R&D + Strategic Partnering
for the Global Vaccine Industry

Dr. Angelidou is a Board-certified Neonatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston, MA), Principal Investigator and Clinical Lead at the Precision Vaccines Program (PVP) in Boston Children’s Hospital, and Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She obtained her...

Katharine Bagshaw, MA, is a Senior Immunization Advisor with USAID’s Global Health Training, Advisory, and Support Contract. As part of USAID's Bureau of Global Health/Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition Office, she supports immunization programming in the MOMENTUM Country and Global...

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, is a well-known health policy leader, practitioner, and administrator. He currently serves as the executive director of the American Public Health Association, the nation's oldest and largest organization of public health professionals. He is also a former secretary of...

Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi is an internationally recognized tropical and emerging disease vaccinologist, global health advocate and cocreator of a patent-free, open science COVID-19 vaccine technology that led to the development of Corbevax in India and IndoVac in Indonesia, and with approximately...

Alison Buttenheim is Professor of Nursing and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, where she co-directs the Behavioral Economics and Global Health Insights (BEGIN) Lab and serves as Behavioral Design Lead for the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics. Her research...

Dr. Christensen was recently appointed as Global Head of R&D for Adjuvant Systems at Croda Pharma after 18 years in adjuvant research at Statens Serum Institut, Denmark. During his career, his research focus has been on pharmaceutical and immunological aspects of vaccine adjuvants and delivery...

Christian has been at the cutting edge of mRNA drug discovery for over fifteen years. He has extensive experience leading teams in mRNA technology and was the first Alexion Pharmaceuticals scientist working on their partnership with Moderna Therapeutics to develop mRNA therapeutics. He has directed ...

Wayland Coker is the Chief Supply Chain Strategist and Director of the Supply Chain Optimization Office within IBMSC (Industrial Base Management & Supply Chain) at ASPR. He is a retired U.S. Naval Officer with tours aboard an attack submarine during the Cold War, a supply ship supporting...

Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, is the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). As director of NCIRD, Dr. Daskalakis leads CDC’s efforts to detect, prevent, and respond to vaccine-preventable and respiratory infectious disease threats. Most recently, he...

Bill Falstich is Vice President of Pfizer’s Primary Care Category Global Supply Chain. His team of 50 colleagues manages supply for some of the world’s largest vaccines, a broad Internal Medicines portfolio, and Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral. His team also plays a critical role in the...

Swati Gupta, DrPH, MPH, leads IAVI’s Emerging Infectious Disease product portfolio and the development of the organization’s overall scientific strategy. She has a particular focus in leveraging IAVI’s recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) platform and expertise to expand product...

Professor Sir Adrian Hill founded The Jenner Institute at the University of in 2005, one of the largest academic vaccine centres globally with vaccine programmes against fifteen diseases. The Institute focuses on designing and developing vaccines for diseases prevalent in developing countries such...

Richard Hughes IV, J.D., M.P.H. is a Partner at the Washington, D.C. health care law firm, Epstein, Becker & Green and a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the The George Washington University Law School. His practice, teaching and thought leadership focus on access to preventive health...

Ashley is the Founder and CEO of Torigen Pharmaceuticals—a startup that resulted from her graduate thesis project at the University of Notre Dame. Ashley graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2012 with an undergraduate degree in Pathobiology and then chose to continue her...

Dr. Klein is a Professor of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Department of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She co-directs the Johns Hopkins Center for...

Luigi Lay graduated in Chemistry in 1990 and was awarded a PhD in Chemical Sciences in 1994 at the University of Milan, working on the synthesis of Streptococcus pneumoniae capsular polysaccharide fragments. After an EU-funded post-doctoral fellowship in the research group of Prof. Richard...

Alessandro Manenti graduated in Biology obtaining his Bachelor’s Degree in 2009 and a Master’s Degree in Molecular Evolution in 2013 at the University of Siena. He worked for six months in a big company in the field of Life Sciences. In November 2013, he won a competition for PhD students in...

I am a Senior Advisor in R&D in GSK Vaccines, since 2018, and a GSK Fellow, since 2019. Prior to this I was the Global Head of Discovery Support and New Technology in GSK Vaccines. Until 2015, I was the Global Head of Vaccine Chemistry and Formulation Research for Novartis Vaccines. I have...

Dr. Masaru “Rusty” Oshita, is a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician with extensive experience in patient care and entrepreneurship. He runs a network of Urgent Care centers throughout Sacramento and is dedicated to providing thoughtfulmedical care in the community. Dr Oshita is recognized...

