. Because of the need to ‘kill’ cancer cells, Dr FitzGerald and his team also have a keen interest in apoptosis and cell death pathways, attempting to identify biomarkers that predict sensitivity and resistance to various antibody-based therapeutics.

Chief Antibody Therapy & Senior Investigator, Molecular Biology Lab
Mitchell Ho is a Senior Investigator in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry for the FAES Graduate School at the NIH. He received his PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Mariangela Segre at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he used anti-idiotypic antibodies as cocaine antagonists. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Ira Pastan at the NIH, where he engineered immunotoxins targeting CD22 and mesothelin for the treatment of B-cell leukemias and mesothelioma. The Ho laboratory at the NCI studies cancer cell surface proteins, focusing primarily on the role of glypicans including GPC2 and GPC3 as a new family of tumor antigens, and designs 'single domain antibodies' that modulate Wnt and other glypican signaling processes responsible for the development of cancer.

Staff Scientist & Group Leader LMBB, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
Alexei Yeliseev is a Staff Scientist, head of the protein biochemistry group at the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, National Institute of Health. His research focuses on developing technologies for expression, purification, and functional and structural characterization of G protein-coupled receptors. In addition to his research work he serves as a member of editorial board of Protein Expression and Purification.

2019 – present Staff Scientist, Structural Bioinformatics Core Section, Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA Postdoctoral Training 2016 – 2019 Postdoctoral Scientist, Structural Bioinformatics Core Section, Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA 2013 – 2016 Postdoctoral Scientist, Qatar Computing Research Institute, Doha, Qatar Education 2008 – 2014 Centre for Medical Biotechnology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, PhD 2007 – 2008 Department of Crystallography, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK, M.Sc. 2003 – 2007 Department of Mathematics, University of Applied Sciences Koblenz, Remagen, Germany, Diploma Mathematics

Assistant Professor, Pharmacology
Gabriel Rocklin did his Ph.D. research at the University of California, San Francisco, supervised by Brian Shoichet and Ken Dill. As a postdoctoral fellow with David Baker at the University of Washington, he pioneered the use of large-scale protein design to understand protein biophysics. In 2019 he started his independent lab in the Department of Pharmacology and Center for Synthetic Biology at Northwestern University. There, his group develops high-throughput methods to understand protein biophysics and to design new protein therapeutics.

Associate Professor, Medicine & Hematology & Oncology
Dr. Zhang has been trained as a physician and then earned a PhD in Cell Biology in Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College. Following a CRI postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago, he began his independent career at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, as an Assistant Professor of Medicine. Subsequently, Dr. Zhang moved his research laboratory to Northwestern University where he is currently Professor of Medicine, and Microbiology-Immunology, as well as Co-Director of Immune Assessment Core, at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Zhang group focuses on integrated translational research program with the goal of designing and developing new immunotherapies and immunologic strategies for cancer treatment together with an interdisciplinary approach to nanomaterials research. His work has directly promoted the initiation of a number of clinical trials. Dr. Zhang has published over 90 scientific papers, many in high-impact journals including Immunity, J Exp Med, Nat Commun, PNAS, and J Clin Invest. He has been serving as Editors of several leading journals including J Immunol and Front Oncol. Dr. Zhang has also served on several NIH study sections and currently is standing member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Cancer Immunopathology and Immunotherapy (CII) study section. Dr. Zhang’s research has been continuously funded for more than two decades by NCI, DOD and other federal, state and private funding agencies.

Scientist
During the past 19 years, I have worked on protein engineering and protein production at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. What motivates me is applying science and creativity to design proteins with desired properties. I got my first degree from the POLYTECH school of Engineering in Marseille. Attracted by the concepts of protein evolution, I joined Pr. Andreas Pluecthun group at the University of Zurich for one-year postgraduate. I started to apply these principles of molecular evolution at Novartis for production of tool proteins used for structural analysis. Finally, I moved to our Biologic Center and could focus on the engineering of therapeutic proteins. I was first involved in the optimization of mAb for better activity and developability before to concentrate on multispecific modalities. Over past year, I contributed to the development of a technology platform that enables efficient discovery, engineering and production of several bispecific formats.

Senior Research Investigator/Lab Head, Oncology Biotherapeutics
Tony D’Alessio is a Senior Research Investigator and Lab Head in the Oncology Biotherapeutics group at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research where he works on antibody drug conjugates and other novel biologics-based therapeutic approaches to targeting tumour and immune cells.  Prior to Novartis he held positions at Igenica, Inc. and the Janelia Farm Research campus of HHMI.

Head Ophthalmology Therapeutics
No bio available

Principal Scientist & Head, Particle Lab
Dr. Boll studied in Göttingen and received his PhD from the University of Tübingen in Germany focusing on purification and characterization of proteins of antibiotic biosynthesis. He afterwards performed studies of the biological consequences of sub-visible particles at the Analytical Development Department at Roche in Basel, Switzerland. After joining Merrimack Pharmaceuticals in the Boston area and driving the physical-chemical characterization of early phase projects, Dr. Boll is now heading the particle lab and higher order structure analytics at Novartis in Basel, Switzerland.

Head, Research
After obtaining a PhD in molecular biology, Nicolas joined the group of Greg Winter (2018 Nobel prize for chemistry) at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge (UK) to work on in vitro evolution of proteins and antibody engineering. At Novimmune since 2002, he led several therapeutic antibody programs. Then, as the Head of Research, he focused on the development of the λ body bispecific antibody platform which is now the core technology of Light Chain Bioscience.

Director, Applied Automation
Dr. James Love is Director of Applied Automation in the division of Global Research Technologies, Novo Nordisk A/S. James was educated at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where he trained as a structural biologist. He worked in academia and biotech in the USA for 15 years, where his work has been focused on the high throughput and automated production of proteins for biologics discovery and optimization; he also investigates other applications of software and hardware automation, including robotics, to drug discovery.

Director, Protein Engineering, Discovery Biologics
Erik has a background in Biotechnology from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, from where he earned his PhD working on alternative scaffold affinity proteins. This was followed by postdoctoral training on high-throughput protein production and characterisation at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research in Copenhagen, Denmark. After joining Novo Nordisk A/S in Denmark in 2011, Erik has held various project and line manager positions in protein science, bioinformatics and laboratory informatics. Since 2017 Erik is head of Discovery Biologics at Novo Nordisk Research Center Seattle, WA, responsible for compound generation, analysis and characterization in the discovery pipeline.

President & Scientific Director
Prior to joining OICR, Dr. Radvanyi was the Senior Vice President and Global Head of the Immuno-Oncology Translational Innovation Platform at EMD Serono (Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany). He also served as a Senior Scientific Advisor for EMD Serono, specializing in immunology and immuno-oncology. While at EMD Serono, Dr. Radvanyi rebuilt and re-organized EMD Serono’s immuno-oncology research platform and rejuvenated the their immuno-oncology research pipeline. He recruited key talent and established influential partnerships with academia that focused on biomarker-driven clinical trials. Notably, Dr. Radvanyi established an alliance between EMD Serono and Pfizer for the development of anti-PD-L1 (avelumab) and co-led EMD Serono’s CAR T-cell program in partnership with Intrexon and Ziopharm. Dr. Radvanyi also has experience in biotech drug discovery and development (founding CSO for Iovance Therapeutics). He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Immunotherapy for Cancer (JITC), serves on the Keystone Conferences Scientific Advisory Board, and serves on grant review panels for numerous national and international agencies.

Head, U.S. Market Access
Phillip D. Carter, Head of U.S. Market Access at Orchard Therapeutics, leads the U.S. team responsible for aligning the needs of payers, patients, and other stakeholders to help ensure Orchard’s potentially curative ex vivo autologous hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapies can be accessed by those who need them. Driven by a personal passion for improving the lives of patients, Mr. Carter has dedicated more than 20 years of his career to bringing innovative medicines to market, including multiple therapies for rare and ultra-rare conditions. Mr. Carter serves as a collaborative partner and committee member to multiple organizations – including the Financing & Reimbursement of Cures in the U.S. (FoCUS) Project for MIT’s New Drug Development Paradigms (NEWDIGS) program, as well as the Policy, Access and Reimbursement Committee (PARC) at Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).

Assistant Professor, Biochemistry & Biophysics
The goal of my research program is to elucidate the structural basis by which post-translational modifications (PTMs) regulate cellular signaling systems. A long-standing challenge that has hindered progress in this field is our inability to programmably produce biologically relevant, multiply-modified proteins in sufficient quantities and homogeneity for structural biology applications. Genetic Code Expansion is a unique technology that enables co-translational installation of PTM amino acids into proteins at genetically programmed sites, but poor efficiency, premature protein truncation and mis-incorporation of natural amino acids have limited its broad utility. My laboratory aims to develop improved core GCE technologies for efficient and accurate incorporation of PTMs and their analogues into biologically relevant protein complexes for structural and biochemical characterization. Given the countless diseases associated with mis-regulation of PTM-proteins and a sobering lack of structural knowledge about them, this research hopes to facilitate future development of drugs and anti/nanobodies that target these pathways.

Group Leader, Antibody Discovery Team
Nathan is Group Leader of the Antibody Discovery team at OXGENE. His team works towards the development of novel mammalian display technologies. Before joining OXGENE, Nathan was Principal Scientist at Heptares Therapeutics and a postdoctoral researcher at the ICR. Prior to this, Nathan earned his PhD in Biophysics at Imperial College London.

CEO
Dr. Franzusoff has led PACT Pharma since 2017, developing personalized adoptive T cell therapies using precision genome-engineered patient T cells that target confirmed tumor neoepitopes. Alex has actively contributed to significant advances in immuno-oncology (I-O). As SVP R&D at Bavarian Nordic, his team’s work on cancer vaccines and combination I-O therapies was key to the $1B deal with BMS in 2015. Dr. Franzusoff earlier co-founded GlobeImmune, where he served as VP R&D, developing immunotherapy against cancer & infectious diseases. In Boston, Alex was CEO & Director for AZTherapies, developing Alzheimer’s combination drug therapies for Phase 3 studies. He previously led the venture-backed Permeon Biologics developing intracellular biologics. Alex was tenured professor at the Univ. of Colorado Medical School until 2004. Dr. Franzusoff received his PhD in Biochemistry from SUNY Stony Brook, NY. Dr. Franzusoff trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the EMBL in Heidelberg, at the ETH in Zurich, and as a postdoctoral fellow with the Nobel Laureate, Dr. Randy Schekman, at UC Berkeley.

Senior Vice President, Research and Early Product Development
Li Peng is Senior Vice President of Research and Early Product Development at Palleon Pharmaceuticals, a leading biotechnology company focused on developing Glyco-Immune Checkpoint therapeutics to treat cancer. Li led the invention of two core platform technologies at Palleon – the EAGLE platform for targeting glyco-immune checkpoint ligands and the HYDRA platform for enabling patient stratification. Previously, she worked at Medimmune/AstraZeneca for ~10 years with increasing responsibilities from antibody engineering and characterization to leading drug discovery programs and cross-functional project teams. Li has a PhD in Biochemistry, MS in Genetics, and BS in Biology. She has published ~30 papers and authored >10 patents and applications.

