Speaker Biographies

Yasmina Abdiche, PhD is OmniAb’s Senior Vice President of Exploratory Research. Dr. Abdiche has more than 19 years of experience in protein engineering and biopharma industry experience focused on the application of analytical biosensor technologies and label-free interaction analysis in early-stage drug discovery.

Dr. Abdiche joined the OmniAb team in September 2023 from Fair Journey Biologics where she previously served as the Chief Technology Officer. Prior to that, Dr. Abdiche previously held senior management roles at biotechnology companies and contract research organizations including Carterra (where she co-founded the LSA biosensor platform), ImmunoPrecise Antibodies, ALX Oncology, and Revelar, after a 12-year career at Rinat, Pfizer’s biotherapeutic division.

Dr. Abdiche received her PhD in Biological Chemistry and her master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford. Dr. Abdiche has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed publications and has had 25 patents granted in the therapeutic antibody space.

Chloé Ackaert is a pharmacist by training (Catholic University of Leuven 2009) and obtained her PhD at the University of Salzburg (Austria) for the research on the impact of nitration on the immunogenicity of birch pollen allergens in 2013. She first joined ImmunXperts in the start-up phase and continued academic research at the Free University of Brussels (2015-2018) working on the immunogenicity of Nanobodies. Afterwards, she joined ImmunXperts again where she is a senior scientist in the immunogenicity team, collaborating both on the client-based projects as well as on the continuous basic research projects to elucidate immunogenicity-related questions.

Bharat Adkar is a protein engineer with over a decade of experience bridging computational design and experimental validation of protein molecules. As an independent consultant and previously at GRO Biosciences, he developed AI-driven design workflows using RFdiffusion, ProteinMPNN, and AlphaFold to engineer therapeutic proteins. His background is unusual in spanning the full design-build-test cycle, from in silico modeling through wet-lab execution and biophysical characterization. Before industry, Bharat was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University where he demonstrated biophysical basis for bacterial fitness. He earned his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, where his work was among the earliest to use deep sequencing of saturation mutagenesis libraries for protein structure modeling.

Dr. Prasad Adusumilli is a thoracic surgeon in New York, New York, and is affiliated with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Sepi is driven by an unwavering commitment to establishing novel drug discovery platforms. As a strategic and translational scientific leader, she channels her collaborative nature into steering cross-functional projects with an innovative edge. With a diverse scientific background in peptides, large and small molecules, Sepi effortlessly forges unforeseen connections to generate novel and practical approaches to influence the drug discovery practices. As the leader of the Peptide Discovery Group at Eli Lilly, Sepi embodies commitment to excellence, adaptability, and vigor. These qualities resonate within her teams, fostering motivation and high performance to tackle challenging endeavors and deliver results on projects with no precedent. Notable examples include navigating the complexities of hard-to-drug protein-protein interactions and leveraging peptides for therapeutic delivery across biological barriers. Positioned at the forefront of innovation, these efforts lay the groundwork for transformative breakthroughs in drug discovery. Sepi stays abreast of industry shifts, blending forward-thinking approaches with conventional practices. This synergy severs as a catalyst for establishing disruptive platforms in the discovery of next generation drugs.

Dr. Ahmed is the CSO and co-founder of VITRUVIAE, a privately held biotechnology company developing immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases. He was formerly the SVP and CSO of Y-mAbs Therapeutics and a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Ahmed is an expert in protein and antibody engineering based on in silico modeling. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Structural Biology from Stony Brook University, followed by post-doctoral training in cancer immunology at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

Alain Ajamian, Ph.D., Director of Business Development, Chemical Computing Group

Alain Ajamian joined CCG in January 2011, bringing more than 10 years of proven experience in pharmaceutical research and development. Prior to joining Chemical Computing Group, Alain served as Managing Director at BioChemia where he played an integral role in establishing the North American operational business. Before this, Alain was a medicinal chemist at MethylGene, now Mirati Therapeutics, where he made significant contributions to the development of HDAC, HAT and Sirtuin inhibitors and is an inventor on several related patents.

Sherin Al-Safadi is currently pursuing her passion for innovating in oncology healthcare to help individuals with cancer live longer and better. She brings over 15 years of experience in developing early- and late-stage precision oncology drugs, with a focus on radiopharmaceuticals over the last several years. Previous to her current role of Vice President Medical Affairs at Radiopharm Theranostics, she held several executive leadership and managerial roles in Oncology Medical Affairs at Bayer Canada, Bayer Global and POINT Biopharma.

Rich Altman has 30 years of experience in protein expression and production. In early 2019, he joined Thermo Fisher Scientific as a Field Application Scientist. Previously, he worked for several pharmaceutical companies, including Amgen, Alexion, Bayer, and Upjohn, on the cloning, expression, purification and characterization of recombinant proteins. This work supported both small-molecule high-throughput screening and protein therapeutic efforts. He received his MS degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

Dr. Zhiqiang An is Professor of Molecular Medicine, the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry, Director of the Texas Therapeutics Institute, and Vice President of Drug Discovery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. His laboratory focuses on antibody drug resistance mechanisms, biomarkers for therapeutic antibodies, and antibody drug discovery targeting human diseases. During the last five years, more than 12 novel antibody drug leads discovered in his laboratory were licensed to eight biotechnology companies, and six (6) have advanced to clinical trials for diseases ranging from acute myeloid leukemia (IO-202), breast cancer bone metastasis (ALMB-0168), solid tumor (IO-108), spinal cord injury (ALMB-0166), COVID-19 (IGM6268), and solid tumor (PRTH-101). Previously, he served as Chief Scientific Officer at Epitomics, Inc. and was Director of Biologics Research at Merck Research Laboratories. He has authored over 200 journal articles including more than 30 papers in Nature, Science, and Cell journal series; and two books including the award-winning “Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibodies: from Bench to Clinic.” He is an elected fellow of Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB), the American Academy of Microbiology (ASM), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Dr. An received his PhD from the University of Kentucky and his postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Matt Anderson-Baron is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Future Fields, a fly biotechnology company on a mission to change how we do science to improve life on Earth. A scientist-turned-entrepreneur, Matt obtained his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Alberta and held a postdoctoral position in one of Canada’s top tissue engineering labs before co-founding Future Fields in 2018. In his time as CEO of Future Fields, Matt has raised over $28 million USD in venture capital and non-dilutive grant funding, brought Future Field’s novel EntoEngine™ technology to commercialization in just over a year, and co-led the growth of the team from three to 31. He now spearheads the expansion of the EntoEngine™, a world-first biotechnology that leverages transgenic fruit flies to express the world’s most important recombinant proteins. With fruit-fly derived proteins shipped to over 60 organizations in 20 countries, this platform represents a global paradigm shift in biomanufacturing, offering a more sustainable and scalable alternative to traditional bioreactors.

James Andorko holds a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, where his research focused on understanding the interplay between injectable materials and immunological responses. Prior to joining Interius in July of 2020, Dr. Andorko completed his postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University investigating regenerative medicine and immunology in the context of a wound healing model where he utilized flow cytometry readouts and next-generation sequencing to identify cells and pathways of interest. With over 12 years of experience in bioengineering, immunology, cancer biology, and material science, Jim has led the Discovery research efforts at Interius. During his tenure with Interius, Jim has designed and developed constructs, explored cell-based assays and preclinical animal models, and led a team to evaluate INT2104, the lead clinical candidate based on a lentiviral based gene delivery system for treating B cell lymphomas.

Dr. Ammar Arsiwala is the architect and technical lead of Ginkgo Bioworks’ high-throughput antibody developability platform, where he leads the integration of reconfigurable automation and machine learning to revolutionize antibody production and characterization. With over a decade of experience bridging early-stage research and late-stage CMC, he currently drives the development of "lab-in-the-loop" infrastructures that power generative AI design engines. Ammar holds a PhD from the Ravi Kane Lab, Georgia Tech, specializing in vaccine and antibody therapeutics engineering.

I got my start in cryoEM in 1998 in the lab of Dr. Alok Mitra at the Scripps Research Institute. I then went to work for Dr. Ron Milligan, also at Scripps. I worked for Dr. Milligan looking at acto-myosin complexes and kinesin-microtubule complexes for a number of years. In 2003 I moved to Boulder to complete my Ph.D. in the lab of Dr. Michael Stowell. After that I returned to Scripps to do a joint postdoc with Dr. Nigel Unwin at the MRC and Dr. Ron Milligan at Scripps. In 2011 I left academia to take a position as a Titan Krios applications engineer with FEI. From 2011 to 2016 I worked my way up to applications manager for North America and finally to Customer Success Manager for cryoTEM. Then in late 2016 I was recruited to Genentech as a Principal Systems Specialist to build and run their cryoEM group. After great success there, I was recruited to Altos labs in 2022 as Director of CryoEM to build and lead their cryoEM group. I joined FairJourney Biologics in March of 2025 as the CSO of the Structural Biology Division.

Natalie Artzi is a biomedical scientist and engineer whose work in structural nanomedicine is reshaping therapeutic and diagnostic strategies. Her research centers on engineering nanostructures with precise molecular and cellular architectures, enabling targeted, responsive, and effective treatment delivery. Natalie is a Hansj?rg Wyss Associate Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School, Head of Structural Nanomedicine at Mass General Brigham's Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, and Associate Institute Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Natalie has earned numerous honors, including the 2025 Dr. Alexander M. Cruickshank (AMC) Lecturer at the Gordon Research Conference on Cancer Nanotechnology, 2024 Rosemary Schnell Distinguished Lecture Award from the International Institute for Nanotechnology, 2024 Acta Biomaterialia Silver Medal, the 2024 Clemson Award for Applied Research, and the Society for Biomaterials Mid-Career Award.

Tony Arulanandam, DVM, PhD, is CEO /Founder Synaptimmune Therapeutics, Developing the next generation "Conditionally active and Costimulatory T cell engagers (TCE)" for Autoimmune and Solid tumor indications. Senior Vice President and Head of Preclinical Research and Development at Cytovia Therapeutics focused in developing NK Cell engager bispecific antibodies and iPSC derived CAR-NK therapies for cancer. He is also the Co-Founder of NextPoint therapeutics, an MPM capital-funded IO checkpoint immunotherapy company. He is an immunologist with 20+ years of research and development experience developing multiple immunotherapies for autoimmune/inflammatory diseases and cancer (5 BLAs and multiple INDs). He is also currently a mentor for postdocs at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through the Post-Graduate Association.

Dr. Gayatri Arun serves as the Executive Vice President of Biology at Envisagenics. She has more than 20 years of research experience in understanding RNA regulation in diseases, and Antisense therapeutics development. Dr. Arun has her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from JNCASR, India and completed her postdoctoral training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York. Currently, Dr. Arun leads the experimental research group in oncology and neuro indications at Envisagenics that focuses on the discovery and validation of novel alternative splicing-derived targets and therapeutics in oncology, neurodegenerative diseases.

First author on several peer-reviewed papers, Mark Aspinall-O’Dea is an Associate Director in Advanced Modalities at Charles River. Mark's scientific experience includes 10 years of postdoctoral research in clinical and academic settings, and more than 15 years of commercial experience in the biopharmaceutical field. Mark currently leads a large research team focused on the Retrogenix® cell microarray platform and future technology developments.

John Babich is the Co-Founder, President, and Chief Scientific Officer of Ratio Therapeutics, Inc. He previously worked at Weill Cornell Medical College as a Professor and Chief of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences in Radiology. John obtained his PhD from the University of London.

Dr. Patrick A. Baeuerle is the co-founder of six MPM oncology portfolio companies including Harpoon Therapeutics, iOmx Therapeutics, Maverick Therapeutics, TCR² Therapeutics, Werewolf Therapeutics and Cullinan Oncology, where he is the acting CSO of Biologics. Patrick serves on the board of directors of Harpoon, TCR2 and iOmx, is a scientific advisor to Harpoon, iOmx, Werewolf, and TCR2, and an investment committee member of the UBS Oncology Impact Fund (OIF), an oncology-only crossover fund (both private and public equities) managed by MPM. Prior to joining MPM as an Executive Partner in 2015, Patrick served as Vice President of Research and General Manager of Amgen Research Munich GmbH and as CSO for Micromet, where he was responsible for the development of BiTE antibody Blincyto®, which was approved by the U.S. FDA in 2014 in less than three months as a therapy for relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He earlier headed small-molecule drug discovery at Tularik, a publicly traded biotechnology company acquired by Amgen. Prior to this, he was Professor and Chairman of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical Faculty of Freiburg University, Germany, where he did groundbreaking research on transcription factor NF-kappaB. Patrick is the recipient of Xconomy’s 2019 “X of the Year Award”, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s 2019 Lennart Philipson Award in recognition of his many contributions to the development of cancer immunotherapies. To date, he has published 243 PubMed-listed papers that have been cited more than 72,500 times. He has a Hirsh index of 129 and was rated to be among the top 0.01% of most frequently cited scientist (Stanford study by Ioannides et al., 2019). Patrick holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Munich (LMU) and performed post-doctoral research with Dr. David Baltimore at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an Honorary Professor of Immunology of the Medical Faculty of LMU.

Annette Bak, Ph.D., MBA, leads Advanced Drug Delivery (ADD) at AstraZeneca and serves on the Pharmaceutical Sciences leadership team. ADD, a global organization with over 100 employees in Sweden, UK, and US, aims to transform diverse modalities into investigational medicines. Since joining AstraZeneca in 2016, Annette has delivered various synthetic modalities and mRNA drug delivery systems for preclinical and clinical studies. She has also built delivery chemistry, intracellular drug delivery capabilities, and a search and evaluation group within ADD. Previously, Annette worked for Amgen and Merck in the US, focusing on small molecule and peptide formulations, outsourcing partnerships in China, and in-licensing and partnership evaluations. She contributed to bringing small molecule therapies to market. Annette has published over 50 articles, given more than 50 invited presentations, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Molecular Pharmaceutics. She holds several patents for pharmaceutical technologies. A key volunteer in the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), Annette was the 2022 president, leading the implementation of the 2021-2025 strategic plan. She was the 2020 co-recipient of the AAPS Alice E. Till Women in Pharmaceutical Science Recognition.

Dr. Baliga is co-founder and CSO at Synthetic Design Lab. He has over 25 years of experience in the biotechnology industry leading the development of novel engineered therapeutic platforms, AI-driven antibody design, and ADC technologies. Before co-founding Synthetic Design Lab, Dr. Baliga served as Vice President of Biotherapeutics at Exelixis, where he built a team to discover mAbs, bispecifics, and ADCs, including XB064, XB628, XB033 currently in the development pipeline. Prior to Exelixis, Dr. Baliga was Chief Scientific Officer at RubrYc Therapeutics, where he developed a novel platform for mammalian display-based discovery of epitope-steered antibodies targeted to AI-generated epitope mimetics. Before RubrYc, Dr. Baliga was Vice President of Discovery Biology at IGM Biosciences, where he developed the platform technology for making novel glyco-engineered mono- and multispecific IgM antibodies and led the first bispecific IgM program IGM-2323 (Imvotamab) from discovery through preclinical work into Phase I studies. Prior to IGM, Dr. Baliga built a platform for site-specific conjugation of ADCs with single or multiple warheads at Sutro Biopharma. Dr. Baliga holds more than 30 patents, encompassing platform technologies, monoclonal antibodies, bispecifics and antibody drug conjugates. Dr. Baliga received his M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, his Ph.D. in Bioorganic Chemistry from Caltech, and conducted his postdoctoral work at Yale University.

Dr. Balthasar is the David and Jane Chu Endowed Chair in Drug Discovery and Development and Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Balthasar received a B.S. in Pharmacy (1991) and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics (1996) from the University at Buffalo. He served as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University at Buffalo from 1996-1997 and, from 1997-1999, as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Utah. Dr. Balthasar rejoined the University at Buffalo as an Assistant Professor in 1999, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2003 and to Full Professor in 2008. Dr. Balthasar also serves as the Director of the Center for Protein Therapeutics and as UB’s Executive Director for Research Initiatives. Dr. Balthasar’s research utilizes pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic analyses to guide the development of new immunotherapies. Current research in the Balthasar Lab, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Center for Protein Therapeutics, focuses on the development of new platform strategies to improve the safety and efficacy of antibody-based treatments for cancer. Balthasar’s Payload Binding Selectivity Enhancer (PBSE) platform is under development by Abceutics Inc., a UB start-up company, and the lab’s Anti-Idiotypic Distribution Enhancer (AIDE) platform is being pursued via the Empire Discovery Institute.

Dr. Musheng Bao earned his Ph.D. in China and completed postdoctoral training at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor Institute for Immunology Research. Transitioning to industry, he held positions at MedImmune and later at Sanofi. He then joined Harbour BioMed, leading a team dedicated to therapeutic antibody development utilizing the Harbour Mice® platform. Presently, Dr. Bao serves as Head of Biology at Nona Biosciences. Throughout his career, he has been actively involved in diverse professional pursuits spanning industry and research, with a primary focus on the intersection of immune-oncology, autoimmune diseases, and cell therapies.

Joel Bard has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Harvard University, Bachelor of Music in oboe from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Master of Music in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School. He originally joined Genetics Institute in 2001 as an X-ray crystallographer and ended up at Pfizer through the acquisition of GI by Wyeth and the subsequent acquisition of Wyeth by Pfizer. He leads a Bioinformatics group within the BioMedicine Design organization at Pfizer.

Gavin joined ATUM as Chief Scientific Officer in 2026. He brings his expertise from decades in biotechnology, from drug discovery through cell line development. Previously, he held scientific leadership roles at Genentech/Roche, Eli Lilly, Merck, Adimab, and GlycoFi. Gavin earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Dartmouth College in Dr. Tillman Gerngross’s lab and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pretoria.

Marie-Eve Beaulieu is General Manager of Nostrum Biodiscovery, a computational drug discovery technology company headquartered in Barcelona. Nostrum's proprietary physics-based AI platforms are trusted by 5 of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies and a growing network of biotech partners across peptide, protein, and nucleic acid programs. Prior to Nostrum, Marie-Eve co-founded Peptomyc and led development of OMO-103 — the first direct MYC inhibitor to complete a clinical trial demonstrating safety and clinical activity — raising over €40M in public and private funding. She holds a PhD in Pharmacology, has co-authored 31 peer-reviewed publications and 8 patent applications, and is a recipient of the EIC Accelerator and EIT Health Headstart awards.

Dr. Benjamin is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Immuto Scientific. As the CTO, Dr. Benjamin is responsible for leveraging Immuto’s technological resources and expertise to meet the needs of our customers. As one of the inventors of Immuto Scientific’s PLIMB (Plasma Induced Modification to Biomolecules) technology, Dr. Benjamin spearheaded the design, development, and engineering of the technology. His doctorate research work focused on development the PLIMB technology and proving its application for applications relevant to biopharmaceutical research.

Manu Ben Johny is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University. He obtained his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. His lab is focused on studying how ion channel dysfunction contributes to cardiovascular and neurological diseases, with the focus on employing protein engineering approaches to restore ion channel function in disease.

Matthew Bernett, Ph.D., is Executive Director of Protein Engineering at Xencor, where he has spent over two decades advancing antibody and protein therapeutics. A co-inventor of tafasitamab (Monjuvi), he helped establish Xencor’s Fc engineering and bispecific T-cell engager platforms, contributing to more than 15 clinical programs. His expertise spans structure-guided design, developability optimization, and the translation of discovery concepts to IND candidates. Dr. Bernett has led cross-functional discovery teams and strategic collaborations with industry partners including Genentech and Amgen. His current work focuses on engineering antibody mechanisms to enhance potency, selectivity, and manufacturability in oncology and immunology.

Having completed my PhD in Biophysics from the University of Osnabrueck, Germany, in 2012, I carried out my first postdoctoral stint at the Department of Bioengineering, UC Berkeley, USA, where I focused on conformational dynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins. In 2015, I moved back to Germany and joined the Institute of Biochemistry, University of Muenster. Here, with support from an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship, I developed intein-based technologies for application in chemical biology. Since 2020, I have been a part of the Large Molecule Research (LMR) unit at pRED, Roche, where I have been delving into different aspects of biotherapeutic discovery and development, with a focus on biochemical and functional characterization.

Uli Binder is co-founder and Managing Director of XL-protein, a biotech company specializing in the development of biological drugs with extended half-life and enhanced activity. With over 15 years of experience in biotechnology, he has been instrumental in driving XL-protein's mission to develop superior long-acting biopharmaceuticals. Uli holds a M.Sc. in molecular biotechnology from the Technical University of Munich. He has co-authored more than 20 publications and is inventor of several patents. His scientific expertise includes protein engineering, drug discovery, and development.

Surge is a co-founder and the CEO at Nabla Bio, an antibody design company. Surge received his PhD from George Church’s lab. There, he and his colleagues pioneered the development of protein language modeling, a technology that has been central to state-of-the-art protein structure prediction and machine learning-guided protein design. Outside of Nabla, Surge enjoys hanging out with his wife and Nabla co-founder, Frances, and their two dogs, Archie and Riley.

Eli makes sure Cradle's models and algorithms are doing what we think they are doing, and he keeps an eye out for the latest and greatest techniques in the literature. He was previously at Google (Brain, Accelerated Science, Cloud) working on biological sequence design, AutoML, and natural language understanding. He studied mathematics, computer science, and biochemistry.

Connor is a senior scientist at Nabla Bio where he leads development of next generation antibody screening platforms to facilitate internal method development and partner projects. He focuses on scalable screening against multipass membrane proteins with mammalian cells. Connor graduated with a PhD in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Laird Bloom is a Senior Director in the BioMedicine Design Department at Pfizer, where he heads a group focused on identification and engineering of antibody-based therapeutics, high-throughput production of microgram-to-milligram-scale quantities of purified antibodies, and high-throughput antibody screening. Since joining the company in 2003, he has managed the antibody engineering activities in numerous therapeutic programs supporting all Pfizer research units, with an emphasis on allergic and inflammatory diseases and cancer. From 1999-2003, he led a cell biology and assay group involved in mRNA display and screening at Phylos, Inc.

David Boggs is Senior Scientist in Protein Analytics at the AbbVie Bioresearch Center, where he champions novel approaches for characterizing proteins and advancing therapeutic discovery. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from Boston University, with a master’s thesis investigating the kinetics of a pterin-dependent mononuclear iron enzyme. His published doctoral work at the University of Michigan sought to understand and engineer proteins involved in chlorophyll metabolism, pollutant degradation, and clinically-focused artificial metalloproteins. At AbbVie, David leverages a foundation in protein chemistry, biophysics, and structural biology to characterize antibody-antigen, lipid nanoparticle, and virus-like particle platforms. He has developed and deployed methods for particle size and count analysis through robust synergistic techniques, and continues to expand the group’s capabilities to pursue challenging targets. David finds energy turning complex data into real progress on therapeutics and is committed to sharing excitement for scientific discovery.

Stefano Bonissone is the Chief Scientific Officer of Abterra Bio. He received his PhD from the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology program from University of California – San Diego. For over a decade, his research focus has been informatic problems associated with analyzing immune repertoires; both from next-generation sequencing and proteogenomics.

James Bowman is part of the founding team and Head of Discovery at AI Proteins. He did his PhD at the University of Southern California engineering a viral GPCR and using it for nanobody discovery. After that, he joined the Protein Design Lab at the Institute for Protein Innovation where he developed tumor-targeting mini proteins. Now, at AI Proteins, he leads efforts to engineer mini protein binders against therapeutic targets.

Andrew Bradbury is Chief Scientific Officer of Specifica. He trained in medicine at the universities of Oxford and London and received his PhD from the university of Cambridge at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology under the guidance of Nobel Laureate, Cesar Milstein. He has worked in the fields of phage and yeast display, library generation, antibody engineering and Next Generation Sequencing for over thirty years. He was a Group Leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory before founding Specifica. Specifica's mission is to enable companies developing therapeutic antibodies with the world’s best antibody discovery platform.

Dr. Bramhill has over 20 years’ experience in biologics, both in large biopharma and startup biotech companies, and currently consults as a scientific-technical expert. He has expertise in isolating and improving antibodies using phage display and other display systems and is an inventor on library design for small scaffolds and bi-specific formats. He also has experience in diverse expression systems for producing antibodies, antibody fragments and scaffolds. Additionally, Dr. Bramhill has extensive experience in ADC development including diverse chemical and biochemical conjugation methods. He has taught numerous technical courses for over 20 years at international conferences and served as a Key Opinion Leader for major BioPharma companies.

Dr. Ulrich Brinkmann is a member of Roche’s Large Molecule Research organization within Pharma Research & Early Development at the Roche Innovation Center Munich (Penzberg, Germany). His work focuses on protein & antibody engineering, bispecifics, and on delivery platforms for targeted payload delivery. Prior to joining Roche, he served as CSO in functional genomics and pharmacogenetics companies Xantos and Epidauros. His previous work in Ira Pastans Molecular Biology Lab at the NIH/NCI in Bethesda, USA focused on antibody stabilization and engineering technologies, and on generating recombinant immunotoxins for cancer therapy. Dr. Brinkmann is author of numerous publications and inventor of many patents covering recombinant antibodies, pharmaco- & functional genomics, immunotoxins and protein engineering technologies and applications.

Corey Brizzee is the Director of Gene Editing at Demeetra, where he leads the development and delivery of gene-editing solutions that deliver meaningful results. With deep expertise in protein engineering and gene editing across plants, microbes, and mammalian cells, he brings a versatile, cross-disciplinary approach to tackling complex biological challenges.

Mary Ann Brown joined Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI) in 1992 as a Data Entry Associate. At that time CHI was a start-up company with many roles to fill and explore. She quickly realized that conference production which combined creativity and love of learning was the path for her. Mary Ann’s conference portfolio is varied from biologics to batteries where she is organizes over 15 scientific meetings a year along with being a Team Lead for several Key Events. Mary Ann graduated from Doane College in 1978 with degrees in Biology, Environmental Studies, and Geology.

Andrew Buchanan is SVP and Head of Discovery at a stealth-mode biotechnology company. He has extensive expertise in large molecule drug discovery and development, spanning target selection through first-in-human (FiH) studies. Andrew has led pipeline projects and multifunctional teams that have delivered over 20 FiH drug candidates in oncology, inflammation, and cardiovascular therapy areas, resulting in three marketed medicines to date. A key highlight of his career has been fostering interdisciplinary collaborations with academic and industry partners in AI/ML, PKPD, and translational biology. These efforts have led to new partnerships and over 50 original publications and patents. As a science leader, Andrew is passionate about mentoring early-career scientists and advancing the development of tomorrow’s medicines.

Christian Buchholz, PhD, heads the Section of Molecular Biotechnology and Gene Therapy at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut and is Associate Professor for Biochemistry at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt. At the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Dr. Buchholz combines responsibilities in gene therapy medicinal product regulation with the maintenance of a research laboratory active in studying the safety and efficacy of viral vectors. Dr. Buchholz has published more than 100 articles in his research area, which focuses on the engineering of the surface of viral vectors to improve their applicability in modern molecular medicine. Most notably, Dr. Buchholz’s team has provided proof-of-principle for in vivo generation of human CAR T cell thereby making use of viral vectors targeted to T cell surface markers. Dr. Buchholz holds a PhD from the Max-Planck-Institut for Biochemistry and a diploma in Microbiology from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.

John's research interests include protein biochemistry, structural biology and antibody discovery. At Pheast, John oversees research, data analysis, and project direction for the Protein Sciences team. Prior to joining Pheast, John led a team at Ligand Pharmaceuticals supporting antibody discovery, with a focus on antigen production and validation. Prior to Ligand, he served as Director of Biochemistry at Ab Initio Biotherapeutics, where he led protein biochemistry and molecular pharmacology efforts. John received his postdoctoral training at the Stanford University School of Medicine and his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

David R. Bush received a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Pennsylvania State University where had co-op rotations at Merck, Supelco and GSK. He earned his Ph.D. in Vicki Wysocki’s group at the University of Arizona. David then worked on developing top-down CE-MS methods for biotherapeutic characterization on a prototype CE-MS instrument for a post-doctoral project in Barry Karger’s group at Northeastern University. David joined Genedata in 2015 supporting the adoption and development of the enterprise Expressionist MS data analysis system for biotherapeutic applications. David has worked at Novartis for >3 years as the characterization lead supporting the needs of numerous multispecifc and fusion Abs, ADC’s, radioligand therapies, and gene therapy programs.

Daniel Calarese, Ph.D. is Executive Director of Drug Discovery and Innovation at Sutro Biopharma, where he leads protein engineering and ADC technology development. He has played a key role in advancing multiple ADCs into clinical trials and is a driver of Sutro’s dual-payload ADC platform.

Allan Capili is SVP of Biologics at Merida Biosciences, where he leads antibody discovery and receptor-Fc engineering, antigen design, and developability efforts to advance precision therapeutics for antibody-driven diseases. He contributed to the discovery of Merida’s MER511, an investigational precision biologic currently in clinical trials for the treatment of Graves’ disease. With over 18 years of experience in biologics drug discovery, Allan has held research leadership roles across the biotechnology industry, including at Amagma Therapeutics (now Triveni Bio), where he contributed to the discovery of the dual-specific active kallikreins 5 and 7 (KLK5/7) inhibitor TRIV-509, and at Voyager Therapeutics, where he contributed to the discovery of the anti-tau antibody VY7523. Prior to this, he has contributed to multiple biologics discovery programs at Scholar Rock and Biogen, including the anti-promyostatin antibody Apitegromab (from Scholar Rock).

Alejandro Carpy is a Senior Director of Protein Sciences & Analytics at AstraZeneca, where he leads a high-performing team of scientists and managers in Biologics Engineering R&D. With a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Tübingen and over 15 years of experience in the biopharma industry, Dr. Carpy has established himself as a recognized authority in the end-to-end development of biologics, from target assessment through IND submission. His expertise spans protein engineering, molecular cloning and expression, advanced cell line engineering, next-generation sequencing, and biologics supply optimization. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, he served as Principal Scientist and Lab Head at Roche Innovation Center Munich, where he directed protein engineering efforts for therapeutic antibodies, multispecifics, ADCs, and protein fusions, successfully advancing eight molecules into clinical stages. His work has been instrumental in the discovery and development of multiple groundbreaking biologics, including several T-cell bispecific antibodies now in clinical development. He is passionate about leveraging strategic leadership, technical innovation, and cross-functional collaboration to advance transformative therapies that address unmet medical needs.

Adam Carr earned BS and PhD degrees from Brigham Young Univerisity and Iowa State University, both in Chemical Engineering. During his PhD he worked in Nigel Reuel's group, focused on biosensors at the intersection of dielectric transduction and synthetic biology. In 2020 part of his PhD work was spun out as a startup, Frugi Biotechnology, with the goal of developing frugal synthetic biology solutions for diagnostics and research focused initially on developing cell-free protein synthesis platforms for high throughput screening applications. After collaborating with AI drug discovery company BigHat Biosciences Frugi Biotechnology was acquired by BigHat in 2022 where he initially the led scale up of CFPS reagent manufacturing and oversaw development of high throughput expression workflows using automation. Adam currently is the Associate Director of Cell-Free Production at BigHat Biosciences where he works with programs, platform, and AI/ML teams to ensure high quality production of in silico designed antibody sequences for training and validating ML models as well as increase the capabilities of CFPS systems to express complex antibody formats for screening.

Dr. Ibel Carri is a computational immunologist focused on improving the prediction of cancer neoantigens to advance personalized immunotherapies. Her research integrates experimental immunology with multi-omics data and machine learning methods to better understand how the immune system distinguishes tumor antigens and ultimately guide safer and more effective cancer treatments.

Liz earned a BS in Bioengineering from Rice University in Houston, TX. Afterward she went to University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center for her MD during which time she worked at the National Institutes of Health, designing complement targeting antibodies. She then completed residency in Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and fellowship in Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she is now an Instructor in the lab of Eric Smith MD PhD. Her scientific interest is in nucleic acid- and cell based immunotherapies in solid malignancies.

Dr. Carter received a B.A. in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology under Sir Greg Winter at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Jim Wells at Genentech, now a member of the Roche Group. Dr. Carter has nearly forty years of experience in biotechnology, focusing on the discovery of antibody therapeutics. He played a key role in the creation of antibody humanization methods at Genentech utilized over many years for nine approved antibody products used to treat millions of patients worldwide. Dr. Carter and collaborators invented ‘knobs-into-holes’ technology and common light chains between them used in at least six approved bispecific antibodies. He is currently a Genentech Fellow in the Department of Antibody Engineering.

Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D., is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University and completed his internship/residency in internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital. Afterwards he completed specialty training in Infectious Diseases at Albert Einstein College of Medicine-Montefiore Hospital and postdoctoral training with Dr. Matthew Scharff. The author of over 1000 papers, his major research interests are in fungal pathogenesis and the mechanisms of antibody action. He has served on several NIH committees including the NIAID Strategic Plan, the Blue-Ribbon Panel on Biodefense Research, the NAS panel that reviewed the FBI investigation on anthrax attacks, the National Commission on Forensic Science, and the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. He has received numerous honors including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, AAI Distinguished Fellow in Immunology and the Council for Foreign Relations.

Stéphane Champiat, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and a medical oncologist specializing in early-phase drug development and cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Champiat completed his medical degree at Paris VI University and his residency in medical oncology at the University of Nantes, France. He earned a PhD in Immunology from Paris Saclay University and pursued postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco.Prior to joining MD Anderson in 2024, Dr. Champiat spent over a decade at Gustave Roussy Cancer Center, where he led numerous Phase I immunotherapy trials and developed the iTOX program focused on the management of immune related toxicities. An accomplished clinician investigator, he has contributed to the advancement of checkpoint inhibitors, cytokines, T cell–engaging immunotherapies, and other cutting edge therapeutic modalities. His research focuses on biomarker driven strategies, mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapy, and the implementation of innovative technologies to improve and accelerate next generation therapeutic development.Dr. Champiat has authored more than 100 peer reviewed publications in leading oncology journals.

Megha Chandrashekhar is a Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetic scientist at Amgen in South San Francisco. She specializes in mechanistic ADME, biotransformation, and bioanalysis of small molecules and oligonucleotides. Her work integrates experimental and translational approaches to understand disposition pathways and support development of novel therapeutics.

Dr. Yvonne Chen is a Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UCLA. She is the co-director of the Tumor Immunology program in the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA, and a member researcher of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. The Chen Laboratory applies biomolecular engineering techniques to the development of novel mammalian-cell systems for clinical use, and Dr. Chen led the first investigator-sponsored clinical trial on CAR-T cell therapy at UCLA. The Chen Lab’s work has been recognized by the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Mark Foundation Emerging Leader Award, and the Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old STAR Award, among others. Prior to joining UCLA in 2013, Yvonne was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. Yvonne received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

Jianzhu Chen is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Chen received a Ph.D. degree in genetics from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow and then an instructor at Harvard Medical School before he joined the faculty at MIT. Dr. Chen’s research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Over the years, Dr. Chen has made significant contributions to a broad area of research in immunology, cancer research, infectious diseases, and animal models of human diseases. Recently, Dr. Chen’s research has focused on development of tumor-specific CAR-NK cells and re-programming macrophages for disease intervention, including cancer, metabolic diseases and infectious diseases.

Zhilei Chen is a Professor in the Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology Department at Texas A&M University. She earned PhD in Biophysics and Computational Biology from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign (advised by Huimin Zhao) and performed postdoctoral research in the Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease at Rockefeller University (mentored by Charles M. Rice). The Chen Medicinal Protein Lab aims to accelerate the discovery, development and clinical translation of protein therapeutics through innovative protein engineering research. We are particularly interested in the engineering of protein theranostics to prevent, treat and diagnose infectious diseases and the development of new protein engineering platforms. Dr. Chen is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2012), US Air Force Young Investigator Award (2012) and the NIH New Innovator Award (2017).

Michael Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Nuclera, a Cambridge UK and Boston US based life science tools company revolutionizing protein accessibility through the eProtein Discovery rapid protein access benchtop platform. With a mission to improve human health, Michael and his classmates founded Nuclera in response to the costly barriers to protein access for research and drug discovery.

As CEO, he drives core inventions, sets the company's vision and strategy, and oversees its growth across two continents with over 100 employees.

Before Nuclera, Michael was an award-winning structural biologist. His work resulted in numerous high impact publications including Nature. Michael holds a BSc in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a PhD in Structural Biology/Chemistry from the University of Cambridge and the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Weisheng Chen is the Founder, CEO, and Scientific Director of Leveragen, a Boston-based biotechnology company pioneering next-generation platforms for antibody discovery. At Leveragen, Dr. Chen led the development of the Singularity Suite, Universality Suite, and Infinity Suite of genetically engineered mouse models, spanning fully human single-domain antibodies, common light chain antibodies, and conventional full-length antibodies. These platforms enable a streamlined, high-throughput discovery process to efficiently generate diverse and highly developable antibodies, broadly applicable to multispecific antibodies, antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs), mRNA-based medicines, and gene and cell therapies. Under his leadership, Leveragen has established strategic partnerships with leading global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to advance innovation across therapeutics, diagnostics, and animal health. Dr. Chen received his bachelor’s degree from Nanjing University and his master’s degree from Peking University, earned his PhD in Cell, Developmental, and Neural Biology at the University of Michigan under the mentorship of Philippe Soriano, and conducted postdoctoral research with Tom Maniatis at Harvard University and Columbia University. Prior to founding Leveragen in 2017, he was a Founding Scientist and Head of Genetic Models at Kallyope, Inc.

Ashutosh Chilkoti is the Alan L. Kaganov Professor and of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. His areas of research include genetically encoded biomaterials and the development of synthetic biomolecular condensates for synthetic biology. He has published ~350 papers, has been cited ~43,000 times, has a Google Scholar H-index of 110, and has 40 patents and 60 patent applications in process. Prof. Chilkoti was awarded the Clemson Award for Contributions to the Literature by the Society for Biomaterials in 2011, the Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lecture award by the Biomedical Engineering Society in 2013, was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2014, received the Distinguished Alumni award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2015, and the Diamond award from the College of Engineering at the University of Washington in 2017. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the founder of six start-up companies: (1) PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded company on NASDAQ (sticker: PHAS) that is taking drug delivery technology that he developed into clinical trials; (2) Sentilus, a clinical diagnostics company that was acquired by Immucor in 2014; (3) BioStealth, a spinoff of Sentilus; (4) GatewayBio, that is commercializing a next-generation PEGylation technology for biologics; (5) Isolere Bio that is developing a non-chromatographic technology for purification of biologics; and (6) inSoma Bio that is developing a recombinant protein matrix for tissue reconstruction.

Hongyoon Choi, MD, PhD, is a nuclear medicine physician-scientist specializing in theranostics and AI. He is an Associate Professor at Seoul National University Hospital, Visiting Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, and CTO & Co-founder of Portrai Inc. He integrates clinical expertise with data science and AI to advance precision radiotheranostics, also leads AI and technology strategy, combining molecular imaging, spatial transcriptomics, and large-scale human tissue data to uncover novel radiopharmaceutical targets. His research spans from molecular target discovery to clinical translation, developing in silico frameworks that accelerate the design of next-generation first-in-class theranostic agents. Through this integrative approach, Dr. Choi aims to redefine how human data and AI shape the future of RPT-driven oncology

Affilogic is a privately-owned biotech company specialized in discovery and development of a novel class of protein therapeutics called Nanofitins. Since joining Affilogic in 2011, Dr. Mathieu Cinier successfully led 60+ Nanofitin generation programs for a wide range of applications, and Nanofitin-based biotherapeutics are currently being developed in collaboration with Sanofi, Takeda Pharmaceutical and other undisclosed international pharmaceutical companies. He also applied its extensive protein engineering knowledge to expand the potential of the Nanofitin technology and is now assuming the position of Scientific Director.

Dr. Daniela Cipolletta is Senior Director of Immunology at Seismic Therapeutic, developing a new generation of immunology therapies enabled by machine learning. Daniela has 20 years of immunology-focused research experience, with an emphasis on bridging immunology with oncology, metabolism, and tissue regeneration. Before joining Seismic, she held roles of increasing responsibility at Novartis, where she led and supported several novel immune modulatory programs from early target identification through drug candidate selection and biomarker research. Daniela has also held positions at Amgen and Tempero (a GSK company). Daniela earned her PhD in Immunology from the European School of Molecular Medicine and completed her postdoctoral training with Drs. Diane Mathis and Christophe Benoist at Harvard Medical School, working on tissue-resident regulatory T cells.

Starlynn Clarke leads the preclinical biology group at Rondo Therapeutics, an IO-focused biopharmaceutical company developing innovative bispecific therapeutic antibodies for treating solid tumors. Starlynn has worked in discovery and preclinical development in the fields of oncology and immunology at several biotechnology start-up companies, including Frontier Medicines and Caribou Biosciences. As a founding member of the preclinical biology team at Teneobio, a highly successful multispecific therapeutic antibody company, she contributed to several bispecific antibody programs currently in clinical trials. Starlynn completed her PhD in the lab of Charles Craik at UCSF, where she studied novel viral and fungal host-pathogen interactions.

Jennifer’s passion lies in developing innovative medicines for applications in oncology, immunology, and regenerative medicine, within both academia and industry. She was recruited in 2005 as one of the founding faculty members in Stanford’s Bioengineering department, served as its Chair from 2017-2022, and is the Macovski Professor of Bioengineering and (by courtesy) Chemical Engineering. In addition to her faculty roles, she served as Senior Associate Vice Provost for Research at Stanford from 2023-2026 and is currently Vice President for SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and for Strategic Initiatives at Stanford. A serial innovator and entrepreneur, she founded several companies including xCella Biosciences (acquired by Ligand (LGND), now OmniAb (OABI)), Combangio (acquired by Kala Pharmaceuticals), TwoStep Therapeutics, Threefold Therapeutics, and Photinia Biosciences. In 2020, Jennifer co-founded Red Tree Venture Capital, a west coast-centric, early-stage biased life sciences investment firm, and serves as Chief Scientific Advisor. She strives to drive impact through her board roles at OmniAb, Excellergy Therapeutics, Rondo Therapeutics, Kivu Bioscience, Biograph55, Ebvio, and Revel Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Cochran obtained her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from MIT and completed postdoctoral fellowships at MIT in Biological Engineering and at UPenn in Biophysics. She was inducted as a fellow to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the National Academy of Engineering, the latter with a citation for “contributions to biopharmaceutical protein discovery and development, biotechnology entrepreneurship, and leadership in academic bioengineering.

Prof David Cole has >20 years’ experience in developing unique immunotherapies and has contributed to several novel clinical assets, including a marketed first in class bispecific T cell engager. In his current role, David has established an exciting platform of protein-based immunotherapies, including reagents with broad specificities that can only be administered to patients using Accession Therapeutics patented tumor selective viral gene expression platform (TROCEPT).

Adriana Coll De Peña is a Scientist at Moderna focused on the development and implementation of high throughput analytical methods. She earned a B.S. in Biotechnology and Molecular Bioscience, a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, and an M.S. in Science, Technology and Public Policy from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University.

Lucy Colwell is a researcher on the Science team at Google DeepMind and a faculty member in chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Her primary interests are in the application of machine learning approaches to better understand the relationship between the sequence and function of biological macromolecules. Before moving to Cambridge Lucy received her PhD from Harvard University and held an EPSRC fellowship at the MRC-LMB and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ.

Frank is a Senior Director, Head of Degrader Antibody Conjugates, at Quarry Thera. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, in 2000, where he studied under Professor Gerald Hart to elucidate the roles of intracellular O-GlcNAc glycosylation. He moved to the National Cancer Institute where he completed post-doctoral studies in Carole Parent’s laboratory, studying the role of the PI3 kinase pathway in spatial sensing and chemotaxis. Frank then joined Wellstat Therapeutics in 2007, where he led and contributed to several projects ranging from conjugate vaccines to therapeutic proteins, prior to joining AstraZeneca in 2012. During his tenure at AstraZeneca, he held positions of increasing responsibility, with a research focus on antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies, and targeted radiopharmaceutical therapies. His current work at Quarry Thera is focused on building a portfolio of degrader antibody conjugates (DACs) and induced proximity based therapeutics. He has served as a session organizer/chair in the “Advancing Bispecific Antibodies” track at PEGS since 2018.

Tim is an experienced protein scientist with a background in membrane proteins, completing his BS in both Biochemistry and Neuroscience from Brandeis University, before continuing on to receive a PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and a postdoctoral fellowship at GNF/Novartis, all focused on integral membrane proteins. After completing his postdoc, he continued on to work for both small CROs and large pharmaceutical companies delivering high quality recombinant proteins to support both diagnostic and pharmaceutical discovery efforts.

Rebecca is an innovative leader responsible for the implementation of novel and disruptive in silico technologies to increase the speed of discovery and quality of biologics therapeutics. She is an experienced antibody engineer with structural biology expertise and was co-inventor of the CrossMab technology that is now leading the way in approvals for multi-specific antibody therapeutics. She has authored 30+ patents and publications in the field of antibody engineering.

Dr. Curran received a Ph.D. in Immunology from Stanford University where he was awarded the McDevitt prize for the best graduate thesis in his year. Dr. Curran was the first recipient of the prestigious American Cancer Society Levy Fellowship to fund his postdoctoral studies in the lab of Dr. James P. Allison. While pursuing his postdoctoral studies at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Curran published several influential manuscripts describing how T cell co-stimulatory pathways could be modulated in tandem to mediate immunologic rejection of melanomas in mice. Dr. Curran was the first to describe how combination blockade of the T cell co-inhibitory receptors CTLA-4 and PD-1 promoted the rejection of a majority of murine melanomas – a combination that remains the most effective FDA-approved immunotherapy. At the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Curran is an Associate Professor of Immunology and his Lab seeks to discover the underlying mechanisms of immune resistance in the “coldest” tumors, pancreatic and prostate adenocarcinoma and glioblastoma, so that rational therapeutic interventions can be developed to restore T cell infiltration and sensitivity to T cell checkpoint blockade. This research focuses on normalization of tumor oxygen metabolism to increase T cell metabolic fitness, activation of innate pro-inflammatory immune sensors capable of re-programming tumor myeloid stroma, and on discovery of novel immune checkpoint antibodies capable of depleting stromal elements responsible for T cell exclusion and function suppression.

Philipp Cyprys is a team leader at Thermo Fisher Scientific who specializes in synthetic biology, with a particular focus on recombinant protein expression and purification. He leads a dedicated team and is an expert in process development strategies and the design of analytical methods for complex biomolecules, including antibodies, antigens, and ADCs.

Nicole Darricarrere, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim, where she leads a small team supporting the in vivo antibody discovery platform. Her group delivers antibody hits for portfolio projects across therapeutic areas through V gene recovery, next generation sequencing, and antibody repertoire analysis. With over a decade of industry experience in biologics research, she has contributed to the development and refinement of biologics platforms using protein engineering and chemical biology approaches, leading to patents and publications. Her work spans T cell engagers in oncology and influenza vaccine programs. Prior to joining Boehringer Ingelheim, she held senior scientific roles at Sanofi and Revitope Oncology. She earned her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Yale University and a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from McGill University.

Consultant for antibody and bispecific discovery and development, protein engineering, library design and in vitro selection, strategic planning of therapeutic campaigns, derisking downstream processes. My Strategy: Innovator of disruptive technologies and platforms in biotherapeutics. Protein engineering: innovative approaches to adding or improving functionality for therapeutic proteins, thought leader in bispecific protein technologies. Technology development: Improving technology for library design and construction, selection processes, screening, and optimizing resulting proteins. My Specialties: Novel therapeutic modality design; Protein Engineering; Synthetic Biology; Phage Display; PROfusion (mRNA display); Selection; in vitro evolution; SELEX; Protein modeling; RosettaDesign; Molecular Biology; Protein expression and purification; Library design; Antibody engineering.

Brad Delaney is a Business Development Manager at Nona Biosciences. He previously worked as a scientist at Nona, where he performed the first campaigns for heavy chain and multispecific antibody, CAR-T, and T cell engager discovery using Nona’s HCAb Harbour Mice® platform. He also has experience in T cell biology and in improving CAR-T function in solid tumors by counteracting the hypoxia–adenosine immunosuppressive axis. Brad trained at Northeastern University, Brown University, and the University of Pennsylvania before joining Nona.

Genevieve Desjardins is the Associate Director of Protein Engineering at Zymeworks, where she contributes to the discovery and development of next-generation multispecific antibody therapeutics. Her work in protein engineering has supported multiple clinical-stage programs, including Ziihera® (zanidatamab), a biparatopic HER2 targeted antibody, ZW171, a mesothelin targeted T cell engager, as well as ZW209, a DLL3-targeted T cellengager with CD28 co-stimulation. Her contribution spans from early discovery through IND filing with a focus on engineering robust therapeutic molecules to tackle complex biological problems. Genevieve has over a decade of industry experience working on antibody drug development, platform engineering and leading programs across oncology and immunology indications. Her contributions have helped drive innovative approaches to multispecific design, including optimization of format, affinity, stability, and manufacturability. Genevieve is passionate abouttranslating cutting-edge protein engineering technologies into impactful medicines for patients and actively engages in scientific collaboration and knowledge sharing within the biotech community.

David DiLillo is a Senior Director in the Immuno-Oncology department at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in New York, where he leads a team developing novel immunotherapies to treat cancer. His team is responsible for target discovery and the preclinical development of immune cell-engaging multi-specific antibodies to treat liquid and solid tumors. His team also develops cell-based therapies and works to understand detailed mechanisms-of-action of immunotherapies in order to advance next-generation therapeutics. Dr. DiLillo holds a PhD in Immunology from Duke University, where he studied non-classical B cell effector functions, and he completed his postdoctoral studies in Fc-receptor biology at the Rockefeller University.

Dr. DiPaolo earned his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1995, where he conducted research under Dr. Jeffrey Bluestone, and his Ph.D. from Washington University School of Medicine in 2001 with Dr. Emil Unanue. He completed postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health with Dr. Ethan Shevach before joining Saint Louis University in 2007, where he is now Professor and Chair of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology and a Fellow of the Saint Louis University Research Institute. The DiPaolo Laboratory investigates how immune cells and cytokines drive chronic diseases such as autoimmunity and cancer, with a particular focus on the immunosuppressive functions of regulatory T cells (Tregs) induced by IL-2 and TGFß. His research aims to translate these insights into novel immunotherapies for inflammatory diseases and has been supported by major national agencies and industry collaborations.

Andrew Dippel is Associate Director in the Analytics and Developability group within AstraZeneca's Biologics Engineering department, where he has been advancing biotherapeutic development since 2019. He earned his PhD in Chemical Biology from UC Berkeley, bringing deep expertise in molecular sciences and protein engineering to his current role. Andrew leads the high-throughput developability team, focusing on early-stage developability screening of biologics and developing machine learning models to predict developability properties. His work combines automated assay technologies with predictive analytics to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of drug development decisions across AstraZeneca's diverse pipeline.

Rakesh Dixit is an accomplished executive, inventor, and scientist with over 35 years of success with top biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Medimmune - AstraZeneca. Currently, he is President and CSO of Regio Biosciences and Bionavigen, LLC. He is a Board Member of Regio Biosciences and a key member of multiple scientific advisory boards. Rakesh is also a chief adviser and consultant for more than 20 companies worldwide. His biopharmaceutical peers selected Rakesh as one of the 100 Most Inspiring People in the Pharmaceutical Industry by PharmaVOICE in 2015. Rakesh received the Most Prestigious Award of Long-Standing Contribution to ADCs by World ADC (Hanson-Wade), 2020. From 2006 to 2019, Rakesh was a Global Vice President of the Biologics R&D at Medimmune - AstraZeneca. Rakesh has unique expertise in developing biologics (e.g., monoclonal antibodies, bispecific biologics, antibody-drug conjugates, fusion proteins, peptides, gene and cell therapies, etc.) and small-molecule biopharmaceuticals. His areas of expertise include discovery, early and late preclinical development, safety assessment, DMPK, and translational sciences. Dr. Dixit conducted extensive graduate and post-graduate training in Pharmacology/Toxicology–Biochemistry with both Indian and USA institutions (e.g., Case Western Reserve University, Medical College of Ohio, University of Nebraska) and is a Diplomate and Board Certified in Toxicology from the American Board of Toxicology, Inc. since 1992.

Patrick Doonan, Ph.D. is a Director of Alliance Management and Antibody Engineering at Ailux. He brings over a decade of industry experience in the field of antibody drug discovery from target ID to FIH. During his tenure at Pfizer and Janssen, he published several high impact journals, furthering efforts in bispecifics, ADCs, and costimulation across multiple disease areas. His postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania focused on calcium regulation of CART while collaborating with the Carl June lab. His recent focus has been to bring AI-driven drug discovery into use across different modalities.

Grant Downes is the President, COO, & Co-Founder of a stealth life science tools company developing next-generation protein binders to accelerate discovery for research and biotechnology partners. He is a bioengineer with expertise in protein engineering and analytical development. Grant also brings early-stage venture experience as a venture fellow at BioGenerator Ventures in Saint Louis, Missouri where he conducts diligence on numerous biotech opportunities, supports investment decisions, and works with earlystage teams to strengthen their business plans and commercialization strategies. He now applies this investor-informed lens to guide early-stage biotech startup product strategy, market positioning, and operations. Grant earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Kansas and his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Wichita State University. He was also a former Division I decathlete.

Matthew is currently the head of the Eukaryotic Expression Group for Protein Expression Laboratory (PEL) at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research in Frederick, Maryland. The Eukaryotic Expression Group expresses a variety of proteins in support of the NCI RAS Initiative and for investigators at the National Institutes of Health. The Eukaryotic Expression Group also focuses heavily on inventing and developing novel technologies to improve protein expression and production with a focus primarily on baculovirus production. Matthew received his undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland and then went to work as a Production Scientist at Trevigen, Inc. where he helped to express and produce the company’s large portfolio of products as well as help in the development of many of their new products. Matthew joined the PEL in 2015 and has since helped the PEL and RAS Initiative to improve the overall expression of numerous proteins and complexes.

Leader of a small team responsible for discovery biologics HTP production. Over 15 years of protein production experience in the biotech industry. Experience utilizing multiple host systems, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, to produce incredibly diverse proteins native to bacteria, plants, and humans.

Dr. Barry Duplantis has a strong technical background and over a decade of experience applying drug and vaccine discovery and development platforms in commercial settings. He was the founder and CEO of a biotech startup and later led client relations at a global contract research organization. Dr. Duplantis earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Microbiology from the University of Victoria, where his research focused on intracellular pathogenesis.

The COO of GeneFrontier Corporation (GFC) since 2010, with a focus on advancing cell-free protein expression technologies, particularly the PURE system. Earned a Ph.D. in cell-free protein synthesis from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2000, and played a key role in the establishment of GFC in 2003, leveraging his deep expertise in cell-free protein synthesis following experience in life science venture capital.

Sasha Ebrahimi earned his B.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016 with in Chemical Engineering. He then went on to earn his PhD in 2021 at Northwestern University working with Professor Chad Mirkin. Sasha joined GSK in 2021 where he is currently a Scientific Leader in the emerging drug delivery platforms team. Sasha’s research at GSK has focused on finding new strategies to enhance the biochemical properties of protein- and oligonucleotide-based therapeutics, thereby boosting these molecule’s clinical efficacy and prospects for successful development. His work has been recognized with >20 awards of national and international scope, including the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 35 Under 35 award, the CASSS Next Generation Investigator award, and selection as a STAT Wunderkind.

Lindy Edwards is the Senior Document Specialist for the IEDB and CEDAR programs at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology. Her primary role is in data curation facilitation, as well as assisting in database outreach and measuring the impact of the IEDB on the scientific community.

Monir Ejemel, PhD, is a Senior Research Scientist in Discovery Biotherapeutics (Protein Sciences) at Bristol Myers Squibb, specializing in antibody and nanobody engineering, AAV promoter and vector design, and recombinant protein expression with deep expertise in stable cell line development and delivery. Dr. Ejemel brings over 12 years of experience from MassBiologics, part of UMass Chan Medical School, where he focused on drug discovery for infectious disease targets including COVID-19, Lyme disease, and rabies, as well as oncology indications. His work encompasses therapeutic biologics development, disease modeling, and bioanalytical support for clinical studies. Dr. Ejemel is a named inventor on patents for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and synthetic promoters for gene therapy, reflecting his commitment to translational innovation. He has contributed to numerous high-impact publications and has a strong record of project leadership and R&D team management in both academic and biotech industry settings. Dr. Ejemel holds a PhD in Molecular, Cellular, and Organismal Biology from UMass Medical School, a BS in Biology from UMass Boston, and grad degree in Organic Chemistry from Université Cadi Ayyad in Morocco.

Hunter is an interdisciplinarian with a decade of experience developing machine learning tools to solve biomedical research problems. Moving from biophysics into computer vision during his PhD research at The Scripps Research Institute and Harvard Medical School, he then founded and led the Image and Data Analysis Core at Harvard Medical School. He was an early member of PathAI where he helped build the machine learning tech, platform, and team and led ML research. At BigHat he has developed novel predictive and generative methods for antibody engineering before recently taking on leadership of ML.

Senior Principal Scientist at UCB BioPharma based in the UK. I have over 30 years experience as a Molecular Biologist working in the biopharma industry on both E. coli and mammalian expression systems, antibody engineering, and cell engineering.

Sam Ellis is an entrepreneur, team builder, business leader, investor, biochemist and molecular biologist who has worked in the Biotech industry for over 20+ years. Sam has successfully closed multiple deals in biotechnology-focused partnerships with large, small pharma, academic, and government entities. He has successfully grown multiple businesses including Thomson Instrument Company. He is listed as inventor on more than 48 patents. He has collaborated to publish with Genentech, Pfizer, Takeda, and other companies in groundbreaking scientific areas. Sam is a regular speaker at PEP Talk & PEGS, and speaks publicly at multiple conferences, and regularly gives technical seminars at companies.

CEO & Cofounder of Adaptyv Bio. Protein designers should be designing, not pipetting. We build automated wet labs to allow you to synthesize and test any protein you design!

M. Frank Erasmus is the head of bioinformatics at Specifica, Inc. where he specializes in the use of next-generation sequencing technologies and software development to aid in the design of and selection from therapeutic antibody libraries. Formerly, Frank was awarded a national fellowship from the National Cancer Institute for his translational research associated with B cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia conducted at the Spatiotemporal Modeling Center and Los Alamos National Labs. He brings over 13 years of experience in both biotechnology and academic settings in the development and characterization of therapeutic antibodies using theoretical modeling, bioinformatics, and experimental approaches.

Justin Eyquem, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hem/Onc at UCSF. He is also an Investigator at the Gladstone-UCSF Institute for Genomic Immunology and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He holds Master’s degrees in bioengineering and genetics from the Paris School of Agronomy (AgroParisTech) and the University of Paris. He earned his PhD in immunology and molecular biology from University of Paris and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Michel Sadelain at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2019, he joined UCSF as a Parker Fellow and became an Assistant Professor in 2021. Dr. Eyquem’s research focuses on optimizing genetically modified immune T cells, known as CAR-T cells, to fight cancers and other diseases. He has pioneered methods to edit the genome of human CAR-T cells and developed techniques to reprogram their functions both outside the body (ex vivo) and inside the body (in vivo). Additionally, he leads a preclinical team dedicated at designing the most effective therapies for a UCSF clinical pipeline. Finally, he participated in multiple collaborations to facilitate the manufacturing of CAR-T cells for clinical use. His work has earned him several awards, including the 2019 Parker Fellow Award, the 2023 ASGCT Outstanding New Investigator Award, and the 2024 Pew-Stewart Award.

Bill is currently the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Deep Target Biotherapeutics where he leads therapeutic discovery and development efforts of antibodies, immune cell engagers and in vivo cell therapeutics directed against profibrotic targets and against tumor specific antigens. Prior to joining Amgen in 2002, Bill was a Scientific Director and Project Leader in the Vascular Biology Department at Immunex where he worked in various positions of increasing responsibility within research and development for 14 years (Cellular Immunology, Tumor Immunology and Immunobiology). Bill was involved with preclinical work that led, in part, to the development of Eternacept. During the 12 years Bill was at Amgen, he progressed to become an Executive Director at the Amgen Washington site where he was originally an investigator in the Hematology-Oncology Therapeutic area focusing on target discovery/validation, therapeutic discovery and preclinical development of targeted biotherapeutics including receptor-Fcs, effector function-enhanced monoclonal antibodies, blocking antibodies, anti-CD3 bispecifics and antibody drug conjugates-ADC(AMG595,AMG172 and AMG224). As a scientific leader, Bill fostered and managed innovation and moved to the newly formed Therapeutic Innovation Unit (TIU) at Amgen where he directed a group of 19. In the TIU, Bill and his teams developed strategic platforms that offered biological innovation and created novel biological insight into diseases across multiple therapeutic areas/modalities, including cancer immunotherapy, general oncology (targeted therapeutics), iPSC (cyno, human) generation, and cyno autologous tumor model development for pharmacological evaluation of biotherapeutics. Bill was the lead or co-lead of multiple biotherapeutic programs from target discovery and validation into Phase 1. Bill subsequently co-founded Sound Biologics in 2015, where he served as the executive vice president of research and development/CSO and drove the biology and IND-enabling/IND filing activities for its lead programs PSB205 and PSB202. The company focused on its unique MabPair antibody platform development and on drug discovery and clinical development of MabPairs directed against Oncology and Immuno-Oncology-related targets. Its two lead MabPair, programs, a dual-function ICI (PSB205), and a targeted B cell lymphoma therapy (PSB202) both entered clinical trials. PSB205 was approved by NMPA(China) for metastatic cervical cancer. It is currently in Phase 2 in the US for hepatocellular carcinoma and several Phase 3 trials in China. In 2020 Bill joined Fibrocor Therapeutics as the Senior VP of Therapeutic drug discovery and development where he led efforts to develop fully human antibodies that could inhibit profibrotic targets notably driving FIB918 into IND-enabling activities. He joined the Deep Target team in late 2025. Bill’s major research interests include growth factor/ growth factor receptors, transplantation immunobiology, T cell function/adaptive immunity, immunotherapy, immunooncology, cancer biology and fibrotic disease. Bill has developed multiple preclinical in vivo pharmacology disease models in transplantation, angiogenesis and cancer and has enjoyed developing targeted biological anti-tumor therapies including antibody drug conjugates. Bill has an ongoing interest in translational medicine including the identification and development of biomarkers and building evidence for therapeutic biological impact in patients during the Phase 1 and the E2L transition. Bill is passionate about delivering impactful medicines to cancer patients and other patients with serious illness. Bill is a named inventor on over 54 issued US patents, multiple European/ROW patents and multiple pending applications. He is the author or co-author of more than 110 peer-reviewed publications. Bill received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University. He did his post-doctoral work at Rice University/UTHSC.

Dr. Jonathan A. Fauerbach (PhD, MBA), Head of R&D at LenioBio GmbH, leads scientific innovation and strategic advancement of the ALiCE cell-free eukaryotic platform for high-throughput protein expression. With expertise in expressing complex proteins—including full-length mAbs, intractable antigens like GPCRs, and therapeutic mini-binders (nanobodies, VHHs, peptides)—he drives lab-in-the-loop workflows that collapse discovery timelines from weeks to days. Dr. Fauerbach earned his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires and conducted postdoctoral research in protein biophysics at Stanford University and the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, focusing on neurodegenerative disease mechanisms and aggregation kinetics. His industry leadership includes Business Segment Leader for Cell Separation at Miltenyi Biotec, plus dual MBAs from Rotterdam School of Management and University of Cologne.

Born in Australia, Walter earned his PhD in Immunology at the University of California, Davis, and conducted research at the DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto, California. In 2003, he joined Novimmune to lead the anti–interferon gamma antibody program (NI-0501), which ultimately became Novimmune’s first approved drug and remains the only treatment for primary Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH). Over the course of his career, Walter has built and led preclinical and translational sciences teams advancing monoclonal and, more recently, bispecific antibodies in immuno-oncology, contributing to multiple programs that have progressed from discovery to clinical development. In 2019, he became Chief Scientific Officer of Light Chain Bioscience, where he continues to drive the company’s pipeline of novel bispecific antibodies for cancer immunotherapy.

Dr. Ricardo Fernandes leads the Immune Receptor Signalling Group at the CAMS Oxford Institute and the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. After completing his PhD with Prof. Simon Davis (Oxford), focusing on the T cell receptor (TCR) triggering mechanism, he pursued postdoctoral research at Stanford, developing novel methods for antigen discovery and checkpoint inhibition via phosphatase recruitment. His current research combines protein engineering, structural biology, and immunology to dissect T cell signalling and design innovative approaches for modulating immune responses in autoimmunity and cancer.

Dr. Ferreira's goal is to control how the immune system recognizes self and non-self. He is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the Hollings Cancer Center. He obtained a B.Sc. in biochemistry at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. As a Ph.D. student at Harvard University with Dr. Jack Strominger and Dr. Chad Cowan, he was the first to report the use of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in primary human cells – hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and CD4+ T cells – ablating CCR5 and B2M expression and demonstrating that edited HSCs generated lymphoid and myeloid cells in humanized mice. He also helped generate hypoimmunogenic human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) via CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene knock-out and knock-in and demonstrate protection from immune attack in vitro and in humanized mice and uncovered a novel enhancer element regulating the expression of HLA-G, a non-classical human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecule key to maternal-fetal tolerance. As a postdoctoral scholar with Dr. Qizhi Tang and Dr. Jeffrey Bluestone at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), he created an anti-HLA-A2 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and used CRISPR/Cas9 to knock it in the endogenous T cell receptor (TCR) gene locus in human regulatory T cells (Tregs). HLA-A2 CAR Tregs were suppressive and trafficked to human HLA-A2+ islets in humanized mice. In his laboratory at MUSC, together with his trainees and his collaborators, he is designing and developing the next generation of engineered regulatory T cell therapies for autoimmune disease, cancer, and aging.

Felix Findeisen is a Principal Scientist II, leading the Membrane Protein Production group at Gilead Sciences since 2024. He obtained his doctorate degree in the lab of Irmgard Sinning at the University of Heidelberg in Structural Biology, elucidating mechanistic insights through structural biology on G-protein coupled receptors and pathogenic signaling pathways. His post-doctoral studies on the regulation of voltage-gated ion channels were conducted with Daniel Minor at UCSF. In 2014, he joined Achaogen as an antibody engineer to help build out a large molecule therapeutic antibody department. From 2018 to 2024 he lead several groups in Protein Purification and Protein Sciences at BMS.

With 25 years in large pharma and cell therapy, Damien specializes in large molecule and cell therapy Bioanalysis (PK/PD) and drug product release (ADQC) by setting strategy, delivering data interpretations, and representing bioanalytical/analytical interests on cross-functional teams. Outside work, he enjoys lake time—water-skiing, fishing, and floating in quiet coves with his wife, two daughters, and dog.

Nicolas Fischer obtained a PhD in Biology from the Department of Molecular Biology University of Geneva on the structure and function of photosynthetic complexes. As a postdoctoral fellow he joined the Group of Sir Greg Winter at the MRC Department of Molecular Biology in Cambridge UK to study protein folding and Antibody engineering using phage display. In 2001 he joined NovImmune and led several therapeutic antibody discovery programs that have reached clinical development stage and developed next generation bispecific therapeutic antibodies. After the successful divestment of the FDA approved anti-INFg antibody Emapalumab, Novimmune now focuses on its bispecific technology under the brand Light Chain Bioscience in which Nicolas serves as CEO.

Kevin began his career at Cambridge Antibody Technology (now part of AstraZeneca) when CAT was still in its start-up phase. He went on to found and manage Isogenica Ltd and has since held CEO positions with PhosImmune Inc., Activiomics Ltd and F-star GmbH. Kevin studied for his PhD in the laboratory of Sir Gregory Winter at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge and for his MBA at Aston Business School.

Dr. Yves Fomekong Nanfack is the Head of AI/ML – Research at Takeda, where he leads the integration and application of artificial intelligence and machine learning across drug discovery. Before joining Takeda, he served as Head of AI End-to-End Foundations at Sanofi, where he launched the BioAIM program to transform biologics research through data and AI. Earlier in his career at Merck/EMD Serono, Yves led teams in computational chemistry and computational biology, advancing digital and data-driven approaches to discovery. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Amsterdam and brings more than 15 years of experience at the intersection of AI, data science, and pharmaceutical research.

Shelley Force Aldred, Ph.D., is Co-Founder and CEO of Rondo Therapeutics. Prior to starting Rondo, Dr. Force Aldred was a member of TeneoBio’s founding team where she led preclinical development for the company’s CD3 T-cell engager platform which ultimately generated $1.5B in up-front payments through partnerships and an acquisition by Amgen. Early in her career, Dr. Force Aldred developed a passion for starting companies when she co-founded SwitchGear Genomics and later sold it to Active Motif. Dr. Force Aldred earned a Ph.D. in Genetics from Stanford where she continues to be involved as an advisor for Stanford’s SPARK translational medicine program and as a member of the Board of Governors for the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association.

Eric C. Frey, Ph.D. is the current CSO, and co-founder of Rapid, LLC. He retired as a Professor from the Radiological Physics Division of Johns Hopkins Russel H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science. He has been involved in nuclear medicine imaging research since 1988 and has made contributions in the areas of scatter compensation, dual radionuclide, quantitative reconstruction in SPECT and task-based image quality assessment. He is a fellow of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and was a recipient of the SNMMI’s Edward J. Hoffman Award in 2018. He has been an advisor to 21 Ph.D. students and has authored more than 150 journal publications. Software written by him and his students was licensed to GE Healthcare and was part of the Evolution reconstruction package; a more advanced version was also licensed to Rapid. He was the architect and author of the curve fitting, error propagation, and dose calculation engines in 3D-RD-S, Rapid’s FDA-cleared organ dosimetry product.

Masha Fridkis-Hareli, MSc, PhD, is an immunologist, consultant, and inventor with over 25 years of experience in academia and industry. She is Founder and CEO of Palena Therapeutics, Inc., a start-up biotechnology company that designs and develops precision immunomodulatory peptide therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. Her areas of expertise include cellular and structural immunology, cell- and protein-based assays, in vitro pharmacology and preclinical immunotoxicology. She has held a variety of positions in industry with increasing responsibilities at Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals, Charles River Laboratories, Taligen Therapeutics and Alexion Pharmaceuticals. At Taligen, Dr. Fridkis-Hareli was responsible for the in vitro pharmacology effort and contributed to discovery and development of its drug pipeline leading to acquisition by Alexion. Dr. Fridkis-Hareli is Founder and President of ATR, LLC, a translational research company that provides scientific consulting and laboratory services in immunoassay development to research institutions and biotechnology companies. During her post-doctoral training at Harvard University, she designed and developed a group of novel compounds for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Dr. Fridkis-Hareli holds a Ph.D. in Cell Biology and Immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science, an M.Sc. in Molecular Genetics from Hebrew University, and a B.A. in Biology from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Fridkis-Hareli is a co-author of over 100 publications and 18 issued patents. She is an adjunct professor at the Harvard Extension School and Worcester Polytechnic Institute where she teaches courses in biotechnology and immunology at the graduate biotechnology programs.

Kevin Friedman is the Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Kelonia Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering in vivo gene delivery to expand the therapeutic impact and accessibility of transformative CAR T cell medicines. An accomplished drug developer and recognized leader in cell and gene therapy, Kevin brings more than twenty years of experience spanning scientific innovation, translational development, and executive leadership. Prior to founding Kelonia, he served as Vice President of Oncology Research and Development at bluebird bio, where he led the development of multiple programs including Abecma, the first approved anti-BCMA CAR T cell therapy for multiple myeloma. Kevin holds numerous patents and publications in the fields of immune-oncology and gene therapy. He earned his Ph.D. from Oregon Health & Science University and completed postdoctoral training in the Surgery Branch at the National Cancer Institute.

Mark received his PhD from University College London in 2003. His post graduate research in the laboratory of Professor Karl Hale was synthesising the antitumour macrolide Bryostatins resulting in the enantioselective formal total synthesis of Bryostatin 7. Mark has worked in various roles at KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, Pharminox and more recently PolyTherics/Abzena. He is an expert in the design and development of Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) linkers and was instrumental in building Abzena’s site-specific ThioBridge conjugation technology platform now in Phase II for the production of stable and homogeneous ADCs, as well as Abzena’s site-specific polymer PEGylation linker technology including TheraPEG, CyPEG and HiPEG, for the half-life extension of peptides and proteins. Mark joined Bicycle Therapeutics in 2022 heading the Peptide, Organic and Medicinal Chemistry Groups in the UK, involving the design and development of bicyclic peptide drugs and conjugates. Mark’s focus is in developability assessment and he has 42 publications and patents in the field of early stage drug discovery.

Dr. Christina (Runzhong) Fu is a Senior Principal Scientist in Immunogenicity Science at Pfizer, where she leads immunogenicity risk assessment strategy and method innovation to support the development of complex biologics and antibody–drug conjugates. She previously headed cell-based and discovery assay development in ADC bioanalysis at Pfizer (via the Seagen acquisition), focusing on fit-for-purpose PK, ADA and NAb methods for oncology programs. Dr. Fu earned her PhD in Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Southern California and an MRes in Drug Discovery and Development from Imperial College London. Her earlier academic work in autoimmune disease and peptide therapeutics, together with diverse industrial experiences in bioanalysis and immunogenicity assessments, underpins a broad toolkit spanning cell biology, bioanalytical method development, and translational pharmacology.

With experience spanning next-generation sequencing, spatial biology, and AI-driven software, Kit Fuhrman has led teams to develop innovative tools that advance biological discovery and human health. As Vice President of Product Management and Operations at Almaden Genomics, guiding the creation of a cloud-native, AI-enhanced bioinformatics platform. Previous roles include leading RNA sequencing products at Twist Bioscience and launching spatial biology initiatives at NanoString Technologies. Kit Fuhrman holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Florida.

Eric brings experience in leadership roles in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to the role of Chief Scientific Officer at Mosaic. He is a visionary leader and drug hunter in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. As CSO and President of R&D at Eleven Biotherapeutics, his leadership drove an IPO that financed Phase 3 clinical studies and a lucrative licensing deal on a second therapeutic asset. His building the Adnectin protein therapeutic discovery platform at Adnexus resulted in the acquisition of the company by BMS, where subsequently five adnectins were advanced into clinical studies. As VP Preclinical Development at Regeneron, he played pivotal roles in developing game-changing drugs, such as Eylea. Eric received his PhD in Biochemistry from Brandeis University

Upon finishing his studies in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dr. Furtmann pursued his interdisciplinary Ph.D. thesis in Computational Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Bonn, focusing on computer-aided design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of protease inhibitors. After starting his professional career at Merck KGaA as Principal Scientist, he joined Sanofi in 2016 as Lab Head for Data Science within the Biologics Research department. Currently, Dr. Furtmann heads the global Biologics AI & Design teams responsible for the computational design and optimization of next-generation protein therapeutics.

Dr. Gajewski directs the Melanoma Oncology Clinic and leads the Immunology and Cancer Program of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received his BS, PhD in Immunology, and MD degrees from the University of Chicago, and remained for a residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Hematology/Oncology. His PhD mentor was T cell immunologist Dr. Frank Fitch, and he went on to do a post-doctoral fellowship at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Brussels with Dr. Thierry Boon for studies in anti-tumor immunity. After returning to Chicago, Dr. Gajewski joined the faculty in 1997. The focus of Dr. Gajewski’s work has been on understanding fundamental aspects of anti-tumor immunity and bringing these concepts forward from the laboratory into clinical trial testing in patients. While working on melanoma vaccine strategies, his laboratory uncovered a role for downstream resistance pathways allowing tumor evasion from the immune response. Gene expression profiling and IHC approaches have identified the T cell-inflamed and non-T cell-inflamed tumor microenvironment phenotypes. The T cell-inflamed tumors contain tumor antigen-specific T cells but also negative regulatory pathways that have been moved forward as drug targets, including blockade of PD-1/PD-L1 interactions and of IDO. Strategies to promote T cell priming and infiltration into non-T cell-inflamed tumors have led to STING pathway agonist development, currently in clinical testing. Genomic characterization of non-T cell-inflamed tumors has revealed oncogene pathways that mediate T cell exclusion, the first of which was the Wnt/ß-catenin pathway. Recent work has also identified germline polymorphisms and evidence for commensal microbiota that also regulate anti-tumor immunity, and microbiota interventions such as FMT have also moved into the clinic. Dr. Gajewski has published more than 240 manuscripts and 20 book chapters in these areas, and has presented data at more than 400 scientific conferences. He is past president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, is founding editor of the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, is past chair of the Cancer Immunopathology and Immunotherapy grant review study section at NIH, has served on the program committees for ASCO and AACR, and is a grant reviewer for the Melanoma Research Alliance and Cancer Research Institute. In 2016 he became the first recipient of the American Cancer Society-Jules L. Plangere Jr. Family Foundation Professorship in Cancer Immunotherapy, and was designated a Distinguished Professor at the University of Chicago. Among other recognitions, he was named the AbbVie Foundation Professor for Cancer Immunotherapy, received the William B. Coley Award for contributions to the field of cancer immunology, the ESMO award in Immuno-oncology, and was inducted into the American Association of Physicians. He has had continuous NIH funding for 20 years, and is scientific co-founder of Jounce Therapeutics and Pyxis Oncology.

Dr. Natalie Galant is the CEO and co-founder of Paradox Immunotherapeutics, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the creation of antibody therapies for the treatment of rare protein misfolding diseases, especially those characterized by amyloidosis, using a platform with a proven track record of success. Prior to this role, Natalie received her PhD from the University of Toronto's Department of Medical Biophysics, where her PhD work helped lead to the development of a monoclonal antibody currently in FDA clinical trials for the treatment of cardiac amyloidosis. She is the recipient of numerous academic fellowships, awards (incl. winner of BIO 2023 Start-Up Stadium), and has co-authored several scientific publications in research areas ranging from chemical informatics and cryo-EM to immunotherapy drug development.

Mayank Gandhi, M.D. is Cofounder and CEO of NEOK Bio. Mayank is MD by training with over two decades of professional experience spanning biopharma-focused finance roles (equity research, public/private equity) and operational roles in large and small biopharma companies (commercial ops, medical affairs, clinical development, business development).

Francis obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from University of Sherbrooke in 2015, during which he developed a molecular docking program for docking small molecules to flexible protein or RNA targets. While doing his PhD studies, Francis co-founded a successful IT company for automating the management of scientific conferences. Francis joined the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada in 2016, where he has taken part in and led various efforts in the discovery and engineering of antibodies or other biologics. In such efforts are included the structure prediction of antibodies alone or in complex, the affinity assessment of antibody-antigen complexes, and the detection of antibody developability issues. Francis is leading the technical efforts in using artificial intelligence for antibody discovery.

Katie Gaynor is a Principal Scientist in the Platform Technology & Sciences Department at Bicycle Therapeutics. She currently leads the activities of the Phage Platform team in utilizing their innovative phage display technology to deliver on a large portfolio of diverse targets. During her time at the company she has played a key role in multiple early stage drug discovery projects across a range of indications including oncology, virology, and neuroscience. Katie holds a DPhil in Clinical Medicine from the University of Oxford and has over 20 years of scientific experience across biotech, pharma, and academic settings.

Melissa is the Vice President of Drug Discovery at Diagonal Therapeutics. She has over 15 years of industry experience in the discovery and development of innovative antibody drugs. Melissa has also worked at Biogen, Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals in their early discovery groups. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute and received her PhD in Biochemistry from Emory University.

Dr. Gee received his B.S. degree in Biology at the California Institute of Technology in 2013, where he published and patented work engineering T cell receptors for adoptive T cell therapy in the laboratory of David Baltimore. Following that, he received his Ph.D. in Immunology with an additional core focus in Computational Immunology at Stanford University in the laboratory of K. Christopher Garcia in 2017, publishing his main work on novel technology to identify the specificities of T cell receptors for application in oncology. He completed further work on characterizing the structural basis of T cell receptor recognition of immunological targets and T cell receptor cross-reactivity. Dr. Gee has had prior work experience at the National Cancer Institute, where his primary focuses were in immunology, structural biology, protein engineering, systems biology, bioinformatics, and algorithms for the application of therapeutic- and early- discovery in immuno-oncology. He is currently VP, Target Discovery at 3T Biosciences since co-founding the company in 2017.

Nimish Gera is an independent consultant and biotech executive with broad experience across antibody-based modalities including mono- and bispecific antibodies, protein fusions, and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) across several therapeutic areas such as oncology, immunology, autoimmune, and rare diseases. He has held scientific and/or leadership roles at companies ranging from early-stage startups like Mythic Therapeutics and Oncobiologics to large organizations such as Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Genentech. With more than fifteen years in drug development, Nimish has successfully advanced complex bispecific and ADC programs from concept through preclinical and early clinical stages. He serves as Associate Editor of the journal mAbs, hosts the Chain Protein Engineering podcast, and teaches the Developability of Bispecific Antibodies short course at the PEGS Boston and Europe conferences. Nimish has a proven track record of bringing multiple drug candidates to clinical trials, publishing peer-reviewed articles, building IP portfolios, and chairing national and international meetings on antibody therapeutics. He holds a PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from North Carolina State University and a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.

Dr. Saba Ghassemi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and serves as a Principal Investigator at the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on developing novel CAR T cells with enhanced potency through a multidisciplinary approach that integrates engineering with CAR T cell immunology. Dr. Ghassemi pioneered the development of an abbreviated culture paradigm, resulting in less differentiated progeny with improved potency. This breakthrough led to a successful clinical trial at UPenn utilizing a 3-day manufacturing process. Additionally, she has devised a novel method for delivering CAR transgenes into quiescent T cells, enabling the generation of highly potent CAR T cells within 24 hours. Dr. Ghassemi is currently spearheading efforts to transition this innovative platform into an upcoming clinical trial at Penn. Her groundbreaking work has garnered recognition through several research grants and patent applications aimed at enhancing CAR T cells' efficacy, expansion, and fitness for adoptive immunotherapy. Dr. Ghassemi's ongoing research endeavors focus on optimizing, streamlining, and automating the manufacturing process of CAR T cells, with the overarching goal of enhancing the translational applicability and accessibility of these novel therapies to a broader range of geographical locations and patient populations.

Dr. Ghayur retired from AbbVie (July 2021) and works as an independent consultant. He has 30+ years’ experience leading multi-disciplinary and cross-therapeutic area Biologics discovery programs and developing novel Biologics platforms. Several biologics programs resulted in clinical development candidates. Dr. Ghayur led the team that pioneered the discovery and development of the Dual – variable – Domain -Ig (DVD-Ig) and other multi-specific platforms. Dr. Ghayur also led the team that defined the uptake, intracellular trafficking, and lysosomal degradation of anti-TNF mAbs/DVD-Ig, resulting in the concept of anti-TNF-ADC (next-Gen anti-TNF). In addition, Dr. Ghayur proposed and helped implement several corporate-wide (Abbott & AbbVie) initiatives to foster cross-functional/cross-TA collaborations to bring forward innovative concepts/programs.

Luca Giani is a Senior Principal, investor, and serial entrepreneur with a track record across venture creation, M&A, and translational science. He specializes in bridging science, strategy, capital, and talent to help build mission-driven ventures. Luca was the Founder & CEO of Ilios Therapeutics, a neuroscience company developing a novel chemistry platform to address ALS, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease. Under his leadership, Ilios built a diversified preclinical pipeline, advanced lead optimization, filed foundational IP, and positioned the company for strategic partnerships. Luca is a Termeer Fellow, part of a global network of emerging biotech CEOs mentored by industry leaders. He previously served as a Blavatnik Fellow in Life Science Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, and as a Technology and Public Purpose Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, appointed by and working with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, where he authored policy work on accelerating treatments for neurodegenerative diseases under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Langer. Earlier in his career, Luca co-founded Innbiotec Pharma; led international investments in MedTech and digital health at 5Lion Ventures; and co-founded and commercialized Somnifix, a patented sleep apnea and snoring therapy. He began his career in M&A at Credit Suisse, followed by strategy consulting at Bain & Company in London, advising clients on market expansion, transformation, and operational optimization. Luca holds a Master with Distinction from Harvard, has completed programs at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, and MIT Sloan, and earned his B.S. magna cum laude from Georgetown University.

Nathan C. Gianneschi is a Professor and entrepreneur with a B.Sc(Hons) from the University of Adelaide, Australia in chemistry and biochemistry (1999), a Ph.D in chemistry at Northwestern University (2005) and postdoctoral training in chemical biology at The Scripps Research Institute. In 2008 he began his career at the University of California, San Diego. Since 2017, Gianneschi has been Jacob & Rosaline Cohn Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science & Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacology at Northwestern University.

Sebastian Giehring earned his PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Hamburg. He subsequently worked in a scientific role at a spectrometry company before transitioning to a venture capital firm as an investment manager for life sciences. In 2006, he chose to change to the startup sector, taking on various management roles in life science tool companies. In 2014, he invented the PAIA microplate technology and founded PAIA Biotech GmbH, where he has served as CEO ever since.

Julia Gilden is a Senior Scientist at Promega Corp. Her group specializes in the development of bioassays for immuno-oncology applications, with a special focus on cell therapies and the use of primary human cells. She received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences with a focus in immunology from University of California, San Francisco and completed postdoctoral training in cell biology and parasitology at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Clare Gillis is a DPhil student in Statistics at the University of Oxford, where she is a member of the Oxford Protein Informatics Group (OPIG) under the supervision of Professor Charlotte Deane. In collaboration with AstraZeneca, her research focuses on expanding the nanobody drug design space. She holds an HBSc in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology from the University of Toronto.

Bryan Glaser, PhD, currently serves as Invenra’s Senior Vice President of Business Development responsible for leading the company’s efforts in partnering the Invenra pipeline assets as well as establishing new strategic collaborations. He was a founding member of the Invenra scientific team and previously served as Vice President of Research, responsible for overseeing the development of the company’s B-Body™ multispecific technologies, as well as early discovery efforts for internal and partnered programs in immuno-oncology. Prior to Invenra, Bryan was a postdoctoral fellow/Senior Scientist at the non-profit, SRI International. He received his BS in Medical Microbiology and Immunology and his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from the University of Wisconsin.

Adi Goldenzweig is a computational protein design expert specializing in protein stability, expression, and developability for various applications ranging from antigens, membrane proteins, antibodies and enzymes. During her PhD at the Weizmann Institute under Prof. Sarel Fleishman, she developed PROSS, a widely adopted platform for stability design used by over 1,000 researchers in academia and industry. Her work also included the zero-shot design of a stabilized variant of the malaria vaccine antigen RH5, which is now in clinical trials. Today, as Co Founder and CTO, she leads multidisciplinary teams of researchers and engineers developing computational platforms that integrate AI with physics based modeling to address key engineering challenges in complex biotherapeutics, drug targets, vaccine antigens and API producing enzymes.

Zinaida Good, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology and the Division of Computational Medicine at Stanford University. She also serves as the Director of the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy Data Hub. The goal of her research program is to understand and enhance engineered T cell immunotherapies for cancer and immune-mediated diseases through innovative computational approaches and systems immunology. Her lab leverages innovation in machine learning and clinical multiomic datasets to build artificial intelligence systems for advanced T cell therapy design. Dr. Good earned her Ph.D. in Computational & Systems Immunology from Stanford University. Her work includes 4 first-author papers (Nature Medicine 2018 & 2022, Nature Biotechnology 2019, Trends in Immunology 2019), 18+ co-authored papers (including Nature 2019, 2022, 2024, Science 2021, Nature Methods 2016, 2022, and NEJM 2024), and an initial senior author papers (ICML 2025, NeurIPS 2025, Frontiers in Immunology 2025). Her research is supported by the NIH/NCI Pathway to Independence Award, NIH/OD Multimodal AI Initiative Award, NIH/NCI Program Project Grant, and the Weill Cancer Hub West. Dr. Good has been named an Arthur & Sandra Irving Cancer Immunology Fellow in 2022, Parker Bridge Fellow in 2023, and an AACR-Woman in Cancer Research Scholar in 2024.

Neal Goodwin is the Chief Scientific Officer at Immuto Scientific, with responsibility for drug discovery programs. With over 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development, Neal has contributed to successful IPOs, multiple technology deals, and award-winning research projects. Neal’s core competencies include advanced translational platforms, drug discovery and development, and gene delivery technologies. Neal received a Ph.D. in Microbiology from The University of Montana and served an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at The Jackson Laboratory with John Schimenti (now at Cornell).

Dr. Andreas Goutopoulos founded Actithera with the vision of bringing medicinal chemistry-driven innovation to radioligand therapy. He has over 25 years of experience in drug discovery, including leadership roles at EMD Serono, where he directed the chemistry organization, and at M Ventures, where he served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence supporting company creation and scientific diligence. Andreas has led the discovery of more than a dozen development candidates across therapeutic areas. His scientific leadership and commitment to precision molecular design continue to shape Actithera’s approach to building transformative oncology therapeutics.

Michael earned his BA in Chemistry (2012) at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ and earned his Ph.D in Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania (2018) in the group of Ronen Marmorstein, where he focused on utilizing biochemistry and structural biology to explore dimerization of the kinase BRAF. Following graduation, Michael started as a postdoctoral researcher at Rockefeller University and then started his industry journey in the Discovery Biotherapeutics- Protein Sciences Characterization group at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) in 2021. There, he became familiar with early discovery within biologics, screening biological drug candidates for stability and binding to help determine which candidates should be prioritized. He has since moved to Merck in the Biologics-Analytical Research & Development (B-AR&D) group in 2023, and works on method development on aggregation, and characterization techniques such as UP-SEC, CE-SDS, icIEF, N-Glycan analysis and more.

Dr. Victor Greiff is Associate Professor for Computational and Systems Immunology at the University of Oslo. His work focuses specifically on the development of machine learning, computational and experimental tools for the analysis, prediction and engineering of adaptive immune receptor repertoires.

Physician-scientist, clinical leader, and entrepreneur with a proven track record of translating breakthrough immunology into curative therapies. Ricardo Grieshaber-Bouyer, MD PhD is Professor of Clinical Systems Immunology and Head of the Clinical Trial Unit. He leads a dynamic clinical and translational research team. His team has pioneered the first-in-patient applications of T-cell redirecting therapies for autoimmune diseases, with seminal studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Nature Medicine. Professor Grieshaber-Bouyer serves as a Global Principal Investigator for innovative, early-phase trials and manages a portfolio of cutting edge immunology studies focused on precision cell depletion. Academically, he leads a 15-member research group that works on developing new precision cell depleting therapies and understanding immunological hallmarks of therapy response and relapse. This research program is supported by nearly $10 million in secured PI funding. Bridging academia and industry, Professor Grieshaber-Bouyer leverages his dual background in medicine and business to drive the development of innovative therapeutics by serving on Scientific Advisory Boards and advising on preclinical benchmarking, asset acquisition and clinical strategy. For his impact at the intersect of clinical, scientific, and private sectors to build programs that deliver cures for autoimmunity, Professor Grieshaber-Bouyer was honored as Forbes 30 Under 30.

Dr. Groaning received his PhD in Organic Chemistry at Colorado State University before moving on to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland for his postdoctoral research in natural product total synthesis. From there he started his career at Roche initially in medicinal chemistry before moving to Roche Colorado where he transitioned to process research. In 2008, he moved to Endocyte and began his tenure there in process development before transitioning into regulatory affairs and finally clinical development. He lead the prostate cancer program exploring EC1169, a PSMA targeted small molecule drug conjugate, before Endocyte in-licensed PSMA-617 which became the approved drug Pluvicto. After the acquisition of Endocyte by Novartis, Dr. Groaning spent three years at Amgen working on the STEAP1 targeted T-Cell engager program before moving back into the radioligand space. He joined Fusion in January, 2024 as the Global Program Leader for the Ac-225-PSMA program until Fusion was acquired by AstraZeneca. In September 2025, he began his tenure at Soricimed Biopharma as their CSO focusing on the development of TRPV6 targeted radioligand therapies.

Carissa Grose has more than 25 years of experience in biotechnology with a focus on molecular biology and genome engineering. In her current role as Co-Director of the Protein Expression Laboratory at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, she oversees the design, expression, purification, and quality control of a wide variety of difficult protein targets to serve the RAS Initiative as well as other NIH organizations.

Amanda Gross, Ph.D., Associate Director, Immunology, has over seven years of industry experience, specializing in antibody characterization and functional profiling. At SeromYx Systems, she plays a key role in managing and executing studies that leverage advanced, antigen-specific assays to better understand antibody function beyond binding. Amanda earned her Ph.D. from Tufts University and is passionate about applying translational immunology to support vaccine and therapeutic development.

Haotian Guo is the founder and CEO of Ailurus Bio, driving innovation at the intersection of synthetic biology and AI to advance life sciences and biotechnology. He has pioneered synthetic organelle technologies leveraging liquid-liquid phase separation to transform applications ranging from metabolic engineering to recombinant protein production, with his work featured in Cell and major media outlets. Haotian earned his Ph.D. from the University of Paris and has contributed to research and education at leading institutions, including INSERM, Tsinghua University, MIT, UCSF, and Fudan University.

Dr. Priyanka Gupta is a Principal Scientist in the Biotherapeutics Molecule Discovery group at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. She has several years of experience in the discovery and optimization of antibody-based therapeutics. Her interests lie in engineering and developability of early antibody candidates to become therapeutics. Priyanka earned her Ph.D in Biochemistry & Biophysics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and M.S in Biotechnology from Texas Tech University.

Valeria Guzman is an Associate Principal Scientist at Catalent with 20 years of experience in protein biophysics and protein folding. She specializes in downstream process development for complex biologics, building scalable, data-driven chromatography platforms for multispecifics. Her expertise integrates the biophysical properties of molecules with resin characteristics to design robust purification strategies that deliver high purity and manufacturing-ready processes for complex modalities. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the UNAM and is passionate about translating molecular complexity into consistent, scalable downstream solutions.

Mojtaba is a senior principal machine learning (ML) scientist at Pfizer, conducting data-driven research in life sciences. Prior to Pfizer, he developed ML models and Python libraries at the University of California, Berkeley, and SUNY Buffalo with a focus on computational chemistry and protein engineering. His research interests include developing ML solutions to accelerate virtual screening of molecules, ab initio molecular dynamics simulation, and biotherapeutic discovery. Mojtaba received software fellowship from the Molecular Sciences Software Institute in 2018. His heart is always with open-source software solutions and FAIR data for molecular science research.

Andreas Hald was originally trained as an in vivo neurobiologist at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, but changed his focus to investigating tissue-regenerative processes and cancer. After taking on various responsibilities in biotech and the pharma industry, Andreas now manages the Department of Research Bioanalysis at Novo Nordisk, Denmark. Throughout his career, Andreas has developed, implemented, and utilized analytical methods to assess biological readouts for disease models, with a particular emphasis on using antibodies to isolate or detect proteins and peptides from various sources including liquid and solid biopsies, as well as cultured cells. In response to the increasing diversity and complexity of drug modalities, and the time constrains in a competitive industry, Andreas and his team have established novel automated digital processes and end-2-end analytical platforms for drug-exposure analysis.

Leading the Biologics Characterization, Expression and Purification group for US research at Sanofi in Cambridge MA since 2021. Previous spent 5 years at Merck and 9 years at Amgen in similar protein production leadership roles.

Bonnie Hammer, PhD, currently serves as Executive Vice President, Research & Development at Invenra. She brings more than 20 years' experience in cell biology, disease modeling, applications development, and assay development for drug discovery to the role. Prior to joining Invenra, Bonnie held a research and development leadership role with Life Technologies (now Thermo Fisher Scientific), where she worked on cellular models for oncology, Parkinson's disease, and aging. In addition, she previously served as a research area manager for membrane targets including G protein coupled receptors and ion channels. She holds PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Oregon.

Lora Hamuro is the Senior Director of Clinical Pharmacology & Pharmacometrics at Bristol Myers Squibb, with a robust background in clinical oncology drug development. She holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Shippensburg University, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Penn State University College of Medicine, and an M.S. in Pharmacometrics from the University of Maryland. Her career spans roles at Provid Pharmaceuticals and Merck, and she has extensive experience at BMS, contributing to over 15 INDs and leading strategies for multiple regulatory submissions for oncology agents like Opdivo®, Yervoy®, and Augtyro™. Lora has designed numerous clinical pharmacology studies, published 47 peer-reviewed articles, and actively participates in professional societies. She is a member of ASCPT, ISoP, and SITC, and hosted the ISoP Sheiner lecture series podcast "Table Talk". Her interests focus on quantitative methods to understand immunogenicity impact, to enhance drug development and to optimize oncology dosing strategies.

Yi is a Principal Scientist – Data Science in Quantitative Sciences, PIDT, Biologics Development at Bristol Myers Squibb in New Brunswick, NJ. She focuses on clinical method trending and monitoring, data analysis and visualization, and the development of data strategies and automation techniques. She also serves as co-chair of the BD Data Science Forum, supporting data science and digitalization initiatives. Previously, Yi worked at Protheragen Inc. She holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from University of Connecticut.

Rami Hannoush is a Venture Partner at Versant Ventures, where he leads life science investments and company creation initiatives. As an investor, he focuses on building and scaling early-stage biotech ventures, driving scientific strategy, and shaping high-impact partnerships with leading global pharmaceutical companies. Prior to joining Versant, Rami was a General Partner at Mubadala Capital, where he led investments across a portfolio of early- and late-stage biotech companies. Rami also brings over two decades of hands-on drug development experience spanning large pharma and emerging biotech. He was the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of EpiBiologics, where he also served as its founding Chief Scientific Officer. Earlier in his career, he held R&D leadership roles at Genentech, overseeing preclinical and translational strategies for advancing multiple drug candidates in immunology and oncology, with a strong focus on innovative drug modalities. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry from McGill University and did his postdoctoral training in chemical biology and cell biology at Harvard.

Dr. Brittany Hartwell is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. Her lab’s research in immunoengineering combines perspectives from biomolecular engineering, drug delivery, and immunology to develop molecular platforms that can target specific cells and tissues of the immune system to direct the immune response, with a particular focus on targeting and 'tuning’ the mucosa. This work has broad applications ranging from the development of antigen-specific immunotherapies that induce immune tolerance against autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases, to development of targeted vaccines that activate immune protection against cancer and infectious diseases. For this work she was recently selected as one of four researchers worldwide to receive a 2022 Michelson Prize, awarded to early career investigators in human immunology and vaccine research. Prior to starting her faculty position at the University of Minnesota in fall 2021, she completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Darrell Irvine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2021) in immunoengineering, where she worked on developing mucosal vaccines. She received her PhD in biomolecular engineering with Dr. Cory Berkland from the University of Kansas (2016), where she worked on developing multivalent antigen-specific immunotherapy platforms for autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis. She received her BS in chemical and biological engineering from Iowa State University (2011).

Winston is the VP Computational Sciences and Engineering at LabGenius, where he leads a team of experts in data science, machine learning, and software development to expand LabGenius’ ML-driven discovery platform capabilities. He has extensive experience leading the development and application of computational tools to advance both antibody therapeutics (BigHat Biosciences) and diagnostics (Serimmune). Winston holds a PhD in Biomedical Informatics from Stanford University, where he was a NSF GRFP fellow.

Lily Helfrich is a Product Manager at Benchling, where she leads product development for Scientific Modalities. Lily has played a pivotal role in shaping tools that empower scientists to design, make, and test biologics more efficiently including spearheading efforts to support plate-based workflows and advancing Benchling's end-to-end approach to biologics discovery.

Dr. N Lance Hepler, PhD, is CIO and a Founding Scientist at Infinimmune. He received his PhD from UCSD, where he worked within the Center for AIDS Research on epitope discovery tools and applications of high-throughput sequencing. Thereafter he joined PacBio as a Software Engineer and developed and implemented algorithms for variant discovery and sequence consensus. Following his time at PacBio, he joined 10x Genomics as a Computational Biologist, where he worked on the development and productization of new assays for single-cell RNA-seq, copy number variation, and spatial RNA-seq. Today, Dr. Hepler is leading AI efforts at Infinimmune, among other responsibilities.

Jana is Head of Science at Genedata, where she works with customers and partners to design and implement data strategies that enable AI and automation driven biopharma R&D. She brings over 20 years of experience across academia and industry, focused on combining high quality experimental data, advanced analytics, and scalable data platforms to accelerate scientific decision making. Jana holds a PhD in Biology from MIT and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, MA, where she developed a strong foundation in data intensive molecular biology and next generation sequencing.

Tim has 15 years’ experience contributing to immunogenicity risk and mitigation strategies for large molecules and advanced therapies at Roche and Pfizer, from early discovery projects to those in clinical development and post-marketing. During the last ten years he has contributed immunology expertise to the development of an in silico immunogenicity model, with the purpose of improving predictions of clinical immunogenicity for drug candidates. Tim previously worked on vaccine development and holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Oxford.

Dr. Ho’s research focuses on the basic and translational biology of glypicans, including GPC1, GPC2, and GPC3, as new targets in cancer. His team has developed mammalian cell display technology and constructed shark VNAR and camel VHH single-domain antibody phage display libraries, advancing antibody engineering and drug discovery. Immune therapeutics created in his laboratory, including CAR T cells, are progressing toward multiple clinical trials for liver cancer, pediatric cancers, mesothelioma, and other malignancies. Dr. Ho earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Ira Pastan at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). He became a tenure-track Investigator at NCI in 2008 and a Senior Investigator with tenure in 2015. He currently serves as Deputy Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Director of the Antibody Engineering Program at NCI. Dr. Ho is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Antibody Therapeutics and serves on the boards of the Antibody Society, the Chinese Antibody Society, and the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences. His honors include the APAO Scientific Achievement Award, the Dr. Francisco S. Sy Award for Mentorship Excellence at HHS, election as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2023, and the Asian American Engineer of the Year Award in 2024.

Alexander Hobby is a Strategic Account Manager at Integral Molecular in Philadelphia, where he manages working relationships with the company's largest pharmaceutical partners in large molecule characterization and therapeutic development. With a PhD in Translational Medicine from Temple University and postdoctoral training in the epigenetic mechanisms of heart failure at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Alex developed a deep appreciation for how groundbreaking research translates into real-world impact. Driven by a passion for connecting cutting-edge science with commercial application, he transitioned from academia to industry, returning to Philadelphia to join Integral Molecular. He spent two years as Product Manager for the Membrane Proteome Array, a comprehensive platform for assessing antibody specificity. In his current role, he leads the management of strategic accounts and facilitates the adoption of the MPA across a diverse array of companies and pipelines

Kerstin Hofer is a Principal Scientist at Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, where she leads the bioconjugation lab. She has extensive experience in the delivery of oligonucleotide-based therapeutics to target tissues, such as the brain.

Dr. Robert Hofmeister is Chief Scientific Officer at CREATE Medicines, where he leads the development of multi-immune cell in vivo mRNA CAR products for the treatment of cancer and autoimmunity. He has over 25 years experience in immuno-oncology, gene therapy, and drug discovery. Previously, he served as CSO at Resonance Medicine and TCR² Therapeutics, and held R&D roles at EMD Serono and Micromet, contributing to the development of Bavencio and Blincyto.

Zicheng Hu is a Principal Scientist in the Department of BioAnalytical Sciences (BAS) at Genentech. He studied T cell immunology and received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. He received postdoctoral training at the University of California San Francisco and conducted research in computational immunology. Zicheng joined Genentech in 2022. He leads data mining efforts to understand the anti-drug antibody responses and develops predictive models to evaluate the immunogenicity risk of protein-based therapeutics.

Andrew earned his PhD in molecular biology from the University at Albany under the direction of Professor Robert Osuna, identifying and characterizing post translational modifications of the transcription factor DksA in E. coli. He joined ProImmune in 2019 after completing his doctorate and currently works on providing innovative solutions for clients that deeply improve our understanding of both desired and unwanted immune responses.

Dr. Jailkhani currently serves as CEO of Matrisome Bio. She is a biotech entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in oncology, extracellular matrix (ECM) biology, and radiopharmaceutical research across MIT, the Broad Institute, Harvard, and ICGEB. As founding CEO, Dr. Jailkhani has led Matrisome since its inception, raising venture capital seed financing, building a world-class team, and driving the company’s vision to develop first-in-class targeted therapies for cancer by leveraging disease-restricted ECM proteins. Prior to Matrisome Bio, Dr. Jailkhani was a Research Scientist at the Koch Institute at MIT, where she oversaw development of the platform technology that now serves as the company’s foundation. She is an inventor on Matrisome Bio’s core intellectual property, and her work on ECM-targeted nanobody therapies has resulted in multiple publications and patent applications for cancer detection and therapy. Dr. Jailkhani earned her PhD in Immunology from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), completed her postdoctoral fellowship at MIT as a Mazumdar-Shaw International Oncology Fellow, and has been recognized as a 2025 Henri Termeer Fellow.

Mani Jain is a Principal Data Scientist at Amgen, where she develops and deploys machine learning models to accelerate biologics discovery and optimization. Her work spans protein language models, developability prediction, and data-driven strategies for molecule selection, with a focus on improving properties such as viscosity, aggregation, and pharmacokinetics. She has led cross-industry collaborations on federated learning for protein models and holds a Master of Science in Bioinformatics from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Jeliazko is a Lead Protein Design Scientist on the Machine Learning team at Profluent Bio. His research focuses on the application of foundation models and their derivatives to challenging protein engineering tasks like multi-objective optimization and the design of new-to-nature functions. Prior to Profluent, he evolved enzymes for biocatalysis at GSK, discovered peptide binders through directed evolution at the University of Zurich, and built computational models for protein-protein interactions at Johns Hopkins University.

Moonsoo Jin, Ph.D. serves as Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Radiology at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. He earned his doctorate in bioengineering from MIT and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. His current research focuses on engineering CAR T cells for cancer therapy and developing antibody-based platforms for cancer imaging and targeted drug delivery. Dr. Jin’s innovations have led to CAR T cell therapies now in clinical trials for advanced thyroid cancer, with additional studies launching soon for gastric and breast cancers. Beyond his academic contributions and mentorship of emerging scientists, he has successfully founded three biotech companies, each driven by a mission to create safer, more effective, and broadly accessible treatments.

Geoffrey B. Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor of Radiology, is board-certified in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine and recently rotated out of an 8-year tenure as Chair of Nuclear Medicine at Mayo Clinic. Under his leadership, Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN has become the largest theranostic center in the world, averaging 40 therapies per week for 2023. Dr. Johnson now serves as Associate Director of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center (MCCCC) and as Chair of Radiopharmaceutical Therapy. Dr. Johnson is founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Nucleus RadioPharma, a CDMO for radiopharmaceutical development, production, and delivery. Dr. Johnson was the top-recruiting physician in the MCCCC in 2022 and has enrolled over 140 patients on radiopharmaceutical cancer therapy trials in the last 3 years, serving as overall PI and local PI. He also serves as Co-PI on multiple active theranostic trials. Dr. Johnson is a co-inventor of Alpha-PET Double-L.E.T. theranostic technologies, the first of which is now licensed to Perspective Therapeutics. Dr. Johnson served as Medical Director of the Nuclear Medicine Technology Program, Program Director of the Nuclear Radiology Fellowship Program and Chair of PET/MR research and development committee. Dr. Johnson earned his B.S. in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving Tau Beta Phi academic honors. He completed his M.D./Ph.D. in the Mayo Medical-Scientist Training Program as the Davis Physician-Scientist Scholar. He completed postdoctoral training in immunology and surgery in the Mayo Graduate School. He went on to complete an internship in internal medicine, a residency in diagnostic radiology and a fellowship in nuclear radiology in Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education. In recognition of his work, Dr. Johnson has received awards and honors, including the Roentgen Resident Research Award and the twice the Honored Educator Award, conferred by the Radiological Society of North America; Physician/Scientist of the Year, conferred by Mayo School of Health Sciences; and the Carman Award for Excellence in Clinical Practice, conferred by the Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic. Dr. Johnson is active in research and education, garnering more than 30 awards with trainees on projects at national and international meetings. Dr. Johnson’s memberships with 13 professional organizations include the AAI, ACR, ABR, ARRS, RSNA, ASNC, SNMMI and STR.

Eva Lindskog is Chief Commercial Officer at NanoTemper Technologies, where she leads the company’s global commercial organization and growth strategy. She has more than 15 years of experience in senior leadership roles across the Life Sciences industry, spanning bioprocessing, contract manufacturing, and analytical technologies. Prior to joining NanoTemper, Eva held leadership positions at Sartorius, where she led the Fluid Management Technologies business area, as well as at Lonza and GE Healthcare (now Cytiva). Her experience includes global strategy, commercial transformation, pricing, and portfolio management, as well as M&A and integration. Eva holds a PhD in Bioprocess Technology from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She combines scientific expertise with commercial leadership and is passionate about translating complex technologies into real-world impact.

Andrei is a Senior Data Scientist in the InSilico Biologics Discovery team at Novo Nordisk, working on biologics design and optimisation. With an extensive background in drug discovery at ADC Therapeutics, UCB and Almac Discovery, Andrei is leveraging molecular machine learning and AI to speed up the discovery of novel, developable and efficacious therapeutics.

I am currently Director of Protein Analytics and Developability at AstraZeneca, where I lead the development and implementation of analytics and developability strategies for biologics. My expertise spans antibody engineering and development for therapeutics, beginning with my PhD at Tel Aviv University investigating conformational changes in HIV gp120 with sensitive antibodies, followed by postdoctoral research at the National Cancer Institute designing advanced anti-cancer immunotoxins. Since joining AstraZeneca, I have driven progress in biologics engineering and contributed to several pipeline projects, notably including the anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody cocktail AZD7442 (EVUSHELD).

Ashty Karim is an assistant professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. With a foundation in chemical engineering and synthetic biology, he has worked in cell-free systems for >10 years at the intersection of biology and chemistry developing technologies to efficiently harness biological systems to convert waste to value. His research group develops biological molecules, systems, and processes to enable global sustainability, with a particular focus on increasing our ability to biorecover critical minerals, biorecycle carbon, and biomanufacture new materials and medicines. He earned his B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University. Embracing the academic mission of developing both knowledge and people, Ashty has also spent the last several years co-developing new educational frameworks, courses, and workshops for learning and teaching synthetic biology.

Developability Analytics of Biologics at Research Scale: The emphasis on developability assessment of large molecules in early research is becoming increasingly important with the advent of highly engineered antibodies. I have had the unique opportunity to study the diverse modalities of antibody formats in the Sanofi pipeline and am eager to learn more about molecular attributes that result in the development of successful therapeutics.

As a Senior Vice President, Research and Technology for Marengo Therapeutics, Madan Katragadda leads the Research and CMC groups responsible for discovering and developing novel T-cell engaging multispecifics at Marengo Therapeutics. He has more than 15 years of experience discovering and developing a wide range of biotherapeutic modalities spanning peptides, fusion proteins, antibody-drug-conjugates, and multispecific antibodies. His first foray into biotherapeutics started with the discovery of peptide-based complement inhibitors during his postdoc tenure at the University of Pennsylvania. His work led to out-licensing of an anti-C3 peptide to Apellis pharmaceuticals, who are currently testing it in several inflammatory diseases. At Pfizer, Madan led an Antibody Engineering group, built cross-functional teams to deliver on innovative ideas and new technology platforms and managed several biotherapeutic projects through internal and external collaborations. He delivered several biotherapeutic candidates to treat Inflammatory and oncology indications for preclinical/clinical development. His work at the University of Pennsylvania and Pfizer resulted in several patents and publications.

Mary Keir is a Distinguished Scientist and Director in Immunology Discovery at Genentech, where she leads the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) research strategy. She completed her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by a successful post-doctoral fellowship with Arlene Sharpe at Harvard Medical School studying the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway. Her interests in immunology and translational science took her next to Genentech, where she has led biomarker and research projects from early discovery all the way through to Phase 3 studies. While at Genentech, her work has resulted in five granted patents more than 40 papers over interests spanning mucosal immunology, the microbiome, host-microbe interactions predictive biomarkers and IBD biology.

John Kenney is President & CEO of Antibody Solutions, a contract research organization specializing in therapeutic antibody discovery and development. Dr. Kenney holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the Université Louis Pasteur and has authored over 50 publications. As an antibody scientist and entrepreneur with over 40 years of experience in antibody discovery, John has helped discover at least 10 therapeutic antibody candidates that made it to clinic, with at least 2 of those becoming approved therapeutics.

Zahid Khan is a Scientific Investigator working in Analytical R&D at GSK, located in the greater Philadelphia area. With 10+ years of experience in supporting the analytical development of pharmaceuticals, Zahid has been involved in the higher-order structure characterization of biopharmaceuticals, forced degradation studies to evaluate structure-function relationships, and support comparability for monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutic proteins. He holds a master’s degree in pharmaceutical analysis from Campbell University, NC, and a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from India.

Trained as an immunologist with passion for CAR T therapy and immuno-oncology.

Takanori Kigawa, Dr. Sci., is Senior Scientist of RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS), Japan. He graduated from Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo in 1994 and started his professional career as a research scientist in RIKEN. He has developed a variety of technologies related to the cell-free protein synthesis system and NMR-based structure biology, and most of them were patented and commercialized.

Dr. Yejin Kim is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Health Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and Associate Director of the Center for Secure Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare at UTHealth Houston. She received her PhD in Machine Learning from POSTECH in 2018 and leads a multidisciplinary lab developing AI/ML models for therapeutic antibody discovery and validation. Her group recently ranked among the top five teams globally in the IQVIA AIntibody Challenge for AI-based antibody design. Dr. Kim has secured over $8 million in extramural funding, including multiple NIH R01s as principal investigator, and published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in top biomedical informatics journals and AI conferences. She serves on numerous NIH study sections and international grant panels, and as an editor for PLoS Biology and BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. Her work bridges experimental biology and AI to accelerate therapeutic innovation.

Seahee Kim, PhD, is the Director of the Organoids Technology Group at Samsung Biologics, and a biopharmaceutical industry professional with over 15 years of experience spanning research and business strategy. She leads the Organoids Technology Group and played a key role in launching Samsung Organoids, supporting oncology research by translating advanced science into strategic, client-ready solutions. Prior to joining Samsung Biologics, she worked at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. She received her PhD in Molecular Virology from Yonsei University in South Korea and completed her postdoctoral training in Neuroscience at Penn State University in the United States.

Jiwon Kim is a product lead for Amazon Bio Discovery at AWS AI Life Sciences — an agentic AI application for drug design and discovery. He is an engineer and scientist with a Ph.D. in Macromolecular Science & Engineering from the University of Michigan, where his research focused on engineering synthetic biomaterials for tissue regeneration. He has worked across different industries from consumer goods to tech, innovating across hardware, software, and AI/ML.

Laura Kingsley is a Principal Scientist in the Protein Engineering group at Boehringer Ingelheim. Laura earned her Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry from Purdue University and brings over 12 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including several years in small-molecule research before transitioning to biotherapeutics. Laura' group specializes in integrating in-silico approaches and machine learning with high-throughput experimental platforms to design and optimize multispecific antibodies and novel biologics. She is passionate about ensuring computational models and machine learning strategies are grounded in experimental feasibility.

Dr. Stuart Knowling, a Principal Scientist at Sartorius, brings over 20 years of biophysical expertise in protein and nucleic acid production. He has developed BLI and SPR assay formats for monoclonal antibody therapies and target binding assays for diverse molecules. Stuart actively presents his work globally and leads authorship on numerous documents, advancing Octet® BLI and SPR technologies to ensure users generate high-quality data efficiently. His work supports drug discovery and regulatory submissions, meeting the evolving demands of the industry.

Prof. Kobold is a board certified clinical pharmacologist and immunologist. He studied medicine in Germany, Switzerland and France. His postgraduate and residency training took him through Hamburg and Boston to Munich. In Munich, he established his research group focussing on cancer immunotherapy with a focus on T cells and antibodies. Since 2016, he serves as an attending physician in the division of clinical pharmacology at the University hospital of the LMU where he was appointed full Professor and deputy director of the division in 2019.

Harald Kolmar is full professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany where since 2005 he heads the Department of Applied Biochemistry. He holds a PhD and habilitation in biochemistry and molecular genetics from University of Tübingen and Göttingen. His current scientific interests mainly focus on protein engineering and design, nanobiotechnology, antibody engineering, chemical biology and development of tailor-made peptides and proteins for applications in diagnostics and therapy.

Xiangxu is a seasoned life sciences leader dedicated to bridging the gap between cutting-edge science, innovative technology, and therapeutic development. With a background in biophysics and chemistry, he has successful launched bioscience innovations across genomics and proteomics fields. Over the past two decades, Xiangxu helped research teams in pioneering single molecule sequencing, single-cell sequencing, and high-parameter multiomics cell profiling. His passion lies in delivering high-value solutions that transform complex research into actionable insights, driving accelerated drug development and therapeutic progress. Xiangxu received his PhD from University of California, Los Angeles, and his BS from Peking University.

Dr. Alan Korman is a world-leading pioneer in developing cancer immunotherapies and is currently SVP, Immune Targeting at Vir Biotechnology. As Vice President for Immuno-Oncology Discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), he led the development of biologics for tumor immunotherapy. Prior to BMS, Dr. Korman held various positions at Medarex. His tenure at BMS and Medarex led to the development of three approved drugs for oncology, ipilimumab (anti-CTLA-4) and nivolumab (anti-PD-1), and their combination, which initiated the approach of checkpoint blockade, as well as relatlimab (anti-LAG-3) in combination with nivolumab. Dr. Korman received his PhD in Cellular and Developmental Biology from Harvard University and was a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also a staff scientist at the Institut Pasteur prior to moving to the biotechnology sector.

Dr. Chris Koth is the Vice President of Biotherapeutics and Discovery Sciences at Denali Therapeutics where he oversees the discovery, engineering and advancement of large molecule therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases using their blood–brain-barrier transport vehicle platform. Prior to joining Denali in 2021, Dr. Koth was the Director of Structural Biology at Genentech where he initiated and oversaw various drug discovery research efforts, as well as the optimization of challenging membrane, soluble and secreted proteins for structural studies, assays and small molecule, macrocycle and antibody discovery. His work at Genentech spanned many therapeutic areas, including neurobiology, metabolism, infectious diseases, and immunology. Dr. Koth received his PhD from the University of Toronto where he worked on the structure and function of transcription elongation factors, in the lab of Dr. Aled Edwards.

With nearly two decades of pioneering experience in biotechnology and pharmaceutical research, I am currently serving as Senior Director of Small Molecule Discovery at Leash Bio. My career has been marked by groundbreaking contributions in high-throughput protein expression and production, protein design and characterization, and advancing hit-to-lead programs. Prior to Leash Bio, I held pivotal roles including at Recursion Pharmaceuticals, where I spearheaded ultra-high-throughput screen development for novel oncology drug discovery, leveraging high dimensional maps for drug discovery and launching programs for hit-to-lead. At Genentech, as Senior Scientific Manager and Group Lead, I led teams in high-throughput protein design, screening and production across E.coli, insect cells (baculovirus), and mammalian cells. This significantly enhanced efficiency and throughput through automation and innovative workflows while contributing to launching early projects into the portfolio. While at Monsanto, I contributed to and led discovery and collaborations in high throughput protein design and production, phenotypic screen development and receptor discovery. My expertise spans the integration of advanced technologies to accelerate drug discovery, from computational modeling and protein engineering to high-throughput screening methodologies. I continue to drive innovation at the intersection of biology and technology, aiming to unlock new therapeutic possibilities and advance healthcare globally.

Konrad Krawczyk specializes in computational methods to develop antibody-based therapeutics. He obtained doctorate and pursued a postdoc at the Oxford Protein Informatics Group, contributing to leading software currently used by academia and pharma industry alike. He was a postdoc and Assistand Professor of Precision Medicine at the University of Southern Denmark. Currently he is the technical founder of NaturalAntibody, company that is focused on development and implementation of computational innovations in the pharma sector focused on antibody-based therapeutics.

Rohith's research interests lie at the intersection of AI and biological discovery. During his Ph.D. with Dr. David Baker at the University of Washington, he initiated the first efforts to model and design biomolecular interactions beyond proteins using AI, including small molecules, nucleic acids, and post-translational modifications. This work led to several AI models, including RoseTTAFold All-Atom (Krishna et al.), RFdiffusion2 (Ahern et al.), and RFdiffusion3 (Butcher et al.). He has spoken at well-known venues across the world, including the White House and the University of Cambridge. He holds a B.A. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Chemical Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Cosimo Kropp is the Chief Executive Officer of 2bind Pharma Services, a biotechnology contract research organization focused on early-stage small molecule drug discovery and antibody development. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from the University of Regensburg, focussing on protein engineering. After joining 2bind in Business Development, he advanced through several leadership roles to become CEO. During this time, he also completed an Executive MBA, combining scientific expertise with a strong focus on strategy and commercialization.

Anneliese Krueger is a Cell Line Development Project Leader at ProBioGen. She is a biotechnology professional with extensive research experience in protein binding modulation and protein expression optimization of pore-forming toxins.

For over six years she has been deeply engaged in cell line development at ProBioGen, successfully engineering high-expressing cell lines for IgGs, bispecifics, and enzymes. She is actively involved in continuous optimization efforts in ProBioGens cell line development. As a Project Leader, she has successfully led projects focusing on high-quality expression, glycoengineering, and biosimilar development. A key aspect of her work is leveraging transposase integration technology of the DirectedLuck Transposase to consistently achieve high-yield protein expression.

Sandeep Kumar, PhD is interested in discovery and development of biotherapeutics and has been conducting research in this area for more than 20 years. More recently, Sandeep is building a vision of Biopharmaceutical Informatics that supports end-to-end discovery and development of biologic medicines. So far, Sandeep Kumar has contributed towards 120 research articles and book chapters. He has also edited two books entitled "Developability of Biotherapeutics: Computational Approaches” and "Biopharmaceutical Informatics: Learning to Discover Developable Biotherapeutics."

Krishna Kumar is Robinson Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University. He is a Member of the Cancer Center at the Tufts Medical Center in Boston. He received his PhD from Brown University in 1996 and after postdoctoral studies at the Scripps Research Institute joined Tufts in 1998. Kumar’s contributions to science, and in particular chemistry and medicine, have been recognized widely. He was named a DuPont Young Professor, recognized as one of the top 35 young innovators in the world by MIT Technology Review magazine (TR35), awarded a Global Indus Technovator award from MIT-IBC, is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award, Technology award from the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center, Excellence in Chemical Sciences Award from the Indian Society for Chemistry and Biology and was elected a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). His contributions to science range from the origin of life, peptide and protein design, medicinal chemistry, biophysics and cell and molecular biology. In particular, he is credited with developing therapeutics for a wide range of infectious and metabolic diseases.

Anil Kumar holds a Ph.D. in Protein Engineering from NTU, Singapore, and brings over a

decade of experience in biopharmaceutical R&D, with expertise in protein design and

therapeutic innovation for immune-oncology and autoimmune indications.

Prior to joining KACTUS Bio, Anil served as Director of Antibody Discovery and Protein

Engineering at ImmunOs Therapeutics in Switzerland, where he spearheaded the

development of next-generation HLA and monoclonal antibody based therapeutics. His

team successfully advanced multiple immune-oncology programs, including the

company’s lead candidate IOS-1002 into Phase 1 clinical development for solid tumors.

At KACTUS Bio, Anil blends his deep scientific expertise with strategic business

development, aiming towards building partnerships and delivering high-quality

recombinant proteins and GMP-grade enzymes to accelerate drug discovery and

development efforts.

Dr. Labanieh is an Assistant Professor in the Icahn Genomics Institute (IGI) and the Precision Immunology Institute (PrIISM) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. As a bioengineer with expertise in synthetic biology, immunoengineering, and T-cell biology, Dr. Labanieh is developing next-generation high performance platform technologies to address the most pressing challenges for cell therapies for cancer. He developed SNIP-CAR, a drug-regulated CAR platform that enhances the safety and efficacy of CAR-T cells. The findings from his work credentialed this platform as best-in-class and laid the foundational preclinical studies to support a Phase I clinical trial of the SNIP CAR platform in relapsed/refractory solid cancers at Stanford. He has also developed technologies for drug-regulated control over cytokine signaling in engineered T-cells as well as a platform for purification of multi-engineered, sophisticated cell therapies. He has worked collaboratively to create logic-gated T-cells, injectable hydrogels for delivering cell therapies and cytokines, and technologies for imaging cell therapies in vivo. Dr. Labanieh is a co-inventor of 13 technologies spanning the fields of cell therapy, diagnostics, and high-throughput drug discovery. These technologies have been licensed to five biotechnology companies, including CARGO Therapeutics, a publicly traded and clinical stage CAR-T startup that Dr. Labanieh co-founded. The Labanieh Lab focuses on the development of biotechnologies that allow for precision genetic engineering and control of cell functions in vivo, with a particular focus on platforms that enhance the efficacy and safety of cell and gene therapies for cancer and other diseases.

Dr. Pin-Kuang Lai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Stevens Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University in 2011 and 2013, respectively, and completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota in 2018. His doctoral research focused on developing computational and experimental approaches to study antimicrobial peptides. From 2018 to 2021, Dr. Lai conducted postdoctoral research at MIT, where he investigated antibody stability at high concentrations. Dr. Lai has collaborated with leading pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Merck, Sanofi, and Takeda, as well as national laboratories such as NIST and Brookhaven. His work focuses on advancing computational tools, including machine learning and molecular simulations, alongside biophysical characterization methods such as NMR and SAXS, to predict and analyze antibody aggregation and viscosity at high concentrations. He also explores the underlying mechanisms driving these phenomena. In addition to his academic and research endeavors, Dr. Lai serves as an Assistant Editor for the mAbs journal.

Christopher Langmead, PhD is Vice President of Molecular Design Technology at Danaher, where he defines the technical strategy for applying AI to molecular discovery across the company’s life sciences and diagnostics portfolio. His work focuses on translating advances in generative AI, predictive modeling, and automation into scalable capabilities for designing and optimizing proteins, antibodies, and mRNA. Previously he was Executive Director of AI and Data at Amgen, where his team developed AI systems that impacted every therapeutic program. Before industry, he spent 18 years on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in the departments of Computer Science and Computational Biology.

Thierry obtained his PhD from Université Laval and was previously an associate professor at the University of Edinburgh before joining Rapid Novor. With his extensive experience in proteomics, Thierry leads the polyclonal antibody sequencing efforts and built the platform from the ground up. He dedicates his time to researching innovative ways to explore the immune system through next-generation protein sequencing.

Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at The Ohio State University and obtained his postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School, UCSF and Stanford University. He earned his M.S. in Developmental Biology and B.S. in Biology Education from Seoul National University. Dr. Lee also brings years of experience from global biopharmaceutical companies, including Chiron (Novartis), AstraZeneca, Genentech and Exelixis, where he gained cross functional knowledge in drug discovery, preclinical and clinical development of therapeutic antibodies. Dr. Lee founded ABL Bio in February 2016 with the vision to build a company that offers patients a better life based on innovative science and led to publicly traded biotechnology company listed on the KOSDAQ market (ticker 298380) of South Korea in December 2018. Dr. Lee has focused on diversifying ABL’s portfolio of bispecific antibody-based treatments for cancer and neurodegeneration. Under his leadership, ABL has advanced multiple 4-1BB based bispecific antibodies into clinical trials and announced multiple licensing agreement with Sanofi (ABL301, a bispecific antibody targeting alpha-synuclein and containing BBB shuttle), GSK (Grabody-B Brain Delivery BBB Platform License Agreement), Compass Therapeutics (VEGF /DLL4 BsAb), CStone (ROR1 ADC jointly developed with LigaChem Biosciences) and Yuhan Corporation (Her2x4-1BB and EGFRx4-1BB BsAb). Dr. Lee also brings years of experience from global biopharmaceutical companies, including Chiron(Novartis), AstraZeneca, Genentech and Exelixis, where he gained cross functional knowledge in drug discovery, preclinical and clinical development of therapeutic antibodies. Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at The Ohio State University and obtained his postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School and Stanford Medical School. He earned his M.S. in Developmental Biology and B.S. in Biology Education from Seoul National University.

Jaeweon Lee, MSE, is a Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, working in Dr. Seongkyu Yoon’s laboratory. His research focuses on upstream monoclonal antibody (mAb) manufacturing process development, including perfusion media recycling, process analytical technology (PAT), and continuous processing. Prior to beginning his Ph.D., he contributed to an FDA project investigating the relationship between API localization in lipid bilayers and the toxicity of the liposomal drug AmBisome®. He later trained at the U.S. FDA in both upstream and downstream mAb bioprocessing, gaining hands-on experience in bioreactors, purification, and critical quality attribute (CQA) analysis. During his doctoral studies, he has been developing an integrated upstream platform designed to control CQAs in steady-state perfusion processes. In his talk, he will share his experience with the three commercially available CHO cell culture media and their impact on the glycosylation patterns of mAbs.

Scott Lesley is InduPro's President and Chief Scientific Officer leading all platform and drug discovery functions at the Company. Prior to joining InduPro, Scott was Vice President of Discovery Biologics at Merck and was responsible for a broad preclinical pipeline of molecules across all therapeutic areas within Merck. This included diverse modalities such as multifunctional antibodies and engineered proteins, ADCs, oncolytic viruses and cell therapies. Prior to his role at Merck, Scott was at Novartis. There, he established research and technology platforms in biotherapeutics, protein engineering, protein structure and function, and high-throughput technologies. In his role as the Executive Director of Biotherapeutics and Biotechnology he oversaw scientists and engineers responsible for biotherapeutics discovery and optimization, structural biology, HTS, functional genomics, automation and engineering. Scott also maintained a faculty appointment at The Scripps Research Institute from 2005-2016 and led an independent research lab as Co-PI of the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) studying protein structure and function with an emphasis on host/microbe interactions. The JCSG was responsible for over 1600 novel protein structures. He has over 200 publications to date and has contributed to novel therapeutic targets, therapeutic modalities, small molecule and biotherapeutic clinical candidates and registered drugs, as well as developing platform technologies in HTS and other automation for drug discovery.

Daniel Leventhal, Ph.D. has over 6 years of experience working at the intersection of immunology and machine learning to predict and mitigate unwanted immunogenicity. Daniel has led teams at Xaira Therapeutics and Generate Biomedicines developing machine learning models and experimental systems to understand and control key immunological processes underpinning the immunogenicity of biotherapeutics. Prior to entering the immunogenicity field, he worked in immune oncology, advancing T-cell receptor therapies and immune-engineered bacteria for cancer treatment. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in Cancer Biology and an M.S. in Translational Sciences from the University of Chicago, where he studied tumor-associated regulatory T-cell development and antigen specificity.

Rafael Levin ("Rafa") is working as Application Scientist at Bruker Biosensors, applying and supporting the molecular interaction technologies Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), switchSENSE®, and single-cell interaction cytometry (scIC). Rafa brings extensive expertise in the biophysical tool space, having studied diverse protein-protein interactions in human disease and immunology throughout his time in graduate school and industry.

Dr. Lewis is a Professor of Pediatrics and Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received his BS in biochemistry at Brigham Young University, and his PhD at UC San Diego, where he focused on proteomics and developing novel approaches for analyzing biological big data using genome-scale systems biology modeling techniques. Dr. Lewis completed his postdoctoral training at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School, where he worked on genome editing and the use of systems biology for the interpretation of genetic screens. Dr. Lewis' lab integrates all of his previous work by focusing heavily on the use of systems biology and genome editing techniques to map out and engineer the cell pathways controlling mammalian cell growth, protein synthesis, and protein glycosylation.

For more than 35 years, I have headed a tumor cell biology/preclinical drug development lab in Genentech Research. I was hired at Genentech to investigate cytokine-mediated tumor cell killing and mechanisms of resistance thereof. Our lab discovered that activated tyrosine kinases conferred resistance to tumor cell killing by TNF-a. One of the receptor tyrosine kinases we investigated was HER2/erbB2, which had recently been cloned at Genentech. Simultaneous to our studies, Dennis Slamon at UCLA published his pivotal findings that 20% of breast cancer harbors erbB2 gene amplification, which was associated with poor clinical outcome in breast cancer patients. In our preclinical studies, not only did we demonstrate that anti-HER2 antibodies reversed resistance to TNF-a, but also that the antibodies inhibited growth of cancer cells that overexpressed HER2. We quickly pivoted our focus to HER2 as an attractive cell surface target for antibody therapy. The outcome of this work, in collaboration with UCLA and MSKCC, was the development and approvals of trastuzumab (Herceptin®) and pertuzumab (Perjeta®) for treating HER2-positive breast cancer. Following the approval of trastuzumab, we focused our efforts on the nascent field of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). We investigated different targets, antibody formats, as well as different combinations of linker-drugs, with the focus of my lab primarily on HER2. Our work led to development and approval of trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla®). We have continued our work on ADCs, for HER2 as well as additional targets, with an expanded arsenal of novel linker-drugs. My lab’s expertise now encompasses not only HER2+ breast cancer but other solid tumor types as well as hematologic malignancies. I received my undergraduate degree in Microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin, and performed my graduate work in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Myles Lewis studied preclinical medicine at Cambridge University, and clinical medicine at Oxford University. During his Rheumatology clinical training at multiple London teaching hospitals, he has worked extensively on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and other connective tissue diseases. He was awarded a Clinical Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust in 2005, for his PhD at the Hammersmith Hospital/Imperial College London, focused on understanding the causes of accelerated heart disease in SLE. In 2011 for his ongoing lab research on the role of ubiquitination in SLE and autoimmune disease, he was awarded a Clinician Scientist Fellowship by Arthritis Research UK. In 2015 he was awarded the Lancet Prize for Clinician Scientists at the Academy of Medical Sciences for his research on ubiquitination genes in SLE.

Bian Li is a Senior Scientist at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., responsible for developing machine learning algorithms for predicting antibody developability. Before joining Regeneron, Bian was a Data Scientist at Roivant Sciences and was responsible for building computational pipelines and mining structural databases and proteomics datasets. Prior to joining Roivant, Bian was an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University and was working on the problem of genetic variant effect prediction. Bian obtained his PhD in Computational Structural Biology from Vanderbilt and has broad interests in applications of machine learning in structural biology and genomics.

Xinbi Li is an Associate Director in the Protein Analytics and Developability group at the department of Biologics Engineering (BE), where he focuses on protein analytics, developability assessment, and LC-MS work. Xinbi earned a BS degree in Pharmacy from Fudan University and a PhD in Chemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Before joining AstraZeneca, Xinbi was a Senior Scientist at Dragonfly Therapeutics.

Dr. Li is the founder and CEO of VelaVigo. Prior to founding VelaVigo, he served as Senior Vice President in WuXi Biologics. Before joining WuXi Biologics, he worked for Novartis Biologics Center as Senior Manager of Portfolio & Alliance Management. Before that, he worked for Novartis Oncology as Lab Head and Program Team Head. Prior to Novartis, he worked for Wyeth (now Pfizer) as Senior Scientist and Project Leader. Dr. Li received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in molecular immunology and oncology from Peking University Health Science Center (the former Beijing Medical University), and MBA degree from Yale University School of Management. He completed his postdoctoral training at Tufts University. With over 25 years of professional experience in antibody engineering and more than 20 years of industry experience in the drug discovery and development field. He is a member of AACR (American Association for Cancer Research), ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) and FOCIS (Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies). Dr. Li has filed over 70 patent applications and authored more than 20 publications.

Yingzhong Li earned his Ph.D. on Biotechnology from Peking University & National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China in 2010. Dr. Li got further trainings on Immunology, Synthetic Biology, Cancer Biology, and Cancer Immunotherapy at MIT. Currently Dr. Li holds 6 PCT patents at MIT and 5 PCT patents at SunVax mRNA Therapeutics in the field of cancer immunology and mRNA techniques. Dr. Li left MIT on October 30, 2021. Dr. Li is President of SunVax mRNA Therapeutics Inc. since then.

Zeran Li is a Data Scientist at Moderna focused on laboratory automation and modeling for biotherapeutic analytics. She earned a B.S. in Biology from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis, where her research centered on genome- and transcriptome-wide analyses to discover risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. She completed postdoctoral training at GSK, developing high-throughput cell-imaging assay analytics for oncology drug screening. Her current work spans end-to-end automation—integrating instruments, standardizing data pipelines, and recording data lineage/audit trails—to accelerate and ensure reproducible research, and statistical/ML modeling to reveal the underlying analyte profile in noisy signals, delivering accurate, actionable, and often hidden insights.

Mandy Li is a Scientist II in Protein Design & Production, part of Protein Sciences within Discovery Biologics at Merck. She is responsible for high-throughput protein expression, purification and characterization of traditional antibodies, multispecific antibodies, and other novel modalities to support early discovery and lead optimization. She also provides protein production functional representation in pipeline programs in various therapeutic areas, such as oncology and ophthalmology. Her process development work involves incorporation of automated systems to optimize protein production, including liquid handlers such as Tecan, Hamilton, and Lynx.

Dr. Shion A. Lim is a Principal Scientist and Group Leader in Antibody Engineering at Genentech, where she leads cross-functional teams in developing novel therapeutic antibodies across a variety of therapeutic areas. Dr. Lim has a keen interest in engineering multispecific antibodies and molecules with novel mechanisms of action, and establishing new technology platforms to accelerate antibody discovery against challenging targets. Dr. Lim holds a Ph.D. in Molecular & Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and prior to joining Genentech, completed a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California San Francisco under the mentorship of Dr. Jim Wells.

Dr. Jennifer Lin-Jones is Associate Director of Assay Development at Eurofins DiscoverX where she has been a major contributor in novel cell-based assay and tool development to support the expansive Eurofins DiscoverX assay portfolio as well as assays for client-focused projects. Jennifer received her B.S. from MIT, Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Washington and was a post-doc at University of California, Berkeley.

A. James (Jamie) Link earned a PhD from Caltech and carried out postdoctoral work at the University of Texas. He is currently a professor of chemical and biological engineering at Princeton University. The Link lab works on the discovery and engineering of ribosomal natural products. Work from the group has been recognized by national awards such as a Sloan Fellowship, the DuPont Young Professor award, and an NSF CAREER grant.

Dr. Amelia Linnemann is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) in Indianapolis, IN. She is a member of both the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research and the National Institutes of Health-funded Indiana Center for Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases (CDMD). She is the director of the CDMD Microscopy Core and the Associate Director of Pipeline Program Development at IUSM. Research in Dr. Linnemann’s laboratory is focused on the study of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta-cells under conditions of inflammatory stress. Dr. Linnemann is particularly interested in how higher-level metabolic signals contribute to molecular crosstalk within the islet and influence beta-cell adaptation to stress, specifically through studies focused on autophagy and the antioxidant response. Her team uses cutting-edge imaging approaches to study these pathways and has developed a series of novel tools for use with intravital microscopy. Her lab was the first group to demonstrate defective autophagy in human type 1 diabetes, and their observations suggested lysosomal dysfunction prior to diabetes onset in autoantibody positive individuals. Thus, many of the current studies in the lab are focused on biological processes in early diabetes development, as well as developing and optimizing tools for in vivo imaging of pancreatic islet function associated with diabetes pathogenesis.

Dr. Chang Liu is a Principal Scientist in the Department of Translational PKPD at Genentech. Her current work centers on the development of physiologically based models and the implementation of in vitro predictive assays to address complex PK/PD questions. Dr. Liu’s tenure at Genentech includes roles as a Senior Scientist in BioAnalytical Sciences, where she developed functional cell-based assays, and a postdoctoral fellowship in Biochemical and Cellular Pharmacology focusing on the structure-function relationships of drug targets. She earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University, where her research concentrated on the molecular mechanisms and pathways of pain.

Dr. Xiaole Shirley Liu is the co-founder and CEO of GV20 Therapeutics, a clinical-stage AI-based next-generation cancer biotherapeutics company. Dr. Liu graduated summa cum laude from Smith College, double majoring in biochemistry and computer science, and is now a member of the Smith College Board of Trustees. She received her PhD in Biomedical Informatics and PhD minor in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2002. Before joining GV20, she was a Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the Department of Data Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Harvard University. She is an expert on computational cancer biology, having published over 270 papers with an H-index of 131 and total citation of over 100K, and mentored 28 PhD and postdoctoral trainees to independent academic careers . She is a fellow of the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and was a Breast Cancer Research Foundation Investigator (2017-2021). She is a recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship (2008), Weitzman Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society (2016), ISCB Innovator Award (2020), and the Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences (2020).

Cassie Liu is a senior principal statistician in Biologics Development Department at Bristol Myers Squibb. Over the 10 years with BMS, she has provided statistical supports in various CMC projects, including stability analysis and specification assessment for IND/BLA filings, statistical and ML modeling, risk assessment, bioassay analysis, design of experiment, analytical method performance monitoring, dataflow integration, and automation, etc. She received a master’s degree in statistics from University of Connecticut and bachelor's degree in statistics from Nankai University in China. Prior to joining BMS, she was a statistician in a health-related research lab at Yale University.

Bin Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling and the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston. He also holds joint appointments with the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry. He is an active faculty member in the Materials Science and Engineering program and the Center of Excellence in Polymer Chemistry. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and completed postdoctoral research at MIT. Dr. Liu’s research integrates chemistry, bioconjugation, protein engineering, and cancer immunotherapy to advance precision therapeutics. His work centers on the rational molecular design of next-generation antibody-based conjugates across multiple length scales, including small molecules, polymers, and nanoparticles, to enable targeted and effective cancer therapy.

Marco Lobba, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CEO of CatenaBio which he has led since launch. Catena was spun out from UC Berkeley where Marco completed a joint PhD between Nobel Laureate Prof. Jennifer Doudna, and former Chemistry Department Chair Prof. Matthew Francis. With his educational foundation rooted at the intersection of chemistry and molecular biology, Dr. Lobba co-founded CatenaBio to address the pressing challenge of delivering targeted therapeutics. His expertise in protein conjugation has helped advance innovative treatments, such as multi-payload conjugates (MPCs), CRISPR-based editors and cell-based therapies. Dr. Lobba has an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Pomona College, and has authored numerous publications and patents related to bioconjugation, CRISPR based technologies, and protein engineering.

Dr. Lonberg is currently CEO, Tripeaks Therapeutics, and Executive in Residence at Canaan Partners. Prior to 2020, he was Senior Vice President, Oncology Discovery Biology, at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he led drug discovery efforts for both targeted and immuno-oncology agents. Dr. Lonberg began his career in the biotechnology/ pharmaceutical industry, leading the GenPharm International research group that developed genetically engineered strains of mice with germline configuration human immunoglobulin genes. These transgenic animals have been used to discover more than three dozen clinical-stage human sequence antibodies, including 15 FDA-approved products. GenPharm International was acquired by Medarex in 1997, and then by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2009. In 1998, Dr. Lonberg’s drug discovery group at Medarex began to focus on antibody therapies that target and modulate immune-attenuating pathways to activate patient immune responses to cancer cells (so-called "checkpoint blockade" therapies). Ipilimumab, which began clinical testing in 2000, was the first-ever checkpoint blockade cancer therapy to enter clinical development and to gain regulatory approval. Ipilimumab, approved in 2011, was also the first drug to demonstrate, in a randomized clinical trial, a survival benefit for patients with metastatic melanoma. A second checkpoint blockade cancer therapeutic, nivolumab, entered clinical development in 2006 and gained regulatory approval in 2014. A third checkpoint blockade cancer therapeutic, relatlimab, entered clinical development in 2013 and gained regulatory approval as a combination product with nivolumab in 2022. Dr. Lonberg received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University (Cambridge, MA) in 1985, where he studied under Dr. Walter Gilbert. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY) and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2015.

Heather Lopes currently leads protein sciences at Aera Therapeutics, bringing expertise in protein expression, purification, characterization and protein engineering. Prior to joining Aera, Heather was an Associate Director at Diagonal Therapeutics, working on bispecific agonistic antibodies. Prior to that, Heather led molecular biology and protein sciences at Immunitas Therapeutics, focused on antibody and ADC therapeutics for oncology. Previous roles also include Alkermes, where she focused on protein engineering and production of cytokine-based immunotherapeutics. These include Nemvaleukin Alfa, an IL-2 clinical drug, and an IL-18 discovery engineering effort. Heather also held roles at Aveo Oncology and Shire HGT. She received her M.S. in Chemistry from Northeastern University and a B.S. in Chemistry from University of South Carolina.

Bradley Lunde is an associate director in the Antibody Engineering department at Adimab LLC. He received his PhD from the University of Washington in 2009 and worked as a post-doc at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and in several biotech roles in Germany prior to joining Adimab in 2015.

Hanying Luo, Ph.D. is Director of Protein & Antibody Solutions at GenScript, where she leads product strategy and development for protein expression and antibody discovery platforms supporting biologics research and drug discovery. She received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. With over eight years of experience in product management in the life sciences & Biotech industry, Dr. Luo has worked across a broad range of technologies, including chemicals, molecular biology tools, gene products, and protein expression systems. Her work focuses on developing integrated solutions that accelerate protein production and enable high-throughput biologics discovery workflows.

Bob has been an independent consultant in the biotech/pharma industry since 2015 and has worked with multiple clients providing strategic, tactical and operational input for their research and development efforts. Prior to initiating his consulting practice, Bob held various R&D roles over a 23 year span at ImmunoGen, Inc. In his most recent position at ImmunoGen, Bob was Vice President of Translational Research and Development with responsibility for all early stage antibody drug conjugate (ADC) development programs from lead identification through phase 2. He also served as ImmunoGen’s research lead on Genentech’s FDA-approved trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) program. Before the ADC research position, Bob was part of ImmunoGen’s Apoptosis Technology Inc subsidiary where he led the research collaboration leading to the discovery of the BH3 domain of the BCl-2 family of death regulatory proteins. Before ImmunoGen, Bob was a research and postdoctoral fellow at the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Colorado. He earned his doctoral degree in Biochemistry at Brandeis University.

Dr. Donghui Ma is the Founder and CEO of DIMA Biotechnology, where he leads the development of integrated platforms for membrane protein production and antibody discovery. Prior to founding DIMA in 2019, Dr. Ma held senior leadership roles as General Manager and Chief Scientific Officer at biotechnology companies including OriGene, BioCheck, and Juventas, building deep expertise in antibody engineering and membrane protein science. At DIMA, Dr. Ma has established proprietary Nanodisc platforms that enable the production of hundreds of functional full-length membrane proteins, covering a broad range of GPCR targets. These Nanodisc proteins maintain native conformation and activity and can be used as high-quality antigens for antibody generation. Using these validated antigens and a single B-cell antibody discovery platform, DIMA generated 5,000+ individual recombinant mAbs targeting 500+ drug targets, each supplied as a standalone, fully characterized antibody. By combining Nanodisc-based protein production with single B-cell antibody discovery, DIMA supports efficient and scalable biologics discovery for global biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners.

Weijun Ma, MSc is a Senior Scientist in Biologics Generation & Characterization / Large Molecule Research at Sanofi, where he focuses on biologics generation and characterization with an emphasis on high throughput, automated protein production at scale. He leads efforts to integrate magnetic bead based purification with complementary technologies to enable efficient, scalable workflows. Weijun holds a dual Master’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology and Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He brings over 20 years of industry experience in biologics and biopharmaceutical research across large pharmaceutical organizations as well as biotechnology CROs, where he has held roles including Project Manager and Lab Head. His background spans a broad range of technologies, including protein production and characterization, molecular biology (recombinant DNA and gene synthesis), liquid handling automation, and the development of digital and data driven tools to support and accelerate biologics research.

Dr. John Majercak is Head of Antibody Discovery at LAMPIRE Biological Laboratories. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry from Rutgers, completed a postdoc at Novartis, and has held roles at Merck, Boehringer Ingelheim, J&J, BMS, and Molecular Templates before joining LAMPIRE in 2023.

Mansi Malhotra, Ph.D., is an analytical scientist with over five years of industry experience in analytical development and protein characterization for biologics, mRNA and lipid nanoparticles. Her expertise centers on mechanistic evaluation of protein stability, aggregation, and structural heterogeneity using integrated analytical and biophysical techniques. She has led the development and implementation of strategic analytical workflows to support pipeline progression, comparability assessments, and regulatory readiness for therapeutic proteins. Dr. Malhotra earned her Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from University of Connecticut, where her research focused on biophysical characterization of protein, enzymology, and protein-binding with 2D nanoparticles. Her work bridges deep molecular understanding with practical analytical strategy to enable robust biologic development.

Sven studied Bioprocess Engineering at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany and graduated in 2012. During his diploma studies he investigated the interaction of cytomegalovirus protein pp65 against certain antibodies using Surface Plasmon Resonance. In 2012 he joined Sierra Sensors GmbH to start his role as application specialist. After 6 years he became senior application specialist as Bruker acquired Sierra Sensors GmbH. Currently he is the Business Development Manager for SPR within the Bruker Biosensors Team.

Sara Mangsbo (PhD) is a Professor in antibody drugs at Uppsala University. Professor Mangsbo is a leader in the field of cancer immunotherapy and specifically in antibody-based drug delivery and synthetic long peptides and has been awarded the SITC team award within the SLP stream along with numerous awards for societal outreach activities. She is a serial entrepreneur and has founded Immuneed AB, a service provider of immunotoxicity measurements in human whole blood by the use of the ID.Flow system. She is the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Strike Pharma AB. She drives a translational research project with the ambition and track record of taking research projects into clinical trial testing.

Rita Martello received her degrees in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from University of Bologna, Italy, and her PhD in Biology from University of Konstanz, Germany. Rita gained experience in proteomics as postdoctoral fellow at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research in Copenhagen, where she investigated DNA damage repair mechanisms. Finally, she moved to industry (Bayer AG and Sanofi) where she started working in DMPK, developing assays for assessing PK/PD of biologics. Rita is currently DMPK Lead at EMD Serono, deeply involved in the preclinical and clinical evaluation of biologics.

Andrew Martin is Emeritus Professor of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at University College London (UCL). He obtained his undergraduate degree and DPhil from the University of Oxford. After some time self-employed developing scientific software, including working for Oxford Molecular on software developed during his DPhil, he joined Professor Dame Janet Thornton's group at UCL. He then went on to be Technical Director at Inpharmatica before joining the University of Reading and then returning to UCL on 2004. His interests have been in developing software and methods for application to protein sequence and structure. In particular he has focused on the effects of mutations and on antibodies. He developed one of the first methods for antibody modelling (AbM) and the first searchable antibody-specific sequence database (KabatMan) which has since developed into an integrated workbench for analysis of antibody sequence and structure (abYsis). He is co-founder of abYsis, Ltd. and consults for several companies. He has acted as an expert witness in a number of high-profile patent disputes and is an adviser to the WHO-INN on the naming and annotation of antibody-based drugs.

Alex Martinko is a scientist, entrepreneur, and leader in antibody engineering and protein sciences, with over a decade of experience developing therapeutic antibody technologies. As the Senior Director of Antibody Engineering and Design at Cartography Biosciences, Alex leads a multidisciplinary team specializing in antibody discovery, computational antibody engineering, and protein science to develop highly specific cancer therapies using bi- and multi-specific antibodies. Alex earned his PhD in Chemistry & Chemical Biology from UCSF under the mentorship of Dr. Jim Wells. His research included the discovery of novel antibody targets for RAS-driven cancers, which led to a licensing agreement with a major biopharmaceutical company. Additionally, he developed an innovative antibody technology for small molecule regulation of antibody function, which became the foundation for Soteria Biotherapeutics, a venture-backed startup co-founded by Alex to further advance this platform. Prior to joining Cartography, Alex was Senior Director of Antibody Engineering at Soteria Biotherapeutics, where he led a team of scientists in advancing the T-LITEâ„¢ platform. This bispecific T-cell engager technology enables small-molecule-controlled activation, offering a safer and more effective dosing strategy for T-cell engagers. With expertise spanning protein engineering, chemical biology, and cancer immunotherapy, Alex has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications and patents. He remains dedicated to translating innovative science into transformative therapies that improve patient outcomes.

Dr. Amelia C. McCue is a postdoctoral fellow in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University specializing in the design of antibody-based molecular therapeutics for cancer and vascular disease. Dr. McCue earned her BA in chemistry from Saint Anselm College in 2018 and her PhD in biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina in 2024, where she developed tumor-sensitive prodrug T cell engagers to improve immunotherapy safety. Her research integrates protein engineering, structural biology, and translational immunology to design precision therapeutic platforms.

Theresa is head of Oncology Research at Third Arc Bio where they are developing next generation TCE’s for solid tumors. Theresa led the advancement of Third Arc Bio’s first T Cell Engager , ARC101, a CLDN6XCD3 bispecific for the treatment of Ovarian Cancer, which is currently in Phase 1 dose escalation studies. Prior to Third Arc Bio, Theresa spent over a decade at J&J Innovative Medicines (formerly Janssen) where she advanced several programs into Phase 1 studies for the Prostate Cancer portfolio.   Projects that entered clinical development under Theresa’s leadership include CD3 redirectors and CARTs for prostate specific targets: JNJ-63898081 (PSMAxCD3 Gen 1), JNJ-75229414 (auto-KLK2 CAR-T), JNJ-78278343 (KLK2xCD3), and JNJ-80038114 (PSMAxCD3 Gen 2).  Theresa also led the first co-stimulation/CD3 combination program at Janssen.  Her efforts on the discovery, preclinical biology and pharmacology for JNJ-87189401 (PSMAxCD28) supported a truly novel FIH strategy, where the costimulatory molecule was dosed in combination (no monotherapy) with another investigational Ph1 molecule (KLK2xCD3).  Beyond T-cell biology, Theresa also played a key role in building internal infrastructure and external relationships to advance radio-conjugates and support the current Phase 1 KLK2-Ac-225 radio-conjugate (JNJ-69086420).  Theresa is co-inventor on seventeen patents for the treatment of solid tumors, encompassing CD3, CD28, CAR-T, radio-conjugates, and ADCCs.  She has a passion for mentoring the next generation of scientists, and while at Janssen she served as Ph.D. advisor to two employees and one Master’s thesis student.   Prior to Janssen, Theresa was part of the Oncology Discovery team at BMS, where she supported several small and large molecule programs, including epigenetic targets, DR5 agonists and JAK2 inhibitors (BMS-9111543) from target validation through FIH studies.   While at BMS, Theresa received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Sciences in Philadelphia.

Megan is a postdoctoral scholar in the Jewett Lab at Stanford University. Her research focuses on using cell-free protein synthesis to study and engineer the bacterial ribosome. During her PhD at Georgia Tech in the Styczynski Lab, she used cell-free expression systems to engineer low-cost, point-of-care biosensors for protein and RNA detection.

Joshua Meier is the co-founder and CEO of Chai Discovery, which is building the "computer-aided design suite" for molecules. Chai Discovery has raised $230M from leading investors including OpenAI, Thrive Capital, Anthropic, and General Catalyst. In 2025, Chai was the first company to demonstrate the ability to design antibodies on the computer with double digit success rates. Josh trained at the Broad Institute, joined the early OpenAI team during the GPT-1 era, and later co-led development of ESM-1, the first transformer protein language model. Josh's background is in computer science & chemistry from Harvard.

Gerold Meinhardt is currently Vice President, Asset & Portfolio Management, at Daiichi Sankyo, which he joined in June 2020. In this role, he is responsible for the development of Trastuzumab Deruxtecan (DS-8201, ENHERTU), the company’s leading ADC (co-developed with Astra Zeneca), that is already approved for different indications in multiple countries worldwide. Prior to Daiichi Sankyo, he served in different roles at Bayer Pharmaceuticals for over 15 years, most notably as Vice President Clinical Development leading development of the multikinase inhibitors sorafenib and regorafenib. Gerold Meinhardt is a board-certified Medical Oncologist and Hematologist. After graduating from the Medical School at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Germany, he practiced at academic centers for many years and after returning from 3 years as Research Fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, he also led a research laboratory at the University of Munich in parallel to his clinical responsibilities. Gerold Meinhardt has authored over 50 PubMed-listed publications.

Dr. Menacho-Melgar obtained his Ph.D. at Duke University, under Dr. Michael D. Lynch. After his graduate studies, he founded Roke Biotechnologies focused on advancing protein manufacturing. At Roke, he leads the manufacturing and commercialization of molecular biology reagents. Dr. Menacho-Melgar has 13 peer-reviewed publications and is co-inventor in 6 patents. His work includes developing readily scalable standardized processes for protein expression, eliminating the need for any process development. It also includes the engineering of novel E. coli strains with advanced capabilities such as enhancing protein titers or reducing downstream purification steps.

Dr. Amruta Mhashilkar is Director of Formulation and Process Development at Catalent, where she leads a team of 35+ scientists and technical professionals and oversees a portfolio of 80+ programs spanning preclinical through commercial stages. She specializes in lipid-based drug delivery systems, including softgels and complex oral formulations, with a focus on enabling bioavailability and scalable, phase-appropriate manufacturing solutions. Amruta has supported over 100 client programs across leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and has contributed to multiple successful Rx product launches. Her expertise spans CMC strategy, formulation development, scale-up, and regulatory support across IND, NDA, ANDA, and ANADA pathways. She is known for combining deep technical expertise with strong execution and cross-functional leadership to accelerate development timelines and translate complex molecules into commercially viable therapies.

Jeffrey S. Miller, MD, received a Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and received his MD from Northwestern University School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Hematology, Oncology and Transplantation at the University of Minnesota, he joined the faculty in 1991. Dr. Miller is currently a Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Division of Hematology, Oncology and Transplantation. He is the Deputy Director of the University of Minnesota Masonic Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has more than 20 years of experience studying the biology of NK cells and other immune effector cells and their use in clinical immunotherapy with over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He is a member of numerous societies such as the American Society of Hematology, the American Association of Immunologists, a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation since 1999. He serves on the editorial board for Blood and is a reviewer for a number of journals and NIH grants. Dr. Miller was the recipient of the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award for 2015.

Dr. Miller is an image scientist and medical physicist whose research focuses on quantitative digital autoradiography for radiopharmaceutical therapy with alpha and beta emitters. He earned his Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona, where he developed the ionizing-radiation Quantum Imaging Detector (iQID) for high-resolution imaging of ionizing radiation. Dr. Miller later founded QScint Imaging Solutions to commercialize iQID technology for autoradiography applications, enabling high-sensitivity, high-resolution imaging and quantitative analysis of tissue activity distributions. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Imaging at the University of Arizona and a clinical medical physicist at Banner University Medical Center. His ongoing work aims to advance quantitative imaging and microdosimetry methods to improve the accuracy and efficacy of targeted radionuclide therapies.

My background includes 12 years of R&D in hardware and software platforms, followed with 10 years of leading global project management and business development. Much of my career as an entrepreneur has focused on the agri- and food tech sectors. Currently, I am the Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of MNDL Bio, a biotech startup and spin-out from Tel Aviv University. My work focuses on solving the high costs and scale-up barriers that prevent bio-based products from reaching the market. I manage our international business development and strategic partnerships, using my engineering background to turn complex biological research into reliable industrial solutions.

Dr. Sabiruddin Mirza is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he bridges the David A. Weitz Lab with the biopharmaceutical industry. His research focuses on microfluidic engineering of advanced drug delivery systems, including mRNA–LNPs, lab-on-a-chip platforms for toxicity testing, and tissue engineering. A recipient of the AAPS Outstanding Graduate Research Award, Dr. Mirza has authored over 70 publications and secured more than $550,000 in research funding in pharmaceutical materials science, nanomedicine, and biopharmaceutical engineering.

Dr. Carter Mitchell is the CSO for Kemp Proteins, leading a team of 40+ researchers in the rapid development of novel proteins in an ISO13485- and AAALAC-accredited lab. Dr. Mitchell is a protein chemist and structural biologist with 20 years of direct experience isolating and characterizing difficult proteins from a variety of recombinant and natural sources. Over more than 20 years, he has been exposed to a wide range of structural and biochemical techniques, and developed interests in understanding the development and manufacture of modern biotechnology products. He earned a PhD in Structural Biology where he enzymatically and structurally characterized multidomain proteins involved in metabolite biosynthesis. He developed and led a drug discovery pipeline with a team of scientists that isolated and characterized bioactive small-molecules and peptides from mammalian microbiomes. At the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Mitchell focused on the isolation of bioactive proteins from marine aqueous extracts, which required creative purification strategies earning the Director’s Innovation Award. Prior to joining Kemp Proteins, he was the CTO and Director of Structural Biology at a Biotech start-up where he built, developed, and implemented a protein expression and purification laboratory and managed the protein production and purification team. At Kemp Proteins, Dr. Mitchell acts as the Principal Investigator for numerous programs while striving to improve the technical understanding and capabilities of the group.

Leslie Mitchell is the Chief Scientific Officer of Opentrons Labworks, a company building affordable liquid handling robots that are modular and easy to program. Beyond automation, Opentrons is building differentiated scientific applications that scale through the use of its automation, including novel platforms for antibody fragment discovery.  Leslie is a scientist by training and completed her postdoctoral research at NYU Langone Health, where she helped lead the international Synthetic Yeast Genome Project (Sc2.0) - the first effort to design and build a fully synthetic eukaryotic genome. She holds a PhD in systems biology from the University of Ottawa and was awarded the Rosalind Franklin Medal in 2022 for her contributions to the field.

Kiana Mohajeri-Stickels leads synthetic biology and platform development efforts at Prolific Machines, including overseeing strategic partner collaborations for the production of difficult-to-produce therapeutics. Prior to Prolific, she served as a lead scientist and the first employee, at a stealth-mode startup, where she drove high-throughput screen-based experiments for development of a novel genome engineering nuclease. As a PhD student, Kiana designed, led, and executed multi-disciplinary functional genomic studies at Massachusetts General Hospital and Broad Institute, utilizing iPS-derived neural CRISPR models to understand genic and non-coding molecular mechanisms underlying neurological disease. She earned her PhD from Harvard University in Biological and Biomedical Sciences with a focus in Genetics and Genomics as a NSF GRFP Fellow

Dr. Moore is a Executive Director in the Protein Engineering department at Xencor, Inc. Since joining Xencor in 2004, Dr. Moore has made many contributions to the company’s technology platform, including antibodies with increased affinity for the inhibitory receptor CD32b, bispecifics with heterodimeric Fc regions, and antibodies with enhanced recruitment of complement. Currently, his work focuses on the design of antibody-based bispecifics and antibody Fc engineering, humanization, and affinity maturation. Prior to Xencor, Dr. Moore was a graduate student at Penn State University, where he developed computational models and optimization methods for protein engineering and directed evolution protocols. Dr. Moore holds a PhD and BS in Chemical Engineering from Penn State University.

Deborah joined ProFound Tx in 2024 as the VP of Protein Sciences to lead protein and antibody development campaigns. Prior to ProFound Tx, Deborah was with Abcam for 5 years, leading the Protein Development and Sequencing Platforms, responsible for protein and sequencing needs for Abcam. Prior to Abcam, she spent 16 years working in both the reagent and therapeutic spaces. For many years she led Antibody Production at Cell Signaling Technology. From there she joined Merck Research Laboratories, where she led the team responsible for antigen & antibody generation within Biologics Discovery.

Dr. Zachary Morris, MD/PhD is the Chair and Paul Harari Professor of Human Oncology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. His research lab is focused on the translational investigation of the radiobiology and immunologic effects of radiopharmaceutical therapies and the effective integration of these with immunotherapies.

Deborah earned her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has held scientific and leadership roles at several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Novartis, and SUGEN, Inc. An entrepreneur at heart, she co-founded and led Cell Assay Innovations, a drug discovery biotechnology company and contract research organization, for a decade. She now serves as Director of Antibody Characterization and Validation at the Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI), where she oversees rigorous quality control and application testing to ensure the reproducibility and reliability of IPI’s antibody reagents.

Rida is a biotech entrepreneur with over a decade of research experience in the preclinical development of peptide therapeutics. He has co-invented several platform technologies including Lytica's Stapled Peptide Antibody Conjugate Engineering (SPACE) platform. Rida received his doctorate from the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology at MIT and completed his Hon. BSc. and MSc. degrees at the University of Toronto.

Andre is a Director of Product Management and responsible for Aunty & Honeybun at Unchained Labs. His expertise covers fluorescence, static light scattering, and dynamic light scattering for biophysical characterization of proteins and viral vectors. His research experience spans from structural biology to plant physiology and across labs in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the USA.  Andre earned his PhD at the Carlsberg Laboratory and had a post-doc appointment at Stanford University.

I am a biological engineer specializing in high throughput technologies for biotherapeutics discovery. In my work, I develop and subsequently apply platforms that can rapidly identify and advance therapeutic molecules with novel function. My graduate training was based in analytical chemistry at Florida State University where I focused on engineering of microfluidic devices to give us access to study new aspects of biology. After honing my hardware toolkit, I sought an opportunity to engineer biology itself and took a postdoctoral position at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I engineered living biomaterials. Upon completion of my training, I found my passion in applying this training to advance human health. Towards this, I have been working in the field of Biotherapeutics Discovery with a focus on recombinant production and characterization. The first goal of my roles focused on helping my team and driving efficiency through generation of larger numbers of high-grade molecules. My second goal is to expand beyond the core engine, I strive to find disruptive opportunities through leveraging data, building new capabilities or contributing new modalities.

Jeremy Myers leads EvolveImmune Therapeutics immunobiology and biotherapeutic research teams as Senior Vice President. Before joining EvolveImmune, he held a leadership position at Pfizer Oncology Research and Development, focusing on developing tumor-targeted immunotherapies by leveraging cell-surface antigen discovery, antibody discovery, rational protein design, and interrogation of biotherapeutic targets for antibody-drug conjugates and T-cell retargeting bispecific antibody therapeutics. Before Pfizer, Jeremy was a research faculty member and AstraZeneca Research Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University Medical School. Jeremy received his BSc in biology from Bucknell University. He completed his Ph.D. studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at the LSU Health Sciences Center and Louisiana State University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University.

Hiroaki Nagano is a researcher at Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., which he joined in 2017. For over 8 years, he has been working on the development and evaluation of novel antibody technologies that exhibit superior efficacy and safety targeting solid tumors. Currently, he is involved in the preclinical evaluation and biological mechanism analysis of antibody projects in the immuno-oncology field, conducting both in vitro and in vivo studies.

Yumi Nagase earned her master’s degree from the University of Tokyo in chemical biology, focusing on cell-free protein expression systems and genetic code expansion. Since joining Ajinomoto in 2012, she has been involved in strain development of Corynex®, peptide and protein expression technology using gram-positive bacteria. She has served as a project leader, developing highly productive strains currently used for cGMP production of biopharmaceuticals. Her ongoing research is focused on the incorporation of non-canonical amino acids.

David is an expert in protein engineering and computational design, with extensive experience applying AI-driven modeling tools in an industry setting. He serves as Vice President of the Rosetta Commons Foundation and Industry Chair on the Rosetta Commons board, helping bridge academic advancements with industry applications. As Managing Member of Rosetta Design Group, he collaborates with companies of all sizes to tackle complex challenges in biologics design. David's deep expertise in leveraging cutting-edge tools like Rosetta, AlphaFold, and diffusion-based models for protein design make him an invaluable guide for participants looking to apply AI-driven biologics design in real-world settings.

Anand Narayanan is a Senior Scientist in the Biologics Discovery (BD) department at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine in Spring House, PA. Within Expression Sciences, he focuses on rapid, high-throughput protein production and characterization to fast-track hit-to-lead progression. Prior to joining J&J, he was a faculty member at Yale University, where his research applied genome engineering and next-generation sequencing to personalized medicine. He completed his postdoctoral training in the Section of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT. He earned his doctoral degree in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology from the Department of Biology at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX.

Dr. Ornella D. Nelson is a Senior Scientist within the Biotherapeutics and Genetic Medicine department at AbbVie. She specializes in protein conjugations and in-depth analytical characterization of target antigens, fusion proteins and therapeutic reagents, supporting discovery programs across various therapeutic areas. Dr. Nelson remains actively engaged with professional organizations, including the American Chemical Society and the National Organization for Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers, and is dedicated to mentoring undergraduate students through Project OnRamp. Ornella holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and a B.S. in Chemistry from Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma.

Sujata Nerle is a Senior BD Manager at WuXi Biologics within the CRO division. With 11 years of industry experience in immunology, immuno-oncology, and I&I therapeutic drug development, Sujata has a strong understanding of the drug development process across large molecules, cell therapy, and small molecule modalities. She has worked on early-stage preclinical drug development programs, five of which advanced into the clinic, including an approved drug, BETi, from Constellation Pharmaceuticals (currently acquired by Novartis via MorphoSys).

Dr. Nguyen is a member of the Bispecifics and Antibody Engineering Group at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. He holds a Ph.D. from Duke University and completed his postdoctoral training at Cornell University. With extensive expertise in biologics engineering and development, Dr. Nguyen has made significant contributions to the fields of genetic medicines, immunology, and inflammation. His work continues to drive advancements in therapeutic innovation and cutting-edge research.

Wenqin Ni joined Pfizer in 2013 and currently serves as a Senior Principal Scientist. In this role, Wenqin leads multiple development programs from early-stage research—prior to clinical studies—through to commercial approval, including multispecific projects. Wenqin’s core expertise lies in CMC strategy, with a focus on critical quality attribute (CQA) assessment, control strategy development, and specification setting across diverse projects and modalities. Prior to joining Pfizer, Wenqin earned a Ph.D. from Northeastern University, where research was centered on the characterization of post-translational modifications in biologics using LC/MS.

Lennart Nickel is a PhD candidate in Bioengineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in the Laboratory of Protein Design and Immunoengineering led by Prof. Bruno Correia. His research focuses on computational protein design, particularly on engineering molecular interactions for therapeutic and biotechnological applications. He co-developed the BindCraft platform for de novo protein binder design, published in Nature. Lennart obtained his M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Heidelberg University (Germany), where he conducted his master’s thesis in Prof. Kai Johnsson’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, focusing on protein engineering of biosensor modules.

I am a fifth-year PhD student focused on developing cancer therapeutics using antibody discovery technologies. An integral component of my training involves applying cryo-electron microscopy and single-particle reconstruction to elucidate the structural mechanisms by which these antibody fragments exert their therapeutic function.

Gael completed his M.S in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology at Cornell University in Dr. Pamela Chang's lab, working on characterizing the gut microbiome-host interaction via metabolomic analysis of bacterial metabolites. Gael joined Refeyn in 2021 and over the past 5 years has worked with users globally to both place and onboard mass photometry (MP) workflows across the many industries the technology supports. He currently directs our key account program for large biopharma and CXOs, where he engages the global mass photometry community by facilitating collaboration with the sales, applications, service, and product development teams at Refeyn.

Dr. Nielsen holds a shared position as Professor of Immunoinformatics and Machine Learning at the Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, and the Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Argentina. He graduated with a Masters in Physics from the University of Copenhagen, and obtained his Ph.D. (also in Physics) from the McGill University, Canada. The core of Dr. Nielsen’s research deals with the development of novel and advanced data-driven prediction methods for pattern recognition in biological systems. He is a pioneer in the field of immunoinformatics and a key inventor of several state-of-the-art methods for T and B cell epitope discovery currently used worldwide. He has published more than 200 articles, books, and book chapters within the fields of immunology, immunoinformatics, computational biology, data mining, and machine learning.

Graduated in Molecular Immunology in 1992 from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and was trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering in Cambridge until 1995. During this period she developed phage display semi-synthetic human antibody library, the so call ‘Nissim’ library which has been used worldwide. In November 2000 was appointed at Queen Mary University. My studies are interdisciplinary and involve translational research at the William Harvey Research Institute and with intensive worldwide collaborations. My studies have been mostly focused on the mechanisms that lead to the formation of disease tissue-specific pathogenic post-translationally modified proteins and the exploitation of identified pathogenic proteins to develop platform technologies for novel disease - and tissue-specific, diagnosis and targeted treatment.

Dr. Peter O’Callaghan is Senior Director, Head of Expression System Sciences (Biologics and Licensing) at Lonza. Peter has over 17 years of experience in the field of CHO bioproduction both in industry and academia, and holds a PhD in genetics.

Dr. Shannon Oda received a PhD in Immunology under the mentorship of Dr. Raul Torres at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and completed her postdoctoral training with Dr. Philip Greenberg at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She has received several awards, including the Future of Science and the LLS Career Development Program Special Fellow Awards, and has been invited to give talks internationally. Dr. Oda was recruited to the Seattle Children’s Research Institute in 2020, where she is an assistant professor at the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research and the University of Washington School of Medicine. Her research focuses on improving T cell immunotherapy, which uses immune cells to target and destroy cancer cells. Dr. Oda and her team have identified several obstacles that inhibit immune cells from effectively eradicating tumors and they are innovating new ways to engineer T cells to overcome these obstacles and improve immunotherapy of hematological and solid tumors.

Dr. O'Donoghue is an Attending Physicist in the Department of Medical Physics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, primarily providing scientific support to the Molecular Imaging and Therapy Service of the Department of Radiology. His main scientific interests are imaging and treatment of malignant disease by molecular-targeted radionuclides. He has worked extensively on various aspects of theoretical and clinical radiation dosimetry and radiobiological modeling of these agents and is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed papers. He received the Loevinger-Berman Award of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging in 2016 for this body of work. At MSKCC, he is involved in a wide range of clinical studies of tumor imaging and therapy, with a role that extends from conception to outcome including protocol design, pharmacokinetic and radiation dosimetric analysis, and treatment planning/verification for molecular therapies.

Pierce Ogden is the Co-Founder and CSO of Manifold Bio and inventor of Manifold’s core technology. Pierce obtained a PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard, where he developed novel methods of protein library design and assays leveraging multiplex DNA synthesis, sequencing, and machine learning. His work has been published in Science, Nature Biotech, and he is an inventor on several patents related to high-throughput protein engineering.

Shimobi holds a PhD in Chemistry from? the University of Cambridge and has extensive experience in the biotech space, particularly in antibody and CAR T cell research. He has published over 30 papers and is a named inventor on over 50 patents.

After completing her undergraduate and masters degree in bioengineering at AgroParisTech in France, Carolina Orozco obtained her PhD in Biophysics at the University of Cambridge, where she investigated the key parameters which determine optimal affinity-based masks. She subsequently joined AstraZeneca in 2021 and is now a Senior Scientist working on the development of next-generation T-cell engagers strategies.

My interest lies in using computational and experimental methods to interrogate the interactions between proteins and nucleic acids, and how we can accurately extract the dynamics of such interactions. I did my PhD in structural biology (cryoEM and crystallography) with Prof. Martin Jinek studying the mechanism of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editor activation and off-target tolerance. I then did my postdoctoral research in the lab of Prof. Bruno Correia, developing computational methods for the solubilisation of membrane proteins and the design of highly specific protein binders.

Vincent Pai joined Bruker Cellular Analysis in 2016 and now leads new product development for antibody discovery applications on the Beacon® optofluidic system as part of the product management team. He has over 12 years of experience in cell biology, nanotechnology, and microfluidics, previously working in a translational microfluidics lab at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and earning his master's in Biomedical Sciences at UC San Diego.

After obtaining his medical degree at VU Amsterdam, Netherlands, and a few years in clinic, Dr. Pais moved to the life science industry. He worked about 20 years in medical, clinical research, marketing, and management roles with escalating responsibilities both in functions and territories in 3 different pharma companies (Sanofi, Synthon and Grünenthal). He got familiar with the possibilities of using radiation during his time as Global VP Medical at Elekta radiation. His radiopharmaceutical journey started at Ipsen, continued with several biotechs end lead to Nuclidium where he started in 2024 as Chief Medical Officer. Nuclidium pioneers a proprietary copper-based platform, CuTrace™, using Cu-61 and Cu-67 as a true theranostic pair in a number of preclinical and clinical programs.

Dr. Liqiang Pan is Vice Dean of the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Zhejiang University, Qiushi Distinguished Professor, and Full Professor. He also holds a joint appointment at the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Zhejiang University in 2014 and subsequently pursued postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School (2015–2018).His research focuses on novel biologics for cancer and other malignant diseases, including antibody/ligand-drug conjugates, nucleic acid and radiopharmaceuticals, TCR-mimic bispecific antibodies, and immune receptor activation mechanisms. He is dedicated to developing multifunctional biologics to precisely modulate immune cell activity and tumor microenvironment signaling, with the goal of designing clinically relevant and affordable therapies that address unmet medical needs. In 2021, he was named to MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators Under 35 Asia Pacific.” He serves as chair of the Zhejiang Pharmaceutical Association, founding member and vice chair of the Tumor Microenvironment Committee of the Zhejiang Anti-Cancer Association, and editorial board member of Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.

Malvina Papanastasiou, PhD, is a Group Leader and Research Scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, where she spearheads structural proteomics initiatives. With over 15 years of experience, Dr. Papanastasiou focuses on developing advanced Hydrogen Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX-MS) technologies to elucidate protein function in health and disease. Her group pioneered a novel nanoflow HDX (nHDX) platform that achieves a 100-fold sensitivity improvement, enabling the high-resolution analysis of challenging transcription factors, membrane proteins, and MDa-scale macromolecular assemblies using only fmol sample quantities. Her expertise extends to high-throughput epitope/paratope mapping and characterizing protein-ligand interactions. She currently serves as Vice-Chair of the International Society of HDX-MS. Dr. Papanastasiou previously held research positions at the University of Pennsylvania and FORTH (Greece) after earning her PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Hamideh Parhiz, PharmD, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania where she leads the targeted LNP delivery program. Her expertise is developing novel nucleic acid delivery systems including a new generation of targeted LNP-mRNA therapeutics for a variety of non-vaccine applications such as blood gene disorders, cancer, fibrosis, and acute inflammatory conditions. Hamideh’s work has resulted in the publication of more than 40 papers including two papers in Science magazine and several patents. Her work in designing an efficient targeted LNP-mRNA platform is now the basis for industrial product developments as well as academic programs.

Betsy attended Rhodes College, where she obtained her B.S. in chemistry in 2010. She conducted graduate research with Prof. Paul Hergenrother at the UIUC on the synthesis and mechanisms of the deoxynybomycin family of natural products. After obtaining her Ph.D. in 2015, she performed postdoctoral studies with Prof. William Metcalf at UIUC studying the biosynthesis of phosphonate containing natural products. Betsy started her laboratory in the Departments of Chemistry and Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Purdue University in the Fall of 2018 and was promoted to associate professor in Fall 2025. In her lab, research focuses on the identification of novel bioactive peptide natural products from cryptic bacterial biosynthetic gene clusters. Additionally, she studies the unique and challenging chemistries performed by natural product biosynthetic enzymes, such as cyclization of small peptides.

Sofie Pattyn, CTO and founder of Iqvia Laboratories In Vitro Immunology (Formerly known as ImmunXperts), has over 25 years of experience in the field of immunogenicity assessment (vaccines and biotherapeutics) and in vitro assay development with a focus on functional assays for immunogenicity, immune oncology, and cell and gene therapy products. She has extensive hands-on lab experience and has managed and coached several in vitro teams over the last decade. From 2008 until 2013, she was Head of the in vitro Immunogenicity group at AlgoNomics (Ghent, Belgium) and Lonza Applied Protein Services (Cambridge, UK). Prior to that, she worked at Innogenetics in Belgium for over 15 years.

I am a physician-scientist at Johns Hopkins, where I care for patients with leukemias and lymphomas. Despite advances in therapy, many patients experience relapse after initial treatment. My research laboratory is dedicated to developing next-generation antibody-based therapies to address this critical unmet need. We design and engineer novel bispecific antibodies and antibody–drug conjugates that selectively target cancer-specific antigens in leukemias and lymphomas. Our long-term goal is to translate these discoveries into early-phase clinical trials, bringing innovative therapies to patients with relapsed disease. Learn more about our work at www.sumanlab.org .

As a Forward-Deployed Scientist at Chai Discovery, Ryan Peckner collaborates with Chai's partners in drug discovery to enable clinical applications of de novo biologics design. Previously, he was the head of machine learning at Seismic Therapeutic, where he led a team focused on applying ML to develop next-generation classes of non-immunogenic protein therapeutics. He earned his PhD in theoretical mathematics at Princeton University in 2015 and completed his postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute with an emphasis on the intersection of proteomics, genomics, and machine learning. Since entering biotech in early 2019, he has focused on developing and applying new machine learning techniques to structural biology, immunology, and drug development.

Matthias Peipp received his PhD at the chair of genetics, Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany in 2003. In 2004, he moved to Kiel University (Kiel, Germany), where he studied effector mechanisms mediated by human EGFR antibodies. In 2006, Matthias moved to the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Immunotherapy (Kiel, Germany) where he was heading the research division and a research group interested in antibody-based immunotherapy of cancer. In 2015 Matthias was awarded an endowed professorship “Mildred-Scheel-Professorship for experimental antibody-based cancer immunotherapy” funded by the German Cancer Aid. Since 2022, Matthias is heading the Division of Antibody-Based Immunotherapy and holds a professorship in translational leukemia research. His current work is focused on antibody engineering to improve cancer immunotherapy.

Bradley L. Pentelute, Professor of Chemistry. He is also an Associate Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, an Extramural Member of the MIT Koch Cancer Institute, and Member, Center for Environmental Health Sciences MIT. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Chemistry from the University of Southern California, and his M.S and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Chicago with Prof. Steve Kent. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. R. John Collier at Harvard Medical School, Microbiology. His research program lies at the intersection of chemistry and biology and develops bioconjugation strategies, cytosolic delivery platforms, and rapid flow synthesis technologies to optimize the production, achieve site-specific modification, enhance stability, and modulate function of a variety of bioactive agents. His laboratory successfully modified proteins via cysteine-containing “pi-clamps” made up of a short sequence of amino acids, and delivered large biomolecules, such as various proteins and drugs, into cells via the anthrax delivery vehicle. Pentelute has also made several key contributions to automated synthesis technologies in flow. These advances includes the invention of the world's fastest polypeptide synthesizer.

Elise Pepermans obtained her PhD in Biochemistry in the Pasteur Institut in Paris. During her post-doc at the University of Antwerp, she developed an optimized workflow for advanced immunopeptidomics. Since March 2023, she is CEO and cofounder of ImmuneSpec, an advanced immunopeptidomics platform that offers high-sensitive immunopeptidomics as a service, thereby making this technique available to all biotech companies and researchers.

At AstraZeneca’s Department of Biologics Engineering (Gaithersburg, MD), Tony Pham works on establishing new high-throughput experimental methods for developability assessment to support early-stage lead identification. With a background in biochemistry, computational biology, and data analytics he also works on implementing new in silico methods to predict developability properties such as non-specific binding and reversible self-association and build tools for developability optimization. Specific interests include developability of VHHs, and design of antibodies against viral targets. He studied biotechnology, earning his master’s degree at Boston University.

Chester Pham is a Senior Scientist in the Protein Sciences Group at Kite Pharma. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry from the University of Toronto, where his doctoral research focused on protein engineering, structural biology, and synthetic biology. At Kite, he works at the intersection of computational and experimental protein science, using structure- and AI-guided design strategies to advance reagent production, CAR-T construct design, and binder optimization.

Scientist with PhD in Molecular Biology, over 15 years of biosciences experience developing new technologies and therapeutic molecules. Completed vaccines development programs from molecule design to clinical phase. Expert in molecular biology, cell line development and engineering.

Dr. Simon Plyte has over 20 years of experience in research and development in the Pharma industry, both in Big Pharma and small Biotech. He has worked on the discovery and development of NCEs and Biologics, predominantly in the field of Oncology but has also worked in cardiovascular, neurodegeneration, and metabolic disease drug discovery. For the last 12 years, he has focused on Biologics drug discovery, using mono- and multi-specific formats predominantly in the field of Immune Oncology.

Dr. Poole earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology in the Fritz B. Burns Cancer Research Laboratory at Brigham Young University from 2017-2022. After graduating, he joined the high-throughput protein expression team within biologics discovery organization at Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicine.

Martina Porter, MD is the Vice Chair for Research and Academics in the Department of Dermatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She is also the Director of the Clinical Laboratory for Epidemiology and Applied Research in Skin (CLEARS), the Director of the HS Specialty Clinic, and the Co-Leader of the Pathogens, Immunology, and Inflammation Translational Research Hub at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She specializes in treating immune-mediated dermatologic conditions, including Hidradenitis Suppurativa, Psoriasis, Atopic Dermatitis, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease-related dermatoses, with biologics and small molecules, and leads both investigator-initiated and phase 2 and 3 industry-sponsored clinical trials in these disease indications. She has received the Hidradenitis Suppurativa Foundation's Danby Research Award and the AAD's Quality Improvement Award. Dr. Porter is also the Chair of the American Academy of Dermatology's Patient Safety and Quality Committee. She is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Powell is a tumor immunologist with more than 20 years of experience in basic and translational tumor immunology. Dr. Powell was recruited from the National Cancer Institute to the University of Pennsylvania to develop a cutting-edge immunobiology and therapy program for gynecologic cancers, where he serves as Scientific Director of Immunotherapy for the Division of Gynecologic Oncology. His research program focuses on fundamental studies of the immunobiology of human cancer and the development of innovative immunotherapeutic strategies including cancer vaccination, immunomodulation, and adoptive immunotherapy using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and T cells engineered to express tumor antigen-specific TCRs and chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). His seminal studies of T cell phenotype and function in patients responding to adoptive cell therapy, which demonstrated that T cell persistence and differentiation status are major contributing factors to successful adoptive therapy, is now a widely-accepted concept in the field. Studies from the Powell lab have also illustrated the validity of biomarkers for naturally-occurring tumor-specific T cells in human cancer; defined a role for the CD27 costimulatory molecule in human T cell memory formation; and resulted in the development of universal immune receptors for multivalent T cell therapy. He serves on various academic, foundation and industry scientific advisory boards, and provides expert opinion in cancer immunotherapy as a member for the NCI’s Cancer Immunopathology and Immunotherapy (CII) Study Section.

Dr. Sudhakaran Prabakaran is a computational biologist and biotechnology entrepreneur pioneering the application of AI and multi-omics integration to unlock the "dark proteome" for therapeutic discovery. Currently, he is CEO and Co-Founder of NonExomics Inc. and Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University. He serves on scientific advisory boards and has mentored over 50 students, postdocs, and researchers across academia and industry. His landmark 2014 Nature Communications publication provided the first large-scale proteomic evidence of translation from "noncoding" RNAs, establishing the dark proteome as a therapeutic frontier. His 2022 Molecular Psychiatry work revealed novel proteins in human accelerated regions providing new leads for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His research has resulted in six patent applications across oncology, neuropsychiatry, and rare diseases, and has been featured in Science, Bloomberg, Inside Precision Medicine, and The Times. From 2016 to 2021, Dr. Prabakaran was Assistant Professor and Fellow at the University of Cambridge, where he led research on novel open reading frames and their disease relevance. He has authored a comprehensive book, Eclipsed Horizons: Unveiling the Dark Genome (World Scientific Publishing, 2025), and has received recognition including the Cambridge-Hamied Visiting Lectureship, Illumina Accelerator acceptance, and AWS Research Award. Dr. Prabakaran has expertise spanning proteogenomics, systems biology, machine learning, and translational therapeutics development. His areas of focus include dark proteome target discovery, AI-driven drug development, immunotherapy design, and precision medicine. Dr. Prabakaran received his Ph.D. in Systems Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge and completed postdoctoral training in Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.

Philipp Probst is Director of Research at Araris Biotech AG, a Swiss biotech company located in Au ZH pioneering a novel linker technology for antibody-drug conjugates. He studied Pharmaceutical Sciences and received his PhD from ETH Zürich in 2018, where he worked in the group of Prof. Dario Neri on the generation of antibody-targeted therapeutics for applications in oncology. Philipp joined Araris in 2019 and oversees the design and preclinical characterisation of novel ADC candidates using the Araris Linker Technology.

Dr. Erik Procko completed his PhD in 2008 at Harvard University investigating mechanisms for antigen presentation to the immune system and was the first to computationally design a de novo protein with function (for the inhibition of a viral oncogene) under the mentorship of David Baker at the University of Washington during his postdoc. He was appointed as an Assistant Professor and later Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he developed methods for deep mutagenesis of complex glycoproteins in human cells. In 2020, he founded a small startup company that merged with Cyrus Biotechnology, where he helped build their experimental platform for deimmunizing non-human proteins to enable their safe and effective use as therapeutics. He became the Chief Scientific Officer at Cyrus Biotechnology in 2024, where he continues to help build a pipeline of novel drug candidates for autoimmunity, inflammation, and infectious diseases.

Dr. Yang QIU joined the Group in 2021. She was appointed as chief scientific officer (CSO) and the general manager of Duality U.S. She is mainly responsible for directing the R&D, providing scientific insights and leadership, and progressing key assets of the Group. Dr. QIU brings over 20 years of global leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with a demonstrated track record of success in drug discovery, translational medicine and early clinical development. Prior to joining our Group, Dr. Qiu worked for GSK China, lastly as director, leading the progress of early drug discovery, Johnson & Johnson China, as Director of Biomarker Research, responsible for the design and delivery of multiple biomarkers studies in clinical development programs of the company's oncology portfolio and Daiichi Sankyo Inc., responsible for the development of global translational medicine and early development strategy for ADC programs. Dr. QIU obtained a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from University of Texas at Austin in the United States, respectively.

Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi has over 30 years of oncology research background in academia and leadership experience in leading a large cancer research institute as well as leadership positions in international pharma and biotech. He is currently a Professor in the Immunology Department at the University of Toronto where his research focuses on the role of non-coding regions, including retrotransposable elements and human endogenous retroviruses, in cancer development and as modulators of the immune response in cancer patients. Dr. Radvanyi served as President & Scientific Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR; https://oicr.on.ca/) from May 2018 to November 2024 overseeing all aspects of running the research institute, including its administrative functions its scientific research strategy and programs, and building national and international collaborations. OICR is one of the largest cancer research institutes in Canada (>340 staff) performing intramural cancer research and funding cancer research across Ontario as the second largest source of cancer research funding in Canada after the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Prior to this, Laszlo worked at EMD Serono (Merck KGaA) was Senior Vice President Global Head of the Immuno-Oncology Translational Innovation Platform and Senior Scientific Advisor for Immunology and Immunotherapy (2015-2018). Prior to this, Laszlo was a Professor in the Department of Melanoma Medical Oncology at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for 10 years (2004-2014) where he ran an integrated clinical and basic cancer immunotherapy research program focusing on adoptive cell therapy. He left MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2014 to become the founding Chief Scientific Officer of Iovance Biotherapeutics (2014-2015), a pioneering company commercializing tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) adoptive cell therapies for melanoma and other cancers which recently got its first TIL therapy product (lifileucel) approved by the US FDA in February 2024 under the product name AmtagviTM. Laszlo led the company in filing its first INDs and built its research and development team. Laszlo also sits on several national and international grant review panels and biotech advisory boards and is a sought-after expert in cancer biology and immunotherapy and a thought leader in the field of oncology research strategy. In January 2026, Dr. Radvanyi will be joining the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa as a Senior Scientist in the Cancer Centre as a nominee for a prestigious Tier I Canada Research Chair in Translational Biotherapeutics.

Jonah Rainey holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Tufts University and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin and the Salk Institute. He has engaged in discovery, research, and development of bispecific antibodies for more than 15 years. He is an inventor on several patents describing novel bispecific platforms and current clinical candidates that exploit these platforms as well as an author on almost 30 publications. Jonah contributed to research and early development leading to multiple clinical candidates from Phase I and through approved products and led many advanced preclinical programs in oncology, infectious disease, autoimmunity, and other therapeutic areas. Previous industry experience includes MacroGenics, MedImmune/AZ, Oriole Biotech, Gritstone Oncology, and Alivamab Discovery Services. Currently, Jonah is a Senior Director in Protein Science at Eli Lilly & Co.

Dr. Rankin is Executive Director, Oncology at Amgen Inc., where he leads the Immuno-oncology research team. In this role, he is responsible for setting Immuno-oncology strategic priorities and identifying new targets, combinations and therapeutic approaches. Previously, Dr. Rankin served as Vice President, Research (Immuno-oncology) at FivePrime Therapeutics from October 2019 through Amgen’s acquisition of FivePrime in April 2021. From October 2012 to September 2019, he held roles of increasing responsibility at FivePrime, driving discovery and advancement of novel Immuno-oncology targets. He joined FivePrime from Pfizer, where he led the Discovery B and T cell Targeting Group focused on identifying novel therapeutic targets and modalities for autoimmunity and inflammation. Dr. Rankin earned a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, studying factors that regulate T and B cell responses to foreign and self antigens. He completed postdoctoral training at DNAX/Schering Plough in the Discovery Cytokine Biology Group.

Christian Reichen - Director & Project Leader at Molecular Partners - leads research programs at Molecular Partners focused on developing DARPin-based radiopharmaceuticals for targeted cancer therapy. Under his leadership, several molecules have advanced into clinical development, including MP0712, the first DLL3-targeting Radio-DARPin candidate for small cell lung cancer (SCLC), and MP0533, a DARPin-based T-cell engager currently in trials for acute myeloid leukemia (AML).Earlier in his career at Molecular Partners, Christian contributed to multiple pipeline projects through protein engineering and sequence optimization. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Zurich in the laboratory of Prof. Andreas Plückthun, where he developed a novel binding scaffold based on armadillo repeat proteins using computational design. He holds an master's degree from ETH Zurich.

Dr. Janice Reichert is an internationally recognized expert in the development of antibody therapeutics. Dr. Reichert is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of mAbs, a peer-reviewed, PubMed-indexed biomedical journal that focuses on topics relevant to antibody research and development. Dr. Reichert writes frequently on development trends for antibody therapeutics, including the annual ‘Antibodies to Watch’ articles published in mAbs, and she has presented her research results as an invited speaker at conferences held worldwide.

Rachel Rennard is Senior Vice President of Research at Stereo Biotherapeutics. With over 20 years of experience in protein discovery and engineering, Rachel has driven the development of innovative platforms that advance next-generation therapeutics. Prior to Stereo, Rachel served as Vice President of Research at Mosaic Biosciences, where she expanded and elevated the company’s antibody discovery capabilities to advance external therapeutic partnerships. Earlier, as Chief Technology Officer of Antibodies at Alloy Therapeutics, she architected the company’s discovery platform and led multidisciplinary teams delivering antibody solutions to partners. Rachel is passionate about building high-performing teams that thrive on collaboration, creativity, and scientific excellence.

Diane Retallack, PhD was a founding member of the team that established the Pfenex Expression Technology® platform, overseeing strain engineering, HTP screening, and upstream development. With over 25 years of experience in molecular biology, protein expression, and executive management, she has contributed to multiple therapeutic programs from product conception through commercialization. Diane completed her doctorate at the University of Michigan and post-doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Syed Reza serves as a drug delivery consultant to NOF Corporation since 2017. In this role, Syed has been responsible for managing industry partnerships for NOF's COATSOME technology and advises on strategic partnerships and licensing. Previously, Syed was Head of US Business Development for Octoplus N.V. and managed industry alliances and partnerships for Octoplus' protein nanoparticle technology platform. Prior to that, Syed served as Director of Business Development for Hoffman LaRoche's peptide technologies group in Colorado. He is a graduate of the New Jersey Medical School with an MD and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology.

Guilhem Richard, Ph.D., is the Chief Technology Officer of EpiVax, Inc. and has over 10 years of experience in computational immunology and vaccinology. Dr. Richard joined the EpiVax immunoinformatics team in 2014, developing new models for understanding the interaction between the immune system and protein sequences, while supporting EpiVax’s commercial and research programs. He spearheaded the development of a new computational platform for the development of personalized, neoantigen-based cancer vaccines (Ancer), and conducted subsequent translational work at EpiVax’s subsidiary company, EpiVax Therapeutics, Inc., from 2019 to 2024 where he served as Chief Scientific Officer/Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Richard has been leading innovation efforts at EpiVax since 2024 and is overseeing the development of its next generation of immunoinformatics tools. Dr. Richard holds a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from Boston University and a M.Eng. in Bioinformatics and Modeling from the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of Lyon, France.

Marc Robillard, CSO & founder of Tagworks Pharmaceuticals. Marc is founder and CSO of Tagworks, a pioneer of in vivo click chemistry, and the inventor of the now widely used Click-to-Release approach for improved systemic therapies. He spun the technology out of Philips Healthcare and then drove its development into a broadly applicable platform technology for systemic therapies, while building a broad IP estate, productive partnerships, and a strong team and blue-chip investor base. At Philips Marc worked on molecular imaging and drug delivery programs, eventually focusing on in vivo click chemistry applications in these domains. Prior to Philips, he worked at Kreatech Diagnostics on the development of probes for microarray-based detection of DNA, RNA and proteins. In addition, he was a visiting scientist at the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Marc obtained his MSc and PhD in bio(in)organic chemistry at, respectively, the University of Groningen and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, The Netherlands. He has published 41 peer-reviewed papers and is a co-inventor on 22 patents.

Data scientist specialized in leveraging AI/ML, Bioinformatics, and Computational Protein Design methods to advance biotherapeutics development in the fast-paced environment of biotech/pharmaceutical industry.

Dan is the Chief Technology Officer of AbTherx. He has over 25 years of broad experience in therapeutic drug discovery. Over the last 20 years, Dan and his scientific teams have specialized in creating therapeutic antibody discovery platforms in transgenic mice, including managing and refining the HuMAb Mouse® platform – the most successful platform based on the number of FDA approvals to date. Updating this technology to meet new antibody therapeutic modality needs has resulted in the creation of the novel and differentiated Atlas™ Mice antibody platform which is poised to address the evolving antibody therapeutics market. Dan has an established background and publication record in transgenic methodologies and G-protein coupled receptors, and he is recognized throughout the industry for his leadership of therapeutic discovery campaigns.

Dr. Luciana K. Rosselli-Murai is a highly skilled research scientist with over 8 years of experience in cell biology and cancer research. As the Head of the Field Application Scientist team for GenScript's Products and Instruments, she has been supporting customers in adopting and optimizing automated protein purification workflows. Her work focuses on the AmMag™ Quatro ProAb system, where she helps enable high-throughput, magnetic bead–based affinity purification for rapid and reproducible protein production. She collaborates closely with researchers to improve workflow efficiency, scalability, and data quality in early-stage biologics development.

John Rossi is a translational medicine leader with more than 24 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, specializing in clinical pharmacology, predictive biomarkers, and correlative science to advance oncology and immune-related drug development. He has built and led high-impact translational teams spanning early discovery through late-stage clinical development, with a particular focus on cell therapy. Most recently, John served as Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine at Capstan, where he designed and led translational strategy for a FIH study of a novel class of in vivo nanomedicines for the treatment of AID. Prior to Capstan, he was Vice President of Translational Medicine at CARGO Therapeutics, where he led a successful IND submission team, enabling a phase 2 clinical trial of CRG-022, a novel anti-CD22 autologous CAR T-cell therapy. Before joining CARGO, John was a Senior Director at Kite, a Gilead Company, leading clinical pharmacology and biomarker discovery teams that supported global approvals of Yescarta® and Tecartus®. John’s scientific contributions include the discovery of novel metrics to characterize CAR T cells based on functionality and fitness; biomarker insights that elucidated CAR T-cell mechanisms of action in humans; mechanistic understanding of CAR-related toxicities; new perspectives on the tumor immune microenvironment; and elucidation of the pivotal role of IL-15 in CAR T-cell function.

Jenna Rutberg is a PhD candidate in the Biomedical Engineering program at Brown University. Her research focuses on the development of microfluidic electrophoresis-based methods to characterize novel therapeutics and biomarkers. In collaboration with market leading companies, she leads a team to develop new microfluidic assays for its commercial and customer use. Prior to Brown University, Jenna received her Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering with a concentration in Molecular, Cell & Tissue Engineering from Northeastern University. During her time at Northeastern University, she had the opportunity to work full time in both the medical device and pharmaceutical industry.

Michel Sadelain is the founding director of the Columbia Initiative in Cell Engineering and Therapy at Columbia University, where he is Herbert and Florence Irving Professor of Medicine. He previously founded and directed the Center for Cell Engineering at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he held the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair. He received his M.D. from the University of Paris, his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, and trained as a post-doctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute at MIT. Sadelain has made numerous key contributions to the emergence and success of CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapy.

As a Senior Lab Automation Engineer at the Institute for Protein Innovation, and with a Bachelor of Science in Robotics Engineering from UC Santa Cruz, I have a strong background in designing, onboarding, and maintaining integrated systems. My experience spans developing methods for various lab automation platforms and prototyping custom robotic solutions. I thrive on consulting the feasibility of automating assays and coding scripts to connect lab instruments to LIMS, enabling automatic data visualization. My previous roles involved designing real-time software and hardware control applications for field robots, integrating robots into customer applications, and significantly improving testing efficiency through automation. With a foundation in equipment engineering, including PLC programming and hardware design, and software engineering focusing on GUI development and legacy system upgrades, I bring a comprehensive skill set to tackle complex automation challenges.

Branden Salinas is a passionate, strategic problem solver in the CMC and technical operations biotechnology space, bridging science and engineering. His data-driven roots were founded during his PhD studies in the Chemical and Biological Engineering department at the University of Colorado Boulder. He followed this with several roles in both large and small organizations, varying in functions from process and product development, to manufacturing support. and capital projects. Over the years he has collected technical transfer experience from a variety of angles and modalities, at multiple scales and at multiple phases of development. He enjoys building teams and relationships and is fully motivated to deliver Umoja’s game changing technologies in vivo CAR-T products to clinical trials and beyond. These combined experiences have led to a practical area of expertise at the bridge between science and engineering. Branden is now leveraging these experiences to support Umoja’s Technical Operations buildout and team in the Louisville, Colorado, USA area where he lives with his beautiful wife and three daughters. Outside of work he loves chasing his daughter's many sports activities, coaching a competitive youth soccer team, listening to music, trying new recipes and enjoying the company of family and friends.

Devleena Samanta is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry, an Associate Member of the Livestrong Cancer Institutes, and a member of the Texas Materials Institute at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). Her research centers on developing nanoscale tools to sense and control biocatalysis, advancing fundamental chemistry while enabling new applications in chemical synthesis, biology, and medicine. She is the first UT Austin faculty member to receive the prestigious Packard Fellowship in chemistry, and her contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including a Scialog Fellowship, the Outstanding Researcher Award from the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN), and selection as a Hanna Gray Fellow Finalist by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In addition to her research, Devleena is a dedicated teacher and mentor. She has received two teaching awards at UT Austin, as well as the Outstanding Mentor Award from the IIN. For her contributions to UT Austin, she was appointed the William H. Tonn Endowed Professorial Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. She also serves on the Early Career Advisory Board of the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, a diamond open access journal. Devleena earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University in 2017 under the mentorship of Professor Richard N. Zare. She was supported by a Winston Chen Stanford Graduate Fellowship and a Center for Molecular Analysis and Design Fellowship. She then trained with Professor Chad A. Mirkin at Northwestern University as an IIN Postdoctoral Fellow.

Dr. Camille Samson is a structural biologist specializing in X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, and protein engineering. With a focus on drug discovery, her recent work explores innovative strategies to enable high-resolution structural determination of small proteins, including oncogenic targets like kRasG12C. She currently leads projects integrating scaffold-based approaches to expand Cryo-EM applicability in pharmaceutical research.

Aaron is the Chief Strategy Officer at Adimab, with over 25 years of experience in biotechnology, focusing on discovering and developing novel first-in-class antibody therapeutics. Before joining Adimab, Aaron served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Twist Bioscience, where he led their Biopharma Solutions business. Prior to Twist, he served as Chief Scientific Officer of LakePharma, leading the California Antibody Center. He is the author of over 40 peer-reviewed papers and 70 issued patents in the antibody space.

Shuji Sato is Vice President of Innovative Solutions at MindWalk, where he leads the development of advanced discovery workflows across the biointelligence ecosystem. With more than 20 years of experience spanning biotech, pharma, and academia, he has directed in vivo and in vitro antibody discovery and development programs for some of the industry’s most complex targets. Drawing on deep expertise in drug development, Shuji translates scientific insight into scalable, high-impact discovery strategies that help partners move from biological question to actionable programs.

Andrew J. Sawyer, Ph.D., Distinguished Scientist and Project Lead in Immune Cell Reprogramming, Oncology Research, Sanofi Andrew is a Distinguished Scientist and Lab Head in the Immune Cell Reprogramming Cluster within Oncology Research at Sanofi. Andrew received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Yale University with postdoctoral study in innate immunity and inflammation at the Yale School of Medicine. He has held leadership positions in oncology research and translation at Merrimack Therapeutics, Takeda, and Sanofi. Andrew led the preclinical research team for Sanofi’s lead mRNA LNP in vivo CAR T candidate and his lab continues to leverage multiple innovative research platforms to engineer novel therapeutics.

Dr. Schaffer has over 20 years of experience in driving innovation in life sciences technology and large-scale isotope production. Prior to Telix, Dr. Schaffer was CTO at ARTMS Inc. (ARTMS) (acquired by Telix in 2024), as well as Director, Life Science at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator research centre, since 2012. He is widely recognized for his role in the buildout and transformation of the TRIUMF Life Sciences program, which included design and construction of a major multi-cyclotron radiochemistry facility and the development of the ARTMS QUANTM® Irradiation System (QIS®) for large-scale isotope production, which was commercialized and later acquired by Telix.

Volker Schellenberger is President and CTO of Amunix Pharmaceuticals, which he co-founded in 2006. He initially served as Amunix’s Chief Scientific Officer and is the lead inventor of the company’s XTEN as well as XPAT platforms of protease-activated T cell engagers. Volker has over 25 years of industry experience in protein engineering and drug discovery. Prior to co-founding Amunix he served as head of Genencor’s protein engineering department. Volker received his PhD from Leipzig University (Germany) in 1986. He is author of over 40 scientific papers and inventor of more than 70 issued or pending patent applications. He is a recipient of the Karl Lohmann prize of the German Society of Biochemists. Amunix was acquired by Sanofi in 2022 where Volker served as Head of Discovery for precision-activated biologics. Vir Biotechnology licensed PRO-XTEN from Sanofi in 2024 for use in oncology and infectious diseases. Since then, Volker is SVP and head of Research Oncology at Vir.

Dr. Stefan R. Schmidt MBA, is CEO at evitria AG, a company dedicated to antibody discovery services in Zürich after leading operations at BioAtrium AG, a joint venture of Lonza and Sanofi in Visp, Switzerland as COO. Previously he held the position as CSO and other senior executive roles at Rentschler Biopharma, Germany with overall responsibilities for biologics development and manufacturing. Before that, he was CSO at ERA Biotech in Barcelona, Spain, directing the company’s R&D efforts based on fusion proteins. Prior to that, he worked at AstraZeneca in Sweden where he led the unit of Protein Sciences within Global Protein Science & Supply as Associate Director. He started his leadership career more than 25 years ago at Biotech companies in Munich, Germany where he built up protein biochemistry teams for Connex and GPC-Biotech. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Julius Maximilians University in Wuerzburg, Germany and an MBA from the University in Gävle, Sweden.

Joel Schneider received a Ph.D. in Chemistry at Texas A&M University before moving on to the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine as a postdoctoral fellow. After which, he joined the faculty at the University of Delaware (UD). As Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UD, he was recruited in 2010 to the National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research to serve as Chief and build their new Chemical Biology Laboratory. In his independent research, he develops biomaterials for use in the local delivery of therapeutics towards the treatment of cancer. He is particularly interested in peptide-based hydrogels and nanoparticles formed by assembly. His work establishes how material composition and structure influences material function, which lays the foundation to ultimately translate materials to the clinic. Joel also serves as a Deputy Director of the Center for Cancer Research as well as the past president of the American Peptide Society.

Nathaniel Scott is a seasoned Clinical Scientist and certified Medical Physics Expert (MPE) specialising in nuclear medicine. Currently with Blue Earth Therapeutics, Nathaniel leads on the scientific aspects of imaging and dosimetry in the clinical development program. With a background in the NHS, Nathaniel later transitioned to overseeing the nuclear medicine physics service within a private oncology network in the UK. Their expertise lies in radiopharmaceutical therapy and dosimetry, with a drive for improving patient care and treatment effectiveness. Driven by a passion for advancing healthcare through science, Nathaniel strives to make a positive impact in his field, blending theoretical knowledge with practical skills to drive innovation.

Jane has over 15 years of experience in antibody drug discovery, utilizing in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Biologics, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.

With a background in biology, I began my scientific career at Vanderbilt University, where I focused on proteomics and studied antibody responses to flu vaccines. I later joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, developing high-throughput assays to support small molecule hit validation. Currently, I’m a Senior Scientist at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where I specialize in mass spectrometry-based characterization of therapeutic modalities, including antibodies, lentiviruses, and adeno associated viruses, across multiple pipelines.

Dr. Benedikte Serruys is the Global Head of the Biologics Innovation team at the Large Molecule Research Platform in Sanofi. After earning her PhD in Medical Sciences from Ghent University, she joined Ablynx in 2009 as a member of the Pharmacology department. Over the years, she led the non-clinical pharmacology assessment in support of IMPD filings for several projects and played a key role in the MAA/BLA submission process for Cablivi, coordinating the non-clinical pharmacology sections. Following Sanofi's acquisition of Ablynx in 2018, Dr. Serruys joined the Global Innovation team as Project Head and assumed leadership of the group in 2023. Under her leadership, the team's mission is to impact patients' lives by developing novel biologics approaches to address unmet medical needs—including tackling undruggable targets, increasing the therapeutic index, and exploring alternative delivery systems. The team leverages Sanofi's rich toolbox of advanced biologic modalities and combines these with cutting-edge technologies to advance innovative therapeutic solutions.

Ayla Sessions is Associate Director of High Throughput Production in the Biologics Engineering department at AstraZeneca, where she leads the deployment and management of automated solutions to produce multi-milligram quantities of biologics. Her team is responsible for automating end-to-end biologics production at a range of fit-for-purpose scales, supporting the rapidly evolving multispecies space. With nearly a decade of experience in pharmaceutical companies and startups, Ayla draws on her PhD in Bioengineering to design and implement tailored automation strategies for biologics production and screening. Her teams have successfully delivered thousands of molecules across more than 30 pipeline programs, driving advances in hit screening, hit-to-lead conversion, and the development of automation solutions for AI and machine learning applications.

Andrew Sewell initially trained in Chemistry and undertook a PhD in Genetics at the University of Liverpool (1991) before embarking on postdoctoral training at the University of Utah. He returned to the UK in 1995 to research how the HIV virus evades the human immune system at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford where he became a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow. He relocated to Cardiff University in 2006 and became a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and has been continuously Wellcome-funded for over 25 years. His research group focuses on T-cell ligands and the receptors that recognise them (αβTCR, γδTCR, CD4 and CD8). Most of the Sewell laboratory’s recent work is based around understanding the basic biology of antigen recognition by human T-cells using novel pipelines for the discovery of new T-cell targets. Current Sewell group research projects include: Dissection of successful immune responses after successful cancer immunotherapy; TCR gene transfer therapy (TCR-T); Novel CAR-T technologies; T-cell receptor-optimised peptide skewing or the repertoire of T-cells (TOPSORT); Artificial (non-biologic) T-cell antigens as vaccines; T-cell/TCR-based diagnostics in autoimmune disease; and unconventional (non-HLA-restricted) T-cell responses to infection and tumours.

Jagesh V. Shah is the Senior Vice President of Platform at a Flagship Pioneering Startup developing LNPs for targeted in vivo gene therapies. He spent 15 years as a faculty member at Harvard Medical school melding together the disciplines of engineering, cell biology and systems biology towards new technologies and therapeutics for patients. Most recently, Jagesh was at Sana Biotechnology where he led the discovery and early development of the Fusogen platform, a revolutionary technology to engineer targeted in vivo viral vector-based delivery of therapeutic payloads.

I am Senior Director of Data Strategy & Digital Transformation at Eli Lilly. Throughout my career I have worked on development of different technology platforms for biologics discovery such as implementation of immune in vitro phage display antibody libraries, droplet microfluidics for high-throughput sequencing of antibodies at single cell level, and Next-Generation-Sequencing for immune repertoire profiling. I have a BSc in Bioengineering from the Jacobs School of Bioengineering at University of California San Diego and a MSc in Biotechnology from Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble. During my PhD at the Enzymatic and Cellular Engineering Laboratory of Sorbonne University, I studied the presence and implication of catalytic antibodies in health and disease using mouse models and high-throughput in vitro display technologies. In my current role, I lead a team responsible for the establishment and execution of our Data Strategy at BioTDR, in line with our aspirations for Digital Transformation toward an AI-enabled biologics discovery process.

Jenny holds an MD and a PhD in Cancer Biology from Columbia University. She has supported numerous internally developed and externally licensed biologics programs from discovery through IND and regulatory approval, including blockbuster therapies Eylea, Dupixent, Carvykti, and Rybrevant. Jenny Currently is Chief Scientific Advisor for Antibody Discovery at Cyagen, where she evaluates innovative technology platforms and preclinical and early clinical biologics assets spanning immunology, oncology, and metabolism.

Sunny is a founding team member at Fovus, where he leads the AWS alliance to advance scalable, serverless high-performance computing for life sciences and biotech. He works closely with scientific and platform teams to run molecular simulations, protein structure prediction, and AI model training more efficiently in the cloud. Sunny has led large-scale benchmarking efforts across Boltz, OpenMM, AlphaFold, Nextflow, and GROMACS, demonstrating over 10x per-workload improvements in performance and cost efficiency, along with order-of-magnitude (Over 100x) reductions in end-to-end time to insight across production genomics and structural biology pipelines. These benchmarks consistently show 80–85% lower cloud costs on real scientific workloads, helping researchers adopt next-generation HPC architectures that accelerate discovery. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Delhi and a business degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kundan Sharma earned his degree in Microbiology from the University of Delhi and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Germany, specializing in quantitative and structural proteomics with mass spectrometry. He later joined the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher, where he developed advanced workflows in immunopeptidomics and phosphoproteomics.

Kundan's work has resulted in 18 peer-reviewed publications and includes accolades like a Monsanto scholarship, a gold medal from the University of Delhi for his master's degree, and a Stipend of Excellence from the Max Planck Society. Kundan’s industry experience includes leading high-throughput affinity MS platform development at OMass Therapeutics and working as an Applications Specialist at Bruker, where he supported the sales team in showcasing MS-based 4D-Omics solutions.

Currently, he is the Key Account Manager for UK at Nuclera, guiding customers on the eProtein Discovery platform and helping them access Nuclera’s technology

Whitney Shatz-Binder, Ph.D., is a Senior Principal Scientist in the Drug Delivery Group at Genentech, specializing in targeted nanoparticle formulations for gene therapies. She joined Genentech in 2007, initially within Protein Chemistry, where she led the characterization and development of protein-based biologics. Whitney holds a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva, where she pioneered the use of ferritin cages for drug delivery, and a B.S./M.S. from UC Santa Barbara in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. A prolific contributor to the field, she has co-authored 28 peer-reviewed publications and is a co-inventor on 4 issued patents.

Hannah Sheehan is co-founder of SauveBio, a Massachusetts-based CRO specializing in flow cytometry, advanced cell sorting, and organelle isolation services. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology from Northeastern University, where her doctoral work on nanoscale mitochondrial sorting earned a keynote speaking engagement and an international research collaboration. Prior to founding SauveBio, Hannah was a Senior Scientist at AbbVie's Neuroscience department in Cambridge, MA, where she led exploratory research projects and oversaw flow cytometry operations.

Dr. Rachel Shi is currently a Principal Scientist in the Department of Biochemical and Cellular Pharmacology at Genentech Research & Early Development in South San Francisco, California. Rachel received her undergraduate degree from Tianjin University in China with a major in Pharmaceutical Science in 2011. Rachel then obtained her PhD in Analytical Chemistry with Prof. David Clemmer at Indiana University Bloomington and performed her postdoctoral research with Prof. Michael Gross at Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining Genentech in the summer of 2021, Rachel worked at Amgen and AbbVie where she provided analytical support for CQA assessment, extensive characterization, and comparability studies of therapeutic proteins. Rachel’s studies at Genentech focus on developing and applying mass spectrometry-based assays for bioanalytical and biotransformation studies in the large molecule drug portfolio.

Dr. Shi is the scientific leader of the Biological Therapeutic Discovery Platform in the Therapeutic Discovery Division at MD Anderson Cancer Center. In this capacity, he oversees multiple specialized teams in Protein Science, Antibody Discovery, In Vitro Pharmacology, and Cell Therapy, driving innovation in the preclinical development of therapeutic antibodies. Dr. Shi’s work spans a range of cutting-edge modalities, including ADCC, Bispecific Antibodies, ADC/ARC, and CAR-T therapies, all with the shared objective of advancing novel treatments for cancer patients. His leadership extends from preclinical research to clinical trials, contributing to the development of transformative therapies in the fight against cancer.

Lei Shi, PhD. is Senior Vice President of Biointron. He has more than 20 years of experience in antibody discovery. Previously, Lei worked for several pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including Johnson & Johnson, with increasing responsibilities. He completed his postdoc research at MGH and Harvard Medical School and has an Executive Master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jarrod has been part of ExpressionEdits since the beginning of the company’s journey to change how commercial gene expression is done, joining the founding team as Lead Scientist for R&D. ExpressionEdits has revised the design of the basic building block of the field, the transgene, which has remained essentially unchanged since the 1970s. Our technology incorporates both coding and non-coding DNA into transgenes through a process of ‘intronization’, which unlocks higher protein expression and other improvements that come from engaging cellular machinery that were overlooked by the cDNA transgenes of the past. Prior to ExpressionEdits, Jarrod developed innovative approaches to measure human cell surface proteins at scale in order to discover new drug targets based on cell-to-cell communication while working at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge for work at the interface of biochemistry, systems biology, and bioinformatics.

Senior executive in translational and discovery biology with 20+ years of oncology drug development leadership across global pharma and biotech. Drives portfolio and platform strategy, leading cross-functional teams to advance first-in-class therapeutics, including degraders and antibody-drug conjugates, from target identification through IND, translating scientific innovation into clinically differentiated oncology programs.

Dr. Shamit Shrivastava is a mechanical engineer and biophysicist, known for his pioneering work on the thermodynamic theory of nerve pulse propagation. His research focuses on nonlinear acoustic waves and their role in signal transmission within biological systems. As co-founder and CEO of Apoha, a deep tech company, Shamit has transformed his scientific insights into a revolutionary computing platform applying reservoir computing to solve critical challenges like antibody developability. His vision is centered on translating fundamental discoveries into foundational technologies that tackle seemingly impossible problems in biophysics and material discovery.

Dr. Shusta received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois where he studied the production and engineering of antibodies and T-cell receptors using yeast. He followed this with postdoctoral training at the University of California-Los Angeles where he helped pioneer molecular level analyses of the blood-brain barrier. Currently, Dr. Shusta is the Howard Curler Distinguished Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also appointed in the Department of Neurological Surgery. His research focuses on the development of molecular and cellular engineering tools that can help gain a better understanding of blood-brain barrier transport, function and therapeutic delivery. He is a steering council member of the International Brain Barriers Society and has been recognized by an NSF Career award, the American Chemical Society BIOT division young investigator award, the Biotechnology Progress Award for Excellence in Biological Engineering Publication and is an elected fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, among other awards.

Accomplished scientist and mentor with nearly 2 decades of industrial experience developing protein therapeutics who leads a multi-disciplinary laboratory composed of diverse talents and educational backgrounds. Extensive experience in antibody discovery/engineering and proteomics who has worked across all phases of drug development from target identification to registration. Rob received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Biochemistry from Indiana University Bloomington and postdoctoral training at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he began his antibody engineering career that includes extensive work with both phage and yeast in vitro display systems. He has been with Eli Lilly and Company since 2007 and most recently has collaboratively devised and implemented the large molecule portfolio preclinical immunogenicity risk assessment strategy.

Antonina Simakova, Ph.D., is Executive VP of Research and co-founder of Myris Therapeutics, a CMU spin-out pioneering polymer-enabled biologics. She leads development of ultra–high-DAR ADCs and long-circulating enzyme conjugates using advanced polymer architectures to improve stability and pharmacokinetics. Her work spans discovery through preclinical translation, with DoD-supported programs and collaborations across industry and academia. She is an inventor on multiple patents and a published author in polymer chemistry, protein engineering, and drug delivery.

Gary Sims graduated with a Bsc degree in Biological Science at the University of Birmingham, UK and completed his PhD in Infection and Immunity at the University of Glasgow, UK. He Joined MedImmune since 2006 (subsequently AZ) and currently is Senior Director of Immunology Biosciences at AZ. HIs responsibilities include Immunology strategy; Program leadership; Preclinical development of immunology portfolio; Regulatory filings and early clinical development support; Business development evaluation; Departmental management.

Meredith Skiba received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Bryn Mawr College. She completed her PhD in biological chemistry at the University of Michigan under the advisement of Dr. Janet Smith, where she focused on the structural enzymology of natural product biosynthesis. During her postdoctoral training in Dr. Andrew Kruse’s lab at Harvard Medical School, she studied G protein-coupled receptor structure and signaling and developed antibody-based tools to modulate receptor function. Meredith is now an assistant professor in the biological chemistry and pharmacology departments at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Dr. Eric Smith received his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Duke University in 1997. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU he joined Regeneron in 2002 as a member of the Antibody and Trap Technologies group, where he worked on cytokine traps and related molecules. In 2008 he was a founding member of the Bispecific Antibodies team and is currently the Vice President of Bispecifics at Regeneron.

Catharine Smith serves as inaugural Executive Director of the Termeer Foundation, which carries on the bold legacy of former Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer, who was committed to mentoring emerging leaders and whose dedication to patients resulted in groundbreaking treatments for rare diseases. By supporting biotech leaders, the Foundation seeks to increase the probability of creating cures and solving healthcare’s greatest challenges. Prior to the Termeer Foundation, Catharine served as the CEO of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative at the Clinton Foundation where she led a team focused on stigma reduction and overdose prevention related to the opioid epidemic. Prior to that, Catharine was the executive director of the Harvard Center for Primary Care. Catharine holds a master’s degree in business administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a graduate degree in social science research from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Matt Smonskey is Senior Manager of Cell Biology within the BioProduction Group at Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he has spent the past decade advancing innovation in bioprocessing and cell line development. His work focuses on accelerating protein expression through novel technologies, high-throughput screening strategies, and next-generation CHO cell line development platforms designed to improve productivity and product quality for global biotech and pharmaceutical partners. Dr. Smonskey leads initiatives centered on early-stage innovation, translating emerging scientific concepts into scalable products and service offerings. He is currently spearheading the launch of CHOvantageâ„¢, a new CHO cell line development kit designed to streamline and enhance protein production workflows. He holds a Ph.D. in Cancer Pathology and Prevention and completed postdoctoral training in preclinical models.

Eileen Sneeden is Head of Nuclear Oncology Physics and Radiation Biophysics at RayzeBio, a Bristol Myers Squibb Company, with an innovation-leading position in actinium-based radiopharmaceutical therapeutics (RPTs) including RYZ101, a Phase 3 investigational, targeted RPT in a global Phase 3 study (ACTION-1) for treating patients with NETs. She is an accelerator instrumentationalist and radiation biophysicist by training (US Department of Energy/SLAC/Stanford Synchrotron scientist) and began thinking deeply about particle-biomatter interactions as a member of the atomic group building the first positron microscope at the University of Michigan. Eileen retooled in 2015 at UCLA in medical physics, shifting her focus into a passion to do her part in advancing standard of care after unexpectedly losing someone dear to a disease. A believer in a patient-first approach, Eileen joined RayzeBio in 2021 within 60 hours of the initial recruiter call, recognizing immediately the potential impact of targeted alpha therapy in the clinic. She remains passionate for patients (and their families) to win!

Peter is cofounder and CSO of Tacalyx. He gained his track record within the field of therapeutic proteins and antibodies during his work as CSO and CEO of SuppreMol which was acquired in March 2015 by Baxter Bioscience/Baxalta and as “Head Process Biochemistry” at Glycart Biotechnology AG, Schlieren/Switzerland which was acquired by Roche in 2005.

Colby Souders earned his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from Texas A&M and previously held positions at BrickBio, Abveris, MassBiologics and Kanyos Bio. At MassBiologics, he worked to advance monoclonal antibodies for the prevention, treatment or diagnosis of various infectious and endogenous diseases, as well as developed related platform technologies to advance and expand the MassBiologics pipeline. Later, he joined the Kanyos Bio Protein Engineering team to develop therapeutics based on a novel antigen-specific immune tolerance platform. Colby has served as Chief Scientific Officer at BrickBio to develop novel antibody drug conjugates and was CSO at Abveris prior to acquisition by Twist Bioscience. He now serves as the CSO of Twist to guide the biologics division.

Dr. Jamie Spangler earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and went on to complete a PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT under the supervision of Professor K. Dane Wittrup. She conducted postdoctoral training in Professor K. Christopher Garcia’s lab at Stanford University School of Medicine, and then launched her independent research group at Johns Hopkins University in July 2017, jointly between the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Spangler’s lab, located in the Translational Tissue Engineering Center at the School of Medicine, applies structural and mechanistic insights to re-engineer existing proteins and design new proteins that therapeutically modulate the immune response. In particular, her group is interested in engineering immune molecules such as antibodies, cytokines, and growth factors for targeted treatment of diseases such as cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders. Dr. Spangler’s work has been recognized with honors including a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Career Development Fellowship, a V Foundation Scholar award, and a Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund Discovery award.

Aviv Spinner is a machine learning biologist focused on protein design, experimental reproducibility, and biologically grounded evaluation of AI systems. They are currently a Protein Engineering Machine Learning Research Fellow at The Align Foundation. Aviv completed their Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School, where their research centered on building biologically grounded benchmarks and evaluation methods for emerging machine learning models. Their work spans academia and industry, including prior roles at Scribe Therapeutics and Flagship Pioneering, and has been presented at major machine learning and biology conferences.

Raja Srinivas, Ph.D., is co‑founder of Asimov, a Boston-based mammalian synthetic biology company. He earned his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University (2007–2011) and a Ph.D. from MIT where his work focused on computational protein and drug design using all-atom simulations. In 2017, Raja cofounded Asimov with three co-founders with the aim to radically advance humanity’s ability to design living systems.

Dr. St. Croix is a Senior Scientist in the Mouse Cancer Genetics Program within the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute, where he has led the Tumor Angiogenesis Section since 2002. A cancer biologist and molecular geneticist, he conducted the first systematic profiling of genes overexpressed in human tumor vasculature, leading to the discovery of ANTXR1/TEM8. His laboratory subsequently defined the mouse vascular transcriptome and its alterations under pathological conditions, identifying B7H3 (CD276) as a gene overexpressed in tumor-associated vasculature. Using genetically engineered mouse models, his group has since explored the function of these and related receptors in the tumor microenvironment. Dr. St. Croix’s current research leverages these insights to elucidate the physiological and pathological roles of these new signaling pathways. Recent findings from his laboratory have revealed an unexpected role for ANTXR1in cardiovascular biology, suggesting that anti- ANTXR1 antibodies may accelerate the development of novel therapies for both cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Colin Stackhouse is a Senior Scientist in Biologics Analytical Development at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. He has nine years of biophysical characterization experience in industry spanning across a wide range of modalities, including various conventional and novel antibody constructs, conjugates, and gene therapy vectors such as AAVs and LNPs. He has contributed broadly across the CMC landscape, supporting key activities such as product characterization, method development, process development, investigations, comparability assessments, elucidation of structure-function relationships, and contribution/authorship of the S.3.1 sections of regulatory filings.

Valentin Stanev received an M.S. in physics from Sofia University, Bulgaria in 2000, and a Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 2010. After a postdoctoral position at Argonne National Laboratory, he moved to the University of Maryland at College Park, where he eventually became an Associate Research Professor at the Department of Material Science and Engineering. In 2021 Dr. Stanev joined the Biopharmaceutical Development Department at AstraZeneca, where he is currently an Associate Principal AI Scientist. His research interests include applications of machine learning methods to predict the developability of biologics.

Lars Stöckl is Managing Director at FyoniBio GmbH. He studied Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich, obtained his PhD at the Robert Koch-Institute /Berlin and gained experience in cell line engineering during his postdoc at the Charite / Berlin and the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research / London. He was a leading scientist at Glycotope for 16 years before founding FyoniBio in 2022.

Dr. Sun received his PhD in medical biophysics from the University of Toronto. He provides expertise in neurogenerative protein manipulation and target engagement assays. He leads both antibody design and the development of antibody-mediated immunotherapeutic-mediated clearance assays. Dr. Sun was the winner of the inaugural Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research ECHO 2019 $250,000 pitch competition. Dr. Sun was also awarded $165,000 by Brain Canada for his work on ALS. Dr. Sun’s ALS research provided new insights into the formation of TDP-43 protein assemblies in the molecular mechanisms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia as his PhD thesis. Dr. Sun also holds an MSc in biochemistry from the University of Toronto. Fun Fact: Dr. Sun is a connoisseur of rare and fine single malt scotch from Islay

Vipin joined Clasp Therapeutics in April 2024. Along with his deep expertise in researching and developing cell therapies for cancer, Vipin has over two decades of experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Most recently, he was the Chief Scientific Officer at Catamaran, and previously co-founded and led Discovery Research at Obsidian Therapeutics. Vipin’s work at Obsidian led to the development of Obsidian’s cytoDRive platform, which broadened the therapeutic reach of cell and gene therapies. Prior to Obsidian, Vipin was a member of the founding team and Head of Biology at Serien (formerly Raze) Therapeutics and an Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlas Venture. At Raze, Vipin’s research was focused on discovering novel anticancer agents by targeting unique vulnerabilities of rapidly growing tumors. Earlier in his career, Vipin spent more than a decade working in the pharmaceutical industry at GSK, Pfizer, and Wyeth, where his research spanned novel small molecule, peptide, nucleic acid, and protein therapeutics across a wide range of therapeutic areas. Vipin holds a PhD in biochemistry from Brandeis University and an MBA from Yale School of Management.

Nikolai Suslov leads the Waltham, MA–based antibody discovery site for Alloy Therapeutics, focusing on antibody and VHH hit discovery and lead selection. He brings over 20 years of experience in antibody research across both pharma (Takeda, Sanofi) and biotech organizations (Rakuten Medical, Phenomic AI). Throughout his career, he has led multidisciplinary teams spanning antibody discovery, protein engineering and molecular / cellular pharmacology.

JoAnn Suzich is the Head of Research at Immunocore where she leads the design and discovery of bispecific soluble T cell engagers for the treatment of oncology, autoimmune disease, and chronic infections. Prior to joining Immunocore, Dr. Suzich was Vice President of Infectious Disease and Vaccines Research at MedImmune and then was the Microbial Sciences Therapeutic Area Head at AstraZeneca where she was responsible for the development of monoclonal antibody-based drugs including bispecifics to prevent and/or treat RSV, influenza, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Early in her career, Dr. Suzich led the R&D team developing virus-like particle technology for HPV vaccines used to prevent cervical cancer. Dr. Suzich received her PhD in biochemistry from Purdue University and did post-doctoral work at the University of Minnesota.

Alex has built his career around solving complex problems in biology with machine learning. He has over a decade of experience in computational biology and more than 30 publications spanning work at institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At RubrYc Therapeutics, Alex managed antibody discovery campaigns using machine learning to produce drug molecules with exquisite epitope-selectivity, helping drive the company’s acquisition by iBio in 2022. He now leads the development of iBio’s machine learning platform for epitope-steered antibody discovery.

Dr. Taylor is a medical oncologist specializing in drug development and early phase clinical trials with clinical expertise in advanced cutaneous malignancies and thyroid cancers.

Frank holds a Ph.D. in Computational Biology from the University of North Carolina, where he developed a requirement-driven protein design algorithm used to create the first fully rationally designed miniprotein libraries. As a founding team member and current Head of Computational Sciences at AI Proteins, he leads the development of both classical and AI-driven algorithms supporting protein design and optimization. His work spans generative models for novel protein scaffolds as well as predictive tools for protein expression, stability, immunogenicity, and developability, as well as the infrastructure required to deploy them across the organization. His experience sits at the intersection of AI strategy and experimental design, with a focus on building practical, scalable tools that accelerate therapeutic protein development.

Ariel is a PhD student with Sarel Fleishman at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He did his bachelor’s degree in chemical biology at UC Berkeley and moved to the Weizmann Institute in 2019. He is a member of the Teva National BioInnovators Forum and the Azrieli Fellows Program. His research focuses on developing one-shot computational methods to co-optimize antibodies for many properties critical for therapeutic development. He is now applying these methods to design synthetic antibody repertoires for accelerated discovery of developable antibodies. Broadly speaking, he is excited about using protein engineering and design to generate large-scale datasets to learn fundamental principles about proteins and biological functions.

Peter Tessier is the Albert M. Mattocks (Endowed) Professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, and a member of the Biointerfaces Institute at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware (2003, NASA Graduate Fellow) and performed his postdoctoral studies at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT (2003-2007, American Cancer Society Fellow). Tessier started his independent career as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2007, and he was an endowed full professor at Rensselaer prior to moving to the University of Michigan in 2017. Tessier’s research focuses on designing, optimizing, characterizing and formulating a class of large therapeutic proteins (antibodies) that hold great potential for detecting and treating human disorders ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s disease. He has received a number of awards and fellowships in recognition of his pioneering work: Pew Scholar Award in Biomedical Sciences (2010-2014), Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2014-2015), Young Scientist Award from the World Economic Forum (2014), Young Investigator Award from the American Chemical Society (2015) and NSF CAREER Award (2010-2015).

Kader Thiam received his Ph.D. for work at The Pasteur Institute, Lille, in cellular immunology and infectious diseases before becoming a fellow in its Department of Peptide Chemistry. There, he focused on regulating immune response using recombinant viruses and synthetic agonists of cytokines, and on intracellular delivery of lipopeptides modulating pharmacological targets. Kader Thiam joined genOway in 1999, serving first as Scientific Consultant and Head of Immunology, and later as Director of Transgenic Technologies, driving R&D programs to develop alternatives to overcome transgenesis limitations and new models for immune response monitoring and better predictability toward the human situation. He is currently CSO and Senior VP overseeing the feasibility, design, rationale and accuracy of genOway’s preclinical models.

Dr. Thiele is Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of OncoOne, bringing more than 20 years of experience in immunology, tumor biology, biomarker discovery, and biologics development. He leads the company’s scientific strategy and the development of OncoOne’s proprietary PreTarg-it® platform, designed to enable targeted delivery of therapeutics directly to the tumor microenvironment. Prior to founding OncoOne, Dr. Thiele headed the Department of Cell Biology in Oncology Research at Shire. Earlier, he held scientific leadership roles at Baxter BioScience and Baxalta, where he collaborated closely with leading academic institutions and industry partners worldwide. Dr. Thiele has contributed significantly to the understanding of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) biology and was among the first to recognize oxidized MIF (oxMIF) as a distinct disease-related therapeutic target, supporting the development of novel approaches for cancer, autoimmune, and chronic inflammatory diseases.

I have been working as Head of Immuno oncology at Orion Pharma, Finland since March 2020. I hold a PhD degree in Tumour Immunology from Imperial College London, where I studied mechanism involved in regulating tumour immune function. After completing my PhD I moved to biotech, my first industry job was at Kymab where I worked as a research scientist at Kymab, Cambridge, UK (now owned by Sanofi) I worked as pharmacology lead for several IO drug discovery project, most notably anti-ICOS treg cell depleting antibody. In summer 2019, I joined as Group Leader in Translational Biology at Microbiotica, Cambridge, UK. my team was focused on building novel in vivo models to study role of gut bacteria to enhance cancer immunotherapy response.

Dr. Will Thrift is a Senior Artificial Intelligence Scientist in the Computational Sciences Department at Genentech. Will's PhD focused on developing deep machine learning methods for surface-enhanced Raman scattering sensors to enable applications in metabolomics. Will joined Genentech in 2019 where he focuses on developing deep machine learning methods for peptide-protein interactions in immunology. His state-of-the-art MHC class i model was the first machine learning model created by Genentech that has been used in a clinical trial to select drugs for personalized medicine.

Professor at Michael Smith Laboratories, with expertise in evolutionary biochemistry.

I hold a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from UNICAMP in Campinas, Brazil. I subsequently joined the MacCoss Lab at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I worked close with the team responsible for developing the Skyline software. Following my postdoctoral training, I led the Mass Spectrometry group within the Discovery Biologics Department at Merck for several years. Currently, I serve as Senior Director of the Protein Therapeutics department at Gilead Sciences, overseeing the Molecular Assessment group.

Sophie is the head of Immunogenicity Sciences at Pfizer, where she oversees a team dedicated to immunogenicity mitigation by design and immunogenicity risk assessment of Pfizer’s biologics from early discovery through registration. She serves as co-chair of Pfizer’s Immunogenicity Advisory Council and represents the organization in numerous collaborative external initiatives aimed at advancing immunogenicity understanding and remediation. Additionally, Sophie is a board member of the European Immunogenicity Platform, acting as Director of Scientific Affairs. Sophie holds a PhD in Immunology from University Paris Cité and has over 20 years of experience spanning academic research, pharmaceutical R&D, and public–private partnerships in vaccines and immunotherapy.

Nathan is a co-founder of Rondo Therapeutics and currently serves as President and CSO. Prior to starting Rondo, Nathan was Chief Technology Officer at Teneobio where he played a key role in starting the company and led the team that was responsible for lead discovery, lead optimization, and development of the T-cell engager platform that was acquired in 2021. Prior to Teneobio, Nathan was a co-founder and CEO of SwitchGear Genomics, a venture-backed HTS platform company that was acquired in 2013. Earlier in his career, Nathan served as the Technical Director of the Stanford ENCODE project and received his Ph.D from Stanford University. Nathan also serves on the Board of Governors for the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association. Nathan has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers and is an inventor on over 15 patents.

Anubhav Tripathi is a Professor of Medical Science and Engineering at Brown University. At Brown, Tripathi’s research group develops new biotechnology platforms by integrating biological and engineering principles. This work has a broad impact on scientists, engineers, physicians, and entrepreneurs. He holds more than 20 patents (issued or filed), has over 160 peer-reviewed publications, delivered more than 130 invited talks, and co-founded four companies. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and has won multiple recognitions from the scientific community. Prior to Brown, Tripathi led the development of microfluidics chips for protein and DNA sizing at Caliper LifeSciences (now Revvity).

Bernhardt L. Trout is the Raymond F. Baddour, ScD, (1949) Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He received his S.B. and S.M. degrees from MIT and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition, he performed post-doctoral research at the Max-Planck Institute. Trout’s research focuses on the development of advanced manufacturing processes and rational tools for formulation and product design, primarily liquid formulations, but also lyophilized formulations. A major aspect of his research focuses on developing both microscopic and macroscopic models to design stable formulations efficiently. In addition, he is Co-Chair of the International Symposium on Continuous Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals. He has published over 200 papers and has 18 patents issued or pending.

Dr. Kyoji Tsuchikama is an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Texas Therapeutics Institute (TTI), the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston). Dr. Tsuchikama received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Waseda University in March 2010 and completed postdoctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute in 2014. He leads multidisciplinary research programs focused on next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). His laboratory integrates chemical biology, protein engineering, and translational pharmacology to develop ADC conjugation platforms that improve drug delivery, enhance therapeutic index, and enable new biological mechanisms of action. His work is internationally recognized for pioneering advances in ADC linker design, including homogeneous enzymatically cleavable tripeptide linkers, dual-payload conjugation technologies, which have been patented and exclusively licensed to CrossBridge Bio, where he serves as a scientific co-founder and board member. His research program is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIGMS R35 MIRA, NCI R01), the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), and multiple collaborative awards.

Koji Tsuda received B.E., M.E., and Ph.D degrees from Kyoto University, Japan, in 1994, 1995, and 1998, respectively. Subsequently, he joined former Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL), Tsukuba, Japan, as Research Scientist. When ETL was reorganized as AIST in 2001, he joined newly established Computational Biology Research Center, Tokyo, Japan. In 2000–2001, he worked at GMD FIRST in Berlin, Germany, as Visiting Scientist. In 2003–2004 and 2006–2008, he worked at Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany, first as Research Scientist and later as Project Leader. Currently, he is Professor at Department of Computational Biology and Medical Sciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, the University of Tokyo. He is also affiliated with National Institute of Material Science (NIMS) and RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project.

L. Nathan Tumey is joined Binghamton University in 2017, following 15 years of medicinal chemistry experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. His research focuses on the design of antibody-drug-conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of cancer, auto-immune disorders, and rare diseases. Specific research projects include immune-stimulating antibody conjugates, glucocorticoid-antibody conjugates, legumain-cleavable linkers, and site-specific conjugation technology. He is a frequent consultant at various biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and serves on the scientific advisory board of multiple ADC-related organizations. Dr. Tumey received his PhD in chemistry from Duke University in 2001, under the supervision of Michael Pirrung. During his years in the pharmaceutical industry, Tumey was a key leader in multiple drug-discovery programs including the development of 5HT2c agonists for obesity, PKC-theta inhibitors for asthma, IRAK4 inhibitors for rheumatoid arthritis and antibody-drug-conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of cancer.

Felix Unverdorben, a protein engineer by training, joined Immatics in 2015 to set up a next-generation bispecifics platform leveraging T-cell receptors to expand the therapeutic space beyond cell therapies. Felix lead the establishment of Immatics’ TCR engineering expertise for the XCEPTOR® platform and is one of the key innovators behind the TCER® molecules. Felix holds a Ph.D . in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart in the working group of Prof. Dr. Kontermann where he applied phage display to improve binding properties of half-life extension moieties of bispecific molecules

Joe Vacca is a senior leader in the radiopharmaceutical and imaging industry with more than 18 years of experience spanning commercial strategy, scientific collaboration, and operational execution. After 12 years at Cambridge Healthtech Institute supporting commercial efforts for leading life-science conferences focused on biomarkers, diagnostics, and translational research, he joined Perceptive (formerly Invicro) in 2020. He currently serves as Vice President and General Partner for the Radiopharmaceuticals business unit, where he leads overall business strategy and integrates commercial, operational, and scientific capabilities to support global radioligand therapy clinical trials. During his tenure, Joe has led or overseen contracting, account management, and executive delivery for more than 200 preclinical and clinical radiopharmaceutical studies, including programs that have contributed to the regulatory approval of both diagnostic and therapeutic agents, enabling sponsors to advance complex programs from early development through approval.

Dr. Ahmet Vakkasoglu is Associate Director of Biologics Discovery and Innovation at Cue Biopharma. In this role, he has led the protein engineering and development efforts for the company's Immuno-STAT and Neo-STAT platforms, driving advancements in biologics targeted at both autoimmune (AI) and oncology indications. Dr. Vakkasoglu earned his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and brings over a decade of industry experience to his position.

Joseph Valente is an accomplished scientific leader specializing in analytical and biophysical characterization of protein-based drug formulations. He earned a Ph.D. in Analytical/Physical Chemistry from Colorado State University. Currently Associate Scientific Director at Bristol Myers Squibb, he drives strategic initiatives in biologics drug product development, data management, and talent cultivation. With over 19 years of industry experience, Joseph is recognized for his technical expertise, leadership in interdisciplinary teams, and commitment to mentoring emerging scientists. He actively collaborates with numerous academic institutions, leads departmental university engagement, and has delivered invited presentations at major scientific forums.

Professor of Radiation Oncology and member of the NCI-designated Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Currently, Lion Scholar. PhD from Ohio State University in Immunology and Oncology. Past Leukemia Society and ACS scholar. Over 200 career publications on PubMed. Specialist in the genetic engineering of new anti-cancer drugs designed to use antibodies to selectively target carcinoma and leukemia.

Edward van der Horst, PhD, is a molecular pharmacologist with a strong focus on antibody drug development across diverse target classes in oncology. He has 20 years of research and development experience from Zenith Epigenetics Ltd., Igenica Biotherapeutics, Inc., OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Tularik, Inc. (now Amgen), and U3 Pharma GmbH (now Daiichi-Sankyo). Dr. van der Horst’s contributions and discoveries have led to the clinical evaluation of several novel drug candidates at Igenica Biotherapeutics and OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, as well as to the first clinical stage anti-HER3 antibody at U3 Pharma GmbH. He received his postdoctoral training at Tularik, Inc., earned his PhD in biochemistry from the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry and conducted his master’s thesis at Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology. He graduated with an MS of chemistry from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Dr. Anastasiia Vasiukhina-Martin (Vasiukhina), Ph.D., is an Advisor in Bioproduct Research and Development Analytical Development at Eli Lilly and Company. She joined Eli Lilly in 2023 after earning her doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University. Her professional responsibilities encompass characterization of higher-order structure and molecular interactions of therapeutic products, development of analytical methods, and establishment of analytical control strategies, with a focus on monoclonal antibodies and adeno-associated viruses.

Francisca Vazquez is the director of the Cancer Dependency Map (DepMap) at the Broad Institute, an international effort to map cancer vulnerabilities. She works closely with a multidisciplinary team to explore cancer models using advanced genomics and multi-omics. She has launched major initiatives like the DepMap Consortium and the Pediatric Dependency Accelerator, and leads a lab focused on discovering and validating new cancer drug targets, including WRN and PELO. Her goal is to advance precision cancer medicine by building research resources and identifying key therapeutic targets. Before joining the Broad Institute, she worked at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and earned her Ph.D. in Spain.

Gian Marco Visani is currently a PhD Candidate at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle, advised by Dr. Armita Nourmohammad. He works on machine learning methods for protein design, and for predicting the effect of mutations on protein stability and protein-protein binding affinity.

Prashanth Vishwanath (PV) leads AI/ML for biologics discovery within Takeda's Computational Sciences and Data Strategy organization, where his team develops and applies methods spanning de novo design, lead optimization, and target assessment, and helps build the data and platform infrastructure connecting discovery, modeling, and lab automation. His earlier work spans computational evolutionary biology, protein engineering, and scientific data and visualization tooling.

Dr. Jyothsna Visweswaraiah is an accomplished leader with extensive experience in drug development, having successfully advanced new therapies into clinical trials. Currently, she serves as the head of Drug Creation at Seismic Therapeutic.

Mr. Walfish is Principal Science & Standards Liaison at United States Pharmacopeia (USP) responsible for the Statistics Expert Committee. Prior to this role Mr. Walfish was Principal Statistician at Becton Dickinson in Franklin Lakes, NJ responsible for supporting continuous improvement efforts and process development for worldwide operations. Mr. Walfish has held roles at GE Healthcare, Human Genome Sciences and Chiron. Steven was President of Statistical Outsourcing Services, a consulting company that provides statistical analysis and training to the FDA regulated industries. Mr. Walfish brings over 30 years of industrial expertise in the development and application of statistical methods for solving complex business issues. Steven has experience applying statistical methods to analytical method verification and validation and stability analysis. Mr. Walfish holds a Bachelors of Arts in Statistics from the University of Buffalo, Masters of Science in Statistics from Rutgers University and an Executive MBA from Boston University.

Even Walseng is a director in Biologics Engineering R&D, AstraZeneca. He is leading a team working on novel modalities and multispecific formats, including T cell engagers.

Curtis Walton, Ph.D. is the Director of Automation and Process Optimization at the Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI). He brings deep expertise in laboratory automation, bioinformatics, and protein engineering, with a strong track record of building scalable workflows that accelerate scientific discovery. Curtis holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Ottawa, where he developed novel biocatalysts for pharmaceutical applications. At IPI and in previous roles, he has led multidisciplinary teams and spearheaded the integration of cutting-edge automation platforms, transforming research pipelines through innovative, data-driven approaches.

Hong I. Wan, Ph.D. is a scientist, drug developer, executive and entrepreneur, with 25+ years in the industry shepherding 20+ NMEs into clinical development. A versatile leader and company builder, she has held executive and C-level roles in large Pharma and biotech startups. She is a Scientific Advisor to Lightstone Ventures and a member of the Biotech CEO Sisterhood. She co-founded and was the president and chief executive officer of Tallac Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotech company developing novel antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates for oncology. Previously she served as chief scientific officer and a member of the founding management at ALX Oncology, a publicly traded immuno-oncology company. During her earlier career, Hong held various leadership positions at Pfizer and Wyeth Research, where she was responsible for the early development and translational medicine strategy and execution across various therapeutic areas. Hong received her Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from University of California, Berkeley and A.B. degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard University.

Hans H. Wandall, MD, PhD, is a Professor and Director of the Copenhagen Center for Glycocalyx Research at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Copenhagen, and the scientific co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of GO Therapeutics. His research focuses on the genetic and cellular mechanisms underlying human protein glycosylation and its roles in health and disease, particularly in oncology. He has pioneered the translation of glycoscience into precision cancer therapies, including the development of novel antibody-drug conjugates and immunotherapies targeting cancer-specific glycans. A former Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Wandall continues to define the molecular mechanisms encoded by human glycoproteins and their potential for therapeutic intervention in cancer biology.

Leo Wang (Legal first name: Lei) is a Senior Scientist at Takeda, where he leads mass spectrometry-based characterization of novel biologics. His expertise spans LC-MS assay development, host cell protein profiling, proteinaceous particle analysis, structure–function studies, and full analytical characterization for both early- and late-stage programs. He earned his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut, specializing in proteomics and metabolomics.

Amy is a computational researcher focused on accelerating drug development by integrating biological data with scalable machine learning. As a Senior ML Scientist at Prescient Design (Genentech), she develops platforms supporting multiple discovery programs and works closely with experimental teams. She earned her PhD at Stanford studying cell adhesion proteins and collaborating on protein modeling and simulation, following earlier research in protein–polymer systems at MIT. Her combined expertise in AI/ML and biophysics drives innovation and adoption of new methods in biotech.

Wanlei is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Human Health Therapeutics Research Center at the National Research Council Canada, located in Montreal, Canada. In this role, he develops and employs computational tools for antibody engineering. Before working in the antibody space, he worked on computer-aided drug design of small molecule inhibitors against RNA, force field development, and computational enzymology. To date, he has published more than a dozen papers in computational chemistry.

Kipp Weiskopf, M.D., PhD, is Head of Antibody Therapeutics and Biologics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Cancer Research Institute. He leads an independent research laboratory that studies macrophages and other innate immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. The lab also pursues a multipronged immunoengineering effort to create novel antibodies, bispecific agents, and ADCs to benefit patients with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Dr. Weiskopf previously earned his medical and graduate degrees at Stanford University. As a member of Dr. Irving Weissman’s laboratory, he helped define the CD47/SIRPa interaction as an immune checkpoint that regulates macrophage phagocytosis. He began his laboratory as a Valhalla Fellow at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.. Dr. Weiskopf is an inventor on over 20 issued U.S. patents pertaining to macrophage-directed therapies. He co-founded ALX Oncology, a biotech company that is investigating macrophage-directed therapies in multiple clinical trials for cancer. Other technology that Dr. Weiskopf invented has been licensed to Forty Seven, Inc. (acquired by Gilead). More recently, he co-founded DEM Biopharma and Solu Therapeutics to create novel therapies for cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Dr. Weiskopf is concurrently appointed as a physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the Department of Medical Oncology. He previously completed his medical training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is board certified in Internal Medicine. He has been recognized with a number of awards including a Winston Churchill Scholarship, the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, first place in the Collegiate Inventors Competition, an ASCO Young Investigator Award, and the AACR-AstraZeneca Career Development Award for Physician-Scientists, in Honor of José Baselga, a Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program Career Development Award, and a National Cancer Institute R01 research project grant. Dr. Weiskopf previously earned a B.A. from Amherst College and an M.Phil. in genetics from University of Cambridge.

David Weiss is the Senior Director of Marketing and Product at Telesis Bio where he is focused on bringing cutting edge synthetic biology technologies, such as Gibson SOLA Enzymatic DNA Synthesis, to the market to revolutionize the way in which researchers are able to achieve their development goals. With over 20 years in the genomic and synthetic biology markets, he leverages his expertise to drive strategic growth and foster partnerships that propel advancements in diagnostic and therapeutic development. With a proven track record including successfully guiding customers through the complexities of developing cutting-edge diagnostics and therapies, he is able to ensure that innovative solutions are not only conceptualized but also effectively brought to market.

Nina Weisser is Director of Multispecific Therapeutics at Zymeworks where she leads a research team in the development of multispecific antibody therapeutics with a focus on mechanism of action studies. Since joining Zymeworks in 2012, she has led several research programs, including zanidatamab from discovery to early development. She received her PhD from the University of Guelph and held a post-doctoral fellowship at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Wells’s group pioneered the engineering of proteins, antibodies, and small molecules that target catalytic, allosteric, and protein-protein interaction sites; technologies including protein phage display, alanine-scanning, engineered proteases for improved hydrolysis, bioconjugations, N-terminomics, disulfide “tethering” (a novel site-directed fragment-based approach for drug discovery); and more recently an industrialized recombinant antibody production pipeline for the proteome. These led to important new insights into protease mechanisms, growth factor signaling, hot-spots in protein-protein interfaces, role of caspases in biology, and more recently to determining how cell surfaces change in health and disease. His team was integral to several protein products, including Somavert for acromegaly, Avastin for cancer, Lifitegrast for dry eye disease, and engineered proteases sold by Pfizer, Genentech, Shire and Genencor, respectively. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Science, American Association of Arts and Science, and the National Academy of Inventors.

Tim Whitehead is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He has won an NSF CAREER award, holds 6 patents (5 licensed), and has published over 50 research articles in journals like Science, Nature Biotechnology, and Nature Methods.

Kathryn Whitehead is a third-year PhD student at Brown University in the Tripathi Lab for Microfluidic Diagnostics and Biomedical Engineering. Prior to joining Brown, she obtained her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she was involved in research developing exoskeleton robotic devices for rehabilitation post stroke. At Brown, she leads a team focused on developing cutting-edge assays for automation in microfluidics, Next Generation Sequencing, and new systems for point of care diagnostics. She collaborates closely with industry partners to advance the field of biomedical diagnostic devices, with a particular focus on enhancing research accessibility and development. Her work aims to bridge the gap between academic research and practical applications in the biomedical industry.

Dr. Williamson is the head of US Protein Sciences at UCB and has been with the organization since joining as a research scientist in 2015. She currently leads a team of scientists who provide non-antibody protein reagents for global preclinical discovery projects. Prior to their acquisition by UCB, Jess and the Protein Sciences team were part of Beryllium Discovery, a CRO specializing in gene to structure services. She completed her PhD at Yale University in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, during both she studied the structure and assembly of challenging systems, like amyloid and membrane proteins. In addition to her role, Jess advocates for DE&I (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), Women in Leadership, and environmental sustainability practices at UCB.

Laurie joined Citeline/Norstella in 2008 as part of the Trialscape consulting team and is now a leader in the Trialtrove Oncology team. Over her tenure, Laurie has assisted pharmaceutical clients navigate the competitive clinical landscape of their products. She has been involved in numerous consulting projects and authored thought leadership papers across a wide range of topics and therapeutic areas. She has provided expert support to clients through the Ask the Analyst service and collaborative calls. Her leadership has been instrumental in expanding Trialtrove’s oncology content, including integration of biomarkers and coverage of emerging diseases. Prior to joining Citeline, Laurie served as a Portfolio Manager in the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease (CVMD) group at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (now Pfizer), where she worked closely with preclinical Discovery leadership to assess portfolio risk and value. Laurie holds a PhD in Vascular Cell Biology from Boston University and completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, focusing on endothelial mechanisms of vascular permeability, angiogenesis, and leukocyte interactions.

Prof. Dane Wittrup attended the University of New Mexico as an undergraduate, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor's in Chemical Engineering in June 1984. Wittrup went on to attend the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where he worked with Prof. James Bailey on flow cytometry and segregated modeling of recombinant populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. After obtaining his PhD in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Biology in 1988, he spent a brief time working at Amgen before becoming an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. He moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in September of 1999, where he is now the C.P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering, in addition to working with the Koch Institute as the Associate Director for Engineering.

Paul Wollenhaupt develops and trains large-scale foundation models for biomolecules as a founding AI research scientist at Chai Discovery, where Chai-2 was recently introduced as a model for de novo antibody design, achieving double-digit experimental hit rates and generating binders for 50% of tested targets. His work focuses on structure prediction and protein design, with particular emphasis on applications to antibody discovery. Paul has a background in mathematics from the University of Göttingen in Germany, where his research focused on machine learning methods for interpreting complex neuroscience datasets. He has also worked on generative models for background detection with the ATLAS Collaboration and diffusion models for high-energy particle physics simulations with CERN’s SFT group.

Dr. Chengbin Wu is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of EpimAb Biotherapeutics Inc., an innovative biologics company focusing on developing next generation antibody-based therapies. Dr. Wu has over 20 years of experience in discovery, development, and technological innovation in the antibody field. He is also a world-renowned expert in bispecific antibody technologies and therapeutic development, and the primary inventor of DVD-Ig and FIT-Ig bispecific technology platforms. Dr. Wu has built a distinguished career in the biopharmaceutical industry, taking on different leadership responsibilities in different parts of the world. Previously he was Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D at 3SBio, a leading China-based biopharmaceutical company. Before that he was the Senior Vice President Biologics at ChemPartner, where he established a comprehensive antibody R&D platform. Prior to that, Dr. Wu was a Volwiler Associate Fellow at Abbvie, where he led several antibody projects from concept to regulatory filing. Dr. Wu received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Georgia in the US, and postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School with a grant from the Cancer Research Institute.

Anna M. Wu, Ph.D, is professor and chair, Department of Immunology & Theranostics and co-director, Center for Theranostic Studies, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, and professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at City of Hope in Duarte, California. She also holds the title of research professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, where she previously served as professor and vice chair. While at UCLA she also held positions as director, Cancer Molecular Imaging Program, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and co-associate director, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging. She is a past chair of the California Breast Cancer Research Council, fellow and past president of the World Molecular Imaging Society, and a fellow of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. She is the recipient of the 2018 Suffrage Science Award and the 2022 Gold Medal from the World Molecular Imaging Society. Dr. Wu’s research interests include engineered antibodies and proteins for targeting, imaging, and therapeutic applications in cancer and immunology, including the use of SPECT, PET, optical and multimodality approaches. Dr. Wu is the co-founder and chief scientific advisor to ImaginAb Inc., which develops and commercializes engineered antibodies for clinical imaging in cancer and other diseases. Dr. Wu received her A.B. degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. from Yale University in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. Postdoctoral studies were conducted at Yale University and at University of California San Francisco.

Howard (Hao) Wu, PhD has 25 years’ experience in gene editing technology and new drug discovery. He is specialized in overseeing R&D programs, new lab and research team set up in the biotech start-ups. Dr. Wu is the co-founder and CSO of Full Circles Therapeutics, where he is dedicated to developing curative gene editing based gene/cell therapy. He is responsible for generating revenue through collaboration with MNC and biotech partners. Before founding Full Circles Therapeutics, Dr. Wu was leading multiple discovery biology programs and disease prioritization in the genetic disease space at Fulcrum Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:FULC), a Cambridge small molecule drug discovery biotech company. He had been with the company through the full development phases starting from the start-up, expansion, until post-IPO development, during which he led a cross-functional team for portfolio disease selection and prioritization of multiple disease programs including neuromuscular disease, cardiac disease, hematological and metabolic diseases, including two major partnership collaborations with MyoKardia and Acceleron. Before joining Fulcrum, Dr. Wu was a senior research fellow at Whitehead institute, MIT. His research focused on neurological disorders utilizing a combination of CRISPR/Cas9 mediated genomic and epigenomic editing technology and stem cell technology. He did his PhD in Biochemistry and Structural Biology at Hongkong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Fudan University before he did his postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Wu has more than 40 journal publications, patents, and research and industry grants, including Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Neuron, Science Translational Medicine, Molecular Cell. For his work, he has received fellowship award from human frontier science program (HSFP) and NARSAD young investigator award. He was also awarded the Alfred Blalock Young Investigator Award from JHMI and President’s award from Whitehead Institute, MIT.

Kejia Wu, PhD, is a protein designer/computational method developer at the Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington. She develops general methods with de novo proteins to target intrinsically disordered regions, post-translational modifications, and disease-relevant proteolysis. Her work focuses on novel computational frameworks to create tight, specific binders and designer proteases for oncology and neurodegeneration, turning fundamental protein design advances into translational therapeutic and diagnostic strategies.

Jiaquan Wu, PhD, is Biortus’s General Manager and Pharmaron’s Senior Vice President of Protein and Structural Biology. Dr. Wu has more than 20 years of experience in protein sciences and the biopharma industry, focused on the application of structural biology in early-stage drug discovery. Dr. Wu joined Biortus in April 2013 from AstraZeneca R&D Boston, where he previously served as the lead enzymologist, responsible for assay development and HTS. He received his PhD in Chemistry from Stony Brook University.

Dr. Wu has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and has been granted 20 patents in the small-molecule discovery and protein engineering spaces.

Paul Wylie is VP of Product Management, where he oversees strategic development of the company's product portfolio, including the Envisia platform for functional single-cell analysis. With more than 25 years of experience in the life sciences sector, Paul has played key roles in advancing technologies across genomics, cellular analysis, and drug discovery. His work focuses on translating scientific innovation into practical, scalable tools that drive biological insight and therapeutic development.

Dr. Xiaodong Xiao obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Ohio State University. He conducted postdoctoral research before becoming a staff scientist in NCI, NIH. He then moved to industry first with AstraZeneca, then Bristol Myers Squibbs, Innovent Biologics, and currently Jecho leading biologics discovery and R&D with increasing responsibilities. He has made significant contributions in both basic research and drug discoveries including being the first in the world to report the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD) and discovering many biological therapeutics.

Weiliang (Timo) is the Associate Director of Business Development at PepLib. Before joining PepLib, he was a senior scientist at a stealth-mode biotech startup in Boston and at SRI International, where he specialized in developing tissue- and cell-specific peptides for intracellular drug delivery. He earned his PhD in Chemistry from the National University of Singapore.

Bing Xu, after receiving his BS and MS degrees from Nanjing University in 1987 and 1990, respectively, obtained his PhD in 1996 from the University of Pennsylvania. Before starting his independent research at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in August 2000, he was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Dr. Xu was a tenured professor at HKUST until July 2008 before he returned to Boston. Currently, he is Charles A. Breskin Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Brandeis University. He has made pioneering contributions to metallogels, multifunctional magnetic nanoparticles, self-delivery drugs, supramolecular hydrogels, and enzyme-instructed self-assembly (ESIA) for in-situ anticancer nanomedicine. His current research focuses on the applications of enzymatic noncovalent synthesis in materials, biology, and medicine.

Dr. XU Ting returned to China in 2008 and founded Suzhou Alphamab to work on R&D of biologics. In 2015, Dr. Xu led the spin-out of Alphamab Oncology and then Initial Public Listing (IPO) on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code: