PEGS EUROPE SUMMIT SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Engineering Stream 
Display of Antibodies
Engineering Antibodies
Engineering Bispecifics
Antibody-Drug Conjugates

Therapeutics Stream 
Immunotherapy
Advancing Bispecifics
Novel Therapies for Cancer

Analytical Stream 
Optimisation & Developability
Analytical Characterisation
Aggregates & Particles

Expression Stream 
Protein Expression Technologies
Optimising Expression
Purification Technologies  

PLENARY KEYNOTE BIOGRAPHIES

Ana Barbas, Ph.D., Coordinator, Bayer Satelite Laboratory at iBET, iBET and Bayer Portugal SA

Ana studied Applied Chemistry and holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica form Oeiras Portugal.
Ana is currently working as the Coordinator of the Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceutical Laboratory Research Team at IBET, position she holds since 2009. Her major research areas involve discovery of therapeutic antibodies using Phage Display Technology, as well as design and execution of antibody library selection and screening strategies for the expression and characterization of selected therapeutic phage antibodies against disease-specific targets. Most recent interests involve the design and development of Eukaryotic and Prokaryotic expression platforms for the production of complex biopharmaceuticals, including antibodies and other recombinant proteins. 

Paul Adam, Ph.D., Executive Director, Immune Modulation and Biotherapeutics Discovery, Boehringer Ingelheim

Dr. Paul Adam received a First Class BSc. with Honours Degree in Biochemistry at the University of Dundee before obtaining his Ph. D in Molecular & Cellular Biology at the University of Cambridge. Following postdoctoral positions at the Universities of Virginia and Cambridge he began his career in the biopharmaceutical industry at Oxford Glycosciences, then Celltech, before joining Boehringer Ingelheim at their oncology research site in Vienna, Austria, in 2005.
Dr. Adam has been involved in the discovery and development of many of the biologics in clinical development for Boehringer Ingelheim, and is currently an Executive Director for Immune Modulation and Biotherapeutics Discovery with accountability for the discovery research biotherapeutics portfolio.

Sandra S. Diebold, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Immunotoxicology, Biotherapeutics, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC)

Sandra Diebold worked on gene-modified dendritic cells as a PhD student in Vienna and Berlin and investigated innate recognition of viruses by dendritic cells during her time as a postdoctoral fellow in London. As a lecturer at King’s College London, she focused on exploring the use of synthetic mimics of viral nucleic acids as adjuvants in tumour immunotherapy. After nine years in academia, she joined the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in 2015. NIBSC is a centre of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and plays a major role in assuring the quality of biological medicines worldwide through the provision of biological reference materials, by testing products and carrying out research. Sandra’s laboratory focuses on the development of bioassays and standards for investigating the immunotoxic effects of biological medicines. In her research she continues to investigate different aspects of tumour immunotherapy.

Christian Klein, Ph.D., Distinguished Scientist, Head Oncology Programs, Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery, Roche Innovation Center Zurich, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development

Christian Klein, Distinguished Scientist is Head of Oncology Programs and Department Head Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development, Switzerland specialized in the discovery, validation and preclinical development of antibody based Cancer Immunotherapy (CIT) and bispecific antibodies. During his >14 years at Roche he has made major contributions as research project leader to the development and FDA/EMA approval of GAZYVA/GAZYVARO (obinutuzumab, GA101), to the preclinical development of five bispecific antibodies currently in active clinical development: 1) anti-Ang-2/VEGF CrossMAb RG7221 (vanucizumab) in oncology (Ph II), 2) anti-VEGF/Ang-2 CrossMAb RG7716 in ophthalmology (Ph II), 3) CEA-IL2v immunocytokine RG7813 (Ph I), 4) CEA-CD3 T cell bispecific antibody (CEA TCB) RG7802 (Ph I), 5) FAP-IL2v immunocytokine RG7461 (Ph I), and lead the development of Roche’s novel bispecific antibody technologies e.g. the CrossMAb, immunocytokine and T cell bispecific antibody platforms. Since 2012 he his doing his “Habilitation” in Biochemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich, Germany.

Display of Antibodies

Hinrich Abken, Ph.D., Professor, Genetics & Immunology, Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne, University of Cologne

Dr. Hinrich Abken is Professor for Genetics & Immunology at CMMC (Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne) at the University of Cologne and Dept I Internal Medicine, Oncology-Hematology at the University Hospital Cologne. Dr. Abken studied medicine, was post-doc at the Institute for Cell Biology (Prof Rajewsky) at Essen University, was group leader at the University of Bonn, Faculty of Sciences, and in 1993 he became University Professor for Tumor Genetics at the Medical Faculty of the University of Cologne. Dr. Abken's group is internationally leading in pre-clinical research of adoptive therapy with T cells engineered with chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). Current research is aimed at improving T cell targeting of cancer, at developing novel strategies in modulating an immune response and at translating the T cell strategy into clinical trials.

Frederick Akele, Senior Research Associate, F-star Biotechnology Ltd

Fredrick has been working with the Fcab discovery department at F-star for 4 years. He was responsible for the selection, screening and affinity maturation of Fcab antibody fragments using phage and yeast display. He recently joined the mAb production group to deepen his knowledge on the other side of the mAb2 technology. Fredrick graduated from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France with a specialization in Molecular biology and Biochemistry.

Kerry Chester, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular Medicine, University College London Cancer Institute

Kerry leads the Recombinant Antibody Therapeutics Group at the UCL Cancer Institute. Her main research interests are design and construction of antibody-based therapeutics and the interaction of these molecules with cancer targets. The basic antibody fragment used is the single chain Fv (scFv) and constructs such as scFv fusion proteins with enzymes or albumin are explored. There is a focus on Bench-to-Bedside and the Group has a licensed Production Facility to make antibody-based therapeutics in compliance with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). The Cancer Institute offers a unique opportunity for translational work as facilities are available for basic research, pre-clinical testing and Phase I clinical trials.

Orla Cunningham, Ph.D., Director GBT, Pfizer

No bio available.

Antonin de Fougerolles, Ph.D., CSO, Ablynx

Tony joined Ablynx as Chief Scientific Officer in October 2013. In this role, he leads the company’s discovery, pharmacology, and CMC organisation.

Tony has more than 15 years of biotech R&D experience and expertise in building out pipelines and expanding platform technologies. Prior to joining Ablynx, Tony was CSO at Moderna Therapeutics where he led the science, helping to grow the company from a start-up to an established biotech. Previously, Tony was CSO at Tolerx Inc and prior to that he served on the management team of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals as Vice President, Research, Immunology, Metabolic, and Viral Disease from 2003-2010. He also served as a Principal Scientist at Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen Idec Inc.) from 1998-2003 where he worked on several immunology/inflammation-based programs and led research teams working to develop antibody-based therapeutics.

Tony has been Principal Investigator on numerous grant awards totaling over $80M, has over 60 scientific publications, and is an inventor on over 60 issued U.S. patents. He earned his Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University, and was an Arthritis & Rheumatism Council (ARC) Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

Gavin Giovannoni, MBBCh, Ph.D., FCP (Neurol., SA), FRCP, FRCPath, Professor, Neurology, Centre for Neuroscience and Trauma, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry

Gavin Giovannoni was appointed to the Chair of Neurology, Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London and the Department of Neurology, Barts and The London NHS Trust in November 2006. In September 2008 he took over as the Neuroscience and Trauma Centre Lead in the Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science. Gavin did his undergraduate medical training at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where he graduated cum laude in 1987 winning the prizes for best graduate in medicine and surgery. He moved to the Institute of Neurology, University College London, Queen Square, London in 1993 after completing his specialist training in neurology in South Africa. After three years as a clinical research fellow, under Professor Ed Thompson, and then two years as the Scarfe Lecturer, working for Professor W. Ian McDonald, he was awarded a PhD in immunology from the University of London in 1998. He was appointed as a Clinical Senior Lecturer, Royal Free and University College Medical School, in 1998 and moved back to Institute of Neurology, Queen Square in 1999. He was promoted to Reader in Neuroimmunology in 2004. His clinical interests are multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory disorders of the central nervous system. He is particularly interested in clinical issues related to optimising MS disease modifying therapies.

Guy Hermans, Ph.D., CSO, Isogenica Ltd

Guy joined Isogenica in January 2016. He brings over a decade of experience in antibody fragment discovery and early development, as well as antibody discovery technology development. In his previous position as Research Fellow at Ablynx, he conceived of many of its internal drug development programs, leading many through the early R&D stages. He was also responsible for lead generation technology development programs to enable lead generation to challenging targets, or enable novel applications.

 Catherine Hutchings, Ph.D., Consultant, Antibody Alliance Management & Strategic Partnering, Heptares Therapeutics Ltd.

Catherine has spent over 19 years acquiring significant depth of experience in antibody drug discovery and platform applications in cutting edge biotech and pharma companies. In 1997, she joined Cambridge Antibody Technology (now MedImmune) developing expertise in antibody drug discovery/optimisation while participating in key discovery alliances. During her time with CAT, she also made significant contributions to both library construction and platform development. In 2004, she successfully completed technology transfer for phage-based antibody discovery to establish an Antibody Technology group at Genzyme.

Louise Jopling, Ph.D., Director, Immunology Scientific Innovation, Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centre

Louise is Director of Immunology Scientific Innovation at the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centre London.  Her main responsibilities are to apply the highest level of scientific expertise and insights to identify the best opportunities for value-generating collaborations, and support development of an industry-leading portfolio of investment opportunities across Europe.
Prior to this Louise held a number of positions at Janssen in the Medical Affairs function with both UK and European responsibility within the Immunology Therapy Area.  Louise joined Janssen in May 2008 following a successful research career in both academia and industry.  After completing her PhD in Immunology (Imperial College London), Louise undertook a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School (Boston). From there Louise worked at Celltech/ UCB for 6 years as a senior pharmacologist, where she was responsible for developing and testing pre-clinical models of inflammation to support small molecule discovery programmes, and was responsible for leading the psoriasis research strategy.
 

Peter Kristensen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Molecular Engineering, Aarhus University

Peter Kristensen obtained his PhD from Aarhus University, Denmark in 1995. The interest in technological development involving recombinant antibodies and phage display was initiated during his PhD. During his Post Doc at the MRC-LMB in Cambridge in the group lead by Greg Winter, he pioneered phage display selection procedures which allow selection for properties such as stability and catalytic properties. Furthermore he invented the protease sensitive helper phage, which today is widely used in phage antibody selections. From 1998 he has headed his own research group, with a recent focus on the development and application of methods that allow single cell proteome analysis using recombinant antibodies.

Mattia Matasci, Ph.D., Head, Cell Line Development, Philochem

Prior to joining Philochem AG in 2011, Mattia gained his PhD from the ETH Zurich, with main focus in molecular biology and neuroscience. He then continued his postgraduate education in the lab of Prof. Florian Wurm at the EPFL Lausanne, where he investigated alternative gene delivery methods for the generation of high-producing cell lines.   At Philochem he has worked in scientific positions related to the identification and engineering of antibodies and antibody-based products.  Currently, as Head of Cell Line Development, he is mainly responsible for the engineering of new immunocytokines and development of biopharmaceutical production cell lines.

John McCafferty, Ph.D., Co-Founder, Director and CEO, IONTAS Ltd

Pioneer and inventor of antibody-phage display and co-founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology.  John established a highly proficient proteomics group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute which developed cutting edge protein expression and high throughput recombinant antibody isolation.  More recently he has headed a research group within the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge.  The focus here was identifying anti-receptor antibodies with therapeutic potential in cancer indications.

Ahuva Nissim, Ph.D., Reader, Molecular Targeting, Biochemical Pharmacology, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London

Ahuva Nissim graduated in Molecular Immunology in 1992 from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and was trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering in Cambridge until 1995. During this period she developed phage display semi-synthetic human antibody library which has been used worldwide. In November 2000 she was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University. Her studies are interdisciplinary and involve translational research at the William Harvey Research Institute and with intensive worldwide collaborations. Her main research interest focuses on development of targeted immunotherapy.

Niccolo Pengo, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, UCB-Celltech

Dr. Niccolo Pengo works at UCB-Celltech in the Core Antibody Discovery Group where he is involved in the discovery of antibodies to a range of therapeutic targets. He obtained his Ph.D. from the San Raffaele University in Milan. He joined the Translational Research Resource Center at University College London UCB.

Martin Pule, Ph.D., Clinical Senior Lecturer, University College London

Dr Martin Pule is a Senior Lecturer in Haematology, UCL Cancer Institute. Martin leads optical imaging in the UCL Centre for Biological Imaging. He and his group work on engineering mammalian cells for therapeutic applications. Most of their work involves engineering proteins and vectors for eukaryotic expression, testing in small animals and then with some promising approaches, moving to clinical studies. While working in Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, as a traveling Fulbright scholar, Martin was the first to describe third generation forms of these CARS2 which transmit activation, proliferation and survival signal to the transduced T-cells, the form of which have used as a template for many different chimeric antigen receptors since. While at Baylor Martin also engineered a novel suicide gene, “iCasp9”3, which is in widespread use and currently in clinical studies. Martin’s work in Baylor culminated in testing of a CAR in clinical study in children with a solid cancer called neuroblastoma4. This was the first demonstration of clinical efficacy of this approach and was published in Nature Medicine paper, along with a covering editorial. Martin as well as being a senior Lecturer in UCL, holds an honorary consultant post as a clinical haematologist in the UCL Hospital (UCLH). He is also the principle investigator in an open clinical study of engineered T-cells in UCLH.

Stanley R. Riddell, M.D., Professor, Immunology & Clinical Research, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute

Dr. Riddell’s research focuses on 1) understanding the roles of distinct T cell subsets in protective immunity to pathogens and tumors and 2) the development and clinical application of adoptive T cell therapies for viral diseases and cancers, including with genetically modified antigen-specific T cells. His early studies demonstrated the potential to augment T cell immunity by the adoptive transfer of antigen-specific T cells and uncovered mechanisms by which virally-infected cells evade immune recognition. These findings provided insights into similar mechanisms that tumors use to escape T cell immunity and that might be therapeutically targeted to improve patient outcomes.

Dr. Riddell’s lab has developed critical techniques for isolation, expansion, genetic modification and reinfusion of therapeutic T cells, and for monitoring patient safety, T cell persistence, migration and function post-infusion. These include state-of-the-art ways to identify the tumor cell “antigens” recognized by T cells. Many are now broadly employed in adoptive immunotherapies for cancer that use natural targeting molecules called T cell receptors (TCRs) or use synthetic TCR- and antibody-related molecules known as chimeric antigen receptors (CARs).

Andrew Sewell, Ph.D., Professor, Division of Infection and Immunity, Cardiff University School of Medicine

My research is focused on T-cell antigens and the receptors that recognise them. This subject takes us in many directions and my laboratory incorporates projects on infection, transplant tolerance, vaccination, cancer immunotherapy and autoimmune disease.

Nels Thorsteinson, MSc, Scientific Services Manager, Biologics, Chemical Computing Group

Nels Thorsteinson is a Scientific Services Manager at Chemical Computing Group. He is responsible for providing scientific support, programming custom applications and guiding CCG's 3D biologics modeling applications development. Nels majored in biomedical computing and completed his graduate studies at the University of British Columbia in bioinformatics and computational chemistry.

Angela C. Vincent, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Clinical & Experimental Neuroimmunology, University of Oxford

I am Emeritus Professor of Neuroimmunology at the University  of Oxford, and an Emeritus Fellow of Somerville College.  I hold an Honorary Consultant position in Immunology and run the Clinical Neuroimmunology service which is an international referral centre for the measurement of antibodies in neurological diseases.  Together with my colleagues I collaborate with neurologists worldwide. I was formerly Head of Department of Clinical Neurology (2005-2008), and am a Past President of the International Society of Neuroimmunology, and an Associate Editor of Brain.  I was a co-applicant and group leader of OXION, the Wellcome Trust-funded Integrative Physiology Initiative "Ion channels and Diseases of Electrically Excitable Cells". I am a member of Faculty of 1000 (Neuroscience, Neurobiology of Disease and Regeneration).  

Engineering Antibodies

Ulrich Brinkmann, Ph.D., Expert Scientist, Large Molecule Research, Roche Pharma Research & Early Development

Ulrich Brinkmann is a member of Roche’s Large Molecule Research organization within Pharma Research & Early Development at the Roche Innovation Center Munich (Penzberg, Germany). His work focuses on protein & antibody engineering, bispecifics, and on delivery platforms for targeted payload delivery. Prior to joining Roche, he served as CSO in functional genomics and pharmacogenetics companies Xantos and Epidauros. His previous work in Ira Pastans Molecular Biology Lab at the NIH/NCI in Bethesda, USA focused on antibody stabilization and engineering technologies, and on generating recombinant immunotoxins for cancer therapy. Dr. Brinkmann is author of numerous publications (2015 H-factor=52) and inventor of many patents covering recombinant antibodies, pharmaco- & functional genomics, immunotoxins and protein engineering technologies and applications.

