Speakers

Philip M. Arlen, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer: Dr. Arlen spent 11 years at the National Cancer Institute, USA, most recently as the Director of the Clinical Research Group for the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Oncology. At the NCI, Dr. Arlen focused on the development of a...

Julio's 40 year experience in the bioprocessing industry allows him to match bioprocesses with products considering technology, quality, cost and volume. Julio worked for large (Cipla, US Department of Energy, Searle, Monsanto, Upjohn) and small biotechnology companies (Fibrogen, Richmond...

Dr. Banach is an adjunct instructor at Vanderbilt University, School of Medicine, Department of Biostatistics, and Project Manager of CTSpedia, a web-based tool to aid statisticians, epidemiologists, and clinical researchers in statistical understanding of their clinical research data.  She has...

Caroline is CEO and co-founder of Elasmogen, a company that discovers and develops soloMER biologics for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancer. Before establishing Elasmogen, she successfully led teams at Wyeth and subsequently Pfizer in Global Bio-therapeutic Technologies progressing...

Stephen Beers is Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy at the Centre for Cancer Immunology, University of Southampton. He leads a research group studying antibody drugs and their mechanisms of action. The group’s research is currently focussed on two main areas: 1) the mechanisms of action of...

Over the course of my career, I have accumulated over 20 years of experience spanning academia and industrial laboratories focused on antibody discovery, protein engineering and purification as well as immunotherapeutic development. I led the research and development program behind the first...

Alex Brill is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies the impact of tax policy on the US economy as well as the fiscal, economic, and political consequences of tax, budget, health care, retirement security, and trade policies. He also works on health care...

I obtained my Ph.D. in the field of antibody structural biology from the University of Victoria (2005-2010). My postdoctoral work was carried out at the University of Alberta (2010-2013) in the field of membrane protein structural biology.I have been a faculty member at Fresno State since 2013. My...

Craig Burton is Vice President of Policy for the Association for Accessible Medicines where he leads policy development. With nearly 20 years of Federal health policy experience, Craig has served in key roles at the center of a range of pressing health care debates. Prior to joining AAM, Craig was ...

Shengya Cao is a Sr. Scientist leading the Receptor Discovery group at Genentech. Before Genentech, Dr. Cao earned degrees in Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and performed undergraduate research in the lab of Mitchell A. Lazar studying factors...

Melody Chang, RPh, BCOP, MBA, is the Director of Pharmacy Operations of Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute (FCS), the largest independent medical oncology/hematology practice in the United States, with over 230 physicians, 200 nurse practitioners and physician assistants and nearly ...

David is currently the Director of Drug Use Management in Clinic Administered and Specialty Medications (CAMS) for Kaiser Permanente National Pharmacy Services He is responsible for overseeing the enterprise-wide drug utilization activities in oncology and medicine subspecialties where he co-leads...

Dr. Qiang “Shawn” Chen is a molecular biologist who specializes in developing novel human therapeutics and vaccines in plants to combat infectious diseases, cancer, and biological warfare reagents. His research aims to ameliorate diseases and improve human health, as well as to contribute new...

Dr. Davis has over 18 years of experience in industry, focused on protein and antibody engineering, bispecific and multispecific antibody platform development, and drug discovery in a wide range of therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Invenra, Dr. Davis was a Principal Scientist at Bristol-Myers...

Dr. Brandon DeKosky is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, where his laboratory leverages recent advances in next-generation DNA sequencing technologies to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of immune function...

Pieter Deschaght is Project Head in the Large Molecule Research Innovation team. He holds a PhD in biomedical sciences obtained at the University of Ghent (Belgium). After his PhD, Pieter joined Ablynx as a scientist with the focus on molecular engineering. In this role he contributed to the...

Iulia Diaconu PhD, is Vice President of Immunotherapy & Preclinical development at Elevate Bio and joined the company in April 2019. She is responsible for leading Elevate’s translational immunotherapy programs and developing second generation product candidates. Iulia comes from Bluebird Bio...

Yves Durocher joined the NRC in 1995 and manages a section of 30 scientists involved in protein expression and CHO cell line development for internal projects and external clients. His research activities focus on improving large-scale transient gene expression (LSTGE) platforms using HEK293 and...

Sally joined Genentech as a Research Scientist in 2000. She moved to Development Sciences department in 2003 and is currently a Senior Director & Senior Principal Scientist in the Assay Development and Technology (ADT) group within the Bioanalytical Sciences (BAS) department. Through the past...

