Dr John Maher

Kip Cross

Dan Ollendorf

Dr Giovanna Lombardi

Giovanna Lombardi is Professor of Human Transplant Immunology in the Division of Transplantation Immunology and Mucosal Biology, MRC Centre for Transplantation, at King’s College London (since 2005). From 1987 to 2005 she was based at the Department of Immunology at the Hammersmith Hospital and before that at the University of Rome, Italy.

Her research has focused on the mechanisms of transplant rejection and tolerance as well as on the phenotype and function of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in health and disease, both in the murine system and in man. Recently her laboratory has established a clinical protocol to expand Tregs in vitro. Tregs has been used in two clinical trials in renal transplant patients as part of a large EU cell therapy consortium and in liver transplant patients supported by the MRC. In parallel, her group has demonstrated that adoptive cell therapy using alloantigen-specific regulatory T cells can offer an advantage compared to polyclonal Tregs for preventing chronic allograft rejection. A GMP compatible cell sorter to generate highly pure Tregs is under validation and this approach will open the possibility of using alloantigen-specific Tregs for future clinical trials within the next few years.

Fiona Thistlethwaite

Michaela Sharpe, PhD

Michaela Sharpe is the Head of Nonclinical Safety and Immunotherapy Strategy at the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. Michaela has over fifteen years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry both in the biotechnology sector and large pharma where she has specialised in the nonclinical development of cell based therapies and therapeutic vaccines. She was Head of the Stem Cell Safety Group at Pfizer and prior to joining the Catapult she ran her own consultancy business. Michaela oversees Immunotherapy Strategy for the Catapult as well as leading a team with significant expertise in the design of non-clinical safety programmes and the development of specialist clinical assays. She has implemented nonclinical development programmes for pluripotent stem cell therapies, somatic cell therapies, immune therapies, genetically modified cell therapies and tissue engineered products.

Alasdair Rankin

Alasdair Rankin is Director of Research and Patient Experience at the blood cancer research charity Bloodwise. In addition to research, his responsibilities include Bloodwise’s policy and campaigning work, and its information and support services for people affected by blood cancer. Previously he was Director of Research at Diabetes UK from 2012 to 2015 where he developed the organisations current research strategy, including leading the establishment of diabetes Clinical Studies Groups and broadening engagement of people living with diabetes in research. He began working for research funders at Cancer Research UK, where he held various roles including leading the research funding operations team and establishing and leading the research strategy team, contributing to the development and implementation of Cancer Research UK’s 2011-15 research strategy.  Alasdair is an elected Trustee of the National Cancer Research Institute.

Marleen van Loenen

Marleen van Loenen is Director Preclinical Development at Gadeta, a R&D company that focusses on the development of αβT cells modified with γδ T cell receptors to combat both hematological and solid cancers. Her experience in and enthusiasm for adoptive immunotherapy strategies started with her PhD at Leiden University Medical Center in TCR-gene transfer for hematological malignancies. Subsequently, she moved to Sanquin Amsterdam to study presence and fitness of tumor-reactive TILs within NSCLC, before joining Gadeta in 2017.

Xiaokui Zhang, PhD

Dr Sarah Snykers

Sarah has over 10 years of experience in cell therapy, biomedical research and development.
She is a pharmacist from education and has a PhD in pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, specialised in stem cell biology. In 2010, she joined Promethera BioSciences, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of cell therapy products based on allogeneic adult stem cell technology to treat liver diseases. She headed the R&D, QC and Preclinical Departments. In 2015, she joined Celyad, a biopharmaceutical company, specialised in autologous and allogeneic cell therapy. Celyad’s core business lies in the field of immune-oncology, and more specifically the development of NK-receptor based CAR T therapies. Sarah initially led the immune-oncology program at R&D level, focused on technology transfer, product characterization and optimization. Since 2016, she heads the QC Department.

Dr Ignacio Anegon

Dr Gemma Owens

Gemma Owens is a clinical research fellow and registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology with a specialist interest in gynaecological cancers. She attended Medical School at Queen’s University (Belfast), and completed an Academic Clinical Fellowship at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester. She has recently completed a PhD at the University of Manchester, where she worked with Professor Robert Hawkins, Professor Richard Edmondson and Dr David Gilham. Her PhD focused on adoptive immunotherapy strategies for epithelial ovarian cancer, working on both TIL and CAR-T cell approaches. In collaboration with Oxford Biomedica, Gemma has demonstrated that 5T4 is an attractive target for CAR-T cell therapy in ovarian cancer.