Sharon Benzeno

Biography
Dr. Sharon Benzeno is the Chief Commercial Officer, Immune Medicine and leads the Drug Discovery group of Adaptive Biotechnologies, a commercial stage biotech company that aims to translate the genetics of the adaptive immune system into clinical products to diagnose and treat disease. Before joining Adaptive in 2014, Sharon was Senior Director at Elsevier Inc., a healthcare informatics company. Prior to Elsevier, Sharon coled the oncology business unit at Capgemini SE, a consulting and technology services company. Sharon came to Elsevier from Capgemini, where she served in a variety of management roles at AstraZeneca plc. Sharon holds a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from New York University School of Medicine, an MBA in Finance and Leadership from New York University Stern School of Business and a BA in Biochemistry from New York University. Sharon completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer biology at the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center.

Ira Mellman

Biography
Ira Mellman came to Genentech in the Spring of 2007 as Vice President of Research Oncology, after more than 20 years as a faculty member at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he was chair of his department (Cell Biology), a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, scientific director of the Yale Cancer Center, and Sterling Professor of Cell Biology and Immunobiology. Dr. Mellman has a BA from Oberlin College Conservatory and a PhD in Genetics from Yale. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rockefeller University with Ralph Steinman, who received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of dendritic cells. His laboratory is known not only for advances in fundamental cell biology particularly in the area of membrane traffic (including the discovery of endosomes) but also for applying these insights to understanding the cellular basis of the immune response, especially dendritic cell function. He was also the founder of CGI Pharma, which was recently purchased by Gilead. Ira ran all of oncology research at Genentech until the end of 2013 when he decided to concentrate his efforts on the rapidly developing area of cancer immunotherapy and became Vice President of Cancer Immunology. Ira is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the former Editor in Chief of the Journal of Cell Biology. He has also served on the editorial boards of Cell, the Journal of Experimental Medicine, EMBO Journal, among others. He also serves on the boards of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer, the American Society for Cell Biology, and the Cancer Research Institute. He remains a frustrated composer and songwriter, and has recorded two CDs in the littleknown genre of biorock.

Stanley Riddell

Biography
Stanley Riddell is a physician scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center where he has contributed to the development of genemodified cell therapies for cancer. Riddell trained in medical oncology and joined the faculty at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where he established his research program. Throughout his career, Riddell has been a pioneer in the field of genemodified cell therapies, particularly CART cells. His research has focused on genetically modifying T cells to attack cancer, which has shown remarkable promise in treating leukemia and lymphoma. Riddell has also made significant contributions to the field of stem cell transplantation where he developed innovative strategies to reduce graftversushost disease. Riddell's research has earned him numerous awards and honors. He is a recipient a Research Professor of the American Cancer Society, the International Society for Biological Therapy Team Science Award, and a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow Award at the Technical University of Munich.

Janet Xiao

Biography
Janet focuses on worldwide patent procurement, patent portfolio management, and strategic planning for life sciences companies. Her clients range from large multinational biopharmaceutical companies, such as Celgene and Genentech, to emerging startup companies around the world. She advises her clients on patent matters relating to various technologies, including antibody therapeutics, cell therapeutics, nanomedicine, gene therapy, drug delivery systems, diagnostics, and nutraceuticals. Janet works extensively in performing IP due diligence reviews in the contexts of VC investments, technology transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and marketing and manufacturing clearance for biopharmaceutical products. She is noted for her in depth knowledge of patent landscapes in the fields of cancer immunotherapy, gene editing, next generation sequencing, liquid biopsy, antibody manufacturing, and medical devices.

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Talk
This discussion will focus on the latest patent law developments in the field of immunotherapy including patentability issues, recent case law, and patent strategy considerations.

Stanley Riddell

Biography
Stanley Riddell is a physician scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center where he has contributed to the development of genemodified cell therapies for cancer. Riddell trained in medical oncology and joined the faculty at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where he established his research program. Throughout his career, Riddell has been a pioneer in the field of genemodified cell therapies, particularly CART cells. His research has focused on genetically modifying T cells to attack cancer, which has shown remarkable promise in treating leukemia and lymphoma. Riddell has also made significant contributions to the field of stem cell transplantation where he developed innovative strategies to reduce graftversushost disease. Riddell's research has earned him numerous awards and honors. He is a recipient a Research Professor of the American Cancer Society, the International Society for Biological Therapy Team Science Award, and a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow Award at the Technical University of Munich.

Allison Betof Warner

Biography
Dr. Betof Warner is a board certified medical oncologist specializing in advanced melanoma treatment. She serves as the Director of Melanoma Medical Oncology, Director of Solid Tumor Cellular Therapy, and coDirector of the Pigmented Lesion and Melanoma Program. A pioneer in tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy, she leads the Melanoma Cutaneous Oncology Clinical Research Group, focusing on tumor response to immunotherapy. Recognized for her expertise in central nervous system metastases and novel cellular therapies, she's collaborated globally and received accolades from ASCO, NIH, and the Melanoma Research Foundation. Dr. Betof Warner is an active member of several professional organizations, including the American Association for Cancer Research and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Robert Meehan

Biography
Dr. Robert Meehan is an experienced pharmaceutical executive with over 10 years of leadership experience in biotechnology and pharmaceutical development. He joined Moderna in 2017 to lead the company's efforts to develop mRNAbased medicines including individualized therapies for cancer patients. Prior to joining Moderna, Dr. Meehan was a staff clinician at the National Cancer Institute in the DTC. He has authored many publications and is an inventor on multiple patents.

