Speaker Biographies

Viktor Adalsteinsson is Director of the Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He also leads the Blood Biopsy Team in the Broad’s cancer program, a multi-institutional collaboration to profile cancer genomes directly from blood samples. The Blood Biopsy Team includes scientists, engineers, oncologists, and computational biologists spanning numerous investigators and labs at the Broad Institute, MIT, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, and beyond. The goal of their research is to identify mechanisms of response and resistance to therapy, enable routine monitoring of patients with cancer, and eventually provide a mechanism for early detection of cancer. Adalsteinsson joined the Broad Institute as a research affiliate during his doctoral studies at MIT and was subsequently tapped to lead the Blood Biopsy Team. He retains an affiliation with the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Adalsteinsson holds a PhD in chemical engineering from MIT (laboratory of J. Christopher Love), where he developed novel approaches for functional and genomic profiling of single cells in cancer. In 2017, Adalsteinsson was honored by MIT Technology Review as a visionary member of its 35 Innovators Under 35, and in 2021, he was recognized as one of Clinical Omics’ “Pioneers Under 40.”

Ann Aerts is Head of the Novartis Foundation, an organization committed to transform the health of low-income populations, by leveraging the power of data, digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to reimagine health and care around the world. Ann holds a Degree in Medicine, a Masters in Public Health from the University of Leuven, Belgium, and a Degree in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. Passionate about improving population health through data, digital and AI, Ann applies her relentless commitment to overcoming health inequities to pioneer solutions that can advance health and care globally. Ann chairs the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development Working Group on Digital and AI in Health and is a member the International Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health. In 2018 Ann served as a member of the US National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Committee on Improving the Quality of Health Care Globally and sits on the US National Academies of Medicine Commission on Healthy Longevity. Ann has authored numerous publications on digital health and innovative approaches and multisector partnerships to address global health challenges.

Courtney Andersen is an Associate Principal Scientist in the In Vivo Bioscience group at AstraZeneca in Boston. In her current role, Courtney supports oncology drug discovery programs and is a core member of the preclinical combinations team. She has experience with various in vivo tumor models, including disseminated patient-derived xenograft models, and ex vivo culture systems. Courtney began her career at AZ as a postdoc studying mechanisms of acquired drug resistance. She holds PhD in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where her research focused on hormone receptor signaling in ovarian cancer.

Johan Baeck, MD, is Senior Vice President, Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at 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. Baeck has been designing and conducting cancer immunotherapy clinical trials with in-depth translational focus for more than ten years. He holds an MD from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

Dr. Anne Bang joined the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in June 2010 as Director of Cell Biology at the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, a state-of-the-art academic drug discovery center. Her current research efforts are directed at developing human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-based models of neurological disease that have the throughput necessary for drug discovery. Prior to joining SBP she served as Director of Stem Cell Research at ViaCyte Inc, where her efforts focused advancing Viacyte’s cell therapy product into development. Dr. Bang received a B.S. from Stanford University, a Ph.D. in Biology from UCSD, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute.

Roy Baynes is Senior Vice President and Head, Global Clinical Development and Chief Medical Officer at Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD). He was previously Senior Vice President of Oncology, Inflammation and Respiratory Therapeutics at Gilead Sciences and prior to that was Vice President Global Clinical Development and Therapeutic Area (TA) Head for Hematology / Oncology, at Amgen Inc. He graduated as a Medical Doctor and obtained a Master of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He has had a long and distinguished career in the haematology-oncology-and stem cell transplantation fields, including drug development, basic research, clinical practice, clinical research, teaching and administration. He is a member of many international societies, including the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and has authored some 150 publications. He has been recurrently named among America’s top physicians. Before joining Amgen in 2002, he was the Charles Martin Professor of Cancer Research at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, an NCI designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA.

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

Jeffrey T. Borenstein, PhD, is Group Leader for Synthetic Biology and Bio Instrumentation at Draper in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he leads programs in organ and disease models for drug discovery and safety testing, immuno-oncology platforms, organ assist devices and drug delivery systems. Dr. Borenstein’s work has been supported by the NIH, NSF, DARPA and CDMRP, as well as several pharmaceutical and medical device companies. He has a Ph.D. in Physics and over twenty years of experience in the application of microsystems and microfabrication technologies toward medicine. Dr. Borenstein holds 70 issued patents and has over 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings. He is a member of the National Academy of Inventors, and has served continuously for over a decade as a panel reviewer on several NIH study sections.

Darrell Borger is Head of the Integrated Translational Technologies Laboratory in Takeda’s Oncology Drug Development Unit. With over a decade of previous experience in a large academic hospital, Darrell is working to integrate diverse expertise in cancer biomarkers and pathology with promising technologies and informatics to drive novel drug development strategies in immune oncology and provide a continuum of translational biomarker development into early clinical evaluation.

Professor Neil Carragher graduated from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland UK in 1992 with a B.Sc Honours degree in the subject of “Cell and Immunobiology”. He then took up a position within industry at the Yamanouchi Research Institute, Oxford, England UK where he also gained his PhD. He then held consecutive postdoctoral positions within the Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA and at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, Scotland UK. In 2004 Neil returned to the pharmaceutical industry as Principal Scientist with the Advanced Science and Technology Laboratory at AstraZeneca where he pioneered early multiparametric high-content phenotypic screening approaches. In 2010 he once again made the career switch from industry to academia and took up the post of Principal Investigator of Drug Discovery at the University of Edinburgh where he leads a research group and is currently co-director of the Edinburgh Cancer Discovery Unit and the Edinburgh Phenotypic Assay Centre. Primary research interests include advancing High-content analysis, phenotypic screening, Reverse Phase Protein Array technology, drug combinations and cancer drug discovery. Neil is also a member of the board of directors for the Society of Biomolecular Imaging and Informatics https://sbi2.org/ and is a founding member of the European Cell Based Assay Interest group www.eucai.org.

Alain Charest, M.Sc., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Dr. Charest received his post-graduate degrees at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. The focus of the Charest laboratory is on leveraging clinically relevant genetically engineered mouse models of primary malignant brain cancer to study central aspects of gliomagenesis and molecular responses to therapeutic interventions. Recent work from the Charest lab involves studies on the control exerted by EGFR signaling on immune landscape composition in glioblastoma.