Associate Director Biologics Research
Anirban has over 8 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry spanning biologic drugs including monoclonal antibodies, novel antibody-based therapeutics and recombinant fusion proteins. Anirban has developed and implemented efficient workflow for recombinant protein production and analytical characterization and applied these technologies for advancing biologics projects for immuno-oncology and protein engineering of immune cell receptors. Anirban has also led a CMC analytical development team and has broad experience in biologics development. Prior to joining Parvus, Anirban held positions of increasing scientific responsibility at Bayer, Pfizer and Elan Pharmaceuticals. Anirban earned his PhD degree in Molecular Biophysics from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and pursued his postdoctoral research at UT Southwestern and UCSF medical center.

Group Leader & Associate Professor, Cancer Immunology
Paul Neeson completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne (Pathology), before doing a post-doc in the Paterson lab (University of Pennsylvania) where he worked on B-cell lymphoma vaccines. He returned to Melbourne and established the human immunology translational lab (HITRL) in Cancer Immunology Research at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The Lab’s focus is on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells for solid tumors and human immuno-oncology. His lab has adopted ‘state of the art’ technologies to explore the immune context of human cancer. This information is being used to better understand immune escape, to stratify patients for immunotherapy combination treatments (including CART cells) for better outcomes in patients with solid tumors

Executive Director
Javier worked for 8 years in the field of enzyme engineering and received his PhD in 2003. After his postdoctoral training he joint Pfizer, where he is leading the BioTherapeutic Discovery department within Biomedicine Design. In this role, he is responsible for leading biotherapeutic discovery work, including lead generation and optimization, structural based design, biophysical characterization, and non-GLP biotherapeutic production. Javier is interested in understanding the underlying biology of drug design and delivery and engineering solutions for challenges associated with developing the next generation of biotherapeutics.

Senior Director, Pharmacokinetics Pharmacodynamics & Metabolism
Boris Gorovits is a Senior Director of the Bioanalytical lab at Pfizer. Boris earned his PhD in Enzymology from the Moscow State University and later completed postdoctoral research studies in protein biophysics at the Medical Center, University of Texas at San Antonio, TX, USA. In 2000, Boris joined Wyeth Research (later Pfizer Inc) to work as a bioanalytical group lead with a growing scope of responsibilities. Currently, he leads the Bioanalytical group within Biomedicine Design department which is responsible for many aspects of the Regulated and Nonregulated Bioanalytical support for the pan-Pfizer Biotherapeutic portfolio. Boris co-chairs Pfizer internal Immunogenicity Expert Working Group, which is responsible for review of the biotherapeutic immunogenicity risk assessment and mitigation strategies. Recently, Boris has been actively involved in industry discussions focusing on PK and immunogenicity assessment, bioanalytical support of various biotherapeutic modalities, including mAbs, bi-specific antibodies, antibody–drug conjugates, ADCs and gene therapy. Boris is proud to be an active member of the American Association of Pharma Scientists.

Associate Research Fellow, PDM Immunogenicity Sciences
Tim leads the Immunogenicity Sciences group in Pfizer that is responsible for immunogenicity risk assessments, screening biomolecules for improved immunogenicity profiles and developing predictive methods for immune responses. Tim joined Pfizer in the UK in 2007 to develop Vaccines before switching to unwanted immunogenicity, and the USA, in 2011. He had previously obtained his Biochemistry degree and Immunology Doctorate from the University of Oxford, U.K. and was a Lecturer in Virology at the University of Nottingham, U.K.

Associate Director & Global Lead Biologics
Darshana Jani has nearly 25 years of practice in the academic and biotechnology field. Throughout her tenure at Genzyme, Medimmune, BiogenIdec until present employment as Senior Manager at Pfizer she has supported clinical and pre-clinical trials, in addition to post marketing studies inclusive of Safety, Immunogenicity, PK, Efficacy, and Biomarker analysis. Darshana has risen from the ranks, at the outset developing and applying boianalytical methods, while assuming numerous responsibilities germane to regulatory compliance of the validation and application of group procedure. She has guided bioanalytical lab groups, held responsible for overseeing all phases of drug recovery and development; a task which incorporated product characterization, potency determination, immunogenicity testing, as well as surrogate maker discovery.

Senior Vice President & Head, Clinical Development
Ingmar is Vice President of Clinical Development of the Company. Prior to joining Pieris, from 2013 through October 2017, Dr. Bruns led clinical development of several high priority oncology assets at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Before his tenure at Bayer, Dr. Bruns served as an attending hematologist and oncologist as well as a basic, translational and clinical researcher at the University Hospital of Dusseldorf in Germany and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Dr. Bruns has authored over 50 papers in the field of hematology and oncology. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Lubeck in Germany.

Lab Manager
Kelli Phillips began her career in biologics in 2006, as a principal investigator in the Immunochemistry Research and Development department at PPD. In her current role as manager, she provides oversight to method development and validation for quantitative (PK), immunogenicity (ADA) and neutralizing antibody (NAb) methods. During her tenure at PPD, her focus has been on the development of robust, drug-tolerant immunogenicity assays, life-cycle management of extended-use methods and strategies for biosimilar method validations.

Manager
Megan Wiberg’s career spans more than 20 years of using ligand binding assays (LBAs) to detect drug concentrations, anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) and biomarkers. Working for the CRO industry in regulated bioanalysis throughout that time has given her exposure to a wide variety of biologics and approaches across a diverse set of sponsor companies.  It has also allowed her to observe the evolution of regulatory requirements for LBAs and ADAs in real time.  After several years of performing assays in the laboratory, Megan served many more as a Principal Investigator for assay development, validation, and sample analysis projects. This expanded into various levels of supervisory roles where she had the opportunity to spread her knowledge and experience to others. In her current role as a Manager in the Immunochemistry department at PPD, she oversees a team of more than 60 scientists in support of assay validation and long-term implementation of methods for nonclinical and clinical study support.

President
David Lansky has been learning about and statistics for bioassays (and other non-clinical applications in Pharma) for over 30 years. His training includes a year of Electrical and Computer Engineering (University of Michigan), a BS in Botany (San Francisco State), an MS in Entomology (Cornell) and finally both an MS and Ph.D. in Biometry (both Cornell). His work experience includes 10 years at Searle/Monsanto/Pharmacia and 17 years as the owner of Precision Bioassay, Inc. David is part of the team revising the USP bioassay chapters.

Director, Cell Therapy Discovery
Dr. MacLeod is currently leading the Cell Therapy Discovery Team at Precision BioSciences. His team is responsible for cell therapy discovery research and preclinical development efforts using Precision’s ARCUS gene-editing technology to engineer human T cells for cancer therapy. Dr. MacLeod was the lead author on a manuscript describing Precision’s process for engineering off-the-shelf allogeneic CAR T cells published in Molecular Therapy and is co-inventor on several granted and pending patents related to Precision’s off-the-shelf CAR T technology. Precision’s first cell therapy product, PBCAR0191, a gene-edited allogeneic CAR T cell candidate targeting CD19, developed in collaboration with Servier, is currently in clinical trials. Prior to joining Precision, Dr. MacLeod was an Investigator at GlaxoSmithKline working on immunomodulatory drug discovery programs. He performed his postdoctoral work at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Neutralizing Antibody Center at the Scripps Research Institute, and at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. MacLeod received a B.A. from Northwestern University with a double major in Biochemistry and Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Pathology and Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego.

Research Associate, Chemistry
Shlomo Zarzhitsky is a research associate at Princeton University working with Prof. Michael Hecht. His research focuses on the utilization of synthetic proteins in the expression of Difficult-to-Express-Proteins. Shlomo is a biotechnology engineer with extensive experience in the design and characterization of peptides and proteins.

Director, Immune Monitoring Lab
Dr. Redmond received his undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of California, Davis prior to pursuing a PhD in Immunology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. His doctoral studies focused on understanding how defects in the regulation of “killer” CD8 T cells can lead to the onset of autoimmune (type 1) diabetes. After obtaining his PhD, Dr. Redmond joined Dr. Andrew Weinberg’s laboratory at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute (EACRI) at Providence Cancer Institute in Portland, OR. Dr. Redmond’s post-doctoral research focused on tumor immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the patient’s own immune system to seek out and destroy tumors. Specifically, he investigated the mechanisms by which an agonist anti-OX40 mAb enhanced CD8 T cell function to eradicate tumors. Currently, Dr. Redmond is an Associate Member and Director, Immune Monitoring Laboratory at the EACRI and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Oregon Health & Science University. His work seeks to elucidate the mechanisms by which combinatorial approaches to cancer immunotherapy, such as the provision of T cell co-stimulation plus checkpoint blockade augment the development of potent effector CD8 T cells capable of eliminating tumors.

Research Officer, Science & Engineering
Dr. Zhenling Cui is a research associate at the Queensland University of Technology (Australia). She completed her PhD degree in Chemical and Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland in 2016 and then received Dean’s received Dean’s award for outstanding higher Degree by research. Her research interest lies in the field of protein engineering, synthetic biology and genetic code expansion technology. Her research has focused on exploiting redundancy of the genetic code and she has made significant contributions primarily to understanding the role of synthetic transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and their usage in terms of adapting the connection between sense codons and various unnatural amino acids with bio-orthogonal groups for future application in producing cyclized peptides, antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) and probes for structural conformation analysis.

Senior Staff Scientist, Oncology & Angiogenesis
Dr. Crawford is a Senior Staff Scientist in the department of Oncology and Angiogenesis at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc where she has worked since 2011. She completed her BSc in Immunology from Glasgow University before being admitted to the Wellcome Trust PhD program at Edinburgh University where she focused on T cell memory. Her post-doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania examined T cell exhaustion during chronic viral infection and the role of checkpoint inhibition in alleviating T cell exhaustion. This piqued her interest in immunotherapies and she made the transition into industry at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals where she currently leads a group developing pre-clinical models to examine bispecific antibodies targeting solid tumors. She led the in vivo pre-clinical research efforts on REGN4018 (MUC16xCD3) to advance the antibody through to IND submission.

Senior Staff Scientist, Bioanalytical Pharmaceuticals
No bio available

Director, Immune & Inflammatory Diseases
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 and immunity 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.

Senior Director Bispecifics
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 was a founding member of the Bispecific Antibodies team and is currently the Sr. Director of Bispecifics at Regeneron.

Associate Director, Analytical Development
Win Cheung is Associate Director of the Cell-Based Potency group in the Analytical Development department at REGENXBIO. Prior to joining REGENXBIO, Win was a Senior Manager in Analytical Development at Novavax. Win received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and his PhD in Biological Chemistry from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

North American Business Development Manager
Nick is responsible for growing Retrogenix’s North American business portfolio and is based at our UK headquarters in the Peak District. Prior to Retrogenix, Nick worked in the Centre for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Sheffield, culturing and genetically characterising human pluripotent stem cells. He also spent 4+ years at an engineering firm specialising in ultra-high-performance industrial mixers.

Principal Scientist, Research & Development
Dr. Stacey Elliott is a Principal Scientist with RheoSense, Inc. She has an extensive experience in the rheology of colloid and polymer systems during her previous positions at Alcon & Dupont. She is excited to work with our customers to advance the analysis and interpretation of protein rheology beyond the models currently adopted from dispersions and synthetic polymers.

Research Scientist, Pharma Research & Early Developmentelopment
Dr. Tony Christopeit is Research Scientist at Roche Pharma Research & Early Development at the Roche Innovation Center Munich, Germany. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Uppsala University, Sweden. After a postdoctoral training at The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, he joined Roche in 2017. The focus of his work is on the functional and biophysical characterization of therapeutic antibodies.

