Dr. Sunhee Lee received her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, where she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Christina Kennedy. Her graduate studies and research were focused on the area of plant-microbe interactions. After completing her graduate studies, Dr. Lee trained as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. William Jacobs's laboratory at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In Dr. Jacob's laboratory, she researched the pathogenicity and immune responses of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and generated and tested live TB vaccine candidates that had been genetically engineered. Dr. Lee moved to Duke University as an Assistant Professor at the Human Vaccine Institute and Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. As an investigator at Duke University, she continued to expand the research field to other host-mycobacterial interactions and their impact on immunogenicity and pathogenicity. Additionally, Dr. Lee's laboratory developed recombinant mycobacteria capable of eliciting strong HIV/SIV-specific immune responses. Currently, Dr. Lee is an Associate professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where she has been working to discover and develop new therapeutics and vaccines against M. tuberculosis and nontuberculous mycobacteria.
Prof. Li received his Medical Doctorate in 2005 as an outstanding graduate of the Chinese Union Medical University (CUMU). In the same year, he worked in the Department of Thoracic Surgery at the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, where he served as an attending physician, deputy chief physician, and was appointed Chief Physician in 2019. He has a solid theoretical foundation and excellent research ability, and has accumulated rich clinical experience during my work. In 2017, he took over as the Director of the Office of Drug Clinical Trial Research Center, and his outstanding achievements in the management of clinical trial institutions and clinical and translational research, and is currently served as the chief expert of China GCP platform and Leading PI of international multicenter clinical trials of anti-cancer drug discovery. He is committed to new anti-tumor drug research, real-world research, full chain translation research of clinical trials, precision treatment of rare tumors and tumor big data research. His H-Index is 44 based on Web of Science. As a sub-project leader of the National 973 Major Project, the National Key R&D Program for Precision Medicine, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the GCP platform leader, and the leader of the 13th and 14th Five-Year Innovation Project, he has undertaken many research projects.
Dr. Dongliang Liu is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine. His research interests include: Cancer therapy, especially for pancreatic cancer immunotherapy; Chimeric virus-like particles (VLP) vaccine, especially for cancer vaccines; Novel antibiotics development including antimicrobial peptides; Epitomics and multi-epitope peptide vaccine development for pathogenic viruses.
Veronika Lukacs-Kornek, is a Junior professor for molecular immunology and gastroenterology at the University of Saarland, Germany and the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award winner in 2012 (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation).
Research field includes dendritic cell biology, antigen presentation, immunoregulatory circuits operating in secondary lymphoid organs and the study of stromal cell-immune cell interactions.
Dr. Fabrizio Mattei graduated from University “La Sapienza” in Rome and completed his specialization in biotechnologies and oncology at the same university. In 2000, he became a fellow at the Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research in David Tough's laboratory (Newbury, U.K.), where he acquired experience in the field of dendritic cell immunology. He is currently a Researcher, Group Leader and Principal Investigator at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Rome, Italy), where he has focused on the molecular interactions between dendritic cells and type I Interferons signalling.
His current research is aimed at understanding the role of Interferons signalling and IL-33 in the interface between tumor and immune system in both mouse and human models. Furthermore, he is also conducting research aimed at investigating on crosstalk between immune system and cancer by Cell-on-Chip devices. In addition, Dr. Mattei is developing a multidisciplinary laboratory network focused at the realization of Organ-On-Chip platforms, useful to mimic and study human diseases and cancer.
John Mekalanos is the Adele H. Lehman Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He has served as Chair of the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department since 1996, and he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Dr. Mekalanos has received amongst other honors the Eli Lilly Award and American Association for the Advancement of Science Newcomb Cleveland Prize for the Outstanding Paper of 1993 Published in Science (259:686-688, 1993). He has been a member of the FDA Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biologics, and has consulted for numerous other governmental and private agencies, including NIH, DOD, the World Health Organization, The International Vaccine Institute, the National Academy of Sciences, Massachusetts Public Health Biological Laboratories, and the US-Japan Cooperative Medical Science Program. Dr. Mekalanos has been an active consultant in the pharmaceutical industry for companies including SmithKline, Merck, and Vicuron, and he was a co-founder of three biotechnology firms (Virus Research Institute, PharmAthene and most recently, Matrivax). He received the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur 2012 Award. He and his group have published over 200 research articles, and he has supervised more than 50 trainees in his lab during his career thus far.