Taosheng Chen is a Full Member at the Department of Chemical Biology & Therapeutics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He is also the Director of High Throughput Bioscience Center at St. Jude, and a Full Professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. He received his BSc and MS degrees from Fudan University, China, and completed his Ph.D. studies from the University of Vermont, and postdoctoral studies from the University of Virginia. Prior to joining St. Jude, he was a Senior Research Investigator at Bristol-Myers Squibb, and a Research Scientist at SAIC-Frederick, National Cancer Institute. He serves on the Editorial Boards of several journals, and on NIH grant review panels and study section. He has authored more than 140 publications (including 2 books) and multiple patents. His research laboratory studies the regulation of xenobiotic nuclear receptors PXR and CAR and drug metabolism, by using a multidisciplinary approach (including HTS and HCS) to develop novel PXR and CAR modulators as chemical tools for investigating the broad cellular function of PXR and CAR, and as lead compounds for therapeutic development.

Dana E. Connors, MSc, PMP is the Director for Cancer Research Partnerships at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Drawing on experience in the biotechnology industry, non-profit and federal sectors, he works with the Cancer Steering Committee to set strategy and prioritize project pipelines and manages the activities of project teams and working groups to facilitate the advancement and execution of innovative cancer research and biomarker development. In his work with public-private biomedical research partnerships he engages participation from government, industry, academia, patient-advocacy, and private sector organizations to drive international scientific collaboration in multiple disease areas. Ongoing collaborations include analytical validation and clinical utility of liquid biopsy, project opportunities around immuno-oncology biomarkers, development of clinical trial metrics, and Minimal Residual Disease in blood-based cancers.

Emilee Connors is a Principal Scientist in Translational Oncology at Merck. She received a PhD in Pharmacology and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Immunology. After almost 10 years in industry, Emilee has gained experience in publications, scientific communications, global medical affairs, and now clinical biomarker development.

Virna Cortez-Retamozo is a proficient scientist in the field of Immuno-Oncology, with a solid background in innate and adaptive host immune responses in cancer and other immune-related indications with 8 years of postdoctoral experience at the Center for Systems Biology, MGH/Harvard Medical School and over 6 years in the Pharma industry. She has broad experience in preclinical research: in vivo animal models (syngeneic, transgenic, and humanized) for testing and validating cancer and mucosal inflammation therapeutics. She has extensive experience in in vitro and in vivo validation of: 1) nanobodies (single-domain antibodies) and canonical formats for antibody-based diagnosis and immunotherapy of cancer with an emphasis in checkpoint inhibition; 2) combinatorial therapies using classical biologics/immunotherapy and chemotherapeutic agents for cancer therapeutics; 3) novel RNA therapeutic approaches for cancer and cardiovascular disease; 4) therapeutic modulation of progenitor cell trafficking during cancer progression; 5) cell-based approaches for immunotherapy of cancer; and 6) T Cell Engagers (TCE) for cancer therapeutics. She also has substantial experience in the use of nanoparticle-based technology for ex vivo and in vivo noninvasive applications in the detection of probe activation by flow cytometry, Fluorescence-Mediated Tomography (FMT), Gamma Camera Imaging, Intravital Microscopy (IVM), and Near-infrared Fluorescence Fiberoptic Bronchoscopy (NIRF Bronchoscopy).

I have extensive experience in translational research and clinical trial design, especially in melanoma. My post-doctoral fellowships were at Cleveland Clinic and Indiana University respectively working in basic science labs on fundamental biologic processes. At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I trained with Drs David Spriggs, Carol Aghajanian and Paul Chapman gaining a broad understanding of experimental therapeutics. Over the next 7 years, at the Moffitt Cancer Center, I designed and conducted numerous Phase I and II clinical trials collaborating with my colleagues Drs Richard Heller, Richard Jove, Hua Yu, Dmitry Gabrilovich, Timothy Yeatman, Pamela Munster and Daniel Sullivan, many with first in man or novel compounds and mostly in patients with melanoma. One of my collaborations with Dr Heller has resulted in intratumoral IL12 as a treatment for melanoma. At UCSF, I lead the melanoma program and several early phase and melanoma specific clinical trials as well as collaborating with my colleagues Michael Rosenblum, Max Krummel and Jeff Bluestone. One of our most interesting collaborations is with Meromot Singer at Harvard to analyse scRNA from melanoma patients progressing on immunotherapy to develop better understanding of immunotherapy response.

Dr. Dolina joined Pfizer in 2019 as a Senior Scientist focused on developing first-in-class CD8+ T cell-mediated cancer immunotherapies. He holds dual B.S. degrees in Biology and Chemistry from The College of New Jersey, an M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Virginia. His postdoctoral research was conducted at the world-renowned La Jolla Institute for Immunology. With over 14 years of experience investigating diseases including acute and chronic viral infection, bacterial infection, and cancer, Dr. Dolina’s expertise and work span regulatory and helper CD4+ T cell biology and how these cells influence cytotoxic CD8+ T cell function. His published and unpublished findings have important implications on the fundamental mechanisms governing natural immune tolerance, T cell plasticity in relation to inflammation and priming, and the development of personalized neoantigen vaccination for cancer.

Axel Ducret is a protein biochemist by training who has been using mass spectrometry for the characterization and quantification of proteins in complex mixtures. Throughout his career first at Merck Frosst in Montreal (Canada), then at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel (Switzerland), he has applied increasingly more complex proteomics strategies for the discovery and validation of biomarkers in tissue, biological fluids, or other complex biological systems. One of his current fields of interest has been the accurate and specific quantification of proteins from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue as an untapped sample collection for retrospective biomarker discovery, enabling the use of mass spectrometry as a bridging technology between discovery and early development in clinical samples.

Dr. Jason Ekert is responsible for the strategy and directing of the Neuromuscular focus area and US translational biology research at UCB as well as seeking partnerships with research institutions and companies to remain on the leading edge of drug discovery. Before joining UCB he was Head of CIVM group at GSK and worked at Janssen in biotherapeutic drug discovery. Jason received his PhD from Adelaide University. Post-doctoral training was performed at UC Davis, and Coriell Institute for Medical Research. He currently co-leads the regulatory sub-group for the IQ-MPS affiliate and was the past chair of the IQ-MPS affiliate.

Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam. Co-founder of Gero, a data-driven longevity biotech company, that develops new drugs against aging and other complex diseases using AI-platform. An author of 75+ published papers in multiple domain areas. Two recent papers in collaboration with NYU and Harvard Medical Scholl will be published soon in the Science Journal and Nature Communications respectively.