Upon finishing his studies in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Norbert pursued his interdisciplinary PhD thesis in Computational Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Bonn focusing on computer-aided design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of protease inhibitors. After...

Dr. Rémy Gébleux (Senior Scientist, NBE-Therapeutics AG) has over 8 years of experience in the field of ADCs.He obtained his diploma degree in Chemistry from the Chemistry school of Montpellier followed by a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Group of Pr. Dario Neri from ETH Zurich with the...

Marvin Gee is VP of Target Discovery and Co-Founder at 3T Biosciences, where he is responsible for leading target discovery and computation. He received his PhD in Immunology with an additional focus in Computational Immunology at Stanford University. He published his main work on novel technology...

Raja Ghosh is Professor of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University, Canada. His research interests include purification of biopharmaceuticals using membrane technology and chromatography, water analysis and treatment, and membrane bioreactors for biopharmaceutical production. He has authored...

Prof. Gupta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at SUNY Stony Brook University. Dr. Gupta obtained a BA in Molecular Biophysics from  UPenn and MD/PhD from the Medical Scholars Program at UIUC. He completed residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology with ...

Serial entrepreneur that combines strong strategic, technological and managerial experience with proven track record of deal-making and fund-raising. During my career I achieved together with my different teams to bring four drug candidates from research to the clinics (up to phase...

Katherine Harris is Vice President of Discovery at Amgen where she leads Oncology Research at the Amgen Newark site, pursuing novel multi-specific molecules to modulate the anti-tumor immune response.  Previously she served as Vice President of Discovery at Teneobio where she led the Discovery and...

Michael Hedvat, Ph.D., is Associate Director of cell biology at Xencor, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing engineered monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases, asthma and allergic diseases. Prior to joining Xencor in 2015, Dr. Hedvat was a research...

Kevin Henry is a research officer at the National Research Council Canada and an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Ottawa. Prior to joining NRC in 2014, Dr. Henry completed his BSc and PhD degrees in molecular biology and...

My position is as a physician-scienstist doing both lab-based research in stem cell biology and clinical work in hematology/BMT and cell-based immunotherapies.Studies in the Kaufman Lab focus on use of human pluripotent stem cells to study basic mechanisms that regulate early human blood cell...

Dr. Surinder Kaur is an Associate Director/Senior Scientist in BioAnalytical Sciences at Genentech/Roche in South San Francisco, California. She has twenty plus years of biotechnology experience across diverse large molecule and small molecule bioanalytical areas, with multiple successful...

Dr Rahul Rajan Kaushik is currently at FibroGen, Inc. where he is Vice President and Head of Antibody/Protein process development and manufacturing. Prior to this he was the Executive Director and Head of external manufacturing at Nektar Therapeutics where he led CMC aspects including technology...

Dr. Keirstead is an internationally known stem cell expert and has led therapy development for late stage cancers, immune disorders, motor neuron diseases, spinal cord injury and retinal diseases. He is the CEO of AIVITA Biomedical. He was previously CSO of Caladrius which acquired California Stem...

Dr. Keith L. Knutson is currently Professor in the Department of Immunology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and Director, Mayo Clinic Florida Cancer Research Program.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in Physiology and Pharmacology in 1995 and completed two post-doctoral...

Vinodh Kurella is a computational biochemist with focus on biologic design and optimization. Currently, he is a director of antibody discovery group at Catabasis. Prior to which he held various positions at biotech firms, Voyager, Merrimack and Intrexon. Before completing post-doctoral training at...

Steven Lehrer brings over 30 years of experience starting, growing and running life science-based businesses focused on commercializing new technology and expanding businesses globally. Steve has extensive experience in pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and biosimilar...

Mr Leicher is currently in private practice providing strategic legal advice to biotechnology companies and is a regular lecturer on biotechnology and biosimilar law. He is the Former Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., an innovator biotechnology company...

Hans-Georg Lerchen is Chief Scientific Officer at Vincerx Pharma. Before joining Vincerx, he was a Distinguished Fellow in the the Pharmaceuticals R&D organization of Bayer AG. With a 33-year background in MedChem he is author or co-author of 81 patents or patent applications and 26...

Dr. Lewis is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. During his BS (Biochemistry, Brigham Young University), PhD (Bioengineering, UC San Diego) and postdoctoral work (Genetics, Harvard Medical School), he developed novel approaches for...