John Castle, Ph.D., Senior Director, Bioinformatics, Agenus & 4-Antibody AG

I am excited to apply genomics, bioinformatics and immunomics to novel immunotherapies. Originally trained in physics, I moved to Rosetta Inpharmatics, later part of Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), where I contributed to the development of novel computational biology, lab and genomic platforms. At TRON in Mainz, Germany, I built a genomics and computational immunology department focused on novel cancer immunotherapies, resulting in first-in-man clinical trials of individualized “on-demand” neo-antigen vaccines. At Agenus & 4-Antibody, I continue to apply novel technologies to develop and translate cancer immunotherapies.

Johan Engström, Senior Scientist, Research & Development, Gyros AB

Johan Engström obtained his Master of Science in Molecular Biotechnology from Uppsala University guiding him into the area of Surface Biotechnology. He continued at the Surface and Polymer Chemis-try group at Amersham Pharmacia Biotech (now GE Healthcare) where he contributed to the early technology development of a centrifugal microfluidic platform. Johan joined Gyros when it was spun out in year 2000 and has been involved in cross-disciplinary development involving surface chemistry, microfluidics and a wide range of applications generating new products for protein sciences.

Peter Ertl, Ph.D., Manager, Biopharm Molecular Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline

I have been with GSK and its former companies for 35 years. During that time I have worked in a variety of areas including virology, vaccines, gene therapy and, more recently, antibody discovery. I have 22 publications in various peer reviewed journals and methods books. My current role is as part of a team using in vitro technologies to discover antibody therapeutics to a variety of targets.  

Elizabeth England, BSc. (Hons), Scientist I, Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering, MedImmune Ltd.

Liz England is currently a scientist in the Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering department of MedImmune (formerly Cambridge Antibody Technology, CAT). After graduating from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology with a degree in Biochemistry and Clinical Biochemistry Liz joined CAT in 2001 and has responsibility for developing and implementing biochemical and cell based assays for the isolation, optimisation and characterisation of candidate therapeutic biologic drugs.

Tony de Fougerolles, Ph.D., CSO, Ablynx

Tony joined Ablynx as Chief Scientific Officer in October 2013. In this role, he leads the company’s discovery organization.
Tony has more than 15 years of biotech R&D experience and expertise in building out pipelines and expanding platform technologies. Prior to joining Ablynx, Tony was CSO at Moderna Therapeutics where he led the science, helping to grow the company from a start-up to an established biotech with over 70 people and a $240M upfront pre-clinical deal with Astra Zeneca. Previously, Tony was CSO at Tolerx Inc and prior to that he served on the management team of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals as Vice President, Research, Immunology, Metabolic, and Viral Disease from 2003-2010. He also served as a Principal Scientist at Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen Idec Inc.) from 1998-2003 where he worked on several immunology/inflammation-based programs and led research teams working to develop antibody-based therapeutics.
Tony has been Principal Investigator on numerous grant awards totaling over $80M, and was named by Pharmaceutical Executive magazine as an “Emerging Pharma Leader” in 2009. Tony has over 60 scientific publications and is an inventor on over 60 issued U.S. patents. He earned his Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University, and was an Arthritis & Rheumatism Council (ARC) Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

Benjamin Hoffstrom, Ph.D., Director, Antibody Technology, Fred Hutch

Dr. Hoffstrom completed his PhD training at the University of Virginia where he studied cell adhesion and patterning during early vertebrate development. In 2005 he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Hereditary Disease Foundation to study the mechanisms cellular toxicity induced by mutant huntingtin protein in Brent Stockwells lab at the Whitehead Institute and Columbia University. While working as lead Scientist at CombinatoRx/Zalicus overseeing high-throughput small molecule combination screens for anti-Ebola agents, he was recruited by the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center to direct and expand the Antibody Technology core resource. Over the past four years Dr. Hoffstrom and his group designed a cutting-edge multiplexed antibody discovery platform, currently providing service to a range of academic and industrial clients in the US and Europe.

Rob Holgate, Ph.D., Head, Protein Engineering, Abzena

Rob leads Abzena's protein engineering group, managing a range of antibody humanisation research collaborations and protein deimmunisation projects, most often with external clients. Rob previously worked as a senior scientist at MedImmune following his PhD in Molecular Genetics from UCL.

Claus Kristensen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Copenhagen Center for Glycomics, University of Copenhagen

Associate professor at Copenhagen Center for Glycomics, University of Copenhagen. Works on glycoengineering of mammalian cells for improving biologics. Solid experience with industry R&D including managing development of CHO production cell lines for clinical trials and market (Novo Nordisk)

Daniel Lightwood, Ph.D., Director, Antibody Discovery, UCB Celltech

After studying for a BSc Hons at Reading University, UK (1996), Dr Lightwood received a PhD from the University of Cambridge, Biochemistry Department in the area of protein engineering (1999). He then joined Celltech (acquired by UCB Pharma in 2004) in 1999. During his 15 years at UCB Pharma, Dr. Lightwood has played a key role in developing UCB’s antibody discovery platform and has been responsible for successfully applying the technology across a number of UCB therapeutic antibody programs. During 2013 and 2014, Dr. Lightwood managed the implementation and launch of a new and proprietary automated antibody discovery platform. This allows for unparalleled immune sampling and is providing UCB with efficiency savings and results in the generation of very high quality monoclonal antibodies. Dr. Lightwood currently holds the position of Director, Antibody Discovery at UCB Celltech managing the Core Antibody Discovery team.

David Melvin, Ph.D., Director, Informatics, Kymab Limited

Dr David Melvin is the Director of Informatics at Kymab. His experience includes development and integration of large information management systems for the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the application of machine learning technology to biomedical data sets. He gained his PhD in 1996 from the University of Aberdeen in artificial neural networks (a branch of machine learning) and subsequently carried out his postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge. He has, over the 20 years, published research spanning: object oriented protein modelling databases, radar signal analysis, liver transplant patient monitoring, leukemia diagnostics, genome sequencing, high throughput phenotypic analysis of KO mouse models.

Julia Neugebauer, Ph.D., Associate Director and Leader, Discovery Projects, MorphoSys AG

Dr. Julia Neugebauer currently holds the position of Associate Director and Leader Discovery Projects at the MorphoSys AG, where she heads a team responsible for antibody discovery projects including target validation, antibody selections, functional characterization and engineering up to lead selection. Prior to that position Julia Neugebauer worked at MorphoSys as Project Team Leader for Customer Projects. Altogether she has 10 years of experience in the field of antibody discovery and engineering. Julia Neugebauer studied biochemistry at the University of Regensburg and at the New York University and earned a PhD from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.

Meiri Shida-Kawazoe, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Biologics Discovery, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Meiri joined Chugai Pharmaceutical as a Protein Analyst in 2008 where she evaluated the binding activity, physicochemical property and microheterogeneity of samples in the drug discovery phase. She was also engaged in the development of Chugai’s proprietary antibody engineering technologies. From 2012 to 2015, she was assigned to Chugai Pharmabody Research Pte. Ltd. and dedicated herself to the development of therapeutic antibodies which were applied in novel sweeping technology. She returned to Chugai Pharmaceutical in 2016 as a member of antibody engineering team in Chugai Pharmaceutical and mainly held responsibility as the project leader of therapeutic sweeping antibody in the pre-clinical phase. She has Ph.D. in Structural Biology from the University of Tokyo, Japan.

Pietro Sormanni, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge

I obtained a BSc and a MSc in theoretical physics at the University of Milan (Italy) and spent the final year of my BSc studies in London at Queen Mary University and UCL. I recently obtained (January 2016) a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge working under the supervision of Prof Michele Vendruscolo at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, where I currently work as a postdoctoral researcher. My research focuses on the development and applications of computational methods to predict and modify the behaviour of proteins, with a particular emphasis on binding proteins like antibodies. The two patents that I have obtained in this area are at the basis of numerous industrial collaborations. One key aspect of my research programme is the interplay between method development and experimental applications. The latter provides guidance and insights for the development of new methods and data to test new algorithms, as well as the validation essential to prove the effectiveness of the computational approach.

Dale Starkie, BSc., Research Scientist, Antibody Discovery C Variable Region Discovery and Engineering, UCB Celltech

Dale is currently working as a research scientist within antibody discovery at UCB Celltech on the isolation of antibodies to therapeutic targets utilising UCBs proprietary antibody discovery platform. Dale is also actively involved in antibody discovery technology development using flow cytometry and microfluidics, leading to a recent publication on a novel technique for antibody discovery using single B-cell sorting via FACS. He is also currently studying for a PhD in molecular neuroscience/antibody engineering with University College London Institute of Neurology utilising multiple antibody technologies and engineering approaches to help elucidate mechanisms of dementia.

Claudio Sustmann, Ph.D., Head, Molecular Design & Engineering, Large Molecule Research, Roche Diagnostics GmbH

Claudio Sustmann studied chemistry in Marburg and Munich and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg working at the MPI of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Freiburg, Germany. Since 2008 Claudio works for Roche in different positions with a particular focus on bi- and multispecific therapeutic antibodies and antibody conjugates in the field of oncology. Since 2015 Claudio is head of a department focusing on molecular design and engineering of therapeutic antibodies.

Markos Trikeriotis, Ph.D., Applications Development Scientist, Malvern Instruments Ltd

Markos Trikeriotis studied Chemistry at the University of Crete in Greece, where he also completed his PhD in Biochemistry investigating the use of inorganic materials in drug delivery applications. He then moved to Cornell University, USA as a post-doctoral associate where he studied the applications of metal oxide nanoparticles in lithographic nano-patterning. Markos worked for a biotechnology start-up in Cardiff, UK and then joined the Microviscometry team at Malvern Instruments as an Applications Scientist.

Maria Wendt, Ph.D., Head, Science, Biologics, Genedata

Maria Wendt, Ph.D. is Head of Science at Genedata A.G. Dr. Wendt develops data management solutions for biopharma and biotech companies to support their biologics drug discovery and development programs. This includes biologics registration and workflow support solutions covering antibody and protein screening and engineering, protein expression and purification, and assays and analytics. She earned her Ph.D. at Iowa State University in chemical engineering.

Mingjie Xie, MSc, MBA, Co-Founder, CEO, Rapid Novor Inc

Mingjie received his M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Western University in 2006 and recently received his M.B.A degree from Richard Ivey School of Business. He is currently the co-founder at Rapid Novor Inc. Prior to co-founding Rapid Novor, he was the Chief Operating Officer at Bioinformatics Solutions Inc.

Engineering Bispecifics

Julian Bertschinger, Ph.D., VP, Janssen R&D, Managing Director, Covagen

Julian Bertschinger is co-founder and Managing Director of Covagen, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. Until Covagen’s acquisition by Janssen, Julian Bertschinger was Covagen’s CEO. In this role, he successfully developed and executed Covagen’s business and R&D strategy. During the time period from 2007 until 2014, he was instrumental for the development of Covagen’s bispecific FynomAb platform and helped to advance the company’s lead drug candidate clinical trials. In August 2014, Covagen was acquired by the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnsons & Johnson. Julian Bertschinger studied molecular biology and biochemistry and obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Stanislas Blein, Ph.D., Senior Director, Head, Antibody Engineering, Biologics Research, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals S.A., Switzerland

Stanislas joined the Biological Research Center of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals in 2007. His group focuses on the isolation and optimization of therapeutic antibodies. The group also develops new platform technologies relevant to bispecific antibodies.
His range of expertise includes selection and rational design of antibodies, biophysical analysis and in-silico modelling to solve problems in antibody and protein engineering.

Prior to joining Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Stanislas was at Domantis-GSK in Cambridge UK where he worked on the development of therapeutic domain antibodies.

He performed his doctoral and post-doctoral work at the University of Edinburgh with Prof. Paul Barlow. Using high resolution NMR spectroscopy, he solved 3D structures of modular proteins from the complement system.

Ulrich Brinkmann, Ph.D., Expert Scientist, Roche Innovation Center

Ulrich Brinkmann is a member of Roche’s Large Molecule Research organization within Pharma Research & Early Development at the Roche Innovation Center Munich (Penzberg, Germany). His work focuses on protein & antibody engineering, bispecifics, and on delivery platforms for targeted payload delivery. Prior to joining Roche, he served as CSO in functional genomics and pharmacogenetics companies Xantos and Epidauros. His previous work in Ira Pastans Molecular Biology Lab at the NIH/NCI in Bethesda, USA focused on antibody stabilization and engineering technologies, and on generating recombinant immunotoxins for cancer therapy. Dr. Brinkmann is author of numerous publications (2015 H-factor=52) and inventor of many patents covering recombinant antibodies, pharmaco- & functional genomics, immunotoxins and protein engineering technologies and applications.

Javier Chaparro-Riggers, Ph.D., Director, Antibody Technology, Rinat Pfizer, Inc.

Dr. Chaparro-Riggers worked for 8 years in the field of enzyme engineering and received his Ph.D. in 2003. In 2007, he joined Rinat-Pfizer's protein engineering department where he heads the antibody technology department, which is in charge of the antibody generation and development of various antibody technology platforms.

John de Kruif, Ph.D., CTO, Merus

John de Kruif holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and is an expert in the field of antibody discovery and engineering. After finishing his post-doctoral training he joined Crucell, now Johnson & Johnson, in Leiden, The Netherlands. After seven years at Crucell as a Director Antibody Discovery he joined Merus where he worked as CSO when the platform technologies were established and became CTO when the company moved into the clinical phase

Joseph Dukes, Ph.D., Head, Pre-Clinical Biology, Cell Biology, Immunocore

Joseph Dukes received his PhD from the University of Bath (United Kingdom) where he spent some further time carrying out postdoctoral research. He joined Immunocore in 2011 and now currently Heads the Preclinical Biology group in the Cell Biology department. The Preclinical Biology group is responsible for the in vitro cellular testing of ImmTAC molecules to assess for drug potency and specificity, and producing preclinical packages and reports for submission to regulatory bodies for clinical trial approval.

Aran F. Labrijn, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Antibody Sciences, Genmab BV

Dr. Aran F. Labrijn has been working in the field of recombinant antibodies for more than 20 years. He holds a PhD in molecular immunology from the University of Amsterdam (2004). In 2002, he joined Genmab where he is currently a principal scientist in the department of antibody sciences with focus on the development of Genmab’s bispecific antibody platform (DuoBody™) and the further development of innovative immunotherapeutics in cancer.

Ji Min Lee, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Open Innovation Team, Samsung Bioepis

Ji Min Lee received her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Seoul National University, South Korea. After completing her postdoctoral studies in the field of cancer and cell biology at the same university, she joined Samsung group in 2011 and is currently a principal scientist in the Open innovation team at the Samsung Bioepis (Incheon, South Korea). The Open innovation team is responsible for investigation of innovative biotechnologies and value enhancement with next generation pipelines. Prior to joining Samsung Bioepis, she was at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) where she worked on the development of the therapeutic antibodies targeting RTKs. Dr. Ji Min Lee is author of numerous publications and patent families covering antibody therapeutics, pre-clinical biomarkers, antibody engineering technology and applications.

Yvonne McGrath, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Complix NV

Dr McGrath joined Complix as CSO in May 2014. Prior to joining the Complix team, she held the post of Head of Development at Immunocore, UK. In this position, she successfully developed and executed the late preclinical and early clinical strategy for a novel platform technology, managed meetings with European and US regulatory authorities and led manufacturing and CMC strategy for a new biological entity targeting cancer. Dr McGrath’s previous experience includes being a Project Manager at the UK subsidiary of the German biotech company MediGene AG, and Senior Scientist at BioVex (now part of Amgen). She has a PhD from the University of Wales, College of Medicine.

David Pearlman, Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist, Schrödinger

David Pearlman received his Ph.D. at the University of California. He left Berkeley to be a founding employee of Biosym Technologies, later Accelrys. He did his post-doc at University of California, with Peter Kollman, where he developed the widely-used AMBER program. Dr. Pearlman became an early employee of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Pearlman spent a few years providing direction for computational chemistry at The Stanley Center of the Broad Institute before coming to Schrodinger in 2010.

Andreas Plückthun, Ph.D., Director and Professor, Biochemistry, University of Zurich

Andreas Plückthun’s research is centered on protein engineering. His contributions have included many aspects of antibody engineering, protein expression technology, design of synthetic antibody libraries, the development of ribosome display as an in vitro protein evolution technology, coupled receptors towards high stability, which has allowed determination of their crystal structures.

His work has been published in over 380 papers, is an inventor on more than 20 patent families and has received numerous awards.

