Priti Hegde

Biography
Dr. Hegde oversees clinical product development, cancer genomics, and early-stage research, as well as regulatory and quality assurance, to accelerate advancement of the Companys leading comprehensive genomic profiling portfolio. She is passionate about innovation in cancer research and translating innovations to precision medicine tools to advance care for patients. Dr. Hegde has spent nearly two decades in the biopharmaceutical industry, with a proven track record in drug development, registration, and commercialization of therapeutics with companion diagnostics in cancer immunotherapy. Prior to joining Foundation Medicine, Dr. Hegde spent 12 years at Genentech. Dr. Hegde served as senior director and principal scientist in oncology biomarker development at Genentech, during which she established and led the biomarker group accountable for translational science strategies in cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Hegde was instrumental in the approvals for atezolizumab in both the United States and European Union, as well as its forthcoming diagnostic filings.

Diwakar Davar

Biography
Dr. Davar is a translational medical oncologist with a clinical focus on cutaneous malignancies and a robust background in immuno-oncologic drug development. Dr. Davar's expertise spans from strategic planning to execution across a variety of therapeutic modalities, including pioneering work in microbiome therapeutics. Dr. Davar brings a deep understanding of preclinical models, biomarkers, clinical trial design, and regulatory processes, with extensive experience in leading interactions with the FDA for products at various stages of development.

Cassian Yee

Biography
Dr. Yee is an oncologist, immunologist and endowed professor in Division of Cancer Medicine, Dept of Immunology, and Director of Solid Tumor Cell Therapy at MD Anderson Cancer Center, elected to ASCI in 2009. Over the last 25 years, Dr. Yees discoveries in cell therapy provided first proof-of-concept of the importance of T cell persistence, antigen-spreading and combination strategies by pioneering the use of antigen-specific T cells in a modality known as Endogenous T Cell therapy. He holds more than 18 inventions in the field of cellular therapy and is founder of an AI startup and TCR-T cell therapy company (Mongoose Bio). Assets developed in Yee Lab are focused on solid tumors for common and rare cancers in the global population, leveraging one of the largest immunopeptidomes established from MS-defined datasets in his lab. His latest project is a NASA-funded initiative to take T cells to the International Space Station

Stephanie Goff

Biography
Dr. Goff is a surgical oncologist with extensive experience in the development of cellular immunotherapy for cancer. She serves as the Head of Clinical Operations for Surgery Branch cGMP Facilities supporting multiple TIL, TCR, and CAR protocols and has received NIH and NCI Directors Awards for clinical and scientific excellence, as well as the NIH Clinical Center Clinician of the Year. Her research publications have focused on TIL for the treatment of metastatic melanoma, breast cancer, and gastrointestinal tumors.

David Schaffer

Biography
David Schaffer is the Hubbard Howe Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and he also serves as the Director of QB3, Bakar Labs, and the Bakar Fellows Program. He completed his B.S. in chemical engineering at Stanford University in 1993, his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at MIT in 1998, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 1999 before joining Berkeley in 1999. There, he applies engineering principles to optimize gene and stem cell therapies, work that includes developing the concept of applying directed evolution to engineer targeted and efficient viral gene therapy vectors as well as new technologies to investigate and control stem cell function. In addition, he has also co-founded seven companies from his lab that have advanced technologies into 10 human clinical trials. Finally, has received numerous recognitions including being elected to the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors.

David Barrett

Biography
David Barrett joined Kite as the VP of Cell Biology in September 2022 where he serves as the lead of TranslationalMedicine and the Santa Monica and Philadelphia based research teams. He received a Masters in BiomedicalEngineering, as well as a combined MDPhD from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2004.He went on to complete a Pediatrics Residency and Fellowship in HematologyOncology at the Childrens Hospitalof Philadelphia in 2010 before starting his own lab as a physician scientist. During his time in the Cellular Therapyand Transplant Section at CHOP, he worked on the preclinical models for the cell therapy product that becameknown as Kymriah. Dr. Barrett cared for CAR T cell patients at CHOP from 2012-2020 and ran his lab investigatingtranslational science on CAR T trials, resulting in observations about cytokine release syndrome and the role ofmacrophages, the nature of antigen escape and the importance of juvenile cells in the pheresis and infusion products.In 2020 he left academics and joined Tmunity Therapeutics where he oversaw preclinical development andtranslational science on the solid tumor CAR T cell programs.

Arie Belldegrun

Biography
Arie S. Belldegrun is a trail‑blazing urologic‑oncologist‑turned‑biotech entrepreneur whose company‑building spree—from Agensys and Cougar to Kite Pharma—helped usher in the first FDA‑approved CAR‑T therapy and led to Kite’s $11.9 billion sale to Gilead Sciences. After that landmark exit, he co‑founded Allogene Therapeutics and still serves as its Executive Chairman, steering the next wave of off‑the‑shelf (allogeneic) CAR‑T cell products toward the clinic. Beyond Allogene, Belldegrun deploys capital through Bellco Capital, Two River, Symbiotic Capital, Vida Ventures, and the real‑estate venture Breakthrough Properties, nurturing a constellation of startups that translate science into patient impact. Over three decades on UCLA’s faculty, he has authored 500‑plus scientific papers, mentored a generation of physician‑scientists, and kept patient benefit at the center of every deal—cementing his reputation as one of precision medicine’s most influential builders.