Marc Ferrer is currently the Director of the 3D Tissue Bioprinting Laboratory at NCATS. He graduated with a BSc degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Barcelona, Spain, in 1989, and received his Ph.D. degree in Biological Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, in 1994. Dr. Ferrer has 20 years of experience in in vitro pharmacology for drug discovery. In the last three years, he has led the implementation of the NCATS 3D Tissue Bioprinting Laboratory, a multidisciplinary group with the goal of developing 3D organotypic cellular models that faithfully mimic human pathophysiology and using them to implement clinically predictive drug efficacy and safety screens.

Charo Garrido is Global Director of Companion Diagnostics at Daiichi-Sankyo, where she leads companion diagnostics efforts for several Trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd; DS-8201) projects. Prior to joining Daiichi-Sankyo, she was Director of Molecular Pathology at Merck, where she led clinical biomarker and CDx activities for Keytruda and other I-O programs. Throughout her professional career, she has gained extensive experience in clinical biomarker and companion diagnostics in drug development, supporting many oncology programs across all phases of clinical development.

Dr. Nicholas Geisse is the Chief Science Officer at Curi Bio, a leading developer of human stem cell-based platforms for drug discovery. He graduated from Boston University with a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, followed by a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Cambridge University. At Curi Bio, Dr. Geisse guides the company’s overall scientific strategy and develops Curi’s next-generation of innovative products aimed at increasing the predictive power of in vitro cell based assays.

Passley Hargrove-Grimes is a Scientific Program Manager for the trans-NIH Tissue Chip for Drug Screening program, for which she serves as a liaison between funded investigators, NIH administrative and program management staff, and external stakeholders, including the Food and Drug Administration and members of the pharmaceutical industry. She manages more than 15 teams in both the Tissue Chips for Disease Modeling and Efficacy Testing and “Clinical Trials” on a Chip initiatives, under the direction of Danilo A. Tagle, Ph.D., M.S. Her work focuses on translating NIH-funded basic research into the development of potentially transformative tissue-chip technology to counter the systematic challenges in drug development. Hargrove-Grimes joined NIH in 2012 as a graduate student in The George Washington University Partnership Program with the NIH. She performed research at the National Eye Institute under the guidance of Anand Swaroop, Ph.D., in the Neurobiology Neurodegeneration and Repair Laboratory, and focused on developing mouse models to study the cellular mechanisms that underlie retinal degenerative disease pathogenesis. Hargrove-Grimes’ research enumerated the significance of the intertwined endocytic and autophagic pathways in mammalian photoreceptor development and function. After receiving her doctorate in molecular medicine from The George Washington University in 2018—with a concentration in neuroscience—Hargrove-Grimes continued to study photoreceptor degeneration disease mechanisms as a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Eye Institute. During her postdoctoral training, she heard NCATS Director Christopher P. Austin, M.D., speak about the importance of translating scientific discoveries into medical interventions and decided to dedicate her career to supporting translational science and accelerating the drug-development pipeline. In her most recent position, she worked as a scientific project leader for Translational Oncology Solutions at Champions Oncology, where she was responsible for managing an array of preclinical drug-development studies in patient-derived xenograft mouse models of human cancers.

My research interests include assessing intratumoral DC phenotypic states and identifying targets to activate these cells to improve responses to adoptive cell therapy and checkpoint blockade. In addition, my lab is actively involved in understanding responses to immunotherapy (both cellular and antibody-based) using standard immunology assays, as well as developing novel approaches for immune-monitoring of clinical trials.

Genevive Hernandez-Pantua is the Director and Head of Clinical Biomarkers at IGM Biosciences, a biotechnology company pioneering the use of novel engineered multivalent and multispecific therapeutics. She leads the development and execution of biomarker and diagnostic strategies for all pipeline molecules and is also the Clinical Development Lead of the company’s COVID-19 program. Dr. Hernandez-Pantua was previously at Genentech, where she completed her postdoctoral studies on the interplay between angiogenesis and tumor immunity, and then became the Biomarker Lead for multiple trials of the breakthrough cancer immunotherapies atezolizumab (anti-PDL1 Ab) and mosunetuzumab (CD20xCD3 bispecific Ab). She obtained her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and BS in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. She also received additional training on infectious diseases and public health at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in the Philippines. Dr. Hernandez-Pantua has over 20 years of experience in preclinical, translational, and clinical research encompassing vaccine development, cellular immunology, and immuno-oncology. Her passion is to develop immune-based therapies with transformative benefit.

Dave SB Hoon is Professor, Director of Translational Research at John Wayne Cancer Institute (JWCI), Providence Health System. He is director of Depts of Translational Molecular Medicine and Sequencing Center. Dr. Hoon was a founding member of JWCI in 1991 and has been a pioneer of molecular blood biopsies since the early nineties. He has published over 400 publications mainly on translational molecular cancer research. Has published on the utility of various types of cell-free circulating nucleic acids(cfNA) in different cancer types involving multiple clinical settings and phases of clinical trials. Over the years has developed various types of assays to assess different forms of cfNAs and their utility in early and advanced stages of solid tumor cancers. Advisor of cfNA pharmabiotechs.

Shane Horman is the Associate Director of Early Target Discovery at Takeda, California. His group is responsible for novel target ID and target validation for GI, oncology and rare diseases. Shane's research initiatives often involve functional genomics profiling of 3D and multicellular ex vivo diseased tissue and tumor models. Before Takeda, Shane ran the Advanced Assays group at GNF (Novartis) specializing in immune and stromal drug targets that modify the tumor microenvironment. Shane received his BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his PhD from King's College-London and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Cincinnati Children's Hospital where he worked on mouse models of human leukemias.

Jamie is a Scientific Leader within the Functional Genomics department managing a team of scientists focused on the development and use of stem cell derived models to support functional genomics and drug discovery. She received her Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania where she developed novel biodegradable material-driven strategies to attenuate the scar formation and left ventricular remodelling that occurs post-infarct. This work resulted in numerous publications and one granted patent. Jamie stayed at Penn to complete her postdoctoral training with John Gearhart where her work focused on investigating the role of the microenvironment in cardiac progenitor cell fate decisions and direct reprogramming strategies. Since joining GSK in 2014, Jamie utilized her unique interdisciplinary training to design and execute the development of novel cellular models, both hiPSC-based and otherwise, in addition to chemical and genomic screens for internal programs and several external collaborations.