Head, Functional Characterization, Large Molecule Research, Pharma and Early Development (pRED)
Dr. Runza holds a PhD in Genetics/Immunology and has 10+ years of experience in drug development at Roche. She currently leads the Functional Characterization Department of the Large Molecule Research organization, in charge of developing and implementing the bioassay strategies for all biologics. In previous years, she led several research projects for Cancer Immunology.

Senior Principal Scientist, Research & Early Development
Jens Niewoehner obtained his Ph.D. at the Max-Planck-Institute for Cell Biology in Martinsried/Germany. Following a PostDoc at the Curie Institute in Paris, he worked for two Biotech start-ups in the Munich area before joining Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development (pRED) in 2006. With his group, he is developing cellular functional assays for biotherapeutics characterization and screening. Since several years, he is actively involved in driving the development of the Roche Brain Shuttle platform to enable brain uptake of large-molecule drugs.

Group Leader, Functional Characterization
Dr. Diana Pippig is a Senior Scientist and Team Leader in the Functional Characterization Department within Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, Large Molecule Research, at Roche Innovation Center Munich. Among her responsibilities are all aspects of target:lead interaction characterization by means of SPR and other biophysical methods, where she supports projects throughout e.g. lead identification, developability assessment as well as QC assay development. Driving new method development, she is particularly focusing on new approaches in data evaluation to gain deeper and faster understanding of structure/function relationship of complex biologics. She further supports diverse next generation biologics projects as technical project leader or analytics expert. Diana holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and did a PostDoc in Biophysics at the LMU, before joining Roche in 2011.

Senior Principal Scientist, Cell Line & Molecule Development
Stefan is senior principal scientist and project leader in pRED (Roche Pharma Research and Early Development). He has been active in antibody and cell line development since 1997. In this function he discovered several therapeutic antibodies through all phases from the beginning until entry into human. This included standard antibodies and novel complex format antibodies. In previous positions at Boehringer Mannheim GmbH he worked in oncology projects, developed non-viral and viral vectors for gene therapy programs and tools for molecular biology. Dr. Seeber received his Ph.D. in Biology from the Eberhard Karls University in Tuebingen, Germany. Recently he setup a gene therapy program to develop CMC for AAV-production at Roche, following exactly the session strategy “Transitioning from Therapeutic Proteins to Cell and Gene Therapies”.

Head, Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery
Pablo Umaña is Head of Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery. He obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering and Biology from the California Institute of Technology in 1998 carrying out experimental work at ETH-Zurich. In 2001, he co-founded GlycArt Biotechnology AG in Zurich-Switzerland, a company spinning out of research carried out at the ETH-Zurich and headed its research since the company’s foundation. To date, he continues to lead research at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich as part of the Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) organization within Roche, after GlycArt was acquired by Hoffmann La Roche AG in 2005. He led the team that discovered and initially developed GAZYVA, a novel Type II CD20 antibody for the treatment of B-cell malignancies. GAZYVA was approved on Nov 1, 2013 by FDA for 1L CLL and is the first ever medicine approved by the FDA under the Breakthrough Therapy regime. He has also led the research for the generation and initial development of Roche-pRED’s tumor-targeted-T-cell bispecific, -immunocytokine and -immunomodulator platforms and drug candidates in the field of cancer immunotherapy.

Head, Oncology Programs & Depart Head Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery 3, Roche Innovation Center Zurich
Dr. Christian Klein is currently Head of Oncology Programs and Department Head Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery 3 at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich. He joined Pharma Research at the Roche Innovation Center Munich in Penzberg in 2002 as a postdoctoral fellow. After the acquisition of Glycart Biotechnology AG by Roche, he became the preclinical science leader for obinutuzumab and then joined the Roche Innovation Center Zurich as Head of Oncology Programs before taking on his current role in 2015. Christian Klein holds a diploma in biochemistry from the University of Tübingen and did his PhD at the Technical University Munich and completed his habilitation in Biochemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. He is a co-author on >120 peer-reviewed publications and reviews, co-editor of the book series „Successful Drug Discovery“, an editorial board member of “mAbs“ and “Antibodies“ and named as a co-inventor on >150 patent applications in the fields of cancer research, therapeutic/bispecific antibodies and antibody engineering. During his 17 years at Roche, Christian has made major contributions as a research project leader to the preclinical development and approval of GAZYVA/GAZYVARO, to the preclinical development of twelve bispecific antibodies, immunocytokines and antibody fusion proteins entering clinical trials and lead research on preclinical antibody-based cancer immunotherapy projects and combination therapy.

Founder and CEO
Denise is a pioneer in the life science EHS industry. Denise founded Safety Partners Inc. in 1992. Since then, Denise and her team have implemented safety programs for more than 550 of the top life science companies in the northeast. Prior to founding Safety Partners, Denise served as an EHS manager at T Cell Sciences and managed a clinical prenatal diagnostics laboratory. She began her career as a research associate at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, after receiving a BS in Biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire. Denise is a certified chemical hygiene officer through the National Registry of Certified Chemists. She is active in many professional societies and trade organizations and was a founding member of several leads groups in MA and NYC. Denise is a regular on the industry speaking circuit, a member of the MassBio SEF Working Group, and an American Chemical Society (ACS) Expert. Safety Partners is a Certified Woman-Owned Business and has been named one of the 25 Best Small Companies by Working Mother magazine.

Scientist II
Asa Hatami is currently a scientist at Sangamo Therapeutics, focusing on the use of zinc finger proteins to regulate gene expression as a therapeutic approach for central nervous system disorders. Previously, Asa’s doctoral and postdoctoral training was on the development of small molecules to increase alpha-cleavage of amyloid precursor protein as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease; investigation of neuronal exosome-associated molecules as biomarkers of disease state and progression in neurological disorders; investigation of the propagation and toxicity of structurally defined alpha-synuclein fibril polymorphs in vitro and in vivo; as well as the use of preclinical models of Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and traumatic brain injury to investigate a broad range of therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative disorders. Asa holds a PhD from UC Irvine’s Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

Director, Bioassay, Global MAST Analytical Science and Technology
Marla Abodeely has been working in the Bioassay/Immunoassay field for over 12 years. During this time, she has worked with both small and large biotech companies in all stages of product development, from discovery to post-commercialization. Her primary focus has been protein therapeutics, including enzymes, GPCRs, fusion proteins and antibodies. She is currently the Director of Bioassay within the Global Manufacturing Sciences & Technology (MSAT) group at Sanofi Genzyme located in Framingham, Ma. Previously, she was Associate Director, Head of Bioassay/ Immunoassay (Potency and Process Residuals) within the Analytical Method Development group at Shire Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda). She received her B.S. in Biology at Columbia University in New York, NY with a focus in molecular genetics and earned her Ph.D. in the Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) with a focus in biochemistry and cell biology.

Principal Scientist, Global Mfg Science & Technology
Dr. Christine Chan is a protein biochemist with broad experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including prior experience at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals and Merck & Co., Inc. She specializes in the analysis of recombinant products produced from mammalian cells for vaccines and biologics development. Her application experience includes expression cell line selection, drug substance & drug product process development, manufacturing tech transfers and lifecycle management of commercialized products. Dr. Chan received her Ph.D. from the University of California-Davis and conducted post-doctoral work at the University of Washington. She has authored over 30 publications with two recent reviews on forced degradation studies on protein-based therapeutics and stability testing considerations.

Scientist
I have spent most of my Biopharma career involved in protein biochemistry. I started in the early 2000’s at Wyeth, purifying proteins for structural studies. I then joined the Structural Protein Chemistry (SPC) group at Genzyme in 2010 where my main focus was using a variety of analytical techniques to define protein structure-function relationships. I left the group in 2013 to work for Warp Drive Bio. I mainly focused on mass spec proteomics for target identification and high-throughput mass spec screening methods for candidate compounds. I re-joined the SPC group, now known as the Characterization Group for Sanofi, in early 2016 and am using automation to support high throughput analytics.

Associate Director, Section Head Molecular, Expression and Screening Technologies Group, Biologics Research US
Dietmar Hoffman leads a multidisciplinary team across Sanofi R&D providing project teams with molecular biology support and plasmid storage/management, high-throughput, automated protein/antibody expression, generation of monoclonal antibodies, medium-throughput and combination screens and confocal imaging support. He received his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical biology from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany.

Principal Scientist, Biologics R&D
Lin is currently a Principal Scientist in Sanofi. She is working on developing analytical characterization methods to understand structure-function relationship and critical attributes of biological drug products, including mAb, bispecific antibodies, fusion proteins, recombinant lysosomal enzymes, and gene therapy products. Lin has strong expertise in LC/MS method development, protein structure characterization, degradation pathway and comparability studies. Before joining Sanofi/Genzyme, Lin worked as a senior scientist at Wyeth, Ariad and Abbot Laboratories. Lin earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Michigan Ann Arbor.

Head, ADC Analytical Skill Center, Biologics Developmentelopment
Delphine MATHIEU joined Sanofi in 2008 where she held different roles within Analytical development teams dedicated to Biologics before focusing on Antibody Drug Conjugates in 2016 by taking the responsibility of the ADC analytical skill center. Prior to Sanofi, she worked for 4 years in a toxicological CRO where she held the role of bioanalytical study director. Delphine holds a masters degree from a French engineering school and completed her course with a PhD in medicinal chemistry obtained from Paris V University.

Scientific Director, Analytical Developmentelopment
Francis Poulin is a Director of Analytical Development at Sanofi in Framingham, Massachusetts, where he is responsible for the development, qualification and validation of bioassays and molecular assays to support the release of biologics in preclinical and clinical development, including gene therapy products. Prior to joining Sanofi, Francis was a postdoctoral fellow at HHMI/University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Francis received his PhD in Biochemistry from McGill University.

Head of Immunomodulation/Immunotherapy, NA Breakthrough Laboratory
No bio available

Lab Head, Mass SpeCenterometry
Dr. Soraya Hölper joined Sanofi in 2017 as a Lab Head for Mass Spectrometry. She is acquainted with developability and analysis of complex therapeutic antibodies within the Biologics Research division. Before joining Sanofi, Soraya was responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the mass spectrometry platform at the Institute of Biochemistry II in Frankfurt am Main. She holds a diploma degree in biochemistry from the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main and did her Ph.D. at the Max-Planck-Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim in the Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry division.

Senior Scientist, Cell Line Developmentelopment
I received my doctorate from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center focusing on protein aggregation; and did my post-doc at the Buck Institute. My work in the Cell Line Development Group involves media and process development, engineering novel DNA vectors, and cell line evolution.

EVP, Development
Dr. Nancy Whiting joined Seattle Genetics in March 2007, and was promoted to Executive Vice President, Late Stage Development in March 2020. She previously served as Senior Vice President, Development and Medical Affairs and Elliott Bay Site Head; Vice President, Medical Affairs; Executive Director, Medical Affairs; and Senior Medical Director, Experimental Medicine. In her current position, she has responsibility for the Clinical Development organization that is focused on late-stage clinical programs. Prior to transitioning to the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Whiting practiced as a Clinical Oncology Pharmacist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Dr. Whiting completed her undergraduate training at the University of British Columbia and received her PharmD from the University of Washington. She also completed a residency in clinical pharmacy practice at Vancouver General Hospital. Dr. Whiting is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Hematology, and the European Society of Medical Oncology. She serves on the Board of the Life Science Washington trade association.