George Coukos

Biography
Dr. George Coukos, a leading figure in tumor immunology, serves as the director of the Lausanne Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Department of Oncology at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. His pioneering work presently focuses on developing precision immunotherapy in cancer treatment, particularly in Tcell therapies. Notably, he's been instrumental in developing personalized immunotherapies, including an autologous dendritic cell vaccine and adoptive Tcell therapy with vaccine primed autologous Tcells for ovarian cancer treatment. Dr. Coukos's research has unveiled the spontaneous antitumor response in ovarian cancer, challenging previous beliefs and expanding its application beyond ovarian to other solid tumors. He also elucidated critical mechanisms governing the interplay between tumors and the immune system, including the role of the tumor vasculature in erecting a barrier to T cell trafficking in tumors. His translational efforts have led to significant clinical advancements, and he continues to lead groundbreaking trials in the field. Dr. Coukos is at the forefront of precision oncology, leveraging advanced technologies like high throughput sequencing to tailor immunotherapies based on molecular and genetic specifics of the tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment. His research pursuits of innovative therapies have set new standards in cancer immunotherapy, including the recent development of rational engineering of superior effector T cell states for adoptive therapy.

Brian Weitzner

Biography
Dr. Weitzner leads a world class team at Outpace Bio that combines protein design, machine learning and custom software to create mechanism driven solutions to dramatically improve the efficacy and safety of cell and gene therapies. Brian co founded OpenFold in 2022 to democratize AI for biology and enable new cures to come to market that would be impossible to discover without AI. Before co founding Outpace in 2020, Brian conducted his doctoral work with Jeff Gray at the Johns Hopkins University and studied protein design with David Baker as a WRF Innovation Fellow at the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington. Brian has been a core developer and leader in the Rosetta Commons for over 15 years where he develops physics based protein modeling methods and trains the next generation of protein designers. Brian made the jump to industry in 2018 as one the first scientists to join Lyell Immunopharma.

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Talk
Creating Cell Therapies for Solid Tumors with Protein Design
Cell therapies have the potential to cure a wide array of diseases but have not been successful when targeting solid tumors, the vast majority of cancers. We leverage knowledge about the underlying molecular basis of these limitations to design proteinbased interventions to harness the full potential of cellular medicines and break free from default biology.

Jean Xu

Biography
Jean leads the JJ multiple autologous and allogenic cell therapies CMC development and due diligence efforts. She was engaged in BCMA and CD 20 CAR-T due diligence and has successfully led the BCMA CAR-T CMC development from phase 1, pivotal, commercial launch and life cycle management. In her role, she also leads and shape the establishing the new platform technologies for cell therapies. Jean joined Janssen Discovery, Product Development Supply (DPDS) in 2016 as the CMC leader and led the allogenic cell therapy late-stage development. Before this, she held technical roles at JJ internal venture and managed a team of scientists working in the area of pluripotent cells scale-up, differentiation and implantable device development. Jean earned her medical degree from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University and M.S. in Cell and Developmental Biology at Rutgers.

Laura Deschenes

Biography
Laura Deschenes has broad experience in the development of novel medicines from preclinical to late stage development. Her current focus is establishing a scalable and sustainable end to end supply chain that delivers Sanas transformative cell and gene therapy treatments to patients, which entails navigating the complexities of time and temperature sensitive materials, customized components, evolving global regulations, and a fluid landscaping of manufacturing options as well as the core supply chain capabilities of supply and demand planning, packaging and labeling, and shipping and logistics. In previous roles, she has established supply chain and operations for a portfolio of autologous and allogeneic cell therapies, and led the clinical supply chain for a portfolio of biologics and small molecules, as well as various strategic roles in business operations, program, and project leadership.

Dirk Nagorsen

Biography
Dirk Nagorsen has 25 years of experience in oncology, both as clinical researcher and as drug developer. He is the Chief Medical Officer at AffiniT, a precision immunotherapy company targeting cancer driver mutations. Previously he was Vice President Global Head Early Development Oncology at Amgen. Before his time there, he worked as Sen Med Director at Micromet, a German biotech, developing bispecific T cell engagers. Dirk earned his medical degree and his habilitation (second scientific degree, equivalent of a PhD) in experimental medicine and tumor immunology from Charité University Medicine Berlin. He trained in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology at the Free University Berlin Medical School, at the NIH Clinical Center Bethesda, Maryland, and at Charité University Medicine Berlin.