Chris Karlovich Ph.D. is Director of the Molecular Characterization (MoCha) Laboratory at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR). The mission of MoCha is to develop genomic assays in support of research and clinical studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. Since joining FNLCR in 2017, Dr. Karlovich has made key contributions to several important NCI precision medicine initiatives. Among these was NCI-MATCH, the largest precision medicine initiative ever undertaken, where Dr. Karlovich stood up a network of ~30 outside commercial and academic laboratories to screen patients for the study. Dr. Karlovich’s research interests include liquid biopsies, an area where he has published extensively. Prior to coming to FNLCR, Dr. Karlovich spent 6 years in the biopharmaceutical industry (Clovis Oncology) and 9 years in the diagnostics industry (Roche Molecular Diagnostics).

Hansjoerg Keller, PhDHansjoerg Keller is a Senior Investigator in the Musculoskeletal Disease Area at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Basel, Switzerland. He studied Biochemistry and graduated in Neurochemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETHZ), Switzerland in 1988. During his postdoctoral fellowship at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA (Prof. J. Gottesfeld) and later at the University of Lausanne (Prof. W. Wahli), he elucidated the role of transcription factors in the regulation of gene transcription discovering PPAR nuclear receptors and their activation by fatty acids. In 1996, he joined Novartis leading different drug discovery projects including selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) and sclerostin inhibitors for osteoporosis treatment, and selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) against muscle wasting. His current research focuses on exercise-regulated myokines as new drug targets for the development of novel therapies against muscle wasting diseases. To this end, his group is pioneering 3D bioprinting technologies for the engineering of functional human skeletal muscle tissue models that allow in vitro screening of compounds affecting muscle function such as force, endurance and fatigue.

Gary J. Kelloff, MD has had more than 40 years in cancer research at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), authoring more than 400 publications. Dr. Kelloff is a graduate of the University of Colorado (BS and MD degrees). After post-graduate training in medicine at Emory University, he began his NCI career as an intramural scientist and section head in viral immunology working on retroviruses and oncogenes. After fifteen years in NCI’s intramural program, he developed a basic science, translational research, and clinical development program in cancer prevention, serving as a Branch Chief in the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention. Since 2001, he has been a special advisor for the NCI Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis working on strategies for developing biomarkers for oncology drug development and cancer patient management. He previously led and currently leads several collaborations with FDA and the pharmaceutical industry on drug development strategies and since 2009 has co-chaired on-going efforts under the Foundation for the National Institutes for Health Biomarkers Consortium to create public-private partnerships to define biomarker use in cancer drug development and patient management. Past work has included establishment of a developmental pathway for approval of cancer prevention drugs as part of an AACR initiative and evaluation of tumor burden markers and precancerous histopathology as part of a C Change initiative. Current efforts under the Biomarkers Consortium include consideration of imaging-based biomarkers (FDG-PET/CT, volumetric CT, molecular probes) and new technologies for measuring circulating tumor cells and nucleic acids, minimal residual disease, novel trial designs for evaluating prognostic and predictive biomarkers, molecular signatures and new drugs, including gene expression and proteomic biomarkers, and evaluation of the tumor immune environment. He is also involved in on-going efforts to establish protocol and assay standardization for biomarker evaluation, as well as data-sharing for implementation in personalized medicine in oncology. Related to these efforts, Dr. Kelloff serves on the drug selection and oversight committees for two innovative clinical trials using biomarker-based designs to evaluate new oncology drugs (the I-SPY-2 trial in breast cancer and the Lung-MAP trial in non-small cell lung cancer). New tools for personalized medicine in oncology are evolving from these studies. All the work described has involved collaboration with stakeholders including leaders in industry, academia, FDA and other government agencies, foundations, and advocacy groups and has resulted in many publications addressing specific biomarkers and general drug development strategies.

Christopher Kemball received a B.A. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis from Emory University. He conducted postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute and investigated how coxsackievirus impairs antiviral T cell immunity and modifies cellular autophagy. Chris joined Agensys, Inc. in 2011 as a scientist and led preclinical research programs focused on bispecific antibodies and next-generation antibody drug conjugates. Chris joined Genentech, Inc. in 2018 and is a scientist in the Department of Biochemical & Cellular Pharmacology, supporting biochemical and cellular characterization of protein therapeutics for immuno-oncology.

Kainat Khan is a Senior Scientist in the Oncology Safety Combinations team in the Clinical Pharmacology and Safety Sciences (CPSS) at AstraZeneca. Kainat is working on the development of the bone marrow micro-physiological system and its application for the risk assessment of oncology drug combinations. Kainat’s technical and scientific expertise in bone marrow biology using both 2D and 3D systems is a huge asset to the organisation. Prior to joining AZ, Kainat completed a PhD in Bone Biology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India followed by a post-doc at Department of Biomedical Sciences, CHA University, S. Korea.

Pilhan Kim, Ph. D.

Associate Professor (Tenured)

 

EDUCATION

2000 - 2005 MS/PhD in Electrical Engineering, SNU, Korea

 

EMPLOYMENT

2010 - present Associate Professor (Tenured)

Assistant Professor

Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering

Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea

2017 - present CEO / CTO

IVIM Technology, Inc., Korea

2005 - 2010 Research Fellow

Harvard Medical School, USA

Massachusetts General Hospital, USA

Pharmacologist with experience in academia and industry, worked on multiple classes of challenging targets. Enabled the identification and mechanistic characterization of small molecule hits for lead generation. Expertise in phenotypic drug discovery and target deconvolution.

Razelle Kurzrock, MD is a world-renowned physician-scientist leader in precision medicine as well as in the development of novel therapeutics in the field of oncology. She is recognized for founding, developing and chairing one of the largest Phase 1 clinical trial departments globally while at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; the central theme of the department was a personalized medicine strategy. She is also one of the pioneering trialists of the WINTHER precision medicine trial focusing, for the first time, on transcriptomics in addition to genomics. This trial was the signature study of the WIN international consortium (Nature Medicine). During her time at the University of California San Diego Health, Dr. Kurzrock’s charge was founding and leading the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy as well as the Experimental Therapeutics program, and she also founded a Rare Tumor Clinic focused on precision medicine. The signature study of the center was the IPREDICT study (Nature Medicine, 2019) that gave, for the first time, individualized N-of-1 matched combination therapies to patients with lethal malignancies, hence resulting in improved outcomes. Dr. Kurzrock is also an entrepreneur. She is co-founder of CureMatch, and on the Board of both CureMetrix and CureMatch. Dr. Kurzrock has over 950 publications on Pubmed, an H-index of 146, and has been named yearly to the list of most cited scientists worldwide. She has four children and three dogs and lives with her husband Dr. Philip Cohen, in San Diego, California.