In 1992, he co-founded the Munich biotech company MorphoSys AG and later co-founded the biotech company Molecular Partners AG in Zurich and G7 Therapeutics.

He has studies at the Universities of Heidelberg (Germany) and of California at San Diego. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Chemistry Department of Harvard University (1982-85) where he worked with Prof. Jeremy Knowles. From 1985 until 1993, he was group leader at the Genzentrum and Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie in Martinsried (Germany). He was appointed to the faculty of the University of Zürich (Switzerland) as a Full Professor of Biochemistry in 1993.

Joerg Thomas Regula, Ph.D., Head, Functional Characterization, Large Molecule Research, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development

Dr. Regula studied chemistry and obtained his PhD from the Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg in 1999. After a short Post-Doc he joined Ingenium Pharmaceuticals In 2002 he became head of the Center for Protein Analytics at the LMU Munich. In 2004 he joined Roche as senior scientist. Since 2009 he is heading a protein analytics department and since 2014 a department focused on functional characterization of therapeutic proteins in Large Molecule Research (pRED). Besides this Joerg led several technical project teams.

Jonas Schaeffer, Ph.D., Head, High-Throughput Binder Selection Facility, Biochemistry, University of Zurich

Since 2011, Dr. Schaefer is heading the High-Throughput Binder Selection Facility of the Department of Biochemistry, automating the Ribosome Display technology and various High-Throughput screenings. With his team, he develops new methodologies enabling the generation and screening of several thousand binders per week which are used in numerous international collaborations. Prior to his current position, Jonas performed his PhD studies with Prof. Andreas Plückthun on the engineering of full-lengths IgGs and other antibody fragments in various academic and industrial collaborations, focusing on aspects of stability, aggregation and unfolding kinetics using many biophysical techniques.

Stefan Seeber Ph.D. Principal Scientist Cell Line and Molecule Roche Innovation Center Munich / Large Molecule Research Development

Stefan Seeber is a member of Roche’s Large Molecule Research organization within Pharma Research & Early Development at the Roche Innovation Center Munich (Penzberg, Germany). He performed his doctoral thesis at the University of Tübingen in Germany on restriction endonucleases. Dr. Seeber is author and co-author of several publications and inventor of many patents covering therapeutic antibodies and technologies for antibody generation.

His group focuses on molecule and cell line development for therapeutic antibodies and bispecific antibodies. Additionally he acts as project leader for several projects in the field of therapeutic antibodies. In his context he is interested in generation and application of technologies for identification and characterization of complex format antibodies with novel properties.

Christoph Spiess, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Antibody Engineering, Genentech, Inc.

Christoph Spiess received his PhD from the University of Konstanz (Germany). After completing his postdoctoral studies in the field of protein folding at Stanford University, he joined Genentech in 2007 and is currently a senior scientist in the Department of Antibody Engineering. His group is involved in the development of bispecific antibodies for a variety of therapeutic areas as well as in the engineering of antibodies for improved expression and delivery.

David Urech, Ph.D., CSO and Co-CEO, Numab AG

No bio available.

Antibody-Drug Conjugates

Gonçalo J.L. Bernardes, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Chemistry, University of Cambridge

Dr Bernardes is a Principal Investigator at the University of Cambridge where he leads a research program in Chemical Biology. He is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and the holder of an ERC grant.

Vijay Chudasama, Ph.D., Lecturer, Chemistry, University College London

Dr Vijay Chudasama (VC) is a Lecturer in the Chemistry department at UCL. He has won multiple prestigious prizes and awards (departmental, faculty, national and international) throughout his career such as the UCL Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences Medal (2008), UK Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Student of the Year (2008) and the Ramsay Medal (2011). Moreover, he was recently highlighted by Scientific American (“Lindau Select”, 2014), the Royal Society of Chemistry (“Emerging Investigator”, 2015), Forbes Magazine (“30 under 30 in Healthcare”, 2015) and CNN News (“2020 Visionary”, 2016), independently, to be a future leader in the field of Chemistry. VC has research interests in the development and application of novel methodologies in Chemical Biology , resulting in over 35 publications and 3 granted patents to date. Particular highlights include publications in Nature Chem. (2), Nature Commun., Chem. Sci. (2) and Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA; VC is also one of the founders, and Technical Director, of UCL spin-out ThioLogics™ .

Rakesh Dixit, Ph.D., DABT, Vice President, Research & Development, and Global Head, Biologics Safety Assessment, Medimmune (A member of AstraZeneca Group)

Dr. Dixit conducted extensive graduate and post-graduate training in Toxicology–Biochemistry with both Indian and US Institutions and is board certified in Toxicology from the American Board of Toxicology, Inc. since 1992. In December 1992, Rakesh joined the Department of Safety Assessment, Merck and Co., Inc, West Point, PA where he served in various management positions. During his about 14 years with Merck, Rakesh contributed to the successful filings of many blockbuster drugs. For about a year, Rakesh was associated with Johnson and Johnson PRD, La Jolla/Alza as Senior Director of Toxicology. In Aug 2006, Rakesh joined MedImmune, Inc. (an AstraZeneca Biologics company) to lead Global Biologics Safety Assessment, Experimental Pathology, and Laboratory Animal Medicine. In his current position, Rakesh is responsible for providing guidance on research and development of biological products; including nonclinical toxicology/safety support for all AstraZeneca-MedImmune biologics products, including monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Rakesh has published more than 60 papers in renowned international journals and has given over 100 invited lectures/presentations/workshops in national and international meetings. 

Jonas Helma, Ph.D., Project Group Leader, Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians University Ludwig-Maximilians Universität

Jonas Helma obtained his Ph.D. from Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany. He focuses on technology development in the field of recombinant antibodies and protein functionalization. In 2008, he co-founded the munich-based biotech company ChromoTek, developing single domain antibody reagents for cell biology and biochemistry applications. Since 2013, he is a project group leader at the LMU, Munich.

Florence Lhospice, Director, Pharmaceutical Operations, Innate Pharma

Florence Lhospice, pharm D, joined Innate Pharma in 2002. She completed pharmacy study at University of Joseph Fourier (France) and University of Montreal. She is responsible for the ADC platform at Innate Pharma focusing on the site specific technology but also for ADC target discovery and development. 

Jens Lohrmann, Ph.D., Senior Global Program Manager, Translational Clinical Oncology, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Before recently joining Translational Clinical Oncology at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research as Senior Global Program Manager overseeing clinical ADC and Immuno-oncology programs, Dr Lohrmann has been Technical Project Leader at Novartis Biologics Technical Development and Manufacturing Unit since 2010, leading several programs from candidate selection into Ph I trials. He was pivotal in developing and establishing Novartis’ ADC CMC strategy, leading the ADC portfolio successfully from research into pre-clinical and clinical phase. Prior to working as program manager, he was heading a bioanalytical lab responsible for developing cell based functional potency as well as effector function (ADCC) assays.

Dr Lohrmann began his industrial career at Genovac/Aldevron, focusing on development of various customized antibody services such as genetic immunization and antibody purification. He received his Ph.D in Molecular Signal Transduction from the Albert-Ludwig’s-University in Freiburg, Germany. Prior to his doctoral thesis, he enrolled at Universities in Germany and Australia.

Jeremy S. Parker, D.Phil., Principal Scientist, New Modalities & Tissue Targeting, AstraZeneca

Jeremy Parker obtained a Chemistry BSc from Imperial College, University of London in 1994, undertaking research work for Professor A G M Barrett.  He then moved to the University of Oxford, completing a DPhil investigating biomimetic Diels-Alder reactions with Professor Sir J E Baldwin.  After a brief period with Laporte Fine Chemicals at Southampton, he joined AstraZeneca in 1999.  He has held numerous roles in Process Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry and External Sourcing including Team Manager Roles within Process Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry.  He is currently AstraZeneca’s Principal Scientist for New Modalities and Tissue Targeting, leading the chemistry activities on the development and commercialisation a range of new therapeutic modalities including Antibody Drug Conjugates, Dendrimer Drug Conjugates and Polymer Drug Conjugates.  His interests include contemporary synthetic methodology, route selection, linker chemistry and the synthesis of a wide range of New Therapeutic Modalities.

Thomas Pillow, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Discovery Chemistry, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group

Thomas Pillow received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Trinity University in the year 2000. After a brief stint working as a manufacturing engineer at Sony Semiconductors, he moved to Stanford University for his graduate studies. There he completed his Ph.D in organic chemistry under the direction of Professor Paul Wender on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel drug delivery methodologies. Upon graduation he moved to Genentech where he is currently a senior scientist in the discovery chemistry department leading Genentech’s chemistry effort on antibody-drug conjugates.

Thomas Sandal, Vice President, Preclinical Development and Protein Engineering, Crescendo Biologics, Ltd.

Thomas Sandal currently holds a position as VP of Preclinical Development and Protein Engineering at Crescendo Biologics. Thomas is a member of Crescendo Biologics’ executive team and responsible for managing preclinical development capabilities and therapeutic programmes through to the clinic. Thomas has more than 25 years of experience within the Biotech and Biopharmaceutical industry mainly within CMC activities, product formatting, formulation and delivery, pharmacokinetics, production and toxicology. Previous to Crescendo, he was responsible for production and characterisation of anticailin products at Pieris AG. At Domantis (subsequently GSK) he managed Preclinical Development and GMP manufacture and was responsible for the advanced asset, an inhaled dAb (domain antibody fragment) in clinical trials for pulmonary disease. Previously Thomas held senior positions in Novozymes and Novo Nordisk, and was a co-founder of CMC Biologics.

João Tomé, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon

João P.C. Tomé is Associate Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon (Portugal). His current research interests include the synthesis of porphyrins and phthalocyanines with appropriate molecular properties mainly for: photomedicine, photoinduced energy- and electronic-transfer materials, optical (chemo)sensors and (photo)catalysis. For that, he has been establishing an international network with several colleagues in these fields, maintaining a strong, independent and funded research program. He has published over 130 original papers, 4 book chapters and issued 3 patents. Already delivered 36 invited oral communications and 44 others, and has been co-author of more than 220 poster communications in several national and international scientific meetings.

Floris Van Delft, Ph.D., Founder & CSO, SynAffix BV

Floris van Delft is co-founder and CSO of Synaffix (since 2013) and was recently appointed (2015) as special professor 'Bioconjugate Chemistry' at Wageningen University.
Floris received his PhD (cum laude) from Leiden University in carbohydrate chemistry and stereoselective synthesis (1996, supervisor: prof. van Boom), followed by postdoctoral research position at the Scripps Research Institute (San Diego, USA, 1996-1997) under the supervision of Prof. K.C. Nicolaou.  After that, he was assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, and until 2013 Associate Professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen, with focus on development of click chemistry and protein conjugation technologies.
He has authored >140 peer-reviewed publications and 15 patents.

Alain Wagner, Ph.D., Research Director, Functional ChemosSystem, Strasbourg University and CNRS

Dr. Alain Wagner received his PhD in organic chemistry from Université Louis Pasteur (1991, Strasbourg, France), followed by a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. Peter Schultz at Affymax Research Institute (1991-1993, Palo Alto, USA). He joined CNRS in 1994 to develop projects involving chemistry, biology and technology. Promoted research director in 2001, Alain Wagner took a sabbatical to found and manage Novalix Pharma (2002). He latter participated actively in the creation of eNovalys (2009) a company to stake on the digital technology to become a major component of the research workflow by funneling and exploiting raw experimental data as a source of innovation. On returning to the CNRS (2008) he took the lead of the Laboratory of Functional Chemo-Systems and investigates the possibilities offered by controlling synthetic chemistry in living organism. On the basis of his latest results and patents Alain has recently co-founded Syndivia SAS, which provides advanced technologies for drug bio-conjugation / drug release. Dr Wagner published more than 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is an inventor of 17 patents.

THERAPEUTICS

Immunotherapy

Daniela Achkova, Ph.D., Research Associate, Research Oncology, King’s College London

Dr Daniela Achkova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1987. She received a BSc degree in Biotechnology from Sofia University and an MSc degree in Molecular Medicine from Imperial College London in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Since 2012 she has joined Dr John Maher’s group in King's College London initially as a PhD student and then as a postdoctoral scientist. Her primary research interest is the use of cell engineering to augment the immune response to human tumours, using adoptive transfer of genetically modified T cells, especially in the realm of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). Additionally, she has been involved in the Phase I T4 clinical trial performing quality control (QC) release assays for the GMP product.  Dr Achkova is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the Biochemical Society and the British Society of Immunology. She is a recipient of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre STEM Early Career Award, 2015-2016.

Gregory P. Adams, Ph.D.,  Chief Development Officer, Viventia Bio

Dr. Adams is Chief Development Officer of Viventia Bio Inc, a clinical stage company developing Targeted Protein Therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. He is responsible for guiding the development of the company’s pipeline assets.  Dr. Adams is an immunologist with over 25 years of experience in developing antibody-based agents for the treatment and detection of cancer. He received a Ph.D. in Immunology from University of California at Davis. Prior to joining Viventia he was the Director of Biological Research and Therapeutics and led a laboratory focused on developing antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.  Prior to this he Co-Lead Fox Chase’s Developmental Therapeutics Program.

Dr. Adams serves on the Editorial Boards of Cancer Immunology Research, MAbs and Cancer Biotherapy & Radiopharmaceuticals.  He is a member of the Integration Panel of the Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program and has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of a number of biotechnology companies.

Frederick Arce Vargas, Ph.D., Haematology, University College London Cancer Institute

Dr. Arce Vargas trained as a surgical oncologist in the Universidad de Costa Rica. He did his PhD with Prof. Mary Collins in University College of London working on genetic modification of dendritic cells for tumor immunotherapy. Since 2011, he has been working with Sergio Quezada and Karl Peggs in the Cancer Immunotherapy group in the UCL Cancer Institute.  His work has focused on the study of mechanism of action and engineering of antibodies targeting immunological checkpoints.

Amrik Basran, Ph.D., CSO, Therapeutics, Avacta Life Sciences

Affimers® are a new protein scaffold with great potential for the generation of biotherapeutics. Based on the protease inhibitor Stefin A, large diverse libraries have been created by engineering in peptide loops into the scaffold backbone. Using phage display, we have identified competitive binders to a ranage of targets, including the immune check point, PD-L1. We have shown that the scaffold is amenable to being engineered with a range of half-life extension technologies.

Renier Brentjens, Ph.D., Director, Cellular Therapeutics Centre, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre

Dr Renier J. Brentjens obtained an MD/PhD (microbiology) from SUNY Buffalo, completed residency in medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, and a medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Currently, Dr Brentjens is an associate member on the faculty at MSKCC and an attending physician on the leukemia service. Ongoing pre-clinical and clinical research in the focused on the further development of CAR modified T cells designed to overcome the hostile immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment through the generation of “armored CAR T cells”.

Jo Brewer, Ph.D., Director of Cell Research, Adaptimmune

Jo Brewer has been working with T cell therapies for the past 15 years and currently heads several research teams at Adaptimmune. Her groups are responsible for platform innovation and producing the next generation of T cell products to enhance the use of cancer specific T-cell receptors (TCRs) in T cell adoptive therapy.  Before moving into Immunology Jo gained a MA in Natural Sciences and a PhD in GPCR signaling from the University of Cambridge.

Stefan Dübel, PH.D., Managing Director and Professor, Biotechnology, Technische Universität Braunschweig

Stefan Dübel co-pioneered in vitro antibody selection technologies, resulting in several key inventions including antibody phage display (USPat. 5849500) or human antibody libraries with randomised CDRs (USPat. 5840479). His lab continued to work on multiple topics related to human antibody engineering and phage display, e.g. Hyperphage technology, RNase fusions, scFab, and intrabodies. He is editor of the four volume "Handbook of Therapeutic Antibodies“ (10/2014) and co-founder of the human antibody company Yumab. He is Full Professor of Biotechnology and Director of the respective department at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany.

David Gilham, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Clinical and Experimental Immunotherapy Group, Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Manchester

Dr Gilham is a Senior Lecturer and leads the Clinical and Experimental Immunotherapy Group based within the Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Manchester, UK. The group is focused upon developing immunotherapies for cancer with a specific interest in engineered T cell therapy. Dr Gilham gained his PhD from the University of Dundee in 1998 in Molecular Pharmacology, before a post-doctoral position at the University of Bristol followed by moving with Professor Robert Hawkins to the University of Manchester in late 1998.

Saar Gill, MD, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, Hematology- Oncology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Dr. Saar I Gill is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne Medical School, where he earned an MBBS and a PhD in immunology. Dr. Gill subsequently completed a fellowship in hematology/oncology at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, followed by post-doctoral research at Stanford University in California. He is board certified in hematology and specializes in bone marrow transplantation for leukemia. Dr. Gill is the principal investigator of two CAR T cell trials in leukemia. In addition, he leads a laboratory in the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy for lymphoma and leukemia.

Sophia N. Karagiannis, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Translational Cancer Immunology, Head, Cancer Antibody Discovery and Immunotherapy, St. John's Institute of Dermatology, Division of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, King's College London

Dr. Sophia Karagiannis is a translational cancer immunologist with academic and biotechnology experience specialising in antibody therapies for solid tumours. Her group has an established antibody discovery to translation pathway, informed through dissecting humoral immune responses and the mechanisms of IgE class antibodies and Th2 responses in cancer. In-house technologies include deriving novel monoclonal antibodies from human B cells, expression systems enabling engineering antibodies of any specificity or class/subclass, and a range of immunologically-relevant cancer models. The group is the first internationally to discover, evaluate and translate IgE antibody class therapeutic agents for oncology.

Gopal Krishnan, Ph.D., Global Product Manager, Cellular Analysis & Proteomics, Promega

Dr. Gopal B. Krishnan completed his PhD in biochemistry & cell biology from the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi. He engaged a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Currently Dr. Krishnan is a Global Product Manager of bioassay products.

Paul Moore, Ph.D., V.P. Cell Biology & Immunology, Macrogenics, Inc.

Dr. Moore has approximately 20 years’ experience working in biotech, coordinating efforts focused on the discovery and development of novel biologic based therapies. He began his biotechnology career at Human Genome Sciences, where he directed genomic-based target discovery programs and the preclinical development of various protein and mAb based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, metabolic, and autoimmune diseases. Notably these efforts led to the discovery of BLyS as a B-cell survival factor providing the basis for the development of Benlysta for the treatment for lupus. At MacroGenics, Dr Moore leads a group dedicated to the discovery, characterization and development of novel antibody based therapeutics including Fc-optimized and bispecific based DARTs for the treatment of cancer or autoimmune disease. Dr Moore obtained his PhD from University of Glasgow, performed post-doctoral work at Hoffman La Roche.

Dafne Mueller, Ph.D., Group Leader, Cell Biology and Immunology, University of Stuttgart

Dafne Mueller studied Biochemistry in Chile and received her doctoral degree from the University of Stuttgart in Germany. At the present she holds a group leader position at the department of Biomedical Engineering at the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology of the University of Stuttgart. Working in the field of recombinant antibodies for over 10 years, her current research focuses on the development of recombinant antibody-fusion proteins with immune stimulatory or costimulatory properties for targeted cancer immunotherapy.

Rienk Offringa, Ph.D., Head, Molecular Oncology of Gastrointestinal Tumors, German Cancer Research Center

I started off as a molecular biologist, studying gene regulation in cancer, but when I witnessed the power of T-cell therapy in pre-clinical mouse models, I decided to focus my post-doctoral career on cancer immunotherapy. After a post doc at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, I went back to my ‘alma mater’ in Leiden, The Netherlands, to head the Tumor Immunology Laboratory at Leiden University Medical Center. Subsequently, I worked at Genentech Inc. in San Francisco, where I focused on the development of immunotherapeutic drugs. After 4 years in Industry (in 2011), I moved back to academia and back to Europe, by accepting a full professorship at University Hospital Heidelberg and DKFZ. I am currently running two labs, one focusing on pancreatic cancer and cancer immunotherapy, and a second dedicated to the development of cancer immunotherapy drugs, co-funded by DKFZ and Bayer Healthcare.

Advancing Bispecifics

H. Kaspar Binz, Ph.D., VP & Co-founder, Molecular Partners

Dr. H. Kaspar Binz is Vice President and co-founder of Molecular Partners (SIX: MOLN), a Swiss clinical stage biotech company developing designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins) for therapeutic applications. He invented and developed the designed repeat protein technology including the DARPin technology during his post-doctoral training and PhD studies at the University of Zürich with Prof.

Mark Chiu, Associate Director, Structural Biology, Janssen Research and Development

Mark received his training from:  A.B. Biophysics at U.C. Berkeley, Ph.D. Biochemistry at U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and conducting Post-doctoral work at ETH-Zürich and Biozentrum of U. Basel.  His work experience has spanned from being an Organic Chemist at Microgenics developing chemical conjugation of enzymes; Chemistry Professor at Seton Hall University getting grants on prokaryotic membrane protein biochemistry; Research Investigator at Abbott Labs on Mammalian Membrane Protein Drug Discovery; and now currently as Associate Director at Janssen Research and Development leading the Discovery and pre-clinical development of multi-specific Biotherapeutics.

Nicolas Fischer, Ph.D., Head, Research, NovImmune SA

Nicolas Fischer obtained a PhD in Biology from the Department of Molecular Biology University of Geneva on the structure and function of photosynthetic complexes. As a postdoctoral fellow he joined the Group of Sir Greg Winter at the MRC Department of Molecular Biology in Cambridge UK to study protein folding and Antibody engineering using phage display. In 2001 he joined NovImmune and led several therapeutic antibody discovery programs that have reached clinical development stage. He is now heading the Research Department and developing next generation bispecific therapeutic antibodies.

Matthias Friedrich, Ph.D., Director, Nonclinical Development, Amgen Research (Munich) GmbH

Dr. Friedrich is Scientific Director at Amgen Research Munich who has been working on bispecific BiTE® antibodies since 2006.  Formerly, he was a group leader at the Institute for Biochemistry at the University of Frankfurt and did a postdoctoral fellowship in the Haematology/Oncology department of Weill Medical School of Cornell University, New York, USA focusing on anti-angiogenic strategies in the treatment of cancer.
Dr. Friedrich studied biology at the Universities of Muenster and Cologne, Germany and holds an MSc in Applied Toxicology from the University of Surrey, UK.

Tariq Ghayur, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Biologics, Abbvie Research

Tariq Ghayur received his Ph.D. (1986) in Immunology from Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He did his post-doctoral training at McGill (1986-’88) and Dana Farber Cancer Institute (1988-’90).  Prior to AbbVie, Tariq worked at BASF Pharma (1990 – 2001) and Abbott Laboratories (2001 – 2012). He has worked on both small molecule and therapeutic antibody discovery programs, mainly defining the biology/pathology of selected targets (target validation) and developing assays for high throughput screening and/or candidate selection. From 1998-2004, he led two therapeutic antibody discovery project teams and delivered 2 drug development candidates. In 1999, Tariq initiated the dual – / multi – targeting biologics program that resulted in the discovery of dual-variable-domain (DVD) – IgTM molecules and other multi – targeting biologics. Currently four DVD-Ig molecules are in clinical development

Jinming Gu, Ph.D., Executive Director, Biologics, Shanghai Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.

Dr. Jinming Gu obtained his Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology from Vanderbilt University. He then joined Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School for a postdoctoral training in oncology. Dr. Gu started his industry career at Merrimack Pharmaceutical, Inc., where he worked on MM111, a bispecific antibody currently in Phase 2 clinical trial. He then joined Abbott Laboratories. Since joining Abbott/Abbvie, he has been leading/working on multiple mAb, ADC, and bispecific antibody programs, including ABT-806, ABT-414, and ABT-165 etc. Dr. Gu is currently the Executive Director of Biologics Discovery at Shanghai Hengrui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a leading innovative pharmaceutical company in China.

Roland Kontermann, Ph.D., Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Cell Biology and Immunology, University of Stuttgart

Roland Kontermann holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg. After working as a postdoc in the laboratory of Sir Gregory Winter at the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering, Cambridge, UK, group leader at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Tumor Biology of the University of Marburg, and subsequently Head of Research at vectron therapeutics AG. Since 2004 Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology of the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Current research focuses on the development of recombinant bispecific and bifunctional antibody molecules, including half-life extension strategies, for tumor therapy.  

Michael Kragh, MSC, Ph.D., Senior Director, Preclinical Development, Symphogen

Dr. Michael Kragh is Senior Director of Preclinical Development at Symphogen. Symphogen is a biotechnology company located in the Copenhagen area that is developing antibodies and antibody mixtures for treatment of cancer. Michael Kragh is responsible for all IND-enabling pharmacology and toxicology studies. Michael Kragh holds a PhD in cancer biology from University of Copenhagen, and he has been working with cancer therapeutics for more than 15 years.

Oliver Krieter, Ph.D., Senior Leader, Translational Medicine, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development

No bio available.

Paul Moore, Ph.D., V.P. Cell Biology & Immunology, Macrogenics, Inc.

Dr. Moore has approximately 20 years’ experience working in biotech, coordinating efforts focused on the discovery and development of novel biologic based therapies. He began his biotechnology career at Human Genome Sciences, where he directed genomic-based target discovery programs and the preclinical development of various protein and mAb based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, metabolic, and autoimmune diseases. Notably these efforts led to the discovery of BLyS as a B-cell survival factor providing the basis for the development of Benlysta for the treatment for lupus. At MacroGenics, Dr Moore leads a group dedicated to the discovery, characterization and development of novel antibody based therapeutics including Fc-optimized and bispecific based DARTs for the treatment of cancer or autoimmune disease. Dr Moore obtained his PhD from University of Glasgow, performed post-doctoral work at Hoffman La Roche.

Atsushi Narita, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Biologics Discovery, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Dr. Narita is a research scientist at Biologics Discovery department in Chugai Pharmaceutical. Since 2008 he has worked on identification and engineering/optimization of antibody and development antibody technology including bispecific antibody technology. He studied and received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Engineering at Kyoto University Graduate School.

Adam Root, MSc, Senior Principal Scientist Global BioTx Technologies Pfizer

Adam Root is a Senior Principal Scientist in Pfizer’s Global BioTx Technologies department.  He is a project leader on several early stage programs at Pfizer and is also in charge of a high throughput protein expression/purification core facility.  He earned his BSc and MSc in Biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire.

Janine Schuurman, Ph.D., VP, Research, Genmab B.V.

Dr. Janine Schuurman has been working in the field of Antibody Biology for about 20 years. In 1997 she got a PhD in Immunology from the University of Amsterdam. During her PhD at Sanquin Research. After a few post-doc positions at Sanquin Research and the University Utrecht she started in 2001 at Genmab.
Current research of Janine focuses on Antibody Biology, Product Innovation and the development of novel antibody formats such as the monovalent antibody platform UniBody®, the bispecific antibody platform DuoBody® and the enhanced IgG platform HexaBody®.

Eric Smith, Ph.D., Director, Bispecifics, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Eric Smith received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Duke University in 1997. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU he joined Regeneron in 2002 as a member of the Antibody and Trap Technologies group, where he worked on cytokine traps and related molecules. In 2008 he became a member of the Bispecific Antibodies team and is currently the Director of Bispecifics at Regeneron.

David E. Szymkowski, Ph.D., Senior Director, Research, Xencor, Inc.

David Szymkowski is Senior Director of Research at Xencor, Inc. Xencor uses computational structural biology coupled with high-throughput protein production and screening tools to create superior antibody drugs with novel mechanisms of action, reduced immunogenicity, and improved half-life and efficacy. Xencor's pipeline includes next-generation Fc-engineered and bispecific antibodies for autoimmune, allergy & asthma, and oncology indications. Dr. Szymkowski oversees Xencor's immunology and cell biology group, as well as the assessment of clinical candidates in nonhuman primates. Prior to joining Xencor in 2002, he was a principal scientist in the inflammation group at Roche Bioscience in Palo Alto, CA. Previously, he was a virology program leader at Roche in the U.K. He received his B.A. at Johns Hopkins University and his Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from Penn State, and completed a postdoc at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (U.K.). Dr. Szymkowski is a member of the American College of Rheumatology and American Association of Immunologists, and currently serves on the editorial board of Drug Discovery Today.

David Urech, Ph.D., CSO and Co-CEO, Numab AG

No bio available.

Novel Therapies for Cancer

Paolo Ascierto, M.D., Director, Melanoma, Cancer Immunotherapy & Innovative Therapies, Istituto Nazionale Tumori Napoli

Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, is Director of the Unit of Melanoma, Cancer lmmunotherapy and Innovative
Therapy at the National Tumor Institute Fondazione G. Pascale in Naples (ltaly). He earned his medical Degree from the University of Naples, where he earned board certification in oncology. Before the present position at the National Tumor Institute, he previously served there as a postdoctoral fellow and then vice director of the Department of Clinical lmmunology. Major research interests have included genetics and proteomics research of melanoma, assessment of new molecular markers for tumor progression, as well as targeted therapies for melanoma, biochemical and immunological monitoring, and vaccination treatments, He has served as principal investigator in numerous clinical trials (he contributed in the developing of lpilimumab and Vemurafenib) and has been well-published in peer-reviewed journals on topics related to his interests. Dr. Ascierto serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Translational Medicine, the Combination Products in Therapy, the Journal of Skin Cancer, the Journal of Molecular Biomarkers & Diagnosis, the Dataset Papers in Medicine, and Biomarkers Research. He is the Editor in Chief of the Combination Strategies section of the Journal of Translational Medicine. He has been an invited speaker at more than 2OO national and international meetings, and maintains active memberships in several medical societies in ltaly and abroad.

Christophe Blanchetot, Ph.D., Director, Discovery, argenx

Dr. Christophe Blanchetot is now Director of Discovery at arGEN-X, where he supports and supervises the discovery and preclinical programs as well as major external collaborations with industrial partners. After six postdoctoral years in Utrecht, Montreal, (McGill, Canada) and back in Utrecht with the prestigious fundings like HFSP and Marie-Curie, he learned all about Phage display and antibody discovery through collaboration with Ablynx (single domain antibody platform) and later by participating in the creation of arGEN-X (conventional antibody platform) where he established most of the techniques in place today. Following most on his university study in Paris (P&M Curie, Paris VI), he completed a PhD in Molecular & cellular Biology from the Utrecht University in The Netherlands in 2000.

Attilo Bondanza, M.D., Ph.D., Head, Innovative Immunotherapies Unit, San Raffaele University Hospital and Scientific Institute

Dr. Attilio Bondanza is currently Assistant Professor and Immunotherapy Group Leader at the San Raffaele University Hospital and Scientific Institute in Milan (Italy). He obtained his degree in Medicine from the University of Milan in 1997 and completed a residency in Internal Medicine/Clinical Immunology in 2001, focusing on systemic autoimmune diseases. From 2002-2005, he worked in the Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation Department and in the Experimental Hematology Unit of the San Raffaele Hospital (Prof. C. Bordignon), where he participated to the development of suicide gene therapy. After obtaining his PhD degree in Transplantation Immunology in 2006, he moved to the lab of Prof. E. Goulmy in Leiden (NL), where he does research on minor histocompatibility antigens. In 2008, he was appointed Medical Director of the Immuno-oncology group at Pfizer (New London, CT), position held until 2009 when he returned to academic research at the San Raffaele Hospital. Dr. Bondanza is author of more than 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals (IF>400; H index: 23, cumulative citations: >2000)and member of the Editorial Board of Human Gene Therapy, Human Gene Therapy Clinical Development and Frontiers in Immunology. Moreover, he is an active member of the Immunobiology and the Autoimmune Diseases Working Parties of the EBMT, where he coordinates different studies. Dr. Bondanza’s main interest is the clinical translation of innovative strategies of cell and gene therapy for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Neil Brewis, Ph.D., CSO, F-star

Dr. Neil Brewis, Ph.D., has been the Chief Scientific Officer of f-star Biotechnologische Forschungs- und Entwicklungsges.m.b.H. since November 2, 2015. Dr. Brewis joined F-star from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) where he served as its Vice President and Head of Biopharmaceutical Research and led a global team of 300 scientists who advanced numerous monoclonal antibodies, antibody fragments, and protein therapeutics from target validation into early clinical development. This involved leading teams focused on pipeline discovery, platform innovation, translational medicine, clinical immunology, manufacturing process research, and cell line development. Dr. Brewis has 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development. He served as Vice President of Research at Domantis Limited. Dr. Brewis served as Senior Director of Discovery of Domantis Inc. (acquired by GSK in 2007). Prior to joining Domantis, he was employed for 4 years at Phogen Ltd developing systems for protein delivery. He was awarded Honorary Doctor of Science from Hertfordshire University in 2014. Dr. Brewis did his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Dundee University. He studied protein phosphorylation followed by 4 years at University of California, San Diego investigating cell signalling and protein dephosphorylation in oncology.

Jacqueline Doody, Ph.D., Vice President, Immunology, F-star Biotechnology Ltd.

After graduating with a PhD from the City University of New York, Jacqueline Doody worked eight years at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on TGFb signalling before moving into industry. At ImClone Systems she successfully led a tumour immunology department which progressed two immunology antibodies to the clinic and continued in that capacity when ImClone was acquired by Eli Lilly. In the last year Dr. Doody has moved to F-star as VP of Immunology, working on bispecific antibodies in immuno-oncology.