Gabriela Paz-Bailey, MD, PhD, MSc, DTM&H is the head of the Dengue Branch (DB) in the Vector-Borne Diseases Division (DVBD) of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), in San Juan , Puerto Rico. Dr. Paz-Bailey earned her degree in Medicine and Surgery from the ...

Marlen Ramirez serves as Vaccinate Your Family’s Program Coordinator supporting VYF’s advocacy and education work. Marlen is an experienced Community Health Worker (CHW) and Community Health Worker Instructor (CHWI). She is a passionate advocate for health promotion and health equity, evidenced by...

Ruben Rizzi, physician by training, SVP of Global Regulatory Affairs at BioNTech. I joined the company in December 2019 just before the pandemic, and I have been the global regulatory lead for BioNTech for our COVID-19 development. Currently, I am still supporting the lifecycle of our COVID-19...

Angela K. Shen, ScD, MPH Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Medicine and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics University of Pennsylvania, and retired Captain in the US Public Health Service.  Dr. Shen is a vaccine policy expert and health services researcher...

Denise Octavia Smith, MBA, CHW, PN is the inaugural Executive Director of the National Association of Community Health Workers, Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care Program in Global Primary Care and Social Change, Aspen Institute Healthy Communities Fellow, and a...

Dr. Snowden joined GlaxoSmithKline in 2015 where she has held both global and US medical affairs appointments. She currently serves as Medical Director, Vaccines Clinical & Medical Affairs, US for the adult RSV portfolio. Dr. Snowden holds bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry from Howard ...

Thomas Tillett – Cofounder and CEO of MBF Therapeutics, an immunotherapeutics company that has developed and patented an innovative, proprietary T-Max™ DNA vaccine platform to deliver commercial protective vaccines that provide safe, durable, heterologous protection against endemic, emerging and...

Mr. Steve Witte is the Biologics Development Module, or BDM, director for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), which will be operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).In this role, he and his team directly support and accelerate technology transfers of veterinary...

Mary Bausch-Jurken is the global medical affairs lead for COVID-19 at Moderna. She has been with company since the rollout of the COVID vaccine in January of 2021. She holds a PhD in Cellular Biology from the Medical College of Wisconsin, as well as a master’s degree in Clinical and Translational...

Erwin Blomsma holds a Master’s degree in Bioscience Engineering and a Ph.D. in Applied Biological Sciences (1995) from KU Leuven in Belgium.  After post-doctoral studies at UCB he started his career at Janssen Pharmaceutica in 1996 in the Chemical Process Technology Group.  In 2000 he co-founded...

Michael Breen is a Scientist at Tiba Biotech. He joined Tiba after finishing his Ph.D. in Microbiology at Boston University in 2023 where he studied lung-resident B cell populations that arise after influenza virus infection. At Tiba, Michael has initiated multiple therapeutic and vaccine research...

José is recognized as a serial entrepreneur and prolific innovator in the biopharmaceutical industry. With a strong track record in innovative processes and design to make biotech drugs more affordable and accessible, he played a crucial role in creating the Nevoline platform.

Dr. Aaron Cowley is the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at ReciBioPharm (2019 to present), a leading Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) focused on Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP), including but not limited to Live Biotherapeutic Products (LBPs), xRNA, pDNA and...

Dr. Kashmira Date is a physician, epidemiologist and global health leader with over 20 years of experience and leadership in both, public and private, sectors with clinical development/medical/scientific affairs in infectious diseases, vaccines, epidemiology, real-world evidence, pandemic...

Dr. William Decker is a Professor in the Department of Pathology & Immunology at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Decker received a B.S. in Biology from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Molecular in Human Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine in 2001. Following early career work in...

Dr. Douglas Gladue currently is an internationally recognized leader in bringing projects from concept to commercialization, with over 20 years of experience leading diverse research teams. As the Vice President for Veterinary Pharmaceutical Development at Seek Labs he leads a team to develop new...

Ms. Arlene Joyner is the Director of the Industrial Base Management and Supply Chain for the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, she is responsible for leading HHS efforts on Advanced...

I have always been interested in infectious diseases and approaches to prevent them, primarily with the application of vaccines, in both humans and Animals.I obtained my PhD in Virology from Harvard university in 2009 and before that I had my DVM from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and MSc in...

Alasdair King qualified as a veterinary surgeon from Glasgow University in 1990.  After 11 years in mixed practice he joined Intervet UK as livestock veterinary advisor.  Amongst other roles in the UK, he took on responsibility for company pharmacovigilance as the National PV Manager, and developed ...