Kole Roybal

Biography
Kole T. Roybal is an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Director of the PICI Center at the University of California, San Francisco and the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and is an inaugural Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator. He is also the deputy director of the UCSF Center for Synthetic Immunology, which was recently funded by the Cancer Moonshot Initiative.The Roybal Lab harnesses the tools of synthetic biology and immunology to control and customize immune cell therapeutics for cancer and autoimmunity. Dr. Roybals body of work was foundational to the next-generation immune cell therapy company Cell Design Labs, where he was a founding scientist. Cell Design Labs was acquired by Gilead at the end of 2017. Dr. Roybal was also instrumental in developing universal CAR T-cell technology in collaboration with Xyphos Biosciences, which was acquired by Astellas at the end of 2019. He has now co-founded ArsenalBio, which focuses on building cellular therapies for solid tumors with a combination of cutting-edge synthetic biology and gene-editing technologies.In 2018 he received the Sartorius and Science Magazine Prize for Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy and the NIH Directors New Innovator Award.Dr. Roybal holds a PhD in immunology from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and was a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Wendell A. Lim, PhD, at UCSF and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Ken Drazan

Biography
Ken Drazan, MD, is the Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of ArsenalBio, a pioneering company in the field of cell therapy and gene editing. Prior to his role at ArsenalBio, Dr. Drazan served as President and Chief Business Officer of GRAIL, a company focused on early cancer detection which was acquired by Illumina. He also founded and was a Board Director at Verb Surgical, which was later acquired by Johnson Johnson. Additionally, Dr. Drazan co-founded Bertram Capital, a private equity firm managing $1.9 billion in assets. He earned his medical degree from Yale University. Throughout his career, Dr. Drazan has been instrumental in advancing technologies that leverage AI and high-performance computing in precision medicine, significantly impacting the fields of gene editing and cell therapy.

Fabian Gerlinghaus

Biography
Fabian is driven by a strong sense of purpose and is passionate about building the future of cell therapy manufacturing. With 10+ years of experience as an innovator and a leader, Fabian has established a track record of assembling top-performing teams to successfully drive novel bioprocessing technologies from ideation to commercial readiness. Prior to co-founding Cellares, Fabian served as Chief Innovation Officer at Synthego, where he co-invented the companys proprietary RNA synthesizer technology and helped grow the company from five to more than 230 employees. He earned a masters degree in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Munich, and an honors degree in technology management from the Center for Digital Technology and Management, Munich.

Aliya Z. Omer

Biography
Aliya Omer leads the global strategy and execution of the hematology and cell therapy portfolio, across hematology and solid tumors at AstraZeneca. Previously, Aliya served as Vice President, US Franchise Head, Breast Cancer at AstraZeneca. Aliya has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and consumer healthcare industries, with a strong record of success leading across functions and all stages of the product lifecycle. Before joining AstraZeneca, Aliya served as Vice President, Corporate Development Head of Global Portfolio and Program Strategy at Kite Pharma, a Gilead company, where she played a key leadership role in shaping the future direction of Kite and establishing it as a global leader in cell therapy. Previously, Aliya spent twelve years at Novartis Oncology where she led multiple commercial teams in the US and Latin America. Aliya started her career in research and development at Johnson and Johnson.

Gudrun Stengel

Biography
Gudrun specializes in developing advanced genomics platforms, drawing on her experience in NGS development and background in biophysics and biochemistry. She has made significant contributions to the field, including the development of the NovaSeq platform at Illumina, and the Aviti platform at Element. In the startup space, she played a key role in securing Series B funding for Encodia through her work in proteomics. Currently, as the founder of Alida Biosciences, Gudrun is focused on creating novel RNA epitranscriptomic technologies designed to advance beyond primary transcriptomic sequence analysis, to empower a new frontier of RNA biology and enhancement of multi-omic studies.

Daniel Getts

Biography
Dr. Getts is the CEO and co-founder of Myeloid Therapeutics. Prior to Myeloid, he was the VP of Research at TCR2 (NASDAQ, TCRR) and a member of the leadership team that successfully guided the company through a series B ($120M) financing and an IPO ($80M). Dr. Gettss primary duties were to lead the companys target discovery, preclinical, and translational research programs. These efforts resulted in numerous patent applications, a robust pipeline, and a successfully filed IND. Before TCR2, Dr. Getts was the primary inventor, founder, and CSO of Cour Pharmaceuticals Development Company a nanotechnology platform company focused on autoimmunity and inflammation. As a member of the companys leadership team, he assisted in negotiating several pharmaceutical company collaborations and licenses, including Takeda, which ultimately licensed TIMP-GLIA for $420M. Dr. Getts has received numerous honors and awards, over 10 issued patents, and many more pending patent applications. He is widely published, including over 45 peer-reviewed publications with seminal publications in Nature Biotechnology, Science Translational Medicine, and Nature Communications. Dr. Getts completed his postdoctoral training at Northwestern University in Stephen D. Millers laboratory. He holds a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney and an MBA from Western Michigan University.