Lindy Durrant, Ph.D., Professor, Cancer Immunotherapy, Academic Clinical Oncology, University of Nottingham

The monoclonal antibody (Mabs) group has developed a unique strategy to generate mabs targeting tumour glycolipids and have validated this approach by producing two colorectal cancer mabs, licensed to Arana Ltd/Kyowa Hakko for clinical development. Glycolipids are ideal targets for drug discovery as they are aberrantly overexpressed by tumours and are functional co-accessory molecules essential for most physiological processes. Currently the group are producing mabs targeting ovarian, gastric and pancreatic tumour glycolipids The cancer vaccine group have developed a unique DNA vaccine platform to stimulate high avidity T cells which efficiently kill tumour cells. The lead vaccine for the treatment of Melanoma is due to enter the clinic in June 2010

Zelig Eshhar, Ph.D., Professor, Chemical & Cellular Immunology; Chair, Laboratory of Cancer Immunotherapy, Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center

Dr. Eshhar is a Professor of Immunology, expert in cellular and molecular immunology who pioneered and further developed the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) for cancer therapy (using effector T cells) as well as immunotherapy of autoimmune diseases and inflammation using  T regulatory cells.

Magnus Essand, Ph.D., Professor, Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University

Essand leads a research group developing novel immunotherapies for cancer. The research focuses on genetic engineering of viruses and T lymphocytes. Virus replication is altered through introduction of regulatory elements into the virus genome to specifically control their killing capacity to tumor cells. T lymphocytes are modified to express a novel T cell receptor (TCR) or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that recognizes structures, which are expressed on tumor cells. Such T cells can then by produced on an individual basis for treatment of cancer. Essand achieved his PhD in Uppsala, Sweden in 1995 and acquired four years of postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, USA. He is a Professor at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology at Uppsala University since 2009. He has published more than sixty original peer-reviewed scientific articles and nine peer-reviewed overview articles/book chapters. He has tutored eight PhD students to successful thesis defense in the past and is currently the main supervisor of four PhD students and three postdocs. Essand is a scientific reviewer for international journals and funding agencies.

Soldano Ferrone, M.D., Ph.D., Division of Surgical Oncology, Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Soldano Ferrone received his MD and PhD degrees in 1964 and in 1971, respectively, from the University of Milan, Milan, Italy. He has held faculty positions at the University of Milan, Milan, Italy, Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, La Jolla, CA, Columbia University, New York, NY, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY and at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA. Since 2012 he is a faculty member of the Department of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

Dr. Ferrone has received many awards and honors. For the last 30 years he has been the member of many review committees including NIH Study Sections, and of the editorial boards of many scientific journals. Furthermore he is the member of several external scientific advisory boards.

Dr. Ferrone’s research program focuses on the molecular characterization of escape mechanism(s) utilized by tumor cells to avoid immune recognition and destruction and on the development of combinatorial immunotherapeutic strategies to counteract the escape mechanism(s) utilized by tumor cells. These studies are greatly facilitated by the large panel of HLA antigen- and human tumor antigen-specific monoclonal antibodies he has developed and shared with the scientific community over the years. He has described the results of his studies in more than 600 papers published in peer reviewed journals. Moreover he has been the editor of 14 books and the guest editor of 5 special issues of oncology journals.

Mitchell Ho, Ph.D., Chief, Antibody Therapy Section, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute, NIH

Dr. Mitchell Ho is Chief of the Antibody Therapy Section, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in the NCI. His research program focuses on antibody engineering technologies to generate therapeutic antibodies for cancer treatment. Dr. Ho received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under Mariangela Segre. He won a National Research Service Award Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) for his Ph.D. thesis research on the generation of monoclonal antibodies against cocaine addiction. He was a postdoctoral fellow under Ira Pastan at the NCI and generated immunotoxins against cancer.
Dr. Ho is a recipient of the NCI Director's Intramural Innovation Award for Principal Investigators, the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation Grant Award, the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Individual Investigator Award and the NIH Merit Award. He is founding Chair of the NIH Antibody Interest Group, and serves on the Board of Distinguished Advisors for the internationally renowned Antibody Society. Dr. Ho regularly presents at various international symposia and is a member of the organizing committees for several major international conferences on therapeutic antibodies. He is also Chair of the Department of Biochemistry in the FAES Graduate School at the NIH.

René Hoet, VP Biologics, Antibody Lead Discovery, Bayer Pharma AG

René Hoet is globally responsible for Antibody Lead Discovery at Bayer Pharma AG. In addition he was appointed to Prof. Biopharmaceutics in Nov 2012 at the University of Maastricht, NL. Before joining Bayer he headed up as Sr. Director Antibody Product Related Research at Genmab, NL (2008-2010). René received his PhD (1992) from the University of Nijmegen, NL and performed post-doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge UK (1993-1994) and University of Nijmegen, NL (1994-1997).In 1997 he joined the University Hospital of Maastricht, NL (Dept. Pathology) and the company Target Quest. After acquisition of Target Quest by Dyax (1999), René joined Dyax full time. As V.P. Research at Dyax he headed up the Antibody Lead Discovery teams in Liege (Belgium) and Cambridge (USA) and from 2006-2008 was Site Manager of Dyax s.a. in Belgium.

Michael Hudecek, M.D., Max Eder Research Group Leader, ‘CAR T Cell Engineering’, Medicine II, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg

Dr. Michael Hudecek studied and obtained his medical doctor degree at the University of Leipzig Medical School in Germany. In 2007, he raised a Post-doctoral Research Fellowship of the DFG in order to work on CAR T-cells at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. After his return to Germany in 2012, he started his own research lab CAR T-cell engineering at the Department of Medicine II of the University of Würzburg. His innovative research is supported by the Deutsche Krebshilfe e.V. (Max Eder Program), the Myeloma Crowd Foundation, and through an m4 Award from the Free State of Bavaria. Since 2015 he is an Associate Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Andrew Kaiser, Ph.D., R&D Manager and Senior Group Leader, Immunotherapy and Gene Engineering, Miltenyi Biotec GmbH

Andrew Kaiser heads a team that focuses on Immunotherapy and gene-engineering of T cells in the Research and Development department of Miltenyi Biotec GmbH. He obtained his PhD in Immunology in 2005, from the University Pierre et Marie-Curie Paris France after an advanced diploma in immunology at the Pasteur Institute, France. During his PhD, Andrew focused on translational research of dendritic cell maturation for vaccines at IDM Pharma and the influence of maturation on real time T-DC interaction at the Cochin Institute. As post-doc, he aimed to further cancer immunotherapy using gene-modified T cells at the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA and later at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) in Amsterdam. In 2012, he joined Miltenyi Biotec, where together with his team, he focuses on developing tools and technologies for clinical applications of adoptive cell therapy and more specifically the automation of gene-modified T cell manufacturing. Dr. Kaiser is also the scientific coordinator of a Horizon 2020 European consortium called CARAT, that aims to integrate innovative cell manufacturing tools and enabling technologies into a new, comprehensive platform that will facilitate the safe, automated, and cost-efficient manufacture of gene-engineered T-cells.

Stephen Martin, Ph.D., Vice President and Head, Biopharm Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline

No bio available.

Horacio G. Nastri, Ph.D., Senior Director, Antibody Biotherapeutics, Incyte Corporation

No bio available.

Christoph Priesner, Qualified Person, Quality Manager, Institute of Cellular Therapeutics, Hannover Medical School

Christoph Priesner studied biology at the University of Bielefeld and graduated at its Technical Faculty on industrial up- und downstream processing of monoclonal antibodies.  Having started his career at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig Christoph Priesner changed to the biotech industry in 2005 as a team leader and later Head of Quality Control and Qualified Person, involved in the development and manufacture of cellular and tissue therapeutics including advanced therapy investigational medicinal products. Since 2011 he belongs to the Institute of Cellular Therapeutics of Hannover Medical School where he currently works as a Qualified Person and Quality Manager for a comparable variety of medicinal products for human use.

Pedro Romero, M.D., Professor, Associate Director, Fundamental Oncology, Ludwig Cancer Research Center, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne

Dr. Romero is a Member of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Research and full Professor at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne. He leads the Translational Tumour Immunology Group at the Ludwig Center and is the Associate Director of the Department of Fundamental Oncology. Prof. Romero is a Section Editor of the Journal of Immunology and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. His main interests focus on the study of tumour antigens, human T cell responses and development of immunotherapy of cancer.

Annelise Vuidepot, Ph.D., Head, Protein Science, Immunocore Ltd.

Dr Annelise Vuidepot is Head of Protein Science at Immuocore Ltd. She has been with the company since it was founded in 2000 and has played a lead role in the design and engineering of the ImmTAC platform. Before joining Immunocore, Annelise was a postdoctoral researcher in the Biochemistry department in UCL; she gained her PhD in 1998 in Biophysics from the University of Paris. 

ANALYTICAL

Optimisation & Developability

Marisa Barnard, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Biopharm Molecular Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline

Marisa Barnard is a graduate of University of Southampton where she studied Biochemistry.  Prior to joining GSK, she worked at SGS M-Scan performing contract research analysis, principally using biophysical assays. In July 2014, Marisa joined GSK where she works in the Molecular Design and Engineering group within Biopharm Molecular Discovery.  The group is focused on iterative design and biophysical characterization, working closely with staff in bioinformatics, lead molecule discovery, and CMC Biopharm Development to guarantee only high quality molecules are candidate selected. 

 Gerhardus de Jong, Ph.D., Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University

Gerhardus (Ad) de Jong studied chemistry in Utrecht and obtained his Ph.D. at the Free University Amsterdam. From 1978 to 1985 he worked for Solvay Duphar, a pharmaceutical company in Weesp, the Netherlands. He returned to the Free University as associate professor and in 1990 he again moved to Solvay Duphar. From 1995 he was professor in Analytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Analysis in Groningen and from 2001 he is professor in Pharmaceutical and Biomolecular Analysis at Utrecht University. Prof. De Jong is author of about 300 papers and some book chapters. His specialism is separation techniques and the application in pharmaceutical analysis, bioanalysis and analysis of biomacromolecules.

Sabine Eichling, Ph.D. Candidate, NBE Formulation Sciences, Abbvie Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, University of Heidelberg, LMU of Munich

Sabine Eichling is currently a PhD student at the University of Heidelberg (Prof. G. Fricker) in collaboration with the University of LMU Munich (Prof. W. Friess) and AbbVie GmbH & Co KG. Sabine is working on establishing preclinical models to predict bioavailability of monoclonal antibodies formulations following subcutaneous administration in humans. Prior to that, Sabine was working five years as a scientist in the drug product development of monoclonal antibodies for AbbVie GmbH & Co KG (formerly Abbott GmbH & Co KG).

John C. Gebler, Ph.D., Director, Biopharma Business Development, Waters Corporation

Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADC's) harness the selectivity of monoclonal antibodies to find cancerous and diseased cells in order to deliver incredibly toxic small molecule drug payloads.   The natural complexity of a biotherapeutic is multiplied by the chemical conjugation of these small molecule drug-linker species, and the complex characterization requires understanding the underlying microheterogeneity of the biotherapeutic, and assessing the loading and location of the attached small molecule drugs.

Christian Graf, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Biologics Technical Development and Manufacturing, Novartis Pharma AG

Christian Graf received his Ph.D. at University of Heidelberg, Germany, where he worked on conformational dynamics of molecular chaperones using HDX-MS at the Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg (ZMBH, Prof. M. Mayer).
In 2009, he joined Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, Switzerland, as a Senior Scientist in the Biologics Analytical Research & Development organization, mainly responsible for the early and late-phase MS characterization of antibodies in a GxP-compliant environment. Since 2011, he is Principal Scientist of an LC-MS analytics laboratory within the Integrated Biologics Profiling unit of the Novartis Biologics Technical Development & Manufacturing organization, and supports as project leader the profiling and developability assessment of various early biologics pipeline projects.

His areas of expertise include physicochemical characterization of monoclonal antibodies, antibody-drug-conjugates and other therapeutic glycoproteins and their posttranslational modifications and impurities, especially using HPLC-ESI-TOF-MS, MALDI-TOF-MS as well as different MS software solutions.

Bjoern Hueber, Dipl. Ing., Senior Analytical Expert, Integrated Biologics Profiling, Novartis Pharma AG

Bjoern received his Dipl. Ing. in process and bioengineering at the University of Applied Sciences Offenburg, Germany. In 2009 he finalized his thesis at the North East Proteome Analysis Faclity in Newcastle, Great Britain, working on "Qualitative and Quantitative Proteome Studies using Mass Spectrometry: A Study on the Mitochondrial Proteome." After his studies, Bjoern worked in the Mass Spectrometry Facility of the Physiological Institute at University Freiburg, Germany. In 2011 he joined the Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, Switzerland as associate in the Integrated Biologics Profiling unit, mainly responsible for the setup of analytics facilities and the profiling of biologics at the interface of resesrach and development. Since 2015 he co-leads the mass spectrometry laboratory of the IBP Basel in addition to supporting Novartis early biologics pipeline as project leader for profiling and developability assessment.

Laurent Lariviere, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Large Molecular Research, Roche Pharma Research & Early Development, Roche Innovation Center Munich, Roche Diagnostics GmbH 

Laurent Larivière studied Engineering Science at the Paris Institute of Technology and Biochemistry at the University of Paris-XI. He holds a Ph.D. in Structural Biology from the University of Paris-XI. After working 8 years as a scientist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, he joined Roche Pharma Research & Early Development in 2013 as a group leader within the protein analytics department.

Karolina Les, Ph.D., Scientist I, Purification Process Sciences, Biopharmaceutical Development, MedImmune

Karolina Alicja Les is a Scientist in Purification Process Sciences group in biopharmaceutical development department at MedImmune, which she has joined in 2013. Her prime focus area is design and optimisation of purification process and their transfer into manufacturing to support clinical trials. Prior to this, she has worked on half-life modulations of biopharmaceuticals and characterisation of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) at PolyTherics Ltd. (Abzena Company). Karolina obtained her PhD from School of Pharmacy of University College London.

Phil Morton, Ph.D., Science Director, Bioprocess & Characterisation, Albumedix Ltd.

Phil Morton is a Science Director heading up the Bioprocess Characterisation function within Albumedix. He has 20+ years’ experience in the biopharmaceutical industry within process and product development. His experience ranges from developing and transferring purification processes, to formulation development and characterisation of these processes and products.  Phil holds a Ph.D. in Biochemical Eng. from Birmingham University and followed this with post-doctoral studies at Cambridge University.

Yanay Ofran, Ph.D., Founder & CEO, Biolojic Design; Head, Lab of Systems Biology and Functional Genomics, Bar Ilan University

Yanay Ofran is the Founder and CEO of Biolojic Design and the head the Lab of Systems Biology and Functional Genomics at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, where he is an associate professor.
He got his PhD (with distinction) at the Dept. of molecular biophysics, Columbia University. His research uses computational and molecular approaches to study how biomolecules recognize each other. A major focus of Dr. Ofran’s research is antibodies and the way in which they specifically recognize their cognate epitopes. Biolojic Design, founded in 2010, developed a combined computational-molecular platform for the design of antibodies against pre-selected epitopes on difficult targets.

Sarah Rowe, European Application Scientist, Molecular Devices

Sarah joined Molecular Devices in January 2014 to help support its Biotherapeutics and Imaging customers. She provides product demonstrations, training and other pre and post-sales support for the QPIX, ClonePix and CloneSelect Imager. She has 8 years prior experience of working in Drug Discovery at Syntaxin, GlaxoSmithKline and Domantis.

Michael Szardenings, Dr.rer.nat., Group Leader, Immunology, Ligand Development, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology

Michael Szardenings background is chemistry (Hamburg ,1985) and he has worked in molecular biology since his Ph.D. thesis in protein design (Brunswick, 1989). Michael has been working 30 years with phagemid vectors and 20 years with peptide phage display. After several academic positions in Sweden and Germany he was working since 1998 in biotech companies in different positions before joining Fraunhofer, Europe’s largest organization for applied research, in 2009. His rapidly growing research group is developing and improving tools in particular for peptide phage display primarily with industrial partners.

Alex van der Kooi, Manager, Interaction Laboratory, IBIS Technologies

Alex van der Kooi has more than 15 years of experience in the field of virology, immunology and biotech at various institutes. He started working at IBIS Technologies in 2009. With in-depth knowledge of SPR applications using the IBIS MX96, Alex provides training for new customers, installations and customer support.

Matthew Traylor, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Analytical Development, Shire

Matthew received his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010 followed by a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Queensland in Australia. Matthew has worked at Shire for four years in Analytical Development and is head of the Research and Development Interface.