Lawrence Fong

Biography
Lawrence Fong, M.D., the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor in Cancer Biology, is the founding director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer, University of California, San Francisco. He also co-directs the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy at UCSF. He received a B.A. in economics from Columbia University and a M.D. from Stanford University. He completed internal medicine and oncology subspecialty training at University of Washington and Stanford University, respectively. Dr. Fong has been involved in both pre-clinical and clinical studies of multiple cancer immunotherapies including anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-(L)1 antibodies that are now FDA-approved. His laboratory examines the mechanisms that underlie clinical response and resistance to the different immunotherapies. He has co-authored of >100 manuscripts. Dr. Fong is the recipient NIH Outstanding Investigator Award.

Arun P. Wiita

Biography
Dr. Wiita is a Clinical Pathologist and physician scientist with research focus on the development of novel immunotherapies for blood cancers. His group aims to integrate mass spectrometry based proteomics, chemical biology, protein engineering, and cellular engineering to treat these diseases. His group specifically focuses on target discovery to overcome poor prognosis or refractory forms of hematologic malignancies via novel cellular therapies. Dr. Wiita completed his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Princeton, his MDPhD with graduate training in biophysics at Columbia, and residency training in Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. He is a prior recipient of the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award, and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator Award, among others.

Suchit Jhunjhunwala

Biography
Computational biologist, leading a portfolio of cancer immunogenomics in the Computational Sciences organization at Genentech. Leads a team of scientists working on cancer immunotherapy approaches targeting a range of tumor antigens, from neoantigens to tumor associated antigens, using cancer vaccination or cell therapy approaches. Before joining Genentech, Suchit worked on chromatin structure and regulation of B cell development at University of California San Diego. At Genentech, Suchit initially worked on cancer genomes, understanding the landscape of mutations and viral integration in hepatocellular carcinoma. His cancer genomics work eventually led to his role in studying neoantigens in mouse tumor models together with Lelia Delamarre and Ira Mellman. His current focus is on developing machine learning approaches to study peptideMHCTCR interactions, understanding and targeting transposable elements and other noncanonical antigens in cancer, and development of computational approaches to tackle cancer immunogenomics problems.

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Talk
Personalized Cancer Immunotherapy Using Computational Biology AI
Personalized cancer immunotherapy targets individual tumorspecific antigens, utilizing bioinformatics and machine learning approaches. This customizable treatment direction actively targets antigens that can be unique to each patient's tumor, using personalized targets as well as personalized therapeutics. Highthroughput technologies hav enabled development of AI approaches actively used in this field.

Andrew Allen

Biography
Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D. co-founded Gritstone bio, Inc. in 2015 and is a board member. In 2009, Dr. Allen co-founded Clovis Oncology and served as chief medical officer until 2015, driving development of rucaparib, a PARP inhibitor. Prior he was chief medical officer at Pharmion Corporation, developing Vidaza, the first DNA methylation inhibitor, until acquisition by Celgene in 2008. Dr. Allen also served in clinical development leadership roles at Chiron Corporation and Abbott Laboratories, and worked at McKinsey Company. He currently serves on the board of directors of TCR2 Therapeutics and Sierra Oncology (both public) and Revitope Oncology and Verge Genomics (both private). He previously served on the board of Epizyme (first approved histone methylation transferase inhibitor) and Cell Design Labs (acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2017). Dr. Allen qualified in medicine at Oxford University and received a Ph.D. in immunology from Imperial College in London.

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Talk
Self-Amplifying mRNA Multi-Antigen Coronavirus Vaccine
First generation COVID-19 vaccines deliver Spike to induce protective neutralizing antibodies. Spike mutations can attenuate such narrow immunity. Gritstone bio has developed a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine platform that delivers Spike plus additional conserved T cell epitopes from other viral genes. Strong immunity has been demonstrated in NHP. Human data are being generated.

Robert Meehan

Biography
Dr. Robert Meehan is an experienced pharmaceutical executive with over 10 years of leadership experience in biotechnology and pharmaceutical development. He joined Moderna in 2017 to lead the company's efforts to develop mRNAbased medicines including individualized therapies for cancer patients. Prior to joining Moderna, Dr. Meehan was a staff clinician at the National Cancer Institute in the DTC. He has authored many publications and is an inventor on multiple patents.

Tony Reid

Biography
Dr. Reid received his MD, Ph.D. from Stanford University. His academic research has focused on developing tumor-selective gene expression vectors and oncolytic viruses. His clinical research has focused on GI malignancies. He has been the director of the GI malignancy program, Clinical Trial Organization and Early Phase Clinical Research Program at UC San Diego. He is CEOCSO for Epicentrx Pharmaceuticals.

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Talk
AdAPT-001 in Advanced Soft-Tissue Sarcoma (BETA PRIME)
The ubiquitously overexpressed cytokine transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) is an immunosuppressive cytokine.In a Phase 12 trial we assessed AdAPT-001, an immunotherapy that delivers a TGF-β trap, which binds to and neutralizes TGF-β, both with and without checkpoint inhibitors in over 50 patients with refractory tumors. Most but not all tumors were advanced sarcomas