Shaun is Senior Director of Protein Engineering at Atreca, Inc, where his responsibilities include antibody lead optimization, development of multispecific therapeutics, and elucidation of epitopes of Atreca’s novel patient-derived antibodies. He has been engineering...

Cate Lockhart, MS, PharmD, PhD is the Executive Director for the Biologics and Biosimilars Collective Intelligence Consortium (BBCIC.org) where she is responsible for both the business and research programs of this large, multi-stakeholder research collaboration.Previously she was the HEOR expert...

Dr. Lum is a Professor of Oncology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Director of Cellular Therapy, and Scientific Director of BMT. In the past 20 years, he conducted the first experimental trials using immunotherapy in combination with SCT for leukemia, lymphoma, multiple...

Dr. Mamula’s interests are in investigating the early events of tissue inflammation causing changes in the proteome.  In particular, these changes in the proteome intersect with cellular metabolism and with breaking immune tolerance to self proteins.   Simply put, Dr. Mamula examines post...

Upendra Marathi, PhD, MBA is the CEO and a co-founder of 7 Hills Pharma.  He is an inventor of their first-in-concept technology and a significant investor in the company. He has led the development of three novel pain and cardiovascular drugs, including one recently approved by the FDA. He...

Jeffrey S. Miller, MD, received a Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and received his MD from Northwestern University School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. After completing ...

Liviu Movileanu has received his Ph.D. degree in biophysics from the University of Bucharest (1997). He has acquired postdoctoral positions at the University of Missouri (Kansas City, Missouri, 1997-1998) and the Texas A&M University Health Science Center (College Station, Texas, 1999-2004). He ...

Professor Sarfaraz K. Niazi, Ph.D., FRSB, FPAMS, FACB, SI, Founder and CSO of Novel351k Inc., is a globally recognized pioneer of the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry, with 50+ books, 100+ research papers, 100+ patents, several approved CPs to FDA, dozens of crafted regulatory...

Kathy Oubre is the Chief Executive Officer for Pontchartrain Cancer Center with 2 sites in southeast Louisiana.  She is the President of Louisiana Medical Group Managers Association and immediate past president of the Coalition of Hematology and Oncology Practices.  Kathy is also a Board member of...

Ms. Rachel Overman oversees the development of the antiviral and countermeasures for multi-drug resistance bacteria. She leads multi-functional teams and collaborates with joint service, interagency, international teams of scientists, and acquisition professionals in the...

An accomplished immunologist and group leader in a large global organization with over 20 years of experience in early drug discovery and development in inflammation, autoimmunity and immuno-oncology; leading and overseeing preclinical search teams from target identification through IND enabling...

Prof. Paul W.H.I. Parren is dedicated to translating antibody biology and immunotherapy knowledge into innovative therapeutics and technologies. Prof. Parren obtained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 1992 after which he studied correlates of protection against viruses by human antibodies...

Edith A. Perez, MD is an internationally recognized translational researcher and cancer specialist, Chief Medical Officer of Bolt Therapeutics, Inc., Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic, and Director of the Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer Translational Genomics Program. Dr. Perez is known for her...

Dr. Simon Plyte has over 20 years’ experience in research and development in the Pharma industry, both in Big Pharma and small Biotech. He has worked on the discovery and development of NCEs and Biologics, predominantly in the field of Oncology but has also worked in...

Valery Polyakov is a Director of Computational Chemistry at SUTRO Biopharma. He works in the field of AI and Machine Learning leveraging Big Data to facilitate drug discovery. He also oversees computational infrastructure development for the needs of Chemistry. Prior to that, he worked at...

Kamal Puri is the Chief Scientific Officer at OncoResponse Inc. He has over 25 years of R&D experience in immunology, oncology, and neurobiology. Kamal joined OncoResponse from Celgene, where he led efforts for immunology discovery. Prior to Celgene, he was at Gilead and contributed to the...

Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi earned his Ph.D. degree in Clinical Biochemistry in 1996 at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada specializing in Immunology. Laszlo is currently the President and Scientific Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) in Toronto, Canada, overseeing all...

Dr. Ragheb has been with Eli Lilly & Co. for about 3 years. He is based in Indianapolis where he serves as the Senior Medical Fellow for Immunology in Global Patient Safety and Co-Chair of the Immunogenicity/Immunosafety Working Group.He received his MD and PhD degrees from the Johns Hopkins...

Dr. Ramirez-Valdez, PhD, MBA is a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Robert Seder’s lab at the Vaccine Research Center at NIH where he is investigating vaccination strategies for treating cancer, including using a peptide nanoparticle vaccine (“SNAP-vax”) in combination with a viral vector (“ChAdOx1”) as...