Analytical Characterisation

Yasmina Abdiche, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Oncology Research Unit, Pfizer-Rinat

Dr Abdiche is a Research Fellow at Rinat, part of Pfizer’s Oncology Research Unit, located in South San Francisco, California, in the United States, where she leads a Bioanalytical group that uses label-free biosensors, automation, and mass spectrometry to support core research projects. After graduating from Oxford University in the UK with a Master’s degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Biological Chemistry, Dr Abdiche completed post-doctoral research in Dr David Myszka’s laboratory at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where she optimized biosensor methods for characterizing small molecule interactions and helped to establish carbonic anhydrase as a benchmark model system. Dr Abdiche joined Rinat in 2004 and is co-inventor of TEV-48125 (formerly RN307), an anti-CGRP antibody which demonstrated POC in PhIIb clinical trials for migraine and bococizumab, a PCSK9 inhibitor currently in PhIII clinical trials for hypercholesteremia.

Richard Beardsley, Ph.D., Senior Scientist and Group Leader, Protein Analytical Chemistry, Genentech, Inc.

Dr. Richard Beardsley is currently a Senior Scientist and Group Leader in Protein Analytical Chemistry at Genentech. He received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in 2000 and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University in 2006. Following graduate school, Richard was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow while working in Prof. Vicki Wysocki’s group at the University of Arizona. His graduate and postdoctoral research focused on biological mass spectrometry, with an emphasis on the development of peptide and protein covalent labeling techniques as well as the study of the gas phase dissociation of non-covalent protein complexes. Dr. Beardsley joined Roche, Nutley in 2007 where he worked in the DMPK Department until 2012, when he joined Genentech. Since joining Genentech, Richard has served as the analytical lead on multiple antibody drug conjugate programs, providing support for characterization studies, method development, and method validation.

Allison Derenne, Ph.D., Researcher, Science – Chemistry, Université libre de Bruxelles

Allison DERENNE holds a Bachelor and a Master in Bioengineering from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She also obtained a Ph.D. in Sciences from the Laboratory of Structure and Function of Biological Membranes of the ULB (supervisor: Prof. Erik Goormaghtigh). During her thesis, she developed a method based on FTIR spectroscopy to classify anticancer agents according to their mode of action. Her research has been the subject of more than 10 scientific articles (7 as first author) published in international journals. Since 2013, based on her acquired knowledge about the technology, she is working on designing innovative methods for the industry to analyse therapeutic proteins using FTIR spectroscopy. She is co-inventor of a patent filed in March 2015 at the European Patent Office, which relates to the innovative process measuring various key parameters of therapeutic proteins simultaneously that will be presented during the presentation.

Catherine Evans, Ph.D., Business Development Manager – Biopharma, Bruker Daltonics

Catherine Evans has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of York and has over fifteen years’ experience in the application of MS technologies within the (bio)pharmaceutical industries. As the Business Development Manager for Biopharma at Bruker Daltonics she is involved in solution development to address biopharma's analytical challenges.

Anya Fritsch, Ph.D., CSO, Confarma France SAS

Dr. Anja Fritsch joined Confarma, Hombourg (F) in 2011 as Chief Scientific Officer. Having more than 15 years of experience in development of cell based disease models and assays, she is responsible for cell based bioassays (development and routine). She has a PhD from the University of Jena (Germany) in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology, studying cell-cell communication in skin, and completed a Postdoc in genetic models for inherited skin diseases at the university hospital of Freiburg.

Jeremy Fry, DPhil, Director, Sales, ProImmune

Jeremy gained his DPhil in Transplantation Immunology from the University of Oxford under the direction of Prof. Kathryn Wood developing viral-based gene therapy strategies to induce immunological tolerance in transplantation. He joined ProImmune in 2001 as Research Scientist developing a new generation of MHC multimer staining reagents. He now leads a team within the company focusing on providing innovative solutions for clients that radically improve our understanding of both desired and unwanted immune responses.

Francois Griaud, Ph.D., Functional Lead Analytics, Biologics Process Development/Late Phase Analytical Development, Novartis Pharma AG

Francois holds an MSc in Biotechnology from the Institut National Polytechnique de Bordeaux, France, with internships at Pierre Fabre Laboratories in France and at the Merck Serono Biotech Center in Switzerland where he investigated monoclonal antibody degradation pathways with mass spectrometry (MS) and bioanalytical techniques. After a PhD in Leukemia proteomics and Post-Doctoral work in brain cancer proteomics at The University of Manchester, UK, he moved back to Switzerland to carry out research at Actelion Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland. There, he developed MS methods for the monitoring of PTMs in signalling pathways and for the discovery of plasma protein biomarkers. He then moved to Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, as Post-Doc first and now working as Functional Lead on the characterization of recombinant glycoproteins at early and late development stages.

Fabian Higel, Ph.D., Lab Head PK Profiling, Technical Development Biosimilars, Novartis

Fabian Higel joined Novartis’ biosmilar unit in 2014 as Scientist and is now working as a Lab Head in Technical Development Biosimilars at Novartis Biologics Technical Development and Manufacturing where he leads a team responsible for PK Profiling and investigation of structure-function relationships of critical quality attributes of biosimilar candidates and reference products. The team develops and applies analytical methods using various analytical techniques such as Mass Spectrometry, HPLC and CE. Fabian received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Technology from Ludwigs Maximilians University in Munich in 2014. He also holds bachelor and master degrees in Molecular Biotechnology from Technische Universitaet Muenchen.

Maximiliane Hilger, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Mass Spectrometry, Large Molecule Research, Pharma Research and Early Development, Roche Innovation Center Munich

Dr. Maximiliane Hilger is a Senior Scientist at Roche Innovation Center Munich. She joint Roche as a group leader for Mass Spectrometry after completion of her Ph.D. in 2010.  Her current research interests include the application of advanced MS methods such as Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry for therapeutic protein characterization and optimization. She received her Ph.D. from the Technical University Munich under the supervision of Prof. Matthias Mann at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. Her thesis projects focused on unraveling signal transduction networks by high-resolution quantitative mass spectrometry-based methods.

Peter Ihnat, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist, Drug Product Development Pre-Formulation, AbbVie Bioresearch Center

Peter Ihnat is a Principal Scientist/Group Leader at Abbvie in Worcester, MA where he leads the Biologics Preformulation and Drug Delivery Group.  Peter’s group is responsible for biophysical screening and ranking of candidate biologics from Discovery for properties that will enable CMC formulation development.  The diversity of molecules includes monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies and antibody drug conjugates as well as other formats.  Additionally, Peter’s group develops sustained release and targeted novel drug delivery systems for biologic therapeutics.  Prior to joining Abbvie, Peter held scientific positions of increasing responsibility in the Protein Analytics and Drug Product Formulation groups of Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Schering –Plough Research Institute working with biological and small molecules.  Most notably, at Schering-Plough, Peter was the lead formulation scientist for the adenoviral gene therapy programs.  Peter received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  He also holds bachelor degrees in Biochemistry and Pharmacy from Rutgers University and Union University respectively.

Stacy Kenyon, Ph.D., Scientist, BioScience Development Initiative, Malvern Instruments Ltd.

Stacy Kenyon is a Scientist with Malvern Instruments’ Bioscience Development Initiative in Columbia, MD, and works primarily with Malvern’s Innovation technologies and their applications to biotherapeutic samples.  Stacy received her PhD in Chemistry from Arizona State University, where she worked on the development of a novel electrophoretic separations technique and its adaptation to the microscale.

Urs Lewandrowski, Ph.D., LabHead, Analytical Characterization, Sandoz

Urs Lewandrowski studied biochemistry at the Ruhr-University Bochum before concluding a doctoral thesis at the University Wuerzburg, Germany, in 2007. His main studies were in the fields of proteomics and glycoproteomics focusing on nHPLC and mass spectrometric approaches. After joining Sandoz in 2012, he gathered experience as labhead and project analyst for late stage biosimilar products (drug product). He moved on to the biosimilar analytical characterization department in 2015.

Jun Liu, Ph.D., Senior Director, Analytical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Coherus Bioscience

Dr. Jun Liu is currently a senior director at the analytical and pharmaceutical science department at Coherus Bioscience. He received his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire. He then joined Genentech, and has worked as principle scientist at the department of pharmaceutical development. Dr. Liu has over 23 years of experiences in the biopharmaceutical research and development. He has successfully developed formulations, analytical methods and drug delivery systems for a number of protein therapeutics that are currently on the market. He has numerous scientific publications and patents in fields of protein characterization, formulation and product development.

Adrian Podmore, Ph.D., Formulation Scientist, MedImmune

Dr A. H. B. Podmore: obtained his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, 2000. Moved to Haemophilia unit at St. Thomas Hospital working on Factor XI. Moved into the Pharmaceutical industry in 2002 at Bio Products Laboratories working in the new product development unit at Bio Products Laboratory for 6 years, on blood fractionation, and recombinant antibodies, where he published 2 papers and 3 patents. Moved to NIBSC in 2007 and was involved in research on adverse reactions during administration of TGN1412. Moved to NDA analystics, part of Envigo group, in 2008 working in a GMP facility. Joined Medimmune in 2012 as a formulation scientist working on Peptides, and fusion proteins, and other research.

Czeslaw Radziejewski, Ph.D. Senior Principal Research Scientist, Associate Director Protein Analytics, Process Sciences, AbbVie Bioresearch Center

Czeslaw Radziejewski received doctoral degree in Chemistry in Poland at the Center for Molecular and Macromolecular Studies and continued postgraduate education at the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller University in New York. He is currently Senior Principal Research Scientist and Associate Director of Protein Analytics in the Process Sciences Department in AbbVie Bioresearch Center in Worcester, MA. His group responsibilities encompass analytical evaluation of wide range of biologic drug candidates, development and qualification of analytical methods and advanced biophysical characterization.  Prior to AbbVie,  Dr. Radziejewski was directing protein chemistry group in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.  He has coauthored over forty publications and patents.

Eric Reese, Ph.D., Vice President, Sales and Marketing, SensiQ Technologies Inc

Eric L. Reese PhD, VP of Sales and Marketing at SensiQ Technologies Inc, has been an invited guest speaker globally on the utility of label-free technologies in the drug discovery marketplace. Dr. Reese holds a doctorate in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from the University of California.

Michael Tovey, Ph.D., INSERM Director of Research, Laboratory of Biotechnology & Applied Pharmacology, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan

Michael G. TOVEY, Ph.D, is INSERM Director of Research in the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Applied Pharmacology, CNRS UMR 8113 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Cachan, France. He is the author of more than 250 articles on interferon, cytokines, biotechnology, and immunogenicity. He is a member of numerous scientific boards. He is chair of the International Cytokines Standards Committee, and a member of the European Adjuvant Advisory Committee. He is editor-in-chief of Detection and Quantification of Antibodies to Biopharmaceuticals, Associate Editor of Cytokine, Associate Editor of the Journal of Interferon and Cytokine Research, Associate Editor of The Scientific World Journal and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Immunoassay & Immunochemistry. He is chair of Coral Gables Symposia.org

Jihong Yang, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Bioanalytical Sciences, Genentech, Inc.

Dr. Jihong Yang is a Senior Scientist in the Department of Bioanalytical Sciences at Genentech. She has 15 years of experience in supporting biotherapeutic development. Dr Yang has supported multiple biotherapeutic projects characterizing protein-protein interactions using various biophysical technologies and developing bioanalytical methods to evaluate pharmacokinetics and immunogenicity. Data from her laboratory has enabled many successful IND and BLA filings. Dr. Yang has authored/co-authored 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals and filed several patent applications. Dr. Yang received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and conducted her postdoctoral research in the Department of Protein Engineering at Genentech.

Baolin Zhang, Ph.D., Senior Investigator, Product Quality Reviewer, Office of Biotechnology Products, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), US Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

Baolin Zhang is a Senior Investigator and a Product Quality Reviewer in the Office of Biotechnology Products of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Zhang has 15 years of FDA regulatory experience in product quality review (Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control) of therapeutic protein product applications under investigational new drug applications (INDs) and biologic license applications (BLAs). He also leads a research team conducting FDA mission-related research aimed at improving drug safety and efficacy. Dr. Zhang’s scientific expertise lies in the areas of protein biochemistry, cell death and cell survival regulation, targeted cancer therapy, cancer biomarkers, and analytical assessment of therapeutic protein products. He has published over 75 original studies in prestigious journals, and presented at numerous scientific and regulatory conferences on the development of therapeutic proteins and predictive cancer biomarkers. Dr. Zhang serves as an Editorial Board member and as an ad hoc reviewer to numerous scientific journals. He has supervised and mentored many research fellows and regulatory staff. Dr. Zhang earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Peking University in China. He is a recipient of the FDA Scientific Achievement Award, the FDA/CDER Excellence in Mentoring Award, the FDA/CDER Excellence in Leadership Award, and the FDA/CDER Team Excellence Award. 

Aggregates & Particles

Zahir Akhunzada, Ph.D., Drug Product & Science Technology Department, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Dr. Zahir Akhunzada a PPD Consultant in the Drug Product & Science Technology (DPST) department at Bristol-Myers Squibb in New Brunswick, New Jersey where he is responsible for the analysis and characterization of proteins by MFI. Before joining PPD, he worked for Schering-Plough/Merck. He was Assistant Professor at King Saud University Riyadh Saudi Arabia and a Guest Investigator at the VA Hospital in Newark, NJ. He has a broad range of expertise in R&D, spectroscopy, chromatography, wet analytical techniques and biologics. He acquired research experience in the Netherland, Pakistan and earned his Ph. D. in Chemistry. He did his Post doctorate in Germany, has several research publications and co-Authored, a textbook with Prof. Atta-Ur-Rahman on ”Stereoselective Synthesis in Organic Chemistry”, published by Springer Verlag, New York. In 2016, he became a Member of the Editorial Board for internationally acclaimed journals, Medicinal Chemistry and Mini-Review in Medicinal Chemistry.
 
Paul Dalby, Ph.D., Professor, Biochemical Engineering, University College London

Prof Paul Dalby is Co-Director of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Emergent Macromolecular Therapies, Director of the associated EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training, and Chairman of the Royal Society of Chemistry Biotechnology Group Committee.  His research focuses on routes to improve therapeutic proteins for ease of manufacture, formulation and delivery to patients.  His work combines protein engineering and formulation, with biophysical characterisations, to understand the factors that influence protein stability, and to guide protein engineering for improved properties. 

Jeremy Derrick, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular Microbiology, University of Manchester

Jeremy Derrick is Professor of Molecular Microbiology at the University of Manchester, UK. His early career included work on Protein G from Streptococcus, defining the structural and biochemical basis for its recognition of antibodies. His lab now has a wide range of research interests, from the basic structural biology of bacterial cell surface structures, to vaccine development (particularly against meningococcal meningitis) and biotherapeutic proteins. He is particularly interested in the study of protein aggregation, and its relationship to immunogenicity.

Joanna Hay, Ph.D., Science Manager, Customer Solution, Albumedix Ltd.

Joanna Hay obtained a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham (UK) and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Leicester. Joanna joined Albumedix in 2006 as a Scientist working with the R&D team on the development and optimization of engineered albumins for half-life extension technology, Veltis®. Currently Joanna is working as a Science Manager in Albumedix, working with drug developers wanting to evaluate the potential of the Veltis in their drug development programs.

Patrick Garidel, Ph.D., Assistant Director, Protein Sciences, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH & Co. KG

Dr. Patrick Garidel is currently employed as Head of Protein Science and Basic Pharmaceutical Development at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG. His activities are focused on the development biologics from the downstream process to drug product (liquid and solid formulations). His expertise covers: development of drug delivery systems and formulations, packaging/devices, process development from downstream processing to drug product and fill and finish development, bio-analytic and protein purification. He is responsible for the establishment of innovative platform technologies for e.g. powder inhalation, gene therapy and particle analytics. Additionally, he is interested in the development of new concepts and strategies for protein purification, stabilisation and delivery as well as in regulatory intelligence. Based on in silico and bioinformatic tools, he is involved in the development of predictive approaches for the developability and manufacturability assessment of drug candidates.

PG studied chemistry and biotechnology at the University of Kaiserslautern, where he received his PhD in biophysics/biochemistry. He received different post-academic grades as “GxP expert”, “Business Chemist” and in regulatory affairs. During his academic career, he took over various post doc positions at the Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy, Physical Chemistry at the Martin Luther University Halle/Wittenberg, DESY, Rutgers University and Hospital for Special Surgery.

Roy Jefferis Ph.D., MRCP, FRCPAth, DSc., Professor Emeritus, University of Birmingham

Following a PhD in Chemistry research into the structure and function of antibody molecules revealed the impact of glycoforms on mechanisms of action.  A current focus is the potential of aggregated IgGs and their immune complexes to induce anti-drug antibody (ADA) formation. In consideration of published research I am elected: Member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP); Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath).