Senior Scientist, Analytical Sciences
Sunnie Kim is a Senior Scientist in Analytical Sciences group in Process Development at Seattle Genetics. Prior to this, she worked at CMC Biologics and Bio Process Development in Merck, Kenilworth NJ. Sunnie Kim received her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry at Indiana University under the guidance of Professor David Clemmer. She then completed her NIH postdoctoral fellowship at The Rockefeller University in NY working with Professor Brian Chait on Biological Mass Spectrometry.

Senior Vice President, Clinical Research
Robert J. Lechleider, M.D. is Senior Vice President, Clinical Development at Seattle Genetics where he is responsible for directing development of the early and late stage portfolios. Previously, Dr. Lechleider held key roles at several biopharmaceutical companies, including MacroGenics and MedImmune. Before joining the biotechnology industry, he served as Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and Associate Professor of Cell Biology at Georgetown University Medical School. Dr. Lechleider received his A.B. cum laude from Princeton University and his M.D. from the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago. He received clinical training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda. He was also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar and a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow.

CSO
Taylor co-founded Shattuck Labs and currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. Taylor is the lead inventor of Shattuck’s ARC technology platform. Prior to Shattuck, Taylor served as Chief Scientific Officer of Heat Biologics, Inc. where he was a co-inventor of significant elements of Heat's ImPACT and ComPACT technology platforms. He was also the co-inventor of TNFRSF25 agonist technology developed by Pelican Therapeutics, where he served as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Principal Scientist, Biologics Process Developmentelopment
Cexiong (Winston) Fu has more than 10 years of experience in the development of various biotherapeutics modalities, receiving his Ph.D from North Carolina State University. Winston is currently a Pharmaceutical Science Lead at Takeda and is leading the CMC development of biologics. Prior to joining Shire/Takeda in 2018, Winston has worked in Abbvie and Pfizer on biologics ADME, biosimilar analytical characterization, and ADC characterization and bioanalysis.

Head, Rare Genetic Disease Research
Madhu is currently the Head of the Rare Diseases Drug Discovery Unit in Research at Takeda, and his group’s mandate spans ideation through to development of molecules to take into the clinic. Madhu has been working on discovery programs in rare diseases for almost a decade at Shire. In previous roles Madhu was Pfizer, and as faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Madhu holds a Baccalaureate in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Madras, India, and a doctorate in Neurobiology from Northwestern University, Illinois.

CSO
Prior to joining Solid, Dr. Morris was a Senior Director for Pfizer’s Rare Disease Research Unit, leading their efforts in neurologic diseases and the muscle biology programs. While at Pfizer, Dr. Morris directed several small molecule and biotherapeutic development programs, including a program that led to a Phase 2 study in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, while also heading an internal research group responsible for advancing programs from target identification to the clinic for many of the rare neurologic and muscle-related diseases. Dr. Morris identified key external opportunities and worked closely with patient groups, academic laboratories, and other industry partners to advance drug development in the rare neuromuscular space. His scientific and drug development experience at Pfizer also included investigations into broader muscle wasting conditions, as well as tendon and bone repair biology. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2007, Dr. Morris was an Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Medicine and a founding faculty member of the Muscle and Aging Research Unit, established to investigate strategies for improving muscle function during aging or disease. He completed his Postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania where he worked on multiple projects ranging from molecular aspects of muscle protein interactions through to therapeutic approaches for modulating muscle size and function. As a trained muscle physiologist, his academic pursuits have ranged from biophysical aspects of muscle contraction and enzyme kinetics to therapeutic interventions in a variety of in vivo muscle atrophy and disease models. Dr. Morris holds a B.A. in Biology from Franklin Pierce College (Rindge, NH) and a PhD in Physiology from UCLA.

Bioassay and Cell Culture Lead
Lisa Lundberg currently leads the Bioassay team in the Analytical Sciences group at Spark Therapeutics.  She is primarily responsible for the development and validation of potency and infectivity assays, supporting Spark Therapeutics pipeline.  She has over 25 years of experience in pharma and biotech, government and contract testing industries, developing potency, PK, immunogenicity and NAb assays for protein drug products, vaccines and gene therapies.  She holds a BSc from Case Western Reserve University.

CSO
Andrew Bradbury is one of the founders of Specifica, a member of the Board of Directors, and serves as the Chief Scientific Officer. Andrew has almost 30 years of experience in the field of recombinant antibodies and display technologies. Throughout his career, he has developed and employed novel technologies, including the use of lox recombination to dramatically increase antibody library diversity. Andrew is a vocal proponent for the use of sequenced recombinant antibodies in research to improve reproducibility. He has frequently served as an expert witness in antibody patent cases involving some of the world’s bestselling antibody drugs. Andrew has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers and is the inventor on numerous patents and patent applications. Andrew holds a PhD from Cambridge University, where he studied under Nobel Laureate Cesar Milstein, the inventor of monoclonal antibodies, and holds an MB BS (medical degree) from the University of London as well as a BA and MA from Oxford University.

Head, Bioinformatics
M. Frank Erasmus is the head of bioinformatics at Specifica, Inc. where he specializes in the use of Next-Generation Sequencing technologies to aid in the design of custom therapeutic antibody libraries. Formerly, Frank was awarded a national fellowship from the National Cancer Institute for his translational research associated with B cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia conducted at the Spatiotemporal Modeling Center and Los Alamos National Labs. He brings over 10 years of experience in both biotechnology and academic settings in the development and characterization of therapeutic antibodies using theoretical modeling, bioinformatics and experimental approaches.

Senior Technical Program Manager
Dawn holds a PhD in Genetics and Genomic Sciences from University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prior to joining SCB, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health in the National Eye Institute performing stem cell research developing retinal organoids for testing and therapeutic purposes from stem cells. Currently she works as the senior technical program manager for the Standards Coordinating Body. Dawn works to oversee all technical projects to coordinate and facilitate the development of standards for regenerative medicine.

Shriram Chair & Professor, Bioengineering & Chemical Engineering
Jennifer Cochran is the Shriram Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. She is a Professor of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, Chemical Engineering and a member of the Cancer Biology, Biophysics, and Immunology graduate programs. Dr. Cochran serves as the Director of the Stanford/NIH Biotechnology pre-doctoral training program, and co-Director of the Stanford NIST pre-doctoral training program. Her research group uses interdisciplinary approaches in chemistry, engineering, and biophysics to study complex biological systems and to develop new tools for basic science and biomedical applications. Dr. Cochran translational interests span protein-based drug discovery and development for applications in oncology and regenerative medicine, and development of new technologies for high-throughput protein analysis and engineering. Dr. Cochran obtained her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Biological Engineering.

Professor, Cancer Center Medical Director, Otolaryngology
Eben L. Rosenthal is a surgeon-scientist who serves as the John and Ann Doerr Medical Director of the Stanford Cancer Center. He is a Professor of Otolaryngology and Radiology (courtesy) and is clinically active as an oncologic and microvascular reconstructive surgeon. Dr. Rosenthal conducts early phase clinical trials for diagnostic and therapeutic agents for the treatment of solid tumors. He is part of a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and basic scientists that perform preclinical studies, nonhuman primate IND-enabling studies, and first-in-human clinical trials. The lab also focuses on molecular imaging of fluorescently labeled therapeutic antibodies to measure cellular delivery of therapies to tumors and adjacent tissues. Ongoing clinical trials include brain, lung, pancreas, skin and head and neck tumors.

CSO Xbrane Bioscience AB & Associate Professor, Center for Biomembrane Research
Jan-Willem de Gier is Professor of Biochemistry at Stockholm University. Main interest of his laboratory is the creation of E. coli recombinant protein production strains. To this end both evolutionary and engineering approaches are used. In addition, he is co-founder of the biotechnology companies Xbrane Biopharma AB and Abera Bioscience AB.

Professor & Vice Chair, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Don is a founder and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ePD. He is primarily responsible for new business development, client relations, and oversight of all scientific and business activities at ePD. Don received a Pharm.D. and Ph.D. degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. Don has accumulated 15+ years of experience in partnering with pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, and research institutes on applications of pharmacometric and systems modeling in drug development and pharmacotherapy. Don has contributed to over 130 peer-reviewed publications and brings a unique and global perspective to developing pharmacometric and systems-based strategies in drug development and understanding sources of individual and population-level variability in drug responses. Don is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at SUNY at Buffalo and has served as a Visiting Professor at the University Paris Descartes from 2007 to 2013. He currently serves on the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical Pharmacology Advisory Committee to the FDA and as an expert member of the Board of Pharmaceutical Sciences at FIP. Don also serves as an Associate or Consulting Editor at CPT:Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology (CPT:PSP), and Pharmacology, Research & Perspectives (PRP). Don is a Fellow and Past-President of the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP) and is a Fellow and will be President-Elect of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (ACCP). Don is also a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Prof. Dhaval K. Shah is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to becoming the faculty Prof. Shah served as a Principle Scientist in the ‘Translational Research-Modeling & Simulation’ group at Pfizer Inc. His research focuses on understanding the determinants for the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination (ADME) of protein therapeutics. His lab uses the principles of Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) Modeling & Simulation to support the discovery, clinical translation, and late phase development of novel biologics like engineered antibodies, multi-specific proteins, immuno-oncology agents, engineered T cells, and antibody-drug conjugates. He has developed several pioneering systems PK/PD models for ADCs, and continue to develop mechanism models to understand and improve pharmacological behavior of ADCs.

Professor, Nanobioscience
Susan Sharfstein is a Professor of Nanobioscience at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany, New York. Professor Sharfstein received her B.S. in chemical engineering with honors from Caltech in 1987 and her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley in 1993, receiving graduate fellowships from the university and the National Science Foundation. She received a National Institutes of Health Individual Research Service Award to pursue postdoctoral studies, initially at UC Berkeley and subsequently at the UCLA Medical School. Dr. Sharfstein joined the faculty at the University of Toledo in Bioengineering in 1996. In 2000, she received a National Science Foundation POWRE award to study glycobiology at the New York State Department of Health Wadsworth Laboratories. In 2001, she joined the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and in 2007, she received a dual appointment in Biology. In 2010, she joined the faculty at SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Professor Sharfstein received an NSF CAREER grant in 2000 for her work on hyperosmotic stress responses of hybridoma cells and the School of Engineering Education Excellence Award and the Class of 1951 Outstanding Teaching Award in 2007. Professor Sharfstein’s research interests include mammalian and microbial cell bioprocessing, control of protein glycosylation, metabolic engineering, biosensing, and development of systems for high-throughput screening of nucleic acids and small molecules. Professor Sharfstein serves as the subject editor for biotechnology for the Elsevier Major Reference Work Life Science Module. She is the author of over 60 papers and book chapters in the fields of biotechnology and bioprocessing. She was a 2017-18 recipient of a Fulbright Global Scholar award and spent her sabbatical at Dublin City University, in Dublin, Ireland and University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia performing proteomic analysis of Chinese hamster ovary cells and studying bispecific antibodies.

Vice President Biology
Dr. Yang Li is Vice President of Biology at Surrozen. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Cell Biology from Stanford University and has over 20 years experience in biopharmaceutical industry with successes in advancing drug molecules from concept to clinic. Dr. Li has expertise in several classes of targets from enzymes, transcription factors, to membrane receptors and secreted hormones. He has 77 peer-reviewed publications and over 22 published patent applications.