Dr. Nag is a scientific and executive leader with a profound expertise in developing preclinical MPS (MicroPhysiological Systems) and 3D models, targeted therapies, biomarker discovery, and the application of cutting-edge technologies across various domains including toxicology, safety pharmacology, oncology, functional genomics, and stem cell research. She currently serves as the Chief Scientific Officer at InSphero AG. Madhu holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Molecular and Cellular Oncology from George Washington University and a master’s degree in Bioscience Business from Keck Graduate Institute. Her primary goal is to unify the academic and translational facets of pioneering science in oncology, metabolic diseases, and investigative toxicology. Leveraging insights from contemporary therapeutic regimens, Madhu creatively translates state-of-the-art research to promptly address patient requirements.

Lauren C. Leiman is currently the Executive Director of the Blood Profiling Atlas in Cancer (BloodPAC), a consortium focused on creating an open database for liquid biopsies to accelerate the development of safe and effective blood profiling diagnostic technologies for patient benefit. Prior to running BloodPAC, she was the Senior Director of External Partnerships at White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force during the Obama Administration. Previously, Lauren was a Senior Advisor for the Melanoma Research Alliance and Director of Philanthropy at Elysium Management LLC in New York City. From 2008-2010, Lauren worked for the Millennium Promise Alliance, where she led the major gifts fundraising effort and spent significant time in sub-Saharan Africa. Lauren was also the head of marketing and investor relations at Steel Partners, LP, an activist hedge fund investing globally. Lauren received her undergraduate degree in communications from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School. She also holds an MBA in international business from the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School and a master's degree in public relations and corporate communications from NYU.

Pr. Lelièvre’s research program is to investigate the relationship between tissue architecture and the functional organization of the cell nucleus that controls normal differentiation, aging and chronic diseases, notably breast cancer. She is also the Scientific Director of the 3D Cell Culture Core (3D3C) Facility at the Birck Nanotechnology Center where engineers and biologists collaborate to design and implement physiologically relevant tissue-chip and organ-on-a-chip models for research.

Linda is a Principal Scientist at Merck’s Exploratory Science Center and has been with Merck for 4 years. Her work focuses on understanding epithelial biology in the context of inflammation and infection. To this end, her group utilizes physiologically relevant primary in vitro cultures. Linda received her PhD in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ligon is Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Neuropathology at BWH and Director of the DFCI Center for Patient Derived Models. His laboratory is focused on adult and pediatric gliomas and resistance to therapy. In addition to lab efforts around basic mechanisms of resistance he has led translational efforts and clinical trial efforts at the National and International level including within the NCI Alliance for clinical trials neurooncology committee and Children’s Oncology group (COG) where he helps to lead and train pathologists in conduct of clinical trials science and correlatives. He also co-leads the Broad-DFCI models center within the NCI Human Models Initiative which is an international effort to make more than 1000 next generation cancer cell lines.

Hicham Mahboubi, PhD, is currently a Lab Head at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Cambridge, MA. As part of the Chemical Biology & Therapeutics department, his work focuses on leveraging the latest screening technologies to advance drug discovery projects in collaboration with various disease area partners. His expertise includes assay development, high throughput screening, and target/MoA identification. Hicham has worked as a biomedical researcher in the US, Canada, and Europe. He holds a PhD in Physiology from McGill University, Montreal.

Dr. Makrigiorgos is a Professor of Radiation Oncology and Director of the Medical Physics & Biophysics division at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals, Harvard Medical School. He also directs the DNA technology laboratory and the radiation pre-clinical facility. His research interests include the development of novel DNA technologies for molecular diagnostics in Oncology and the identification of circulating cancer biomarkers. He is the inventor of several PCR-based techniques for molecular diagnostics, including COLD-PCR and NaME-PrO technologies. He is a Member of the Editorial Board of Clinical Chemistry and has published over 150 articles, reviews and book chapters.

Tom McAvoy is currently an Associate Principal Scientist at Merck in the department of Translational Molecular Biomarkers. Tom received his PhD in Pharmacology from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. He went on to perform postdoctoral research in the area of postsynaptic signaling mechanisms. In 2009, Tom joined Merck Research Laboratories in the Proteomics group. His role at Merck has since focused on using mass spectrometry and ligand binding assays to advance clinical therapeutic programs, particularly in the area of neuroscience.

Dr. Mercola is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University and a member of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. He completed postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School and continued as Assistant and Associate Professor of Physiology at Harvard Medical School. In 2003, he moved to San Diego in California, where he was Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego and at the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Research Institute (SBP). At the SBP, he co-founded the Prebys Center for Drug Discovery, which is one of the largest academic drug development initiatives. His lab laid the foundation for the efficient production of heart cells from pluripotent stem cells, for modelling cardiac diseases, and for high throughput chemical and functional genomics screening for therapeutic target discovery and development. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the PLN Foundation and the Fondation Leducq.

Evan Mills has spent 8 years supporting Scientists at the leading edge of protein biomarker discovery. In his current role at Olink he helps top Biopharma companies achieve their goals for biomarker strategy in all phases of drug development. He has spent the last 12 years supporting innovative life science tools companies after spending 5 years behind the bench as a Scientist. His passion is helping innovative companies leverage powerful new tools to help more patients faster.

Matthias Müller, PhD, is working at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Basel since 1999. He started as a lab head responsible for the transgenic animals unit. In 2009, he took over the lead of the stem cell unit. As an associate director of the Chemical Biology & Therapeutics department, his current work focuses on the use of iPS cell technology in pharmaceutical research, which implies close collaboration with various partners of different disease areas. His team combines stem cell technology with tissue engineering to create more relevant models for drug screening using HTS automation. Currently, the focus is on 3D cell cultures, organoid and microphysiological systems.

Vish Muthusamy is a cancer biologist with expertise in the field of cancer genetics, epigenetics, immunobiology and pharmacology. In his early works, he has published several papers describing genetic alterations that lead to formation and progression of cancer. He has used these alterations to develop in vivo tumor models to better understand the disease. More recently, Dr. Muthusamy has worked in close collaboration with medicinal chemists and helped develop several therapeutic agents targeting cancer, infectious pathogens and immune disorders. Dr. Muthusamy's current interests lie in discovery and pharmacological development of anti-cancer drugs particularly, designing and carrying out preclinical studies and advancing candidate drugs to clinic. He has experience working in collaboration with big and small pharma companies towards drug development and as the Director of the Yale Center for Precision Cancer Modeling, he helps Yale investigators advance their candidate therapeutic agents towards approval for clinical application.