Justine McPartlan, B.Sc., is a Scientist at Tiba Biotech. During her undergraduate research at MIT, she focused on novel RNA vaccine strategies to fight infectious disease and cancer at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research under Dr. Hidde Ploegh. This work culminated in a 2016 PNAS...

Dr. Münter is a Lead Research Scientist with the Vaccine Adjuvant Systems R&D Department of Croda Pharma, based in Denmark. He holds a masters degree in Nanoscience from University of Copenhagen and a PhD degree in Drug Delivery from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). He has extensive...

Lyle R. Petersen, M.D., M.P.H., has served as the director of the Division of Vector-borne Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control since 2004. Dr. Petersen began his training at the University of California, San Diego where he received an undergraduate degree in biology. He studied...

Lisa Purcell has been an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Third Rock Ventures since May 2024. Her career has been dedicated to the development of therapies within the immunology and infectious disease areas. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she co-chaired the ACTIV partnership established by the...

Dr. Hagen Richter joined WACKER in 2016 and currently serves as Director of Nucleic Acid Research with the WACKER central R&D hub in Munich, Germany. This team of approximately 30 scientific and technical experts focuses on research innovations and both academic and industry partnerships to...

Ted Ross, PhD, is the Global Director of Vaccine Development at Cleveland Clinic. He develops universal vaccines to target multiple strains, variants and types of viruses with the goal for these vaccines is to increase the protection, while decreasing the amount of booster shots required to...

Susan C. Winckler, RPh, Esq., is CEO of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration. The Foundation is the non-profit organization created by Congress to advance the mission of the FDA.Prior to accepting the Foundation post in May of 2020, Ms. Winckler served as President of...

Dr. Tom Campi is the CEO of Modulant Biosciences, an animal health biotechnology company focusing on therapies for infectious and chronic diseases. The current pipeline includes drugs for FIP, a fatal coronavirus in cats; Parvo, a serious enteric disease in dogs, PRRSv, a continuing problem for the ...

I direct the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology, where research teams focus on pathogenesis, immunity, and vaccine development. I have extensive experience in human observational and interventional studies of malaria, including studies of controlled human malaria infections. As the...

Bernard Hoet is Vice President, Head of Medical strategy at Bavarian Nordic, a fully integrated pure-play vaccine company. He joined this company early 2020, at the time of acquisition of the rabies and tick-born encephalitis vaccines from GSK, to build up the Medical Affairs department, and...

Dr Ahmed OGWELL is currently the Vice President for Global Health Strategy at the United Nations Foundation (unfoundation.org). In this capacity he leads the broad portfolio of global health policy, advocacy, thought leadership and resource mobilizatiopn for key UN priority initiatives. He is a...

Dr. A. Selvapandiyan has been a prominent figure in vaccine development, with over 35 years of experience post-Ph.D. in molecular biology, focusing on molecular cell biology, diagnostics, immunology, and vaccinology. He has served as a Senior Research Scientist at the International Centre for...

Katie Van Tornhout is the founder of Callie Cares, a not-for-profit organization founded in 2010 that supports parents with hospitalized children and raises awareness about the seriousness of whooping cough (pertussis) and the importance of routine immunizations for pregnant people and children. ...

Lisa Cornbrooks serves as the Senior Director, National Health Campaigns at AMGA Foundation. In this role, she oversees the Rise to Immunize® campaign, a six-year initiative that has engaged 85 medical groups and health systems across 30 states to improve routine adult immunization rates. She...

Mr. Cornejo has a master’s degree in international development studies from George Washington University. He started his career in academia and many international organizations. He joined the Gavi Alliance in 2008 where he held different responsibilities, including the development and management of ...

Janelle Derbis, PharmD, is a Director in Regulatory Affairs at Merck (Rahway, NJ), responsible for leading regulatory activities for product shortages and deletions in the US and serves as a subject matter expert on various FDA and other health authority regulations. Prior to joining Merck, Janelle ...

Sheetij Dutta leads the Structural Vaccinology Laboratory, Biologics Research and Development Branch at the Center for Infectious Disease Research, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). SVL is engaged in discovery and development of vaccine and biologics against parasitic, bacterial and...

Dr. Sardesai founded Geneos after building Inovio Pharmaceuticals into a Phase III cancer and infectious disease immunotherapy company serving as its Chief Operating Officer. He held positions of increasing responsibility after joining the company in 2006 where he helped formulate the company’s...