Senior Scienist, Discovery
No bio available

Managing Director, Research & Development
Michael brings an extensive knowledge and expertise in molecular genetics, signal transduction, and cell engineering and is the inventor of the iLite™ reporter gene technology. Michael is the author of more than 200 articles on cytokines, biotechnology, and immunogenicity.

Lead Microbiology Associate, Analytical Developmentelopment
Michele Perry received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She has ten years of experience in the science field including quality control, DMPK, manufacturing, and research and development at companies such as Seres Therapeutics and T2 Biosystems. Most recently, Michele has been developing release assays for live bacterial products in the Analytical Development group at Synlogic, Inc.

Head, Gene Therapy Technologies
Dr Juan A. Hernandez Bort works currently at Takeda (Austria) as Head of Gene Therapy Technologies and he collected, in the past 20 years, extended experience in the upstream and downstream process development of plasma-derived products, recombinants and lately gene therapy products. He hold a Master Degree and PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (BOKU), Austria. His current work is focused on recombinant Adeno-Associated Virus process development for Gene Therapy.

Associate Director IO Biology
Adnan Abu-Yousif leads execution of the targeted payload strategy in discovery at Takeda Oncology. Prior to that, he contributed to the discovery and translational support of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals pipeline molecules. He first explored the biological properties of a variety of targeted delivery vectors including an EGFR+ tumor-targeted, activatable photoimmunoconjugate under the supervision of his postdoctoral mentor, Dr. Tayyaba Hasan and hasn’t looked back. Adnan has a PhD in Pharmacology, Toxicology and Experimental Therapeutics from the University of Kansas.

Director, External Neuroscience Innovation, Neuroscience Drug Discovery Unit
In her current role, Dr Proetzel focuses on cell and gene therapy therapeutic approaches for neurological disorders. Prior industry appointments were at Scil Proteins, Halle Germany, Deltagen Inc., San Carlos, California and Boehringer Mannheim/Roche Penzberg, Germany. Before joining Takeda, Gabriele held the position of Associate Director of Technology Transfer at The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA. Gabriele earned her Masters degree in Life Sciences from the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Würzburg, Germany, and a Ph.D. from University of Cincinnati, Ohio studying homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells to develop mouse models for disease in the laboratory of Prof. Tom Doetschman. She completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. Peter Gruss at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany.

Assistant Professor, Molecular Cell Biology & Biotechnology
Dr. Wine graduated from Tel Aviv University in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology at the Faculty of Life Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Amihay Freeman and Prof Felix Frolow, where using structural biology, protein chemistry, computerized modeling and molecular biology tools, he studied various aspects of protein-protein interactions for the design of novel composite materials within the nano-biotechnology field. During his postdoctoral training at the laboratory of Prof. George Georgiou (UT, Austin), Dr. Wine focused on developing a novel approach for the in-depth analysis of the humoral response following vaccine or disease. Following his postdoc training he established his research group at Tel Aviv University. As a group leader, Dr. Wine utilizes his recently developed approach combined with earlier acquired tools to study: i) maternal-infant immunity by profiling the molecular composition, dynamics and attributes of maternal, trans-placental and breastmilk vaccine-specific antibodies; ii) Anti-drug antibodies following treatment with Biologics and ; iii) anti-bacterial antibodies to be used as next generation antibiotics. Collectively, Dr. Wine’s research group aims to address basic immunological questions as well as application-focused research for vaccine evaluation, development and design, immunodiagnostic discovery, and monoclonal antibody engineering.

CTO
Dr. Trinklein is the Chief Technology Officer at Teneobio. Teneobio employs a sequence-based approach for antibody discovery that leverages next-generation sequencing and high-throughput functionally assays to develop fully-human multi-specific antibodies. Prior to Teneobio, Dr. Trinklein was co-founder and CEO of SwitchGear Genomics, a venture-backed company that was acquired in 2013. Dr. Trinklein served as the Technical Director of the Stanford ENCODE project and received his PhD from Stanford University. Dr. Trinklein has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers and is an inventor on over 15 patents.

Senior Director Biologics Discovery
Dr. Bornstein has twenty years of experience in Oncology R&D with an emphasis in preclinical antibody discovery and development. Dr. Bornstein currently leads biologics discovery efforts at TESARO, a GSK company. He received his B.S. in biochemistry at the University of California, Davis and his doctoral degree in biochemistry at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Bornstein completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology. Following his postdoctoral training, Dr. Bornstein joined Amgen Fremont, Inc. (formerly Abgenix, Inc.) as a Staff Scientist in the Preclinical Oncology department. Dr. Bornstein has held roles of increasing responsibility at AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Novartis, where he was a project team leader, lead biologist, and key contributor to scientific strategies for multiple oncology programs.

Assistant Professor, Chemistry
My doctoral work focused on structural studies of amyloid-related proteins using X-ray crystallography that received the biochemistry distinguished dissertation award. In my doctoral research, I used pioneering micro X-ray crystallography along with a combination of techniques including the modification, design, expression, and purification of proteins/peptides, as well as structural and computational modeling. As a Nicholas Kurti Junior Research Fellow of Brasenose College in the laboratory of Professor Dame Carol V. Robinson at the University of Oxford, I pioneered novel ion mobility mass spectrometry approaches and methods to study membrane proteins and their interactions with lipid/drug molecules. Since starting my own group in 2014, we have continued to pioneer native mass spectrometry approaches to determine lipid binding thermodynamics and cooperativity, allostery within protein-protein, protein-lipid interactions, and heterogenous lipid binding events to membrane proteins.

Field Application Scientist, Protein Expression, Biosciences Division, Life Sciences Solutions Group
Rich Altman has 30 years of experience in protein expression and production. In early 2019, he joined Thermo Fisher Scientific as a Field Application Scientist.  Previously, he worked for several pharmaceutical companies, including Amgen, Alexion, Bayer, and Upjohn, on the cloning, expression, purification and characterization of recombinant proteins. This work supported both small-molecule high-throughput screening and protein therapeutic efforts. He received his MS degree from the Universityersity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

Field Application Scientist, Life Science Solutions
No bio available

Executive Director, R&D Strategy and Strategic Alliances
Seokjoong Kim is an experienced molecular biologist in the field of programmable nuclease development and genome editing technology. Currently, Seokjoong is leading research and business development of ToolGen, Inc., Korean biotech focused on the translation of CRISPR/Cas9 technology into valuable products in the field of therapeutics. Following his Ph.D. studies in Molecular Medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Seokjoong joined the group of Prof. Jin-Soo Kim at Seoul National University as a postdoctoral researcher where he started a career in genome editing with the development of zinc finger nucleases and TAL effector nucleases.

VP Development
Nancy Levin joined Triphase in 2015 with more than 20 years’ experience in the biotechnology industry, and technical expertise in clinical and translational pharmacology and nonclinical development. Nancy was Vice President of Therapeutics Product Design Group at Intrexon Corporation (2013-2014), where she oversaw the conception and development of novel therapeutic partnering opportunities enabled by Intrexon’s proprietary cell- and DNA-based technologies.  Prior to this, Nancy held positions of increasing responsibility at Pfizer (CovX Research, 2005-2013), X-Ceptor Therapeutics (2003-2004), MitoKor (2001-2003), and Trega Biosciences (1999-2001).  Nancy’s biotechnology experience began at Genentech (1993-1996), followed by Amgen (1996-1999), where she led multiple discovery and target validation projects.  Her breadth of therapeutic area expertise includes oncology, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, dermatology, inflammation, endocrinology, and rare/ultra-rare genetic diseases. She has led programs from discovery into clinical proof-of-concept employing multiple therapeutic modalities including small molecules, antibody-drug and -peptide conjugates, peptides, proteins, and antibodies.  Nancy’s development experience includes 19 IND/CTA filings, and 11 Phase 1 and 6 Phase 2 clinical proof-of-concept studies, responsible for clinical PK and biomarker study design and execution, PK modeling, clinical efficacy and safety data analysis and presentation, clinical protocol design and development, IND and Orphan Drug applications and annual reports, and complete IND-enabled submission packages for small and large molecules. She earned a Ph.D. in Endocrinology at the University of California San Francisco, followed by post-doctoral training in the Fishberg Research Center for Neurobiology at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY.

CSO, Biopharma
Aaron is CSO of the Biopharma Vertical at Twist Bioscience.  Prior to Twist, he served as Chief Scientific Officer of LakePharma, leading the California Antibody Center, which discovers novel antibody therapeutics for its clients. He also oversaw all discovery research functions both as Vice President of Protein Sciences at Surrozen, and previously, as Vice President of Research at Sutro Biopharma, Inc. He also held director level positions at both Oncomed and Dyax Corp.

Group Leader Protein Expressions, New Medicines
I did my graduate work at the University of Manitoba in Canada followed by Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan. I worked at Cayman Chemical for 7 years as the Manager for the Protein Core Group. I then moved to Massachusetts to join Beryllium Discovery just after their acquisition by UCB but before the integration. Currently, I am the Protein Expression Lead at UCB Boston. The team expresses proteins in prokaryotic (primarily E. coli) and eukaryotic (insect and mammalian) expression systems.

CEO
Jonny Finlay is the CEO of UltraHuman, an antibody drug discovery biotech in the UK that is developing a series of therapeutics for inflammation and oncology. Prior to co-founding UltraHuman, Jonny led research teams in Biologics Discovery at Pfizer and Wyeth and carried out postdoctoral research in recombinant protein engineering at several institutes, including the Centre for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA.

Professor & Director, Radiation Oncology
Donald J. Buchsbaum is a Professor of Radiation Oncology, Surgery, Pathology, Pharmacology & Toxicology, Biomedical Engineering, and Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine and plays a leading role in the breast and pancreatic cancer translational research programs that focus on the clinical development of therapeutic agents. These include monoclonal antibodies against epidermal growth factor receptor and TRAIL death receptor 5, small molecule Wnt/ß-catenin inhibitors, plus genomic analysis and precision medicine. Combinatorial studies are investigated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. In addition, he is investigating therapeutic agents against breast and pancreatic cancer stem cells and immune-based therapies. He is the Co-Leader of the Inflammation, Immunology, and Immunotherapeutics Program in the University of Alabama at Birmingham O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Professor, Biochemistry
Imre Berger was trained at Leibniz University Hannover (Germany), MIT (USA) and ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Imre held faculty positions at ETH and EMBL before joining University of Bristol, UK in 2014. AT Bristol, he is Professor and Chair in Biochemistry and Chemistry, Director of the Bristol synthetic biology research centre BrisSynBio and Co-Director of the Bristol biodesign institute BBI. Imre published more than 100 papers in leading journals, co-founded three biotech companies and won several distinctions including the Swiss Technology Award, the Swiss Venture Award (2nd prize), the DeVigier Foundation Award and a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award for his innovative research. Since 2019, Imre Berger is Investigator of the European Research Council (ERC) and Founding Director of the Max Planck Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology.