Wim Jiskoot, Ph.D., Professor, Gorlaeus Lab, Division of Drug Delivery Tech, Leiden University

Wim Jiskoot is professor at the Division of Drug Delivery Technology at Leiden University (since 2006), the Netherlands, and scientific advisor at Coriolis Pharma, Martinsried, Germany (since 2013). His main research areas are vaccine delivery, protein formulation, and structural aspects of unwanted immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins. Previous positions: staff member at the Department of Pharmaceutics at Utrecht University, the Netherlands (1998-2006); head of the Department of Bacterial Vaccine Development at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, the Netherlands (1994-1998); postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, USA (1991-1993). He obtained his PhD degree (1991; pharmaceutical aspects of monoclonal antibodies) and his pharmacy degree (1987) at Utrecht University. He (co)edited 3 books about protein characterization and (co)authored about 250 scientific papers and book chapters.

Hans Kiefer, Ph.D., Professor, Applied Biotechnology, Biberach University of Applied Sciences

Hans Kiefer obtained his PhD from the Max Planck Institute of Biology and has since gained 25 years of experience in protein biochemistry, both in academia and industry. He is currently a professor at Biberach University of Applied Sciences, where his research focuses on downstream processing of biopharmaceuticals. 

Yutaka Kuroda, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Life Science and Biotechnology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

1985: ETH Zurich graduated from Physics Department/ 1990: The University of Tokyo PhD in Biophysics/ 1990-1995: Protein Engineering Research Institute, Osaka, Japan/ 1995-1998 Whitehead Institute MIT MA, USA/ 1998-2004, RIKEN Genomic Science Center, Yokohama Japan, scientist and senior scientist/ 2004-Present: Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), associate professor

Thomas Laue, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular, Cellular & Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire

Tom Laue is the Carpenter Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, and professor of Material Sciences at the University of New Hampshire. He is the Director of the Center to Advance Molecular Interaction Science, and is the founder and Director emeritus of the Biomolecular Interaction Technologies Center. His research focuses on the development of instrumentation and methods that use the fundamental properties of mass and charge for characterizing macromolecular interactions.

Christian Ried, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Drug Product Development, AbbVie Deutschland GmbH Co. KG

Christian Ried works as senior scientist in drug product development at AbbVie Germany. His research is focused on liquid formulation development for biologics. More specifically, he works on forced protein degradation and high-throughput screening methods. This is complemented by studies on nanoparticulate drug delivery systems for targeted delivery of therapeutics.

Srivalli Telikepalli, Ph.D., Research Chemist, NIST

Srivalli Telikepalli received a B.A. degree in chemistry at Cornell University in 2008 and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Kansas in 2014. Her thesis work was focused on understanding the formation of protein aggregates/particles as a function of different stresses and studying the relationship between protein particles and their immune responses. Upon completion of graduate school, she started working as a Research Chemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Biomolecular Measurement Division in Dr. Dean Ripple’s group. Currently, her work at NIST focuses on developing various protein-like particle standards, primarily subvisible and visible particle standards, as well as helping to develop a monoclonal antibody reference material.

Jonas Hoeg Thygesen, Ph.D., Research Scientist, R&D Microanalysis Centre, Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S

Dr. Jonas Hoeg Thygesen, Research Scientist at Novo Nordisk Pharmatech, performs research within  microscopy, microanalyses and new analytical methods for particle identification. His main areas of expertise are spectroscopy, microanalysis and advanced data analysis (chemometrics). He holds a Ph.D. from University of Copenhagen within Process Analytical Technology (PAT).

Susumu Uchiyama, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University

Susumu Uchiyama has been studied solution properties and structures of proteins for 20 years using various biophysical methods. So far, he has more than 150 publications in international journals. Recent scope of his study focuses on the rational formulation developments of therapeutic proteins and quantitative analysis of protein aggregates.

Gerhard Winter, Ph.D., Professor, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, University of Munich

Gerhard Winter studies pharmacy at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. After receiving a Ph.D. in pharmaceutics 1987 he worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 12 years, where he was responsible for the formulation of major biotec  drugs like EPO, rPA and antibodies. In 1999 he was appointed as full professor for pharmaceutics at the University of Munich where he leads a large academic group. His areas of interest are protein formulations ( focusing on freeze drying, depot systems, new analytics, new excipients and biomaterials), vaccines, nanoparticulate carriers ( liposomes, nanoparticles). In 2008 he co-founded of Coriolis Pharma, a company providing formulations and analytical services for biotec drugs.

Gerhard Winter has authored about 150 peer reviewed papers and is listed as an inventor of about 50 patent applications. Almost 50 Ph.D students received her degree under his supervision. 

EXPRESSION

Protein Expression Technologies

Richard Altman, MS, Scientist, Protein Technologies, Amgen, Inc.

Rich Altman has 28 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical industry. In early 2016, he joined the Protein Technologies Mammalian Expression group at Amgen San Francisco, supporting biologics drug development. Prior to Amgen, he worked for several pharmaceutical companies on the cloning, expression, purification and characterization of recombinant proteins. This work supported both small-molecule high-throughput screening and protein therapeutic efforts. He received his MS degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

Nicola Burgess-Brown, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Biotechnology, Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), University of Oxford

Nicola Burgess-Brown is currently the Principal Investigator of the Biotechnology Group at the Structural Genomics Consortium, responsible for all biotech research (working with soluble proteins, membrane proteins and epigenetics targets) for the Oxford site. The group collaborates and interacts closely with the other SGC teams, to develop methods for increasing protein expression, parallel processing and increasing throughput. Prior to her role as PI, Nicola has been responsible for optimising the high-throughput screening processes from cloning to expression and purification of human proteins for structural and functional studies. Since June 2009, she developed a similar pipeline for production of human integral membrane proteins (IMPs). Nicola obtained a First Class degree in Applied Biochemical Sciences from the University of Ulster in 1997 and spent the following year working as a molecular biologist for SmithKline Beecham. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology at the University of Nottingham in 2001 and then moved back to industry to work on high-throughput cloning and validation of therapeutic cancer antigens for Oxford Glycosciences and subsequently Celltech R&D.

Tsafi Danieli is the head of the Protein Expression Core Facility at the Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The core facility functions as a biotechnology research center for the development and implementation of novel technologies in recombinant DNA, molecular biology and protein production. It also operates as a training centre supporting individual research projects and conducting workshops and courses for scientists from academic institutes and from the Biomed & Biotech industry. Dr. Danieli is also the founder and director of “BioGiv”, a specialised university-based center for promoting and supporting entrepreneurs and inventors to translate ideas into new products and bring new technologies to market, while using the infrastructure of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr. Danieli holds a BSc in Biology and MSc in human genetics from Tel Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in molecular virology from the University of California, San Francisco Pharmacology Department, in collaboration with the Biochemistry Department at Tel Aviv University.

Dominic Esposito, Ph.D., Director, Protein Expression Laboratory, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.

Dr. Esposito is currently the Director of the Protein Expression Laboratory (PEL) at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research. The PEL is currently focused on providing production of Ras and Ras-related proteins for the National Cancer Institute’s RAS Initiative. These proteins are being used for a wide-ranging attack on Ras biology, including structural biology, biophysics, and development of screens and assays for drug discovery. In addition, the PEL still assists in the generation of proteins of interest to investigators in the intramural program of the NCI, and invents and develops new technologies for protein expression and production. Dr. Esposito received his BA in Chemistry at La Salle University in Philadelphia, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School. Dr. Esposito previously worked for Life Technologies, where he helped to develop the Gateway recombinational cloning system.

Mario Lebendiker, Ph.D., Head, Protein Purification Facility, Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology, Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Dr. Mario Lebendiker is in charge of the Protein Purification Facility at the Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is actively involved in many collaborations for structural and biochemical studies within the Hebrew University, others Universities in Israel, as well as with biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Lebendiker received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1982 from the Animal Virology Center (CEVAN), in Buenos Aires University, Argentina. Together with many other laboratories, he found the Protein Production and Purification Partnership in Europe (P4EU) network, a platform for the exchange of information, knowhow and materials between core facility labs in the field of protein expression and purification.

Bjørn Voldborg, MSc, Director, CHO Cell Line Development, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (CFB), DTU Biosustain, Technical University of Denmark

Bjørn Voldborg is a veteran within the field of recombinant protein expression, with more than 20 years of experience from both academic and industrial settings. He has worked with recombinant protein expression, both as part of the development of cell-based assays, as well as producing recombinant proteins for drug discovery for academic and industrial research. At the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Copenhagen Bjørn developed cell-based assays to measure activity of drosophila receptors. At the Danish biotech company Pharmexa A/S, Bjørn was teamleader in the molecular biology group, responsible for molecular cloning and initial expression test of potential protein-based drug candidates. From this he went to the NNF Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen as Head of the Protein Production Unit, and since 2012 Bjørn has been heading the CHO Cell Line engineering project at the NNF Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark, a project dedicated to the engineering improved protein production cell factories.

Optimising Expression

Adam Brown, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Sheffield

Adam Brown studied Molecular Biology at the University of Warwick, and obtained a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Sheffield, before beginning postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Prof David James. He currently works as a research fellow in the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Sheffield and is Co-investigator on a large bioindustrial R&D project in CHO cell synthetic biology, in collaboration with MedImmune. His work focusses on gene expression control and the development of technologies for synthetic biology, and he has published several patents and journal publications in these fields.

Konrad Büssow, Ph.D., Scientist, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research

Konrad Büssow obtained his Ph.D. for his work on arrayed protein libraries at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. He was head of the E. coli expression group in the Protein Structure Factory, a structural genomics project for human proteins. His group developed a vector system for co-expression of protein complex subunits in E. coli cells. In 2007, Konrad Büssow joined the structural biology department of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Biology to become head of a project group for the development of stable protein production cell lines. One goal of his group was to develop a recombination-based method for the efficient cloning of glycosylation-deficient CHO cell lines with high stability and productivity for protein crystallography. Currently he is responsible high-throughput cloning and construct testing in the department of Structure and Function of Proteins of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research.

Nicola Burgess-Brown, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Biotechnology, Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), University of Oxford

Nicola Burgess-Brown is currently the Principal Investigator of the Biotechnology Group at the Structural Genomics Consortium, responsible for all biotech research (working with soluble proteins, membrane proteins and epigenetics targets) for the Oxford site. The group collaborates and interacts closely with the other SGC teams, to develop methods for increasing protein expression, parallel processing and increasing throughput. Prior to her role as PI, Nicola has been responsible for optimising the high-throughput screening processes from cloning to expression and purification of human proteins for structural and functional studies. Since June 2009, she developed a similar pipeline for production of human integral membrane proteins (IMPs). Nicola obtained a First Class degree in Applied Biochemical Sciences from the University of Ulster in 1997 and spent the following year working as a molecular biologist for SmithKline Beecham. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology at the University of Nottingham in 2001 and then moved back to industry to work on high-throughput cloning and validation of therapeutic cancer antigens for Oxford Glycosciences and subsequently Celltech R&D.

Nicky C. Caiazza, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology, Heterotrophic Cell Systems, Synthetic Genomics Inc.

Dr. Caiazza has >10 years of industrial experience developing biocatalysts for a multitude of applications. He has broad knowledge across the disciplines of microbial genetics, cellular physiology, synthetic biology, and metabolic engineering. As a Principal Scientist of Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Genomics Inc., he currently leads multiple strain engineering programs within the Heterotrophic Cell Systems group, including the production of biologics using the proprietary Cmax platform. Prior to working at SGI, Dr. Caiazza held key leadership roles on Mascoma Corporation’s strain engineering programs that developed the first genetically modified, amylase secreting yeast to be successfully deployed into the grain ethanol industry. Preceding industry, Dr. Caiazza completed his Ph.D. work in the Microbiology and Immunology Department of Dartmouth Medical School, and completed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship at The California Institute of Technology.

Uwe Carl, Ph.D., Head, Protein Production, Strep-tag Products and Proteins, IBA GmbH

Uwe Carl studied biochemistry at the Technical University of Braunschweig and received his Ph.D. in cellbiology in the department of Prof. Jürgen Wehland at the German Research Centre for Biotechnology in Braunschweig. He conducted research in the field of cytoskeletal proteins and their interaction with surface proteins of intracellular bacteria. In 1999, Uwe Carl joined IBA GmbH and became head of the protein department. He is responsible for the Strep-tag products and protein custom services.

Henry C. Chiou, Ph.D., Associate Director, Cell Biology, Life Science Solutions, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Dr. Chiou has over 15 years of experience working on development of mammalian protein expression systems and transfection reagents. For the past nine years he has worked as a principal scientist and now in product development and portfolio management for Life Technologies, now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific. He has led the development efforts on a number of products, including the FreeStyle™ transient expression systems, Lipofectamine™ LTX and Lipofectamine™ RNAiMAX. Prior to Life Technologies, he worked for several biotech companies on biotherapeutic gene delivery systems. Dr. Chiou received his doctorate from Harvard University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

Naz Dadehbeigi, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies

Naz Dadehbeigi received her Pharm.D. (Doctor of Pharmacy) from Tehran University of Medical Science where she focused on Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and specifically expression of recombinant coagulation factors in HEK293 and CHO cell lines. She was then awarded an Overseas Research Scholarship from The University of Manchester, UK, where she completed her Ph.D. thesis on intracellular signalling pathway in industrially relevant CHO cells. She joined Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnology in 2012 as part of the innovation team that developed Fujifilm’s proprietary Apollo™ Mammalian Expression Platform. Having worked on internal and client cell line and process development projects, she is currently part of the program design team at Fujifilm and is responsible for designing tailor-made scopes of work for commercial process development to cGMP protein production activities.

Tsafi Danieli, Ph.D., Director, BioGiv Excubator & Head, Protein Expression Facility, Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology, Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Tsafi Danieli, Ph.D., Director, BioGiv Excubator & Head, Protein Expression Facility, Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology, Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Tsafi Danieli is the head of the Protein Expression Core Facility at the Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The core facility functions as a biotechnology research center for the development and implementation of novel technologies in recombinant DNA, molecular biology and protein production. It also operates as a training centre supporting individual research projects and conducting workshops and courses for scientists from academic institutes and from the Biomed & Biotech industry. Dr. Danieli is also the founder and director of “BioGiv”, a specialised university-based center for promoting and supporting entrepreneurs and inventors to translate ideas into new products and bring new technologies to market, while using the infrastructure of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr. Danieli holds a BSc in Biology and MSc in human genetics from Tel Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in molecular virology from the University of California, San Francisco Pharmacology Department, in collaboration with the Biochemistry Department at Tel Aviv University.

Dominic Esposito, Ph.D., Director, Protein Expression Laboratory, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.

Dr. Esposito is currently the Director of the Protein Expression Laboratory (PEL) at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research. The PEL is currently focused on providing production of Ras and Ras-related proteins for the National Cancer Institute’s RAS Initiative. These proteins are being used for a wide-ranging attack on Ras biology, including structural biology, biophysics, and development of screens and assays for drug discovery. In addition, the PEL still assists in the generation of proteins of interest to investigators in the intramural program of the NCI, and invents and develops new technologies for protein expression and production. Dr. Esposito received his BA in Chemistry at La Salle University in Philadelphia, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School. Dr. Esposito previously worked for Life Technologies, where he helped to develop the Gateway recombinational cloning system.

Pierre-Alain Girod, Ph.D., CSO, Selexis

Dr. Girod, CSO of Selexis since 2006, has led Selexis’ on-going scientific and technological innovations for optimizing expression and production of a wide range of protein products in the commercial setting.   Prior to Selexis, Dr. Girod worked the University of Lausanne, where he discovered a family of genetic sequences involved in the epigenetic gene regulation that became the founding technology for Selexis’ SUREtechnology Platform™ and revolutionized the field of recombinant protein expression in mammalian cells.

Christina Gordon, Scientist, New Meds, UCB Pharma

No bio available.

Meelis Kadaja, Ph.D., MBA, Director, Business Development, Icosagen Cell Factory OÜ

Meelis Kadaja is a Director of Business Development in Icosagen. He is active in development of technologies for recombinant protein production, antibody development and mammalian cell line engineering. He has studied previously the replication of small DNA viruses, and the maintenance of adult tissue specific stem cells. He received his Ph.D in the University of Tartu, Estonia, and he completed his postdoctoral training in the Rockefeller University, New York, as a HFSP postdoctoral fellow.

Na Ke, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Protein Expression and Modification Division, New England Biolabs

Na Ke, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist at the Protein Expression and Modification Division, New England Biolabs. Dr. Ke received her Ph.D. on Microbiology from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focused on structure and function of cytochrome P450s. After that, she conducted her postdoctoral research on disulfide bond formation in bacteria at Harvard Medical School and on protein folding and production in New England Biolabs. She has extensive experience in bacterial genetics and protein biochemistry. Her current research interest includes studies on protein folding, genetic engineering of E. coli and novel enzymes discovery. 

