Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Orca Bio
Biography
Nathaniel Fernhoff, Ph.D., is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Orca Bio, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing high-precision allogeneic cell therapies for patients with blood cancers and other serious hematologic diseases. He is an inventor of Orca-Q, an investigational cell therapy designed to control the composition of donor immune cells used in allogeneic transplantation, with the goal of improving anti-cancer activity while reducing complications such as graft-versus-host disease. Before founding Orca Bio, Dr. Fernhoff was a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Irving Weissman at Stanford University, where he studied stem-cell and immune biology. He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and bachelor’s degrees in Biological Sciences and Mathematics from Stanford. His work combines cell purification, manufacturing, transplantation biology, and clinical development to make donor-derived cellular therapies more precise, reproducible, and accessible for patients with high-risk blood diseases.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2027 Silicon Valley
Track Chair:
Razelle Kurzrock, Emory
PMWC Award Ceremony
• Antoni Ribas, UCLA Health (Luminary)
Featured Speakers
• Antoni Ribas, UCLA Health
• Gerold Meinhardt, Daiichi Sankyo
• Katy Rezvani, MD Anderson
• Javad Shahidi, BeOne
• Alicia Zhou, Cancer Research Institute
• Oren Gilad, Aprea Therapeutics
• Adam Palmer, UNC
• Trever Bivona, UCSF
• Laura Volta, Penn Medicine
• Vivek Subbiah, Stanford
• Mark Stewart, Friends of Cancer Research
Precision Immunotherapy After PD-1
Cells, bispecifics, ADCs, and new combination logic after checkpoint failure.
Biomarkers That Matter
Selecting patients for immunotherapy and targeted therapy with decision-grade biomarkers.
Resistance Biology & Adaptive Combination Strategies
How tumors adapt, and how to sequence therapy around that biology.
Which Immune Cells Can Be Programmed In Vivo?
The next wave of immune-cell engineering and where it may matter first.
Rare Cancers, Basket Trials & N-of-1 Playbooks
Moving from histology-agnostic evidence to individualized precision oncology.
Davos of Precision Medicine
PMWC 2027 Program
January 27–29, 2027 · Santa Clara Convention Center
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In a few words.
PMWC is indeed The Davos of Biotech
PMWC Hall of Impact
Previous Speakers Include
Nobel laureates, technology founders, regulators, CEOs and scientific pioneers who have taken the PMWC stage.