Professor, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
I received my PhD in 1978 from UC Davis and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and UC San Francisco. I have been a professor at UC Irvine since 1985. The focus of my laboratory is to understand the structure of amyloids, their assembly pathways and their mechanisms of pathogenesis in neurodegenerative disease, like Alzheimer’s disease. The goal of this work is to facilitate the development of effective diagnostic and therapeutic agents. Amyloids form an ensemble of common structures, including parallel, in-register fibrils, anti-parallel ß sheet prefibrillar oligomers and ß barrel annular protofibrils that display generic epitopes that are recognized by polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies in a wide variety of amyloid forming proteins and peptides. We have raised 30 unique monoclonal antibodies that react with different epitopes and recognize different structures and aggregation states. This raises the question of whether these different amyloid structures have distinct functions in pathogenesis. Using these novel antibodies, we have discovered that unique types of amyloid deposits accumulate at specific times and locations during aging and disease such as intracellular amyloid which aggregates early inside neurons that ultimately degenerate and form the nidus of neuritic plaques. We are currently investigating these novel amyloid structures to determine their significance for disease processes and their mechanisms of pathogenesis. We are also characterizing endogenous human antibodies that are associated with protection against Alzheimer’s disease, infectious disease and cancer.

Professor, Chemistry & Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Gregory Weiss is a Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He earned a BS from UC Berkeley and a PhD from Harvard. His undergraduate and graduate research focused on the development of heterocyclic mimics of peptides. Awarded a Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the NIH, he returned the funding to pursue post-doctoral studies with Dr. Jim Wells, then at Genentech. In 2000, he joined the faculty at UCI where his laboratory focuses on the interface between chemistry and biology, including studies of enzymes, molecular recognition, and bioelectronics. His awards include Outstanding Professor in the School of Physical Sciences at UCI (elected by the graduating students), Beckman Foundation Young Investigator, and election to Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published around 100 peer-reviewed articles in chemical biology, biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and organic chemistry. He co-founded and was twice elected co-chair of the Global Young Academy, which includes 200 top young scientists from >55 countries. With Dr. David Van Vranken, he co-authored Introduction to Bioorganic Chemistry and Chemical Biology. In 2015, he was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry for leading the team that partially unboiled the egg. He has started two biotech companies and is UCI’s Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year in 2018. He and his wife live in Irvine, California with their three cats.

Director, MicroED Imaging Center & Professor, Biological Chemistry & Physiology
Tamir Gonen is a membrane biophysicist and an expert in electron crystallography and cryo EM. Gonen is a professor of Biological Chemistry and Physiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine of the University of California, Los Angeles and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Member of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 2011, while leading a lab at the HHMI Janelia Research Campus he began developing Microcrystal Electron Diffraction (MicroED) as a new method for structural biology. With this method, Dr. Gonen has pushed the boundaries of cryoEM and determined several previously unknown structures at resolutions better than 1Å. Gonen authored more than 100 publications and several of his past trainees are now faculty around the world at top universities.

PostDoc Fellow
I am an experienced computational scientist with a focus on developing and applying workflows that integrate large-scale data sets, network-based analysis, and structure-based modeling approaches. I received my doctorate in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), and my post-doc was at UC San Diego Medical School.

Associate Professor, Pediatrics
Dr. Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received his BS in biochemistry at Brigham Young University, and his PhD at UC San Diego, where he focused on proteomics and developing novel approaches for analyzing biological big data using genome-scale systems biology modeling techniques. Dr. Lewis completed his postdoctoral training at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School, where he worked on genome editing and the use of systems biology for the interpretation of genetic screens. Dr. Lewis' lab integrates all of his previous work by focusing heavily on the use of systems biology and genome editing techniques to map out and engineer the cell pathways controlling mammalian cell growth, protein synthesis, and protein glycosylation.

Professor, Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Jim pioneered the engineering of proteins, antibodies, and small molecules that target catalytic, allosteric, and protein-protein interaction sites. He developed technologies including protein phage display, alanine-scanning, engineered proteases for improved hydrolysis, bioconjugations, N-terminomics, disulfide “tethering” (a novel site-directed fragment-based approach for drug discovery), and more recently an industrialized recombinant antibody production pipeline for the proteome and protein-Seq. These lead to important new insights into protease mechanisms, growth factor signaling, hot-spots in protein-protein interfaces, role of caspases in biology, and more recently determining how cell surfaces change in health and disease. His team was integral to several protein products including Somavert for acromegaly, Avastin for cancer, and engineered proteases sold by Pfizer, Genentech and Genencor, respectively. At Sunesis where he was President and CSO his team discovered the LFA-1 antagonist, Lifitegrast, now FDA approved for dry eye disease through SARcode and sold by Shire. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and inventor on more than 60 patents. Dr. Wells received a B.A. degree in biochemistry from the UC Berkeley, a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Washington State University with Professor Ralph Yount and completed postdoctoral studies at Stanford University Medical School with Professor George Stark. He joined Genentech in 1982 as a founding member of the Protein Engineering Department, Founded Sunesis Pharmaceuticals in 1998 and joined UCSF in 2005 now as Professor and former Chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. In 1999, he was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015 elected member in the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and 2016 the National Academy of Inventors.

Reader (Assoc Prof), Chemical Biology
After completing his D.Phil. in 2008 at the University of Oxford, U.K., he undertook postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany, and the ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and worked as a Group Leader at Alfama Lda in Portugal. He started his independent research career in 2013 at the University of Cambridge as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. In 2018 he was appointed University Lecturer (Tenured) and recently has been promoted to Reader (Associate Professor). Gonçalo is the recipient of two European Research Council grants; a starting grant and a proof-of-concept grant, and was awarded the Harrison–Meldola Memorial Prize in 2016 and the MedChemComm Emerging Investigator Lectureship in 2018, both from the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research group interests focus on the use of chemistry principles to tackle challenging biological problems for understanding and fight cancer.

Endowed Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering
Ted Randolph received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.  He worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, and then joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Yale University as an Assistant Professor.  After promotion to Associate Professor, he was named to Yale’s first John J. Lee Junior Professorship Chair in Chemical Engineering.  In 1993, Dr. Randolph accepted the Patton Associate Professorship Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado.   He currently serves as the Gillespie Professor of Bioengineering, co-Director of the University of Colorado’s Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology.  Dr. Randolph is a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, and received the AIChE Professional Progress Award and has twice received the American Pharmacists’ Association Ebert Prize.  He is an author of more than 230 peer-reviewed journal articles in the areas of biopharmaceutical formulation, lyophilization of proteins, protein-solvent interactions in non-aqueous environments, and protein refolding. Dr. Randolph is an inventor on 27 US patents, and has cofounded three companies, RxKinetix Inc., Barofold, Inc. and VitriVax Inc.

Professor, Pediatrics
Dr. Fry is a Professor of Pediatrics, Hematology and Immunology, Co-Director of the Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Initiative, Director of Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and holds the Robert and Kathleen Clark Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cancer Therapeutics at the Children’s Hospital Colorado. He arrived at Children’s Hospital Colorado in 2018 after serving as Head of the Hematologic Malignancies Section in the Pediatric Oncology Branch at the NIH where he led efforts in Cellular Immunotherapy for pediatric leukemia. Prior to the NIH, Dr. Fry was Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplantation at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. Dr. Fry’s research focuses on the preclinical and clinical development of chimeric antigen receptor T cells for pediatric cancers. He serves on the Committee for Scientific Affairs for the American Society of Hematology, Vice Chair for Biology in the Cellular Therapy Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group and was recently elected into the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Professor, Department of Immunology and Microbiology
MD PhD, Professor of Immunology, University of Copenhagen. Research interest include: immunogenicity, CD8 and CD4 T cell epitopes and responses, peptide-MHC class I and II interactions (including recombinant MHC class I and II molecules, peptide-MHC I and II binding assays, large-scale data generation, neural network predictors (e.g. NetMHC). Founder of immunAware, provider of high-quality MHC services and reagents including easYmers (do-it-yourself peptide-MHC tetramers).

PostDoc Researcher, Delaware Biotechnology Institute
Hussain Dahodwala obtained his PhD from RPI in 2007 and has since worked at SUNY polytech, NIH VRC labs and University of Delaware where the his research efforts have focused on understanding the role of culture conditions and cell physiology on living systems used for industrially relevant processes. The primary area of interest is the use of mammalian cell systems for the production of therapeutic proteins. He has many publications and review articles on the use of modern cell and molecular biology along with “omics” to probe physiological states, with an objective of optimizing production systems both from an engineering perspective (e.g. culture conditions) as well as from a biological perspective (cellular and metabolic engineering).

Asst Prof, Bioengineering
Thomas Gaj is an assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA and performed his postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley. His research lies at the intersection of neuroscience and engineering and is focused on the development of technologies that can facilitate the correction of the inherited and spontaneous mutations that underlie many neurodegenerative conditions.

Assistant Professor, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
Dr. Brandon DeKosky is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas Departments of Chemical Engineering and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, where his laboratory leverages recent advances in next-generation DNA sequencing technologies to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of immune function and accelerate the development of new vaccines and therapeutics. During his graduate research, Dr. DeKosky invented the very first technology for sequencing the antibody proteins encoded by B cells at the single-cell level, at a massive scale (for example, over 5 million single B cells in a one-day experiment), which reduced cost and enhanced throughput for antibody sequencing by multiple orders of magnitude compared to traditional antibody discovery platforms. Dr. DeKosky also pioneered the associated bioinformatic methods for rapid statistical analysis of the very large datasets generated by this approach. Ongoing efforts in the DeKosky lab, supported by an NIH Director’s Early Independence Award and a United States Department of Defense Career Development Award, and focus on expanding our ability to determine the mechanisms of protection for human vaccines and to develop novel and improved targeted human therapeutics.

Postdoc Researcher, Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Dr. Matias Gutierrez is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the lab of Dr. Brandon DeKosky at the University of Kansas. Dr. Gutierrez’s graduate research studied the development and characterization of biopharmaceuticals, with a focus on monoclonal antibodies. Currently, Dr. Gutierrez works to develop new tools for bioinformatic analysis of single-cell antibody repertoire data, and to establish new techniques for high-throughput B cell sequencing.

Associate Researcher, Vaccine Analytics & Formulation Center VAFC
Kawaljit Kaur is an associate researcher at the Vaccine Analytics and Formulation Center in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas. Dr. Kaur received her undergraduate degree in Biophysics at Panjab University, India, and PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from University of Kansas in 2016. Her PhD research utilized protein Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as a major biophysical tool to characterize protein-protein interactions that play important role in bacterial pathogenesis. Her current research projects involve using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry and other biophysical techniques, such as, calorimetry, fluorescence, and biolayer interferometry, to characterize and compare the physicochemical properties of various vaccine antigens.

Senior Scientist, Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Prashant Kumar is a Senior Scientist at Vaccine Analytics and Formulation Center (VAFC) at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He received his Ph.D. in Bioprocess Technology in 2015 from the Institute of Chemical Technology, India. He then joined the University of Kansas for his postdoctoral research on multi-subunit vaccines. Prashant’s current research focuses on development of stable, low-cost, vaccine formulations including rotavirus, poliovirus, HPV and combination vaccines. His research involves application of high throughput analytical methods, process integration, continuous processing and Design of Experiments (DOE) for process optimization and cost minimization of the vaccine drug products. Prashant has several publications to his credit and is serving as reviewer for various scientific journals. He is committed to high standards of research, cross-functional teamwork, relationship building and scientific collaboration across multiple disciplines.

