Dr William Jia got his PhD from University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada in 1991. He later held a tenured professorship at UBC, leading a molecular virology and gene therapy laboratory till 2019.

Dr Jia was among the first group of scientists to use tumor specifically replicable oncolytic viruses to treat cancers. Dr Jia and his team later developed a transcription and translation dual regulation mechanism for oncolytic HSV to enhance the safety without attenuation of oncolytic activity. He is the Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Virogin to develop oncolytic virotherapy and novel mRNA vaccines. Three oncolytic virus products have been in clinical trials in both the USA and China.

Dr Pete DeMuth is a founding scientist at Elicio and currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer, leading the development of technology platforms for cancer immunotherapeutics from early research to clinical development. To this role, he brings over 15 years of experience in oncology, immunology and materials science.

Prior to joining Elicio, Dr DeMuth oversaw efforts to develop novel technologies for immunotherapy and vaccine development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research in affiliation with the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard University, where he received recognition from the National Institutes of Health and the American Chemical Society. In 2015, Dr DeMuth received the Quadrant Award from Quadrant AG, a global manufacturer and innovator in polymer materials science, for research he completed while at the Koch Institute at MIT. Dr DeMuth has also been an NIH Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and a research fellow at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics. As a Howard Hughes Research Fellow at the University of Maryland, he was awarded the University Medal for his development of advanced technologies for oncology therapeutics.

Livija Deban, PhD, leads the strategic and operational development of Prokarium's immuno-oncology portfolio, focused on bioengineering Living Cures for solid tumors. Before joining Prokarium in 2018, she led the lead selection and immuno-oncology R&D at Oxford BioTherapeutics, focusing on target discovery and the development of immunomodulatory antibodies for cancer treatment. Dr Deban conducted her academic research at Cancer Research UK and holds a PhD in Basic and Applied Immunology.

Ron Korn, MD, PhD, is one of our most recognized board-certified and fellowship-trained radiologists. A scientist at the core, he completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Molecular Biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which provided a solid foundation for his Medical training at Stanford School of Medicine followed by postgraduate training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Korn specializes in Nuclear Medicine and Cancer Biology with extensive involvement in clinical research as both a study investigator and clinical publication author that has afforded him in-depth knowledge of the common pitfalls and complex challenges associated with clinical trials. Dr Korn has received public recognition and awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American College of Radiology Imaging Network, Ibis Foundation of Arizona, and received the Top Doctor Award for Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. Though his professional accolades accurately reflect his clinical excellence, his current professional associations, education-based activities, and commitment to clinical research quality make up the core of this professional. As Imaging Endpoints’ Chief Medical Officer, Dr Korn provides the medical perspective, oversight, and leadership that is critical to the services we provide.

Wendy Slavit is a Senior Health Scientist in FDA’s Patient Affairs within the Office of the Commissioner. In her role, she collaborates with patient communities and the FDA medical product Centers to incorporate patient and caregiver perspectives into FDA’s work. Ms Slavit leads and manages FDA’s Patient Engagement Collaborative (PEC). She has over 20 years of experience translating science, health research, and policy into easy to comprehend information for patients, caregivers, and the public. Ms Slavit has a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Emory University and a BA from Tufts University. She is also a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES).

Co-founder and CEO of Cytovation, Lars Prestegarden is a medical doctor with a PhD in cancer biology from the University of Bergen, in Norway. His academic career includes work at University of California, San Francisco, and Harvard/Brigham and Womens’ Hospital, where he was a Fullbright Fellow. He has also been an Associate Professor at the University of Bergen, from where Cytovation was spun off building on the peptide discovery platform developed in his group. He is the author of several peer-reviewed publications and patents in the field of cancer research.

