Speakers
Giulia Casorati
San Raffaele Scientific Institute
Milan, Italy
Giulia Casorati obtained her Doctor of Biology and a PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Torino working on the genetic structure of TCR and immunoglobulin variable regions. Between 1988-91, she joined Klaus Karjalainen lab at the Basel Institute for Immunology, where she studied the structure of the TCRs αβ and γδ and contributed to the identification of human invariant NKT cells together with Paolo Dellabona and Antonio Lanzavecchia. Since 1992 she joint-directs with Paolo Dellabona the Experimental Immunology Unit at San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milano, Italy, where she has been investigating fundamental mechanisms and translational aspects of the T cell immune response in cancer, with particular emphasis on CD1-restricted T and NKT cells both in transgenic mouse models generated in the laboratory, or in physiologic and pathologic human contexts. More recently she focused her interests to study the lipid antigen-specific CD1c restricted T cell response in leukaemia patients and designed new adoptive immunotherapy protocols with TCRs engineered T and iNKT cells to target leukemia cells.
Mark Exley
MiNK Therapeutics Inc., Lexington, MA, USA
Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
Immunologist Dr. Mark Adrian Exley, MS, PhD. received his B.S. from Imperial College, MS from Kings College and his PhD. from the Institute of Cancer Research, all in London, UK. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston and was a scientist at Immulogic Pharmaceuticals. Mark is currently CSO at Imvax Inc and had Faculty affiliations with the Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham & Women's Hospital and previously Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, both at Harvard Medical School (where he retains an honorary affiliation) & was a full Professor at the University of Manchester UK. Mark is also Senior Advisor/SAB Member at MiNK Therapeutics Inc. He is best known for his scientific work on ‘NKT’ cell types in various diseases & on NKT cell-based & other types of Immunotherapies from discovery to clinical trials in academia and industry.
Jenny Gumperz
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Madison, WI, USA
Dr. Gumperz is Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She completed her Ph.D. at Stanford University, where she investigated human Natural Killer cell recognition of HLA molecules. Starting with her postdoctoral studies at Harvard University, she turned her attention towards invariant Natural Killer T cells. Dr. Gumperz joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin in 2003, where her current research focuses on using humanized mouse models to dissect the activation and cellular interactions of human innate lymphocytes in vivo, with the ultimate goal of furthering the development of clinical approaches using these cells to treat cancer, inflammation, and infectious diseases.
Anastasios Karadimitris
Imperial College London
London, UK
Tassos Karadimitris is interested in exploring the biology and therapeutic applications of CD1d-restricted T cells with emphasis on iNKT cells. He holds the Langmuir Chair in Haematology and served as the Co-Director for the Centre for Haematology ad Director of the Hugh and Josseline Langmuir Centre for Myeloma Research Centre for Haematology, Department of Immunology and Inflammation, Imperial College London. He is also a Consultant Haematologist at the Lymphoma/Myeloma Service, Department of Haematology, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust, London.
Leonid Metelitsa
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX, USA
Dr. Leonid Metelitsa is a Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. His research centers on NKT cells' role in tumor immunity and NKT cell-based cancer immunotherapy. Notably, he identified NKT cells' presence in human primary tumors and their correlation with positive outcomes. Dr. Metelitsa pioneered methods for NKT cell isolation, genetic modification with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR), and clinical-scale expansion. Recently reported results of the first-in-human clinical testing of CAR-NKT cells demonstrate that the therapy is well tolerated and produce objective responses in children with relapsed/resistant neuroblastoma.
Marie-Thérèse Rubio
Nancy University Hospital
Nancy, France
Marie-Thérèse Rubio is MD in hematology and PhD in immunology. After a training in Boston (PhD) and Paris (assistant professor), she took a Professor position in Nancy University Hospital in France. She is currently head of the cell therapy clinical unit in the hematology department of Nancy hospital and co-leader of the research team CImIND (Cell-engineering & Immunomodulation of Inflammatory & Neoplastic Disorders) of the CNRS UMR 7365 IMoPA unit at the Lorraine University in Nancy. Her research is dedicated to better understanding the role of invariant NKT cells in the regulation of graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. More recently, she started to develop CAR-iNKT cells for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.
Dominik Schneidawind
University Hospital Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland
Dominik Schneidawind heads the Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and Cell Therapy Program at University Hospital Zurich. He studied medicine at Ulm University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, focusing on iNKT cells. His clinical specialization in hematology and oncology took place at University Hospital Tübingen. Dominik has a particular interest in iNKT cells and translational approaches to harness their anti-tumor activity and tolerogenic properties.
Federico Simonetta
Geneva University Hospitals
Geneva, Switzerland
Federico Simonetta, MD, PhD, is senior attending physician in the Division of Hematology at the Geneva University Hospitals and group leader at the University of Geneva. He received his MD from the University of Genoa, Italy, his MSc in Immunology from University of Paris VII/Institut Pasteur, France, and his PhD in Immunology from University of Paris Sud, France. He trained in internal medicine and hematology at the Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland, before performing his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Professor Robert S. Negrin at Stanford University. At University of Geneva he leads a research group focusing on immunological mechanisms underlying the efficacy and the toxicities of adoptive cell therapies including allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells.
Lili Yang
University of California
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Dr. Lili Yang received her Ph.D. degree in Biology from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), studying with Dr. David Baltimore. She is currently Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her research laboratory at UCLA studies tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy, with a special focus on developing gene and cell-based immunotherapy for cancer (liliyanglab.com). So far her work has resulted in over 70 publications, 28 patents, 2 clinical trials, and 2 biotech startups.
In recognition of her scientific achievements, Dr. Lili Yang has received multiple prestigious awards, including a TR35 (Innovators Under 35) Award from the MIT Technology Review Magazine, a Director’s New Innovator Award from the National Institute of Health (NIH), a Young Investigator Award from the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), and an Outstanding New Investigator Award from the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT).
Dr. Lili Yang is also widely recognized for her biotech accomplishments. She has been named Women in Biopharma by Endpoints News in 2022, and Top Women in Academic Entrepreneurship by BIOS in 2023.