Professor, Chemistry
Brandon T. Ruotolo is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Saint Louis University in 1999. Brandon then received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2004 under the direction of David H. Russell. He did his post-doctoral work at the University of Cambridge with Dame Carol V. Robinson, and was awarded the first ever Waters Research Fellowship in 2008. Brandon moved to the University of Michigan in 2009, where he began his independent career. The Ruotolo research group at the University of Michigan seeks to enable breakthroughs in structural biology and drug discovery by leveraging the potential of ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) for the comprehensive, 3D structural analysis of the proteome. To this end, Ruotolo and his team have studied the role of solvation on biomolecular structure, introduced collision induced unfolding (CIU) - a new fingerprinting technology capable of detecting the structural state of protein-ligand complexes and biotherapeutics, developed software packages for the enhanced interpretation and throughput of IM-MS and CIU data, and investigated the structural consequences of small molecule drug-like compounds on amyloid-related peptides. Ruotolo’s work has resulted in ca. 120 peer-reviewed publications, and many awards, including the Eli Lilly Award in Analytical Chemistry, the NSF CAREER award, the ASMS Research Award, the Protein Science Young Investigator Award, and the Agilent Thought Leader Award.

Albert M Mattocks Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences & Chemical Engineering
Peter Tessier is the Albert M. Mattocks (Endowed) Professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, and a member of the Biointerfaces Institute at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware (2003, NASA Graduate Fellow) and performed his postdoctoral studies at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT (2003-2007, American Cancer Society Fellow). Tessier started his independent career as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2007, and he was an endowed full professor at Rensselaer prior to moving to the University of Michigan in 2017. Tessier’s research focuses on designing, optimizing, characterizing and formulating a class of large therapeutic proteins (antibodies) that hold great potential for detecting and treating human disorders ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s disease. He has received a number of awards and fellowships in recognition of his pioneering work: Pew Scholar Award in Biomedical Sciences (2010-2014), Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2014-2015), Young Scientist Award from the World Economic Forum (2014), Young Investigator Award from the American Chemical Society (2015) and NSF CAREER Award (2010-2015).

Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering & Biomedical Engineering
Greg M. Thurber is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His work focuses on applying fundamental biotransport principles to design novel therapeutics and molecular imaging agents. Prof. Thurber received his training in protein therapeutics at MIT under the guidance of Dr. Dane Wittrup. He then completed his in vivo training in molecular imaging in the laboratory of Dr. Ralph Weissleder at Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Since joining the faculty at Michigan, he has delivered 26 invited talks at major pharmaceutical companies, national and international conferences, and university departmental seminars. Prof. Thurber works with several pharmaceutical companies as a consultant, collaborator, and/or member of their scientific advisory board. He and his students have presented their interdisciplinary work at chemistry, chemical engineering, and pharmaceutical science conferences. Prof. Thurber has authored 39 peer-reviewed journal publications, 3 book chapters, and numerous conference proceedings. He has received several awards including an NIH K01 award and the National Science Foundation CAREER award.

Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
Ben Hackel is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. He earned degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin (B.S. 2003, advised by Eric Shusta) and MIT (Ph.D. 2009, advised by Dane Wittrup) and performed postdoctoral research in the radiology department at Stanford University (Sam Gambhir). Since its inception in 2011, the Hackel lab has applied protein engineering technologies to develop physiological molecular targeting agents for molecular diagnostics and targeted therapy, with a focus on oncology and infectious disease.

Professor, Masonic Cancer Center
Jeffrey S. Miller, MD, is currently a Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Deputy Director of the Masonic Cancer Center, and is in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Transplantation. Dr. Miller was the recipient of the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award for 2015 and has more than 20 years of experience studying the biology of NK cells and other immune effector cells and their use in clinical immunotherapy with over 200 peer-reviewed publications.

Professor Medicine & Genetics & Associate Dean, Cell Biology & Developmentelopment
No bio available

Professor Radiation Oncology, Therapeutic Radiology
Professor of Radiation Oncology and member of the NCI-designated Mesonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Currently, Lion Scholar. PhD from Ohio State University in Immunology and Oncology 1978. Past Leukemia Society and ACS scholar. Over 200 career publications on PubMed. Specialist in the genetic engineering of new anti-cancer drugs designed to use antibodies to selectively target carcinoma and leukemia. Have assembled a drug facility at the U of M that allows cGMP production of biological drugs. Have FDA sponsored 3 drugs and taken these from Bedside to the clinic.

Associate Professor
Associate Professor at the Department of Biotechnology (BOKU), head of the working group microbial fermentation and principal investigator in the Austrian Center of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB). The working group has established an integrated systems approach for bioprocess development and is focused on the implementation of PAT and QbD concepts in bioprocessing and rational host cell design. CHO, E. coli, insect cells and vero cell lines are used as expression systems for production of a representative set of biopharmaceuticals (mABs, Fabs, scFvs, VLPs, viruses, DNA.

Associate Professor, Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Eschelman School of Pharmacy
Professor Rihe Liu’s laboratory at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Carolina Centre for Genome Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill focuses on the directed molecular evolution of novel multifunctional target-binding molecules from natural and unnatural biopolymer libraries with high diversity and use the resulting affinity ligands in various modalities, including the protein, the mRNA as well as the engineered immune cells, to specifically target cancer cells or modulate the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment for combination immunotherapy.

DPhil Student, Oxford Protein Informatics Group, Department of Statistics
Aleksandr Kovaltsuk received his MSc degree in Pharmacology from the University of Glasgow in 2016, conducting his research year in the Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering department at MedImmune (AstraZeneca) in Cambridge, UK. He then joined the Oxford Protein Informatics Group at the University of Oxford to study for a DPhil under the supervision of Professor Charlotte Deane in collaboration with UCB Pharma. In 2017 he was awarded a Royal Commission Industrial Fellowship. He authored the Observed Antibody Space (OAS) antibody next-generation sequencing [Ig-seq] database, and the ABOSS and SAAB+ tools for error-filtering and structurally annotating Ig-seq datasets respectively. He has written a review on the benefits of structural Ig-seq analysis. His current project involves developing software for immunodiagnostics and humanisation.

DPhil Student, Oxford Protein Informatics Group, Department of Statistics
Matthew Raybould received his MChem degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford in 2016. He is currently studying for a DPhil, working in the Oxford Protein Informatics Group at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Charlotte Deane. He collaborates with AstraZeneca, GSK, Roche, and UCB. He wrote the Therapeutic Structural Antibody Database (Thera-SAbDab) and the Therapeutic Antibody Profiler (TAP) for structure-based developability assessment. He has written reviews on harnessing immunoglobulin sequencing data in therapeutic discovery. His research currently focuses on in silico high throughput antibody screening and subsequent rational optimisation.

Assistant Professor Hematology & Oncology, Center for Advanced Medicine
Dr. Adam Cohen received his medical degree and did his internal medicine residency at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He completed a hematology/oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, including research training in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology under Alan Houghton, MD. He then served as faculty on the Hematology Service at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia. Currently, he is Director of Myeloma Immunotherapy, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Dr. Cohen is board certified in medical oncology and hematology. He is a member of ASCO, ASH, and AACR. He is also a member of the Multiple Myeloma Committee, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, and has served on the NCCN Multiple Myeloma Guidelines Panel. He is a medical advisor for the Myeloma Beacon, and an ad hoc reviewer for Leukemia, Blood, and Clinical Cancer Research, among other journals. His research interests involve novel therapeutics for plasma cell diseases, particularly vaccines and cellular immunotherapies. He has co-authored over 50 original articles, chapters, and reviews on cancer vaccines, tumor immunity, multiple myeloma, amyloidosis, and stem cell transplant.

Director & Adjunct Associate Professor, Pathology & Lab Medicine
Dr. Jan Joseph (Jos) Melenhorst obtained his PhD at the LUMC (Department of Hematology) on the pathogenesis of Aplastic Anemia. In 1998 he moved to Bethesda, Maryland, where he did his research ‐ first as a postdoc, later as a staff scientist ‐ in the laboratory of Dr. John Barrett at the National Institutes of Health, on the immunobiology of marrow failure syndromes, leukemic disorders, and allogeneic stem cell transplantation. In 2012 he was recruited by Dr. Bruce Levine and Dr. Carl June to the University of Pennsylvania, first as Deputy Director of their clinical manufacturing (cGMP) facility. After a year he was promoted to Director of Product Development & Correlative Sciences. In this role, he was at the cusp of the first ever CAR T cell therapy approved by FDA: Kymriah. Dr. Melenhorst is interested in understanding and improving the anti-tumor efficacy and safety of adoptively transferred chimeric antigen receptor-modified T cells through correlative, mechanistic, and functional genomics approaches.

Associate Professor, Microbiology
James L. Riley, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania. His lab studies the cell biology and therapeutic use of primary human T cells. His lab has developed and is developing a number of T cell-based therapies to treat HIV, cancer and autoimmune diseases. As an officer in the US Army, he received postdoctoral training in Dr. Carl June’s laboratory, where he developed an interested in T cell signaling pathways and therapeutic uses of primary human T cells. Dr. Riley graduated from Vanderbilt University with a BS in Molecular Biology, studying Dictyostelium iscoideum, and subsequently earned his PhD from Emory University in Dr. Jeremy Boss’ laboratory, studying the gene regulation of MHC class II genes.

Assistant Professor, Surgery Research
Dr. Gerber is a tumor immunologist whose laboratory focuses on harnessing the immune system to recognize and kill cancerous cells. His lab uses an immunotherapeutic approach to enhance the efficacy of chemo/radiotherapies to control or even cure both primary and metastatic malignancies.

Chief, Hematology/Oncology
Dr. Frankel is the inaugural holder of the Arlene and Mayer Mitchell Chair in Medical Oncology. He is a co-inventor on 12 issued patents and has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals. His current research interests include melanoma, for which he is nationally renowned.

Professor, Molecular Immunology
Sally Ward completed her Ph.D. research in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University in 1985 under the mentorship of Professor David Ellar. From 1988 to 1990, she carried out research on antibody repertoire technology in Sir Greg Winter’s laboratory at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. In 1990 she joined the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, as an Assistant Professor. From 2002-2014, she was a Professor in the Department of Immunology at the same institution and in 2004 was appointed to the Paul and Betty Meek-FINA Professorship in Molecular Immunology. Since 2014, she has been a Professor at Texas A&M University Health Science Center, and has recently been appointed as Director of Translational Immunology and Professor of Molecular Immunology at the Centre for Cancer Immunology in Southampton, U.K. In 2010, she was a founding co-organizer of the Gordon Research Conference ‘Antibody Biology and Engineering’. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Antibody Society and serves on the editorial boards of mAbs and Protein Engineering, Design and Selection. Her interdisciplinary research involves the use of a combination of fluorescence imaging, protein engineering and in vivo studies to develop antibody-based therapeutics to treat cancer and autoimmunity.

Group Leader, Biomedical Engineering
Dafne Müller received her doctoral degree from the University of Stuttgart in Germany. At the present she holds a group leader/lecturer position at the department of Biomedical Engineering at the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology of the University of Stuttgart. Working in the field of recombinant antibodies for over 15 years, her current research focuses on the development of recombinant antibody-fusion proteins with immune stimulatory or costimulatory properties for targeted cancer immunotherapy.

Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering
Professor Maynard received her undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Stanford University, followed by a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and post-doctoral studies at Stanford University. She returned to the UT Austin as a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering in 2007. Her research group aims to develop advanced antibody therapeutics to treat infectious diseases, using a combination of biological and engineering principles. Her group has developed antibodies to prevent and treat pertussis and shown that these are highly protective in adolescent and neonatal baboon models of disease. Newer work is focused on strategies to re-direct T cells to eliminate virally-infected cells.

