NAT & IGO 2021 Speakers

E. John Wherry, Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania

E. John Wherry is chair of the department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics.

Dr. Wherry received his Ph.D. at Thomas Jefferson University in 2000 then went on to do his postdoctoral research at Emory University where he trained with Rafi Ahmed from 2000-2004. Dr. Wherry was appointed Assistant Professor in 2005 in the Immunology Program at The Wistar Institute and then joined the Penn's Microbiology Department in 2010.

Throughout his tenure at both the Wistar Institute and the PSOM Microbiology Department, Dr. Wherry had a strong involvement in the Immunology Graduate Group (IGG) and the larger immunology community. Dr. Wherry served as IGG Admissions Chair from 2006-2011 and then served as chair of the Immunology Graduate Group from 2011-2013. Dr. Wherry remains on the IGG Executive Committee and has mentored numerous graduate students within the IGG program and other graduate groups within the Biomedical Graduate Studies program. In October 2012, Dr. Wherry was appointed as Director of the Institute for Immunology (IFI), a Type-2 center whose mission is to advance our knowledge of the basic immunology of inflammation, autoimmunity, cancer, transplantation and infection and to translate this new knowledge to novel strategies for diagnosis, prevention and therapeutic intervention.

Dr. Wherry has received numerous distinctions for his consistent and significant contributions to infectious disease research. A major focus of the research in Dr. Wherry's laboratory is to understand the mechanisms of suboptimal CD8 T cell responses during chronic infections. In 2007, Dr. Wherry was selected as one of "America's Young Innovators-37 under 36" by the Smithsonian magazine and was appointed a member of the Faculty of 1000 in 2009. Dr. Wherry has over 100 publications in top international journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, Immunity, and the Journal of Immunology. His work has resulted in international recognition as evidenced by many invitations for seminars and extensive local and national service. The long-term goal of Dr. Wherry's laboratory is to develop approaches to reinvigorate the immune system in settings where it fails including chronic infections and cancer.

Nicolas Damond, Bodenmiller Lab, Department of Quantitative Biomedicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Nicolas Damond graduated from the University of Lausanne with an MSc in Genomics and Experimental Biology and received his PhD in Biology from the University of Geneva in 2015. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Prof. Bernd Bodenmiller at the University of Zurich. He has a long-standing research interest in the study of pancreatic islets in the context of type 1 diabetes. During his thesis work, he used transgenic mouse models and primary human islets to study islet cell type conversion after massive destruction of insulin-producing beta cells. He is now using Imaging Mass Cytometry to profile samples from donors with type 1 diabetes with the objective of reconstructing the parallel evolution of beta cells and islet-infiltrating immune cells through disease progression.

Jean-François Fonteneau, CRCINA, INSERM U1232, Labex IGO, Siric ILIAD, Nantes

During his PhD, Jean-François Fonteneau studied T cells response against melanoma in Pr Jotereau lab, Nantes, France (1996-99). He joined Dr Bhardwaj in Dr Steinman Lab at Rockefeller University (1999-2003), where he studied DC biology, notably cross-presentation of viral and tumor Ag. He returned to Pr Jotereau Lab to identify melanoma Ag recognised by patients T cells (2003-08). In 2009, he joined Dr Gregoire Lab, INSERM U892, to study attenuated measles virus as an oncolytic virus for virotherapy of pleural mesothelioma.

Silvia Gregori, San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy, Milan, Italy

Dr. Silvia Gregori graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of Milan, where she later specialized in Biotechnology. After an experience in London, she returned to Italy to work in the research laboratories of Roche Milano Ricerche, where she dissected the role of Vitamin D3 and its analogues in modulating T cell responses in autoimmunity and performed seminal works on the role of regulatory T cells in autoimmune diabetes. Since 2001, she has been working at San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget), where she elucidated new mechanisms of suppression mediated by T regulatory type 1 (Tr1) cells and identified DC-10 as major subset of dendritic cells involved in Tr1 cell differentiation. Dr. Gregori is currently a Group Leader and led the “Meccanisms of Peripheral Tolerance” Unit at SR-Tiget. Her research focuses on IL-10-secreting DC. Her basic studies focused on IL-10 regulatory cells and in particular to DC-10, and their role in promoting/maintaining IL-10-mediated tolerance in healthy and pathological conditions. Her translational studies aim at developing innovative DC-based approaches, by means of exogenous IL-10 and/or lentiviral vector (LV)-mediated gene transfer, for the modulation of T-cell mediated diseases.