Dr. Nixon is Professor of Medicine at Duke University and Director of the Duke Phase I Biomarker Laboratory, a credentialed Molecular Reference Laboratory for the evaluation blood-based biomarkers within the NCTN cooperative group system. He is a nationally recognized expert regarding the development of biomarkers, serving on ASCO Program Committee, Chair of the ASCO Taxonomy Governance Committee, and a reviewer for the NCI/NCTN Core Correlative Sciences Committee (CCSC). Within the Cooperative Group system, he serves as an executive member of the Translational Research Program (Alliance), vice-Chair for GI correlative research (Alliance), and now serves as co-chair for the newly established Immuno-Oncology Committee (Alliance). In addition, he serves on the GYN translational science committee (NRG). His research focuses on the interrogation of circulating markers found in the blood, referred to as the 'liquid biopsy', pursuing the development of novel biomarkers for immuno-oncology and anti-angiogenic agents.

Michal specializes in delivering state-of-the-art solutions on the intersection of bio- and cheminformatics to early drug discovery, working in the areas of transcriptomics and generative chemistry.

My role is to support clinical and preclinical oncology programs in an effort to advance our pipeline. I focus on genomic analysis to better understand disease etiology and differential responses we observe in patients.

Immunologist with 12 years of post-PhD experience in leading academic and pharmaceutical institutions (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer and MSD). The key focus has been on T cell and macrophage biology, Ag presentation, immune cell signaling (pre-clinical and translational research). Demonstrated proficiency in connecting large data sets (e.g. WGS, WES) with key biology questions and in the process identified pathways and biomarkers important in cancer (collaboration with bioinformaticians). Lead or co-author in several high impact journals including, Nature Reviews Cancer, Nature Biotechnology and Blood. Set the stage for several Phase I studies of multi-epitope personalized neoantigen vaccines for cancers (e.g. NCT01970358) and as biomarkers to predict response. Proven track record of executing IO drug discovery and clinical translational research with therapeutic potential across cancers at pharma companies. Currently, working as biomarker lead in translational oncology and clinical biomarkers group at MSD.

Since 2008, Shashi has been employed by Pfizer, overseeing translational biomarker strategies for developing innovative medicines. Currently, Shashi is the Executive Director-Global Head of Biomarkers within Drug Safety R&D, Pfizer Inc. In his current role, responsible for Safety Biomarker activities across all DSRD sites and for establishing and maintaining scientific strategy and operations group across global biomarker groups. Shashi is leading several precompetitive consortia (IMI, PSTC) involving biomarkers and safety biomarker initiatives. During his 20 years of combined academic and pharmaceutical industry experience, Shashi has delivered over 50 invited seminars and written more than 45 peer-reviewed publications and over 15 book chapters including serving on editorial board of peer reviewed journals and leadership within scientific societies. Shashi Ramaiah completed his PhD from University of Louisiana at Monroe in Pharmacology and Toxicology. After completing his PhD, Shashi enrolled in the Clinical Pathology residency program at University of Florida and completed his certification in Veterinary Clinical Pathology. Following his residency training, Shashi accepted a tenure track faculty position in the department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. During his ~6 yeawr stint as a faculty at Texas A&M, Shashi pursued his independent research on an NIH-NIAAA funded research grant on alcoholic hepatitis and non alcoholic fatty liver syndrome. In addition to his research, Shashi participated in diagnostic clinical pathology service, residency training and graduate student teaching at Texas A&M University.

Principal Research Scientist at the Genomic Research Center at AbbVie. Clinical research areas focus on the use of pharmacogenomic methods to determine genetic and molecular cues to therapeutic response to targeted and chemotherapeutic agents. Preclinical research involves the use of large genetic databases to understand genetic dependency mechanisms of tumors and pharmacogenetic profiling of drug response in tumor models.

Steve Rees is Vice-President of Discovery Biology at AstraZeneca with global responsibility for early discovery capabilities including functional genomics, reagent generation and assay development and cell and gene therapies. Previously Steve led the Screening Sciences and Sample Management department with accountability for Compound Management, Hit Discovery and Lead Optimisation biology. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Steve worked at GlaxoSmithKline for 24 years in various roles. Steve has led multiple international collaborations, has authored >65 scientific papers and has spoken at many international symposia. He has served as Chair of the European council of the Society of Laboratory Automation and Screening, Chair of the European Laboratory Research and Innovation Group and is Industry Trustee of the British Pharmacological Society. Steve is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for WCAIR at the University of Dundee, EU-OPENSCREEN and the Centre for Membrane Protein Receptor Research at the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham.

Dr. Riaz obtained his MD and a MSc in bioinformatics from Stanford University and completed clinical training in radiation oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). He subsequently stayed on staff at MSKCC as a Head and Neck Radiation Oncologist and also serves as the Associate Director for the Immuno-genomics and Precision Oncology Platform at MSKCC. His laboratory research has focused on the development of novel computational techniques to interrogate genomics data to predict outcomes after immuno-therapeutics in cancer. He focuses on how mutational processes and tumor clonality influence the production and immunogenicity of neo-antigens. His clinical research efforts have focused on personalizing radiotherapy for HPV-related oropharyngeal cancers.