Professor & Chair, Internal Medicine & Cell Biology
Philipp Scherer is Professor and Director of the Touchstone Diabetes Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Basel, Switzerland, followed by post-doctoral training the Whitehead Institute at MIT in Cambridge. In 1997, he joined the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he was a Professor for Cell Biology and Medicine. Throughout his career, he has maintained an interest in processes related to cellular and systemic energy homeostasis. He identified adiponectin, one of the first secretory factors to be described that almost exclusively originate in adipose tissue and which is currently widely studied by many different research groups. Current efforts in his laboratory are focused on the identification and physiological characterization of novel proteins that serve as potential links between the adipocyte, liver, the pancreatic beta cell and the processes of whole body energy homeostasis, inflammation, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Scherer has been on the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical Center since 2007 as a member of the Department of Internal Medicine. He holds the Touchstone Distinguished Chair in Diabetes Research and is a member of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. He was awarded the 2015 Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement from the American Diabetes Association, the 2017 European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) / Novo Nordisk Foundation Diabetes Prize for Excellence and the 2018 Manpei Suzuki Prize in Japan.

Professor, Chemistry
Dr. Zhiqiang An is Professor of Molecular Medicine, the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry, and Director of the Texas Therapeutics Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. His laboratory focuses on cancer antibody drug resistance mechanisms, biomarkers for cancer therapeutic antibodies, and antibody drug discovery targeting cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. An also directs the Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibody Lead Optimization and Development Core Facility funded by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). Previously, he served as Chief Scientific Officer at Epitomics, Inc. and was Director of Biologics Research at Merck Research Laboratories. He started his biotech career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Dr. An received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Kentucky and his postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an elected fellow of Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. He is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Associate Professor, Molecular Genetics & Computer Science
Philip M. Kim is a Professor at Donnelly Centre at the University of Toronto. He leads a research laboratory that integrates machine learning, physics-based modeling and wet/experimental methods for engineering of biologics. He is a Co-founder of Resolute Bio, a drug development startup company. He authored over 70 publications, 7 invention disclosures and 3 patent applications. Before to setting up his lab in 2009, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University where he pioneered structural analyses of protein interactions networks and an associate with McKinsey & Co. He holds a Ph.D. from the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Department of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Physics from the University of Tuebingen.

Assistant Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics, UVA Cancer Center
No bio available

Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering
Dr. Shusta received his Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Illinois where he studied the production and engineering of antibodies and T-cell receptors using yeast. He followed this with postdoctoral training at the University of California-Los Angeles where he helped pioneer molecular level analyses of the blood-brain barrier. Currently, Dr. Shusta is the Howard Curler Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin. His research focuses on the development of molecular and cellular engineering tools that can help gain a better understanding of blood-brain barrier transport and function. He has been recognized by an NSF Career award, the American Chemical Society BIOT division young investigator award, among others, and was recently elected fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Associate Professor, Immunology
Dr. Adler received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Columbia University where he studied hormonal regulation of gene expression. His post-doctoral research at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine focused on studying T cell tolerance pathways, and how they impact tumor immunity. His laboratory at the UConn Health School of Medical currently studies how costimulatory agonists overcome T cell tolerance to tumor antigens, and how this knowledge can be leveraged to boost the efficacy of agonist immunotherapy.

Principal Investigator, Office of Biotechnology Products
No bio available

Senior Scientific Fellow, Education & Training, Global Biologics
Dr. Maura Kibbey is a Senior Scientific Fellow for Education and Training in USP’s Global Biologics Department. Dr. Kibbey leads development of courses, workshops, and forums to engage USP’s biologics stakeholders. This role builds on her previous responsibilities directing USP scientists developing compendial standards. Before joining USP, Dr. Kibbey worked for several biotechnology and diagnostic companies in the Washington DC area in scientific, management, marketing, and business development roles, as well as performing cancer research at the National Institutes of Health. She has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles and has been an invited speaker or workshop organizer for numerous scientific conferences.

Principal Scientific Liaison
Mr. Walfish is Principal Science & Standards Liaison in the Global Science and Standards Division at United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Prior to this role Mr. Walfish was Principal Statistician at BD in Franklin Lakes, NJ. Steven was President of Statistical Outsourcing Services, a consulting company that provides statistical analysis and training to the FDA regulated industries. His expertise is in statistical methods for assay validation and CMC statistics. Mr. Walfish holds a Bachelors of Arts in Statistics from the University of Buffalo, Masters of Science in Statistics from Rutgers University and an Executive MBA from Boston University.

CSO & Senior Vice President Research
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Director & Professor, Structural Biology Brussels Lab
The Steyaert lab pioneered the use of nanobodies for chaperone-assisted X-ray crystallography (www.steyaertlab.eu), aiming at the highest hanging fruits of structural biology including membrane proteins, amyloidogenic proteins, and now also (transient) multiprotein complexes. The elucidation of the first GPCR structures in the agonist-bound active state demonstrate the power of Nanobodies to stabilize G protein coupled receptor conformational states including transmembrane signalling complexes. Recent work focusses on exploiting the conformational complexity of therapeutic targets for Nanobody-enabled drug discovery and on the design of novel antibody formats for applications in single particle cryo-EM.

Head, USP, BioProcess Development Halle, BioProcess Development
Monique Janowski-Egler, PhD, is Head of Upstream Processing in BioProcess Development at Wacker Biotech. Monique is trained as molecular biologist and microbiologist. Within more than 10 years she developed significant experience in E. coli strain and fermentation development of small and large scale production processes for various biopharmaceuticals.

Director
Rama has a PhD in Biology from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio and Postdoctoral fellowship in immunology and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. Currently working in department of Bioanalytical and Biomarker Development at Wave Life Sciences, Rama leads a group assessing immunogenicity of oligonucleotides. Before joining Wave, Rama worked for three years at Shire Pharmaceuticals, Lexington, Massachusetts, seven years at Nivalis Therapeutics, and three additional years at RoMonics and Boulder Diagnostics, Boulder, Colorado. He held various positions of increasing responsibilities working on immunogenicity, immunogenicity impact assessment, PK and PD assay development.

Northeast Regional Manager, Senior Applications Scientist
John Champagne is a Senior Applications Scientist and Regional Manager for Wyatt Technology, responsible for supporting the Northeast US and the Wyatt Applications Lab outside of Boston. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. at the University of New Hampshire under the advisory of Professor Thomas Laue where his work focused on the gelation properties of β-Lactoglobulin and the origins of opalescence in self-associating IgG antibodies solutions. Since joining Wyatt in 2002, John has provided a range of analytical support.

CSO & Senior Vice President Research
Dr. Desjarlais is the Senior Vice President, Research and CSO at Xencor, Inc. Since joining Xencor in 2001, Dr. Desjarlais has overseen the company’s engineering, discovery, and preclinical work on antibodies and other proteins. With his coworkers, Dr. Desjarlais has developed several novel technologies for the optimization of antibodies and other proteins, including a platform for generation of bispecific antibodies, and has led the discovery of multiple therapeutic antibody candidates, including CD3 bispecific antibodies, checkpoint bispecific antibodies, and cytokine-Fc fusions for treatment of a variety of diseases. Dr. Desjarlais oversees all of Xencor’s discovery research and preclinical activities, from project conception and candidate generation through preclinical proof-of-concept and early development. Prior to Xencor, Dr. Desjarlais was an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Penn State University (1997-2001), where he developed and tested methods for the de novo design of protein sequences. He began his work in the field of protein design as a Jane Coffin Childs Fellow at UC Berkeley. Dr. Desjarlais holds a PhD in Biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and a BS degree in Physics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

CSO
Mahiuddin Ahmed, PhD is the Chief Scientific Officer of Y-mAbs Therapeutics and specializes in bispecific antibody engineering. He received his PhD in Biochemistry and Structural Biology from Stony Brook University and completed postdoctoral training in cancer immunotherapy at the Sloan Kettering Institute. Prior to joining Y-mAbs, Dr. Ahmed was an Assistant Member in the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Assistant Professor, Genetics
Sidi Chen joined the Yale Faculty in 2015 as an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics and Systems Biology Institute, also as a member of the Yale Cancer Center and the Yale Stem Cell Center. Chen earned a PhD in evolutionary genetics from The University of Chicago with an award-winning dissertation with Dr. Manyuan Long. After graduation he performed postdoctoral studies at MIT under the mentorship of Dr. Phil Sharp, and also the Broad Institute working with Dr. Feng Zhang. His research focuses on providing a global understanding of biological systems. Chen developed and applied genome editing and high-throughput screening technologies, precision CRISPR-based in vivo models of cancer, global mapping of functional drivers of cancer oncogenesis and metastasis. More recently, he developed novel systems that enable rapid identification of novel immunotherapy targets and new modalities of cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Chen received a number of national and international awards including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, DoD Era of Hope Scholar Award, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow, Dale Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists, AACR NextGen Award for Transformative Cancer Research, TMKF Innovative/Translation Cancer Research Award, BCA Exceptional Research Grant Award, MRA Young Investigator Award, V Scholar, Bohmfalk Scholar, Ludwig Family Foundation Award, St. Baldrick’s Foundation Award, CRI Clinic & Laboratory Integration Program (CLIP), MIT TechReview Regional 35 Innovators, Yale-Blavatnik Innovator Award, and Sontag Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award.

Assistant Professor, Physiology
Dr. Jesse Rinehart is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology at the Yale University School of Medicine with a joint appointment in the Systems Biology Institute. Dr. Rinehart’s research aims to understand and “decode” the roles of protein phosphorylation in humans. His laboratory uses an innovative combination of quantitative phosphoproteomics and synthetic biology study protein phosphorylation in single proteins and protein networks. Recently, research in Dr. Rinehart’s laboratory has been accelerated by their Escherichia coli based technologies that enable site-specific incorporation of phosphoryation into human proteins. Dr. Rinehart received his PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale in 2005. He studied protein synthesis and the evolution of the genetic code during his graduate work. His did his postdoctoral research with Richard Lifton in the Department of Genetics at Yale and focused on protein phosphorylation in physiological systems.

Assistant Professor, Immunobiology
Aaron Ring received his undergraduate training at Yale University and entered the Stanford Medical Scientist Training Program for his MD and PhD degrees. At Stanford, he worked in the laboratories of K. Christopher Garcia and Irving Weissman to use structure-based protein engineering to develop new cytokine and immune checkpoint therapies for cancer. He additionally developed novel methodologies in protein engineering to create biologic agents against challenging targets such as G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Aaron joined the faculty of the Yale Department of Immunobiology in 2016 as the Robert T. McCluskey Yale Scholar. The focus of his research is to understand and manipulate the activity of immune receptors using structural and combinatorial biology approaches.

Director, Translational Sciences
Dr. Rupert Davies currently serves as a Director within Translational Sciences at Zymeworks, where he is responsible for the development of drug candidates from the hit discovery stage through to IND-enabling studies and into FIH clinical trials.  Dr. Davies was part of the Zymeworks team that enabled the advancement of ZW25 and ZW49 into the clinic and he and the team are now focused on combining Zymework’s Azymetric™ Bispecific and ZymeLink™ Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) platforms to develop drug candidates with expanded therapeutic windows.  Throughout his career, he has worked on a broad array of drugs modalities from small molecules and peptides to RNA mimics and antibodies, including five candidates that are currently being evaluated in clinical trials and two approved drugs.   Prior to his current role, Dr. Davies worked in various roles at small start-ups, medium-sized biotechs and Amgen.  He received his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Bioengineering at the University of Washington.