Dr. Moore completed his undergraduate training at Harvard University where he also studied at the MGH Transplantation Biology Research Center (TBRC). He continued his focus in transplantation immunology and autoimmune disease during studies in the MSTP program at the University of Pennsylvania. He subsequently completed his training in pediatrics and pediatric endocrinology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. His laboratory focus is on the restoration of immune regulation in individuals with autoimmune disease. He pursues this effort through studies on the cellular and molecular biology of effector and regulatory lymphocytes and their responses to tolerance-inducing immune therapies.
In 2010, I established the Laboratory of Fungal Glycobiology at Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico, with the main goal to understand the synthesis mechanisms of the fungal cell wall and the interaction of medically relevant fungal pathogens with the host. This laboratory is characterized by its facilities to perform chemical, immunological, genetic, molecular, and cellular analyses of human fungal pathogens. Therefore, it is among a handful of research facilities within Mexico and Latin America offering a multidisciplinary and integral approach to understand the host-fungus interaction. Our group has a solid international reputation in the molecular and immunological studies of organisms belonging to the genus Candida and Sporothrix.
Professor of Pathology and Molecular Medicine and member of the Institute of Infectious Disease Research and McMaster Immunology Research Centre at McMaster University. Associate Editor of PLOS Pathogens and PLOS ONE and Editorial Board Member of Journal of Virology. Recipient of the 2006 Christina Fleischmann Award from the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research.
- Executive Vice President and Associate Center Director for Translational Research
- Michael McGillicuddy Endowed Chair for Melanoma Research and Treatment
- Co-Director of the Donald A. Adam Comprehensive Melanoma Research Center at the Moffitt Cancer Center.
Dr. Mulé is recognized for his research and clinical contributions to cancer immunotherapy, particularly in solid tumors. He has published nearly 200 articles in the areas of cancer vaccines and cancer immunotherapy; and he has been an NCI-NIH investigator continuously for nearly 20 years.
Dr. Mulé serves on the advisory board of M2Gen, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Moffitt Cancer Center in the area of personalized medicine in oncology, which he helped to establish; the Board of Directors of Medicine in Need, Cambridge, MA (a non-profit spin-out of Harvard University, and selected as a 2011 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum); and the advisory boards of several NCI-designated Cancer Centers and was a member of the NCI Director’s Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC-A, clinical), remaining a long-standing special government employee to the FDA and the NCI; the scientific/medical advisory boards of several private and public companies where he also served as a consultant; and he chaired the FDA’s CBER Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapy Advisory Committee.
I received my PhD in Reproductive Endocrinology from University of Madras, India where I studied the molecular mechanism underlying the repression of follicle stimulating hormone receptor and androgen receptor in Sertoli cells of F1 progeny rats with gestational exposure to hexavalent chromium. I have successfully attained inter-laboratory collaboration to study the effect of gestational exposure to excess hexavalent chromium on insulin signaling molecules and glucose homeostasis in F1 progeny rats. Currently, my research focus is to understand the role of gonadal macrophage polarization in reproductive dysfunction associated with hypertension in both men and women.
Barbara is Professor at the University of Tasmania (UTAS), where she leads Aquatic Animal Health research group. Barbara has her PhD from Sydney University and has been working at UTAS since 1991. Her research interests focus on various aspects of fish health, such as fish parasitology, fish immunology and fish pathology. Barbara has published over 200 papers and supervised more than 30 PhD students. She has received awards for her research and supervision of PhD students.