Emmett received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Harvard College in 1974 and a simultaneous M.A. in Biology. He received MD and PhD degrees having attended medical school and graduate school at the Duke University School of Medicine from 1975 to 1981. He completed internship, residency and fellowship in Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Emmett was at the Massachusetts General Hospital of the Harvard Medical School from 1998 until 2010. Starting as a founding member of the MGH Cancer Center, Emmett became a full professor in 2004 and served as the Associate Chief of the Department of Pediatrics from 2002 until 2010. Highlights of his research career include: the experimental demonstration that cyclin D1 can function as a driver oncogene in breast cancer; studies of the mechanisms by which cell growth drives cell division; initial demonstrations that c-Myc has a primary function in regulating cell growth; and development of a range of transgenic models of cancers (lymphoma, gastric, HCC, and breast). Clinical highlights of his time at MGH included running a small pediatric HIV unit, co-founding the Pediatric Hospitalist Group and directing the Pediatric Residency from 1996 until 2010. Along the way he was the PI or co-PI for the following: six RO1s, one UO1, and two SPORE projects from the NIH; an ACS RIG; a MacDonnell Scholar grant; as well as grants from the Brain Tumor Society, the Hood Foundation, Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals, and the Pfeiffer Research Foundation. He was elected a member of the two academic Pediatric leadership societies including the Society for Pediatric Research in 1997 and the American Pediatric Society in 2000. Emmett joined Merck in 2011. Initially recruited to Experimental Medicine, his early assignments included the First-in-Human study of MK-8353 (ERK inhibitor), and evaluation of a clinically-derived biomarker for MK-0646 (anti-IGFR) in colorectal cancer. Subsequent studies as part of the Oncology group included a broad portfolio of studies of MK-2206 (AKT inhibitor) encompassing four internal studies, 31 National Cancer Institute-sponsored studies and the I-SPY2 breast cancer collaboration. Subsequent assignments included clinical lead roles for the vintafolide program, and for the First-in-Human study of MK-4166, an inhibitor of the glucocorticoid-induced TNFR family related gene (GITR). In 2013 Emmett joined the pembrolizumab team taking on key responsibilities for developing phase 3 registration studies in adjuvant melanoma (053 and 054) as well as the first-line head and neck trial (048). Emmett has supported successful filing activities for pembrolizumab both within and outside of the United States. As part of the pembrolizumab melanoma team Emmett was the clinical lead for Keynotes 002, 027, 053, and 054. He has been part of the filing teams for 001, 002, and 006, as well as representing the Melanoma clinical team for global filing activities. He currently leads the External Collaborations PDT whose studies include over 120 partnered studies of clinical combinations of pembrolizumab and a broad portfolio of other cancer drugs.

Lucy Setian is responsible for the strategy and implementation of Digital & AI programs at the Novartis Foundation. Lucy is currently working on fostering multiorganizational and governmental dialogue and implementing initiatives based on best practices in digital health care and delivery in low- and middle- income countries. Prior to joining the Novartis Foundation, she was in charge of the Technology Practice at UCB, driving strategic communications and educational programs on Digital & AI. Throughout her career, Lucy has held different leadership roles with a focus on corporate strategy and business development, digital project and program management, innovation, marketing and communications across different industries. Lucy is a Computer Engineer from the German faculty program of the Technical University of Sofia and the Technical University of Karlsruhe. She holds a magna cum laude Master degree in Communication Sciences from VUB-Brussels, and an Executive MBA from Solvay Business School.

Dr. Elly Sinkala, Senior Application Scientist at CYTENA, develops workflows that interface CYTENA’s single-cell dispensing instruments with downstream applications in cell line development and single-cell omics. Dr. Sinkala is a biomedical engineer with a focus in microfluidics and assay development. Prior to CYTENA, she worked as an associate consultant where she provided technical and regulatory expertise in over 30 projects for clients in the medical device, life sciences, and tech industries.

Dr. Soares Is Vice President and Head of Precision Medicine. Her group supports biomarker strategies for proof of mechanism, early signs of efficacy and patient stratification. The precision medicine group includes Clinical Biomarker Scientists who lead early development biomarker strategies, Clinical Biomarker Technologies comprised of regulated pharmacogenomic, ligand binding, flow cytometry and mass spectrometry labs and the Genetics and Biospecimens group (the Pfizer Biobank). Dr. Soares completed her undergraduate work at Oberlin College and went on to obtain a PhD in biomedical science from the University of Connecticut Health Center. After completing her post-doctoral training at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, Dr. Soares served as an Assistant Professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine and then joined the pharmaceutical industry where she led translational medicine groups at Pfizer, BMS and AbbVie. Dr. Soares has chaired fNIH public private scientific boards and has experience leveraging FDA/EMA qualification procedures for biomarkers. She has authored over 100 publications and is committed to developing effective treatments for patients suffering from disabling disorders.

Elizabeth Somers is the Diagnostic Pathway Lead in the Alzheimer’s Disease Franchise at Eisai, Inc. and responsible for the development and implementation of global diagnostic strategy and commercialization of diagnostics in coordination with diagnostic partners to support the global marketing and commercialization of targeted therapeutics. Eisai Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company based in Tokyo, Japan with US Headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. Elizabeth has taken a lead role in the development of Companion Diagnostics in the Oncology Department prior to joining the Alzheimer’s Disease Franchise. Elizabeth has held positions as Director of Business Development, Director of Clinical Development, Global Marketing, Intellectual Property Management, licensing and commercialization of early stage technologies. Elizabeth has been responsible for the in-licensing of antibodies for IVD development, clinical market development and commercialization strategy for multiple oncology assays currently on the market.

Banu Sridharan is a Scientific Investigator at GlaxoSmithKline in the Complex In Vitro Models group. Her current focus is leading the space in implementing organotypic models for screening at scale targeting tumor microenvironment. She also develops deeply complex models in the fatty liver disease area for answering specific mechanism and target validation questions. She has over 8 years of hands-on experience developing human lab-derived complex in vitro models for applications ranging from regenerative medicine to disease modeling. She received her postdoctoral training from The Scripps Research Institute on high throughput screening of iPSC derived neurons and pancreatic organoids with a specific focus on high content imaging. Banu received her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Kansas and completed her undergraduate degree in India.

As CEO of Marengo Therapeutics and a director of the company’s board, Zhen Su brings more than two decades of experiences as a physician-scientist and business executive, with expertise in building and leading both R&D and commercial organizations. Prior to joining Marengo, Zhen served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Oncology for Merck KGaA, where he led the franchise’s turnaround to achieve double-digit organic growth and an annual revenue above €1B. In this role, he also successfully expanded the oncology portfolio including key alliance partnerships with Pfizer ($2.8B), GSK ($4.2B), and Debiopharm ($1.1B). In his earlier role as Chief Medical Officer of EMD Serono and head of its Oncology Medical division, he played an instrumental role in 8 major regulatory approvals across different indications for Bavencio®, Tepmetko®, Erbitux®, and Mavenclad®. He also held leadership roles with increasing responsibilities at Sanofi Oncology and GSK. Before his industry career, Zhen served on the faculty of Duke University, where he led early clinical studies focusing on mRNA-based and cell-based immunotherapy, and then the University of Florida, where he was the director of the Cell and Gene Therapy program. He is the author of more than 60 publications in immuno-oncology and targeted oncology. Zhen earned his M.D. from the Technical University of Dresden, completed his post-doctoral training in tumor immunology at Duke University, and received an MBA from the University of Toronto.