David Chang, PhD brings strong leadership and a wealth of experience in gene and cell therapy and biopharmaceutical technical development, manufacturing operations, engineering and strategy to WuXi Advanced Therapies (ATU.) He joined WuXi ATU from Celgene Corporation, a Bristol-Myers Squibb company where he was the Corporate Vice President and Head of Cell Therapy Global Manufacturing, and he had oversight of CAR-T manufacturing network and the global manufacturing sciences & technologies organizations. Prior to Celgene, Dr Chang was the Global Head of Engineering and Strategy at Hoffmann-La Roche based, in Basel, Switzerland, and he was previously the Vice President/Site Head of Roche Shanghai Technical Operations in China. Earlier in his career Dr Chang worked at Genentech as the Senior Director of Global Manufacturing Science and Technology, and as the Director of Process Development in its Oceanside, CA site. He was also formerly at Biogen Idec as Director of cell culture R&D, at BASF Bioresearch as a cell culture group leader, and at Schering-Plough Research Institute as a process development engineer. Dr Chang has a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University, and PhD and master’s degree in biochemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dejan Knezevic, PhD, currently manages biopharma partnerships at Natera. Before joining Natera, Dr Knezevic completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Genentech & Roche Pharmaceuticals. He most recently served as the Senior Director of Business Development at Guardant Health. He received his PhD in Genetics/Physiology from Yale University.

Gulam Manji, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Director of the GI Medical Oncology section at Columbia University Medical Center, co-Director of the Pancreas Center, and co-Leader of the Precision Oncology and Systems Biology section of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr Manji received his PhD. degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed his residency in internal medicine at Albany Medical College. He then completed his fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia. Dr Manji conducts translational research with the overall goal to develop new treatments for cancer. His focus is in gastrointestinal malignancies, particularly pancreas adenocarcinoma, on which he is conducting preclinical combination immunotherapy studies on genetically engineered mice and using the autologous co-culture system with patient derived tumor organoids and immune cells in his laboratory at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. The combination immunotherapy preclinical proposal received the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology-2015. This project lead to a multicenter investigator initiated clinical trial and is now a randomized phase 2 study in first line metastatic pancreatic cancer of which Dr Manji serves as the overall principal investigator. Dr Manji serves as the overall PI of numerous clinical trials and is an R01 funded investigator. Dr Manji's research career in identifying new genes and their implication in disease has led to numerous key publications and an issued patent.

Dr Rosen, MD, is a physician-scientist and has broad experience in biopharmaceutical oncology and hematology product development, including global clinical development, global medical affairs, translational medicine, patient advocacy, and health economics and outcomes research (HEOR). He is passionate about successful translation of data from bench to bedside to develop medicines that address unmet medical needs. Prior to joining Akamis Bio, he served as President and CMO at DynamiCure as well as CMO of SQZ Biotechnologies and Deciphera Pharmaceuticals. At SQZ, his work led to achieving proof of concept in the clinic for an autologous PBMC-based antigen presenting cell platform and a red blood cell-based cancer vaccine. At Deciphera, he took four small molecules into the clinic, and his work led to the full approval of QINLOCK™. Before joining Deciphera, Dr Rosen held senior clinical development and medical affairs roles including at Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company and Genentech.

Dr Rosen received his medical training in oncology and hematology at the University Hospital Charité in Berlin. His academic career focus was on the first applications of autologous stem-cell transplants in patients with refractory autoimmune diseases and on the systematic administration of prophylactic donor lymphocyte infusion after allogeneic stem cell transplantation in adults with hematological malignancies. Prior to his clinical training, Dr Rosen participated in a post-doctoral program in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Hamburg and holds an MD from the University of Cologne, Germany.

Christopher Dell, MBA, is a member of the Patient Technologies team at Pfizer where he is responsible for the successful implementation of eData clinical technology – mainly focused on eCOA but also supporting connected devices. Mr Dell has been with Pfizer for almost 8 years. Prior to his current engagement at Pfizer, Mr Dell spent over 5 years at 2 different ePRO vendors, managing the successful implementation of various projects in device-based, IVR and IWR modalities. Mr Dell was also with Wyeth for 4 years and Pfizer for 2 years between 2006 – 2012 as part of a team that defined the ePRO standards at the time.

Nathalie Toussenel is an executive director of hematology/oncology and serves as an internal advocate, who ensures that clinical studies are operationally sound, meeting study timelines and corporate milestones. Ms Toussenel ensures that through PPD’s flat structure model and escalation pathway, clients have access to the highest level of leadership within PPD Biotech.