Laura Jardine, Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre, Newcastle University, UK

Laura Jardine is an Academic Clinical Lecturer in Haematology at Newcastle University.
She co-leads work on the human fetal bone marrow as part of the Human Cell Atlas Development strand.  Her work takes place in the Haniffa Lab, headed by Professor Muzz Haniffa. She is clinically active, working predominantly in bone marrow transplantation. 

Her training was in Biological Sciences (AB, Harvard, 2004), Medicine (MBBChir, Cambridge, 2008) and Immunology (PhD, Newcastle, 2016). 

She spends her spare time running and looking after her two children.

Ofer Mandelboim, Institute of Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), University of Jerusalem, Israel

Ofer Mandelboim is Professor of Molecular Immunology at The Lautenberg Center for General and Tumor Immunology, part of The Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School.  He is a member of the Israeli Society of Immunology and the American Society of Immunology and is an editorial board member of Placenta, Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Microbial Immunology, and the journal Science in China Series C: lifeScience. Dr Mandelboim is also an editorial member of the American Society of Reproductive Immunology journal. He has received several awards, including The Keye Award in 2015 and the Teva award for immunological research.

Alexander Marson, University of California, San Francisco, USA

Alex Marson completed medical school at Harvard, PhD training at the Whitehead Institute/MIT with Richard Young and Rudolf Jaenisch, Internal Medicine residency at the Brigham and Women’s and clinical training in Infectious Diseases at UCSF. He was a UCSF Sandler Faculty Fellow from 2013–2016. Marson is now an associate professor in the UCSF Department of Microbiology and Immunology, with joint appointments in the Department of Medicine and the Diabetes Center. He is also affiliated with the UCSF Helen Diller Cancer Center and a member of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI). He is the scientific director of biomedicine at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) and was selected as one of the inaugural Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigators. His lab integrates systems-scale investigations of human T cell circuitry with functional perturbation studies, including genome editing in primary T cells.

Renato Monteiro, Center  for  Research  on  Inflammation - INSERM  U1149  &  CNRS  ERL8252 / Paris  Diderot Faculty of Medicine

Renato  Monteiro  is  professor  of  Immunology  at  Paris  Diderot  University  and  head  of  the   Center  for  Research  on  Inflammation  -  INSERM  U1149  &  CNRS  ERL8252  located  at  Bichat   Hospital  campus  in  Paris.  After  obtaining  his  medical  degree  in  Brazil  and  then  completing   a  residency  in  nephrology,  he  moved  to  Paris  in  1982  to  study  nephrology  at  the  Necker   Hospital  under  the  mentoring  of  Professor  Jean  Berger.  Prof.  Monteiro  was  awarded  the   1986  Prize  of  the  French  Society  of  Nephrology  for  his  work  on  IgA  nephropathy,  notably   for  the  identification  of  abnormal  IgA  in  Berger’s  disease.  He  later  studied  immunology  at   the  University  of  Birmingham  in  Alabama  with  Professor  Max  Cooper.  Prof.  Monteiro’s   work  in  Prof.  Cooper’s  lab  led  to  the  identification  of  the  IgA  Fc  receptor  I  (CD89).  He   defended  his  PhD  thesis  in  immunology  in  1993  at  Paris  Diderot  University.

Jordi Ochando,  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, USA

Dr. Jordi Ochando is an Assistant Professor of Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York (USA). His laboratory has recently discovered that trained immunity represents a previously unrecognized pathway that prevents the induction of transplantation tolerance. To prevent the detrimental effects of trained macrophages, his laboratory uses a novel revolutionary targeted therapeutic delivery approach, in which drug-loaded nanobiologics that specifically target macrophages in vivo and induce long-term allograft acceptance with minimal immunosuppressive drug usage. This research represents a compelling framework for developing novel targeted therapies that modulate the innate immune response with the concomitant clinical applications in humans.