Paul S. Kelly, Ph.D., Senior Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biotechnology, National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology, Dublin City University

I achieved my bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Biology from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth in 2009. From there, I moved to Dublin City University and began my Ph.D. under Dr. Niall Barron in the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology. My Ph.D. thesis led to a number of peer-reviewed publications in the area of Chinese hamster ovary cell engineering. This research focused on the potential of the small non-coding regulatory molecules, microRNAs (miRNAs), as engineering candidates to improve the performance of CHO cells within the bioreactor. I’m currently Senior Postdoctoral Researcher in the NICB, continuing my research into miRNAs role in enhancing the CHO cell phenotype while exploring other industry-relevant projects such as potential leachables from disposable plastic bioreactors and their effects on CHO cell production characteristics in addition to various next-generation sequencing projects.

Hugo Mouquet, Ph.D., Head, Laboratory of Humoral Response to Pathogens, Immunology, Institut Pasteur

Hugo Mouquet received his Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Rouen (France), following his work on the characterization of T-cell and B-cell responses in an autoimmune disease of the skin called Pemphigus. He then moved to the Rockefeller University to perform his postdoctoral trainee in the lab headed by Michel C. Nussenzweig, where he studied B-cell antibody response to HIV-1 in humans. Since 2013, Hugo Mouquet is a group leader in the immunology department of the Institut Pasteur. His lab investigates the humoral response to viruses in humans.

Dennis Niermeier, M.Sc., Scientist, IBA GmbH

Dennis Niermeier received his master`s degree in biotechnology from the University of Applied Sciences in Bremerhaven. During his thesis at the department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine he worked on the development of a protein purification platforms and in cell line development. In 2012, Dennis Niermeier joined IBA GmbH. He is responsible for the mammalian custom protein expression & purification service and the product development in this field.

Oliver Popp, Dr. rer. nat., Senior Scientist, Pharma Research and Early Development, Large Molecule Research, Roche Innovation Center Munich, Roche Diagnostics GmbH

Dr. Popp was trained as Dipl.-Ing. Biotechnology (FH). He earned his Der. Rer. Nat. in Biochemistry, LMU Munich, Germany. He was a postdoc in Biochemistry at the ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, and became Group Leader in Large Molecule Research at Roche Diagnostics GmbH.

Jason Saunders, MSc, Senior Scientist, Biologics Expression and Technology, Merck & Co., Inc.

Jason Saunders is a senior scientist in the New Modalities group of the Biologics Expression and Technology department in Merck Research Laboratories. His main focus is on developing and evaluating technologies aimed at improving the performance of current CHO and E. coli expression platforms. In addition, he also has experience with bioprocess development for a variety of non-traditional therapeutic proteins. Jason holds a BA in Biology from Temple University and an MS in Physiology and Biophysics form Rutgers University where he studied molecular mechanisms for thyroid hormone dependent gene silencing.

Zhiwei Song, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, Expression Engineering Group, Lead PI for GlycoSing Programme, Bioprocessing Technology Institute, A*STAR

Dr. Zhiwei Song obtained his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Michigan where he worked on protein glycosylation. His postdoc work was completed in the Biology Department at MIT where he studied the genetic control of apoptosis in Drosophila. He then worked in Dr. Daniel I.C. Wang’s lab at MIT for a year and a half. In 2002, Zhiwei moved to Singapore. Now he is a Principal Scientist at the Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) of A*STAR. His research has been focused on protein glycosylation, cell line development for production of recombinant antibodies using CHO cells and apoptotic cell death in cultured mammalian cells.

Bjørn Voldborg, MSc, Director, CHO Cell Line Development, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (CFB), DTU Biosustain, Technical University of Denmark

Bjørn Voldborg is a veteran within the field of recombinant protein expression, with more than 20 years of experience from both academic and industrial settings. He has worked with recombinant protein expression, both as part of the development of cell-based assays, as well as producing recombinant proteins for drug discovery for academic and industrial research. At the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Copenhagen Bjørn developed cell-based assays to measure activity of drosophila receptors. At the Danish biotech company Pharmexa A/S, Bjørn was teamleader in the molecular biology group, responsible for molecular cloning and initial expression test of potential protein-based drug candidates. From this he went to the NNF Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen as Head of the Protein Production Unit, and since 2012 Bjørn has been heading the CHO Cell Line engineering project at the NNF Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark, a project dedicated to the engineering improved protein production cell factories.

Florian M. Wurm, Dr. rer. nat., Honorary Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL); CEO, ExcellGene SA

Florian M. Wurm trained as a Biologist/Geneticist in Germany. He worked at Behringwerke, Marburg and Genentech, USA during the earlier parts of his career. At Genentech, he contributed to the generation of several high-value products, such as Herceptin®, Pulmozyme® or TNKase TPA®  (cumulatively now sold for multibillion dollars per year globally). Appointed Professor for Biotechnology (1995) at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), he taught classes in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and established vigorous research in manufacturing sciences. He is founder (2001) and CEO (2015) of ExcellGene in Switzerland. Florian is past Chairman of the European Society of Animal Cell Technology. He has published more than 250 papers and patents, covering aspects of expression and manufacture of clinical proteins using animal cells in bioreactors. Technologies and process inventions have become widely used tools in research and in manufacturing of proteins with animal cells.

Silvia Zucchelli, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Health Sciences, University of Eastern Piedmont; CSO, TransSINE Technologies Inc.

Silvia Zucchelli is Assistant Professor at the University of Eastern Piedmont (Italy) and Chief Scientific Officer at TransSINE Technologies (Japan). Dr. Zucchelli holds a master’s degree in Molecular Biology at the University of Milan and a Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Rome. She contributed to the development of a genetic-based vaccine against Hepatitis C Virus at Merck Research Laboratories in Rome (Italy). She conducted a postdoctoral training in Type I Autoimmune Diabetes at Harvard Medical School in Boston (USA). In 2003 she joined the group of Prof. Stefano Gustincich in Trieste (Italy) to work on functional genomics of the brain, with focus on long non-coding RNAs and neurodegeneration. She is co-author of the patent for the use of SINEUPs to upregulate protein expression in biomanufacturing and in therapy. She has more than 20 years’ experience and published articles in leading journals as Nature, Nature Immunology, Immunity and Genome Research on subjects including immunology and functional genomics.

Purification Technologies

Dejan Arzensek, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Downstream Process Development, Sandoz Biopharmaceuticals

Dejan has a PhD in physics, and works as a Research Scientist at Sandoz Biopharmaceuticals. Currently he is part of a Lab in the Downstream Process Development department at Sandoz, working in a nextBioPharmDSP project of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation “Horizon 2020”. Previously, he was part of the Protein Biophysics and Bioinformatics department.

Martin Bader, Ph.D., Head, Biochemistry, Roche Pharmaceuticals

Martin Bader studied Biology at the University of Regensburg and obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Konstanz in a joint program with the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. After postdoctoral training at the University of Washington in Seattle, Martin joined Mountain View-based biotech company Amunix. In 2006, Martin moved to Roche Innovation Center Munich as a group leader in Downstream Processing and became Department Head of Biochemistry in 2011.

Christoph Brandenbusch, Ph.D., Group Leader, Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering, Laboratory of Thermodynamics, TU Dortmund University

Dr. Christoph Brandenbusch studied Chemical Engineering at the Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering at TU Dortmund, (Germany) 2003-2007. He finished his Ph.D. thesis entitled “Downstream processing in biphasic biocatalysis by means of scCO2” under the supervision of Prof. G. Sadowski at the Laboratory of Thermodynamics, Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering, TU Dortmund in 2011. Since 2012 he works as a group leader for bioprocess separations at the Laboratory of Thermodynamics, Department of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering, TU Dortmund (Germany). His main research fields include novel strategies for protein purification (e.g., precipitation, aqueous two-phase extraction) as well as hybrid-modeling approaches.

Jens Frauenfeld, Ph.D., CEO, Salipro Biotech AB

Founder and CEO of Salipro Biotech. Jens received his PhD in Biochemistry at the Gene Center, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. He studied Biochemistry at University of Tübingen in Germany, Université Louis Pasteur and École Supérieure de Biotechnologie in France and pursued a post-doctoral fellowship at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Jens was a member of the Roche Diagnostics mentoring program, recipient of the Boehringer Ingelheim PhD Fellowship, EMBO fellowship, the ROMIUS (Roche) award and the M4R program of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Sophia Hober, Ph.D., Professor, Biotechnology, KTH-Royal Institute of Technology

Sophia Hober is Professor of Molecular Biotechnology at KTH, Stockholm, Sweden. The focus of her current research group is development of predictable and robust systems for protein purification and detection by protein design and various selection methodologies. Her key scientific achievements includes design and development of gene fusion systems for selective ion-exchange purification and improvements of the alkaline tolerance of protein A and protein G for industrial purification of IgG/HSA (Currently a product sold by GE-Health care). Moreover, small bispecific protein domains with ability to strongly and selectively bind to two different proteins recently have been developed.

Mario Lebendiker, Ph.D., Head, Protein Purification Facilities, Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Dr. Mario Lebendiker is in charge of the Protein Purification Facilities at the Wolfson Centre for Applied Structural Biology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is actively involved in many collaborations for structural and biochemical studies within the Hebrew University, others Universities in Israel, as well as with biotech and pharmaceutical companies.  Dr. Lebendiker received a PhD in Biochemistry in 1982 from the Animal Virology Center (CEVAN), in Buenos Aires University, Argentina.  Together with many other laboratories, he found the Protein Production and Purification Partnership in Europe (P4EU) network; a platform for the exchange of information, know-how and materials between core facility labs in the field of protein expression and purification.

Lars Linden, Ph.D., Head, Protein Biochemistry, Bayer HealthCare

Lars Linden is Head of the Protein Biochemistry group in Biologics Research at Bayer and responsible for production of research compounds and tools in biologics projects of Bayer’s early research pipeline. He is also caretaker of the iBET (Portugal) collaboration. Lars joined Bayer in 2007 during the acquisition of Schering AG were he had worked as a lab head in protein biochemistry.  Previously he worked with crystallization of GPCRs and ion channels in a small biotech company “m-phasys”. Lars received his PhD from the Technical University in Munich for his work on structural biology of plant enzymes, being a member of Robert Hubers X-ray crystallography group at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry.  

Nina Madsen, M.S., Scientist, Downstream Process Development, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Nina Madsen joined Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2012 as a scientist in the Downstream Process Development group. She conducts development and scale-up work of mammalian and microbial proteins, and has overseen tech transfer of processes to CMOs. Her areas of expertise include inclusion body refold, chromatography, and filtration. She has an MEng from the University of Michigan in Biomedical Engineering and has previously worked at Eli Lilly and Genentech.

David O’Connell, Ph.D., Lecturer & Director, Biomolecular & Biomedical Science, University College Dublin, and Founder, YourProteome

As a principal investigator in the School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science at UCD I teach students biochemistry, pharmacology and biotechnology and I am fascinated by the heterogeneity of proteins and the challenges they raise for those wishing to study them. As a bioentrepreneur I seek to establish new technology to address these challenges and to lower the barriers for working with difficult to handle proteins. I have presented at numerous meetings with CHI and attempt to deliver an interesting and current insight in to progress made and plans to develop this aim. My career has seen me train in antibody engineering at UCSF that has prompted a lifelong interest in taking what is interesting to what is useful in protein science.

Frédéric Pecorari, Ph.D., Researcher, IRS-UN, Cancer Research Center Nantes-Angers, University of Nantes

Frédéric Pecorari obtained his PhD at University of Paris 11, France, in 1995, and has worked as post-doc fellow in the group of Andreas Plückthun at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, from 1996 to 2000. From 2003, he has developed extremophilic proteins from the “7 kDa DNA-binding” family found in Archaea, such as Sac7d, as scaffold proteins to design affinity reagents (Affitins), and he is the principal inventor of this technology. In 2015, he was lead guest co-editor of a special issue for the journal “Archaea” about “Biotechnological Uses of Archaeal Proteins”. At the Cancer Research Center Nantes-Angers, his group is developing the use of Affitins as targeting tools for biomedical applications focused on nuclear medicine and nanomedicine. He joined the Cancer research Center of Nantes Angers in University of Nantes, France, in 2012. He currently holds a position of group leader there in the “Nuclear Oncology Research” team.

Frank Riske, Ph.D., Senior Consultant, BioProcess Technology Consultants (BPTC)

Frank has over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and has been involved in the development, or improvement, of eight commercial protein products. Prior to joining BioProcess Technology Consultants, Dr. Riske was a Senior Director in the Late Phase Process Development Group at Genzyme, a Sanofi company. At Genzyme, Dr. Riske was responsible for the development of late stage downstream processes for recombinant enzymes, monoclonal antibodies and Adenovirus (gene therapy) and the identification and exploration of new technologies, including continuous processing, to streamline and improve purification. Prior to joining Genzyme, Dr. Riske managed the development, implementation and manufacture of a peptide bound within a novel sustained release vehicle at Epic Therapeutics. Before Epic, Dr. Riske held positions at Repligen and Hoffmann-LaRoche during which he developed and improved, downstream processes for proteins produced in mammalian cell culture, E coli, and Pichia systems. Dr. Riske was also responsible for the manufacture of MAb fragments at Repligen. Dr. Riske has published over twenty peer reviewed papers and patents and is active in the scientific community as both a mentor to young scientists and as a conference speaker and organizer. He is also on the Advisory Board for the Biotechnology Journal. Dr. Riske received his B.S. in Biology from Fairfield University, Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Rutgers University and completed a postdoctoral position at Hoffmann-LaRoche.

Ana Cecília Afonso Roque, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chemistry, UCIBIO, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Cecília Roque is an Assistant Professor and head of a research group at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. She holds a degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Biotechnology from Instituto Superior Técnico. Cecília has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge and at the Catholic University of America, a Post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology (University of Cambridge) and at INESC-MN (Lisbon, Portugal). Her research focus on biotechnology, namely on the development of novel affinity receptors towards important biopharmaceuticals, as well as on the design of smart-responsive platforms for bioseparation, biosensing and biomedical applications. Cecília has been the recipient of several national and international awards, and received in 2014 a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council.

Ulrich Rothbauer, Ph.D., Professor, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, University of Tübingen

Dr. Rothbauer has studied biology at the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), Munich. He received his Ph.D in Biochemistry in 2003 in the group of Prof. Walter Neupert revealing the pathomechanism of a mitochondrial disease. After his postdoctoral work on the regulation of the epigenetic keyfactors he became an independent group leader at the LMU-Biocenter in 2006. As a junior group leader he directed R&D projects in a range of cellular diagnostic areas including cell cycle studies, apoptosis studies, proteomics and protein-protein interactions. 2008 he founded the Biotech company ChromoTek, which develops and commercializes novel reagents and technologies for cellular diagnostics and proteomics. Since 2011 he is full professor for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University Tuebingen, Germany working on the development of nano- and chromobodies for proteomics and cell-based studies.

Stefan Schmidt, Ph.D., MBA, Vice President, Process Science & Production, Rentschler Biotechnology

Dr. Stefan R. Schmidt MBA, currently serves as Vice President at Rentschler Biotechnology, being responsible for all USP and DSP operations including manufacturing science and process development. Previously he held the CSO position at ERA Biotech in Barcelona, directing the company’s R&D efforts focusing on fusion peptides. Prior to that he worked at AstraZeneca in Sweden where he led the unit of Protein Sciences as Associate Director. In the last 10 years he worked intensively with fusion proteins, publishing the first comprehensive book on that topic in 2013.

Sabine Suppmann, Ph.D,, Head, Recombinant Protein Production, Biochemistry Core Facility, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry

No bio available.

Engineering Stream 
Display of Antibodies
Engineering Antibodies
Engineering Bispecifics
Antibody-Drug Conjugates

Therapeutics Stream 
Immunotherapy
Advancing Bispecifics
Novel Therapies for Cancer

Analytical Stream 
Optimisation & Developability
Analytical Characterisation
Aggregates & Particles

Expression Stream 
Protein Expression Technologies
Optimising Expression
Purification Technologies  

Conference Programs

• Display of Biologics
• Engineering Antibodies
• Machine Learning: Part 2

• Antibody-Based Therapies
• Emerging Targets & Approaches
• Membrane Protein Targets

• Safety & Efficacy
• Advancing Multispecifics
• Engineering Bispecifics

• Modulating the TME
• Innovative CAR T Therapy
• Next-Gen Immunotherapies

• Optimisation & Developability
• Analytical Characterisation
• Protein Stability & Formulation

• Data Science & Engineering
• Optimising Expression
• Process Development

• Intro to Machine Learning
• Machine Learning: Part 1
• Machine Learning: Part 2

• Antibody-Based Therapies
• Engineering Conjugates
• Next-Gen Immunotherapies

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