The Ullian lab has experience using a variety of tools to ask what effect astrocytes have on neuronal function. As a postdoctoral fellow in Ben Barres’ laboratory at Stanford University Dr. Ullian studied the role of astrocyte signals that regulate the formation, function, and stability of neuronal synapses. This work led the fundamental principal that astrocyte play important roles in synapse formation and function and further led to the identification of the first astrocyte secreted molecule that impacts synapse number. More recently, as PI on several NIH and private foundation sponsored research grants Dr. Ullian has continued to investigate mechanisms that regulate synapse number and neuronal function, establishing techniques for the labeling of subsets of cells for in vivo and in vitro analysis. His lab has published electrophysiological and anatomical studies of neurons from many brain regions adapting physiology to study important questions about astrocyte or neuronal function. Additionally, he has utilized iPSCs to derive human neurons and astrocytes to study the functional consequences of human astrocyte signals on neuronal and circuit maturation and function. These combined studies have led to the Allen Family Foundation proposal to investigate human astrocyte heterogeneity as a key signal for the functional maturation of regionally matched human neurons.

Fabien Vincent is a senior drug discovery scientist with experience as both an in vitro pharmacology group leader and a drug discovery project leader. He gained expertise in pharmacology at Pfizer (2010-2025) as a laboratory head in the Primary Pharmacology Group. There, his laboratory supported the small molecule portfolio of the Immunology & Inflammation research unit, helping deliver 15 clinical candidates with two becoming FDA approved drugs (Abrocitinib, Ritlecitinib). His remit spanned target identification & validation, designing and executing hit identification & validation strategies, structure-activity relationships (SAR) support, mechanistic studies and study reports for the FDA. His main research interests are centered on drugging tough-but-well-validated targets and improving the translation of preclinical research to patients using physiologically relevant assays and phenotypic screening.

Robert received his PhD in Biochemistry from the Leiden University Center on a molecular study of oncogenic transformation. He continued his scientific career as Postdoc at Stanford University (USA). Upon his return to the Netherlands, he joined the group of Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute studying adult stem cells. In the group of Hans Clevers, he was part of the team that developed the ground-breaking technology that allowed the expansion of adult stem cells in vitro. The so-called Organoid Technology became the basis of the company Hubrecht Organoid Technology (HUB), of which he is currently the CEO.

Bridget Wagner is the director of pancreatic cell biology and metabolic disease in the Chemical Biology and Therapeutic Sciences Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she is also an institute scientist. Her group's research focuses on the chemical biology of diabetes, with the aim of identifying small molecules capable of increasing pancreatic beta cell number and function and the ultimate goal of discovering new therapeutic approaches for diabetes. Wagner has had an instrumental role in the development of the Broad Chemical Biology Program from its inception in 2003. She is a recipient of the 2008 Type 1 Diabetes Pathfinder Award from the NIH and a Transformative Research Award from the NIH in 2016.

Scott earned a B.S. in Microbiology from The University of Maine and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from The University of Connecticut Health Center. His graduate work focused on understanding the basic architecture of a eukaryotic nuclear origin of DNA replication. Following postdoctoral work on activated transcription in eukaryotes at The University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Scott joined Schering-Plough in the antibacterial and antifungal drug discovery group where he now continues in the Infectious Disease and Vaccine division of Merck & Co., Inc. (Kenilworth, NJ). Throughout a 20+- year pharmaceutical career as a basic scientist, his work has concentrated on antibacterial and antifungal target identification/validation and lead compound discovery, prioritization, and optimization.

Patrick Walsh is the Chief Executive Officer of Anatomic Incorporated, a stem cell engineering firm committed to accelerating drug development for neurological conditions using its disruptive Chrono™ Platform. He received his MS in stem cell biology from the University of Minnesota, spent 10 years conducting stem cell research in both academic and industrial settings, and dropped out of business school to live the entrepreneurial dream. 

Dr. Whiteside received both her MA and PhD degrees in Microbiology from Columbia University, New York, NY. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology (1979). She was as a Fogarty Senior International Fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland (1984-85). At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Whiteside rose through the faculty ranks to become Professor of Pathology with secondary appointments as Professor of Immunology and Otolaryngology (1989-present). She served as Director of the Immunologic Monitoring and Cellular Products Laboratory (IMCPL) at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center for 25 years and is now its Interim Director. Dr Whiteside’s research has been focused on mechanisms of tumor-induced immunosuppression, cytokine networks, development of anticancer vaccines, immunobiology of human tumors and the role of natural immunity in the control of cancer progression. She studies mechanisms of tumor escape from the host immune system and the development of therapies designed to eliminate tumor escape. Most recently, she has been investigating tumor-derived exosomes (TEX) and their role in cancer-induced immune suppression. She has authored 615 peer-reviewed papers and 175 chapters and review articles. She received a Honoris causa degree in Medicine from The Poznan Medical University in Poland in 2011 and was awarded a Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award by the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer in 2012.

Wensheng Xie, PhD., currently work in GlaxoSmithKline as a scientific leader, focusing on novel drug target identification and validation. With more than 10 years drug development research work, I am expertized at functional biomarker assay development, high throughput screening, novel drug target identification and validation. I have published more than 20 research articles in peer reviewed journals, in addition to more than 30 internally published methods and short articles. My drug development research experience covers multiple disciplines and disease areas including metabolic liver diseases, Immuno-Oncology combination, cancer biology, etc. Broad and solid hands-on technique experience includes immuno assay platforms, screening and automation platforms, gene expression manipulation and editing, functional biomarker analysis. In my free time, I enjoy gardening, sewing (masks) and reading. I occasionally watch Harry Potter together with my son.

Dr. Joshua Xu is currently the Branch Chief for Research-to-Review (R2R) at the Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics of FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR). He specializes in data mining, image analysis, and machine learning. His recent endeavor has been with the FDA-led Sequencing Quality Control Phase 2 (SEQC2) project to evaluate the technical reliabilities and scientific applications of the next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. He is leading a SEQC2 Working Group to assess the reproducibility and detection sensitivity of onco-panel sequencing including liquid biopsy. The Working Group consists of over 200 participants from academia, government agencies, and industry including 8 companies providing onco-panels and 30 testing laboratories.

Bailey Zwarycz, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist at Altis Biosystems, focusing on client project design and management as well as R&D for improving current biological platforms. She obtained her Ph.D. in Cell Biology & Physiology from UNC Chapel Hill with Dr. Scott Magness. Her graduate research focused on extrinsic regulation of intestinal stem cell proliferation and differentiation by niche components, including extracellular matrices and inflammatory cytokines.