Juliana M. Reed is the Biosimilars Forum executive director. Before becoming the executive director, Reed served as the Biosimilars Forum president for more than eight years and was one of its original co-founders. She brings more than 30 years of experience in the healthcare sector to the Forum...

Christopher Robertson joined the BU Law faculty in 2020 as a tenured professor and N. Neal Pike Scholar in Health & Disability Law. Robertson previously served as associate dean for research and innovation and professor of law at the University of Arizona. Professor Robertson is an expert in...

Anton Rosenbaum is Head of Regulated Bioanalysis and OMICS by LC-MS within Integrated Bioanalysis at AstraZeneca. His group supports a variety of preclinical and clinical programs focusing on novel therapeutic modalities across the portfolio of diverse therapeutic areas. Anton’s expertise is...

Dr. Schnitzer, M.D. has devoted more than 30 years to understanding vascular endothelial cell barrier function and drug delivery in medicine, specifically how best to overcome this barrier to improve therapeutic impact of drugs in cancer, lung and other diseases. His lab currently focuses on drug...

Dr. Schoenberger joined LIAI in 1998 as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Immune Regulation. In 2002, Dr. Schoenberger became an Associate Professor in the Division of Cellular Immunology, and in 2005 gained Tenure. In 2008, he was promoted to Professor. Dr. Schoenberger?s research focuses...

Executive veteran of the biopharmaceutical industry with extensive global leadership experience in translational science, clinical development and global medical affairs.C-suite executive and industry leader providing in-depth expertise for pre-clinical and clinical study...

Dr. Alessandro Sette has devoted more than 30 years to understanding and measuring immune responses, and developing disease intervention strategies against cancer, autoimmunity, allergy, and infectious diseases. Dr. Sette laboratory is focused on the study of the specific structures (epitopes) that ...

Dr. Bernhard Sielaff is a Principal Research Scientist II and leads the Biologics Protein Purification Group in Global Protein Sciences at the AbbVie Bioresearch Center (ABC) in Worcester, MA. His group is responsible for the design and purification of antigens and novel therapeutic formats to...

Dr. Sly has over 25 years of experience in biomanuacturing, spanning across R&D to clinical production. Dr. Sly has established a wide network of collaborators in the bioprocessing Industry, including patent-holding biopharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations (CROs), and...

Dr. Jamie Spangler earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering at MIT. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Spangler launched her independent...

Dr. Lawrence Steinman is a professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Pediatrics, and Genetics.  He also served as the Chair of the Stanford University Interdepartmental Program in Immunology from 2003-2011. Dr. Steinman's research focuses on what provokes relapses and remission in...

Seng-Lai “Thomas” Tan, Ph.D., is the Chief Scientific Officer at Immunitas. Dr. Tan brings over 20 years of therapeutic research experience in both large and small biopharmaceutical settings across different disease areas, including infectious disease, autoimmunity, and oncology. He also has broad...

Cofounder and CEO of MBF Therapeutics, an animal health company that is developing next generation gene based immunotherapies to treat cancer and infectious diseases in both companion animals and livestock. Tom is the founder and Executive Director of Sustained Acts, a Christian non-profit focusing ...

Ning is a bioinformatics scientist at Arcus Biosciences, where he is responsible for preclinical and clinical studies in multiple immune-oncology drug programs. Notably, Ning supported bioinformatics analysis for the first A2AR/A2BR inhibitor (Etrumadenant, now in phase 2 clinical trial). He also...

Bingchuan is currently a Senior Scientist in Genentech Research and Early Development (gRED). He is leading a group providing the analytical support for various modalities of therapeutics including small molecules, oligonucleotides and proteins. Bingchuan's research focus is developing new...

David Wood is a professor of Chemical Engineering at the Ohio State University and has been working on intein technology for close to 25 years.  He has also worked in industry at Amgen and BMS, and has developed a number of useful tools through multidomain protein engineering.

Dr. Michael Yellin is currently VP, Clinical Science at Celldex.  He completed medical school at SUNY-Downstate in Brooklyn, NY, an internal medicine residency at Pacific-Presbyterian Medical Center in San Francisco, CA, and his rheumatology fellowship at Columbia University College of Physicians...

Dr. Wang obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanics and Fluid Mechanics from Peking University, Beijing, P.R. China, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering in 2002 and...