Eliane Piaggio, Translational immunotherapy team U938, Institut Curie, Paris

Dr. E. Piaggio obtained the diploma of clinical biologist and the PhD in Immunology at the National University of Rosario, Argentine. She did her post-doctoral studies in France and actually is research director of INSERM. She directs the "Translational Immunotherapy team” at Institut Curie, in Paris. Her team is part of the first French Center for Cancer Immunotherapy.  Her main contributions have been in the field of regulatory T-cell based immunotherapy of infectious diseases (Chagas' disease), autoimmunity (type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis/EAE), alloreactivity (GVHD and transplantation) and more recently, cancer. Her team is interested in the development of novel immunotherapies, translatable to patients.

Now working in biotechnology with a focus on cancer immunotherapy, Dr. Turley applies principles established in rigorous basic science to making real-life medicines that positively impact cancer patient outcomes. She also continues her mentorship of trainees including postdoctoral fellows and students at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Stanley Riddell, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA

Dr. Riddell is a Member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Professor, Department of Medicine at the University of Washington, and Distinguished Affiliate Professor at the Technical University of Munich. He is the Virginia Hobbs Charitable Trust Research Professor of the American Cancer Society. His work has focused on the development and clinical translation of T cell therapy for can

Barbara Seliger, Institute for Medical Immunology at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

Professor Dr. Barbara Seliger is the Director of the Institute for Medical Immunology at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, in Halle, Germany, Director of a FOCIS Center of Excellence, member of the World Immunoscore and SITC biomarker initiatives. In addition she is head of the work group for “Tumor immunology” of the German Society of Immunology. Prof. Seliger’s research team studies the molecular events associated with immune escape of tumors, the role of the tumor micro-environment and immune cell subpopulations for tumor development and therapy resistance. In addi-tion, her laboratory is involved in optimization and monitoring immunotherapies and in the characteri-zation of biomarkers allowing the prediction of their success. Recently, she became interested in the identification, functional characterization and clinical relevance of immune regulatory microRNAs and RNA-binding proteins as their implementation as therapeutic tools as well as in the role of the tumor and immune cell metabolism in immune surveillance and its modulation as novel therapeutic option alone or in combination with targeted or immunotherapies.

Antonio Sica,  Dept of Pharmacological Sciences, University of Eastern Piedmont, Novara / Head lab. Molecular Immunology, Humanitas Clinical and Research Center , Milan, Italy

Antonio Sica graduated in Biological Sciences and has subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in Immunology. He worked for several years at the Department of Immunology of the Institute of Pharmacological Research “Mario Negri”, where he served as head of the unit of “gene expression”. In 1990 he joined the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, United States of America, where he worked in the section of Molecular Immunology. In 1995, upon his return to Italy, he became head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at the Mario Negri Institute in Milan, focusing on the mechanisms underlying the association between inflammation and cancer development. Since 2005 he is Head of the laboratory of Molecular Immunology, at the Humanitas Clinical and Research Center. He has a long standing interest in the molecular mechanisms that control the functions and the roles of myeloid cells in the development of cancer. His scientific contribution is documented by more than 150 scientific publications in international peer-reviewed journals (H index= 66).

Karin TARTE, UMR INSERM U1236, Rennes University Hospital
 

Dr Karin Tarte has a background in Immunology and Hemato-oncology with a continuous focus on B-cell malignancies. Her research is in particular dedicated to the understanding of normal and malignant tumor niches, with a specific interest for the mechanisms of the co-evolution of tumor clones and their supportive microenvironment, including stromal cells. She heads a research unit of about 30 people, gathering clinicians and biologists, dedicated to basic and translational research in the field of lymphoma. In agreement, she is involved in several research and clinical programs dealing with the understanding of the role of tumor microenvironment and how it could be a target for new therapeutic strategies and/or provide predictive and prognostic biomarkers. As a PI and co-investigator of several programs from the French NCI (INCa) and French National Research Agency (ANR) she had the opportunity to develop fruitful collaborations with national and international academic and industrial partners leading to publications of highly cited papers and contributing to the design and monitoring of new clinical trials sponsored by the Lymphoma Study Association (LYSA). She is also strongly involved in translational and clinical research on mesenchymal stromal cells, and is currently appointed as a member of the ISCT (International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy) Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Committee.

Keywords: Tumor microenvironment, Lymphoma, Stromal cells, Immunotherapy, Germinal center

 

Shannon J. Turley, Department of Cancer Immunology, Genentech, South San Francisco, USA

Dr. Shannon Turley received her PhD in Cell Biology from the Yale University School of Medicine in 1999. After teaching on the faculty in the Department of Biology at Bowdoin College for the 1999-2000 academic year Dr. Turley moved to Harvard Medical School where she carried out postdoctoral training in Immunology and Immunogenetics at Joslin Diabetes Center. Dr. Turley was recruited to the Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS at Dana Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School as Assistant Professor in 2004 and promoted to Associate Professor in 2010. Focusing on immunology research at Harvard, Shannon established an international reputation as an expert in stromal immunobiology. During most of her tenure on the faculty, Dr. Turley served as the Associate Director of the PhD Program in Immunology. Throughout her career Dr. Turley has enjoyed teaching and mentoring trainees at the postdoctoral, graduate, undergraduate and high school levels.

In 2014, Dr. Turley was recruited to the Department of Cancer Immunology at Genentech as a Principal Scientist and Group Leader to build a tumor microenvironment/stromal immunobiology discovery research program with a focus on developing immunotherapeutics for treating patients with inflammatory diseases and advanced and metastatic cancers. In 2018 she was promoted to Staff Scientist at Genentech. Dr. Turley presently serves as a permanent member of the NIH Transplantation, Tolerance and Tumor Immunology Study Section and reviews grant applications for research foundations. She also serves on the editorial board for several journals including Journal of Experimental Medicine, Cancer Immunology Research and Scientific Reports. Dr. Turley has published over 115 peer-reviewed papers, invited reviews and book chapters and frequently lectures and presents her published research at conferences and universities around the world. She has been the recipient of a number of awards and honors. Dr. Turley was recently selected to receive the Frederick W. Alt Award for New Discoveries in Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute.

Now working in biotechnology with a focus on cancer immunotherapy, Dr. Turley applies principles established in rigorous basic science to making real-life medicines that positively impact cancer patient outcomes. She also continues her mentorship of trainees including postdoctoral fellows and students at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Éric Vivier, Aix Marseille University, APHM, CNRS, INSERM, CIML / Hôpital de la Timone, Marseille-Immunopole / Innate Pharma Research Laboratories, Marseille, France

Éric Vivier, DVM, PhD, is Professor of Immunology at Aix-Marseille University and at the Public Hospital of Marseille (AP-HM). In addition, he was appointed in 2018, Scientific Director of Innate Pharma, a biotechnology company dedicated to improving cancer treatment with innovative therapeutic antibodies that exploit the immune system.
He completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School, then joined Aix-Marseille University as professor at the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) in 1993 before becoming its director from 2008 to 2017. He is also one of the founders of Marseille-Immunopôle, an immunology cluster created in 2014 linking fundamental and therapeutic research, innovation and industrial development on the Aix-Marseille metropole.
Eric Vivier's work focuses on innate immunity and in particular Natural killer and other innate lymphoid cells, at Ciml, at AP-HM and at Innate-Pharma. Professor Vivier has published over 300 scientific articles and is on the list of the most cited researchers

Christopher Klebanoff, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, New York, USA

Christopher Klebanoff is a medical oncologist and translational researcher whose focus is on providing the best care possible to people with breast cancer. His dual role in the clinical setting and the laboratory allows him to work with his patients to develop more-effective, less-toxic therapies. He strongly believe that this is how we will change the future of cancer care. The ability to use a patient’s own immune system as a form of cancer treatment — immunotherapy — is revolutionizing how we attack many cancers. My goal is to bring these advances to people with breast cancer, a disease for which we are still discovering immunotherapy’s full potential. To this end, I am a member of the Center for Cell Engineering and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering, where I am involved in both clinical trials and laboratory research that aim to bring the most promising immunotherapies to our patients. My expertise is in cellular therapy and genetic engineering, immune-stimulating antibodies and hormones (also called cytokines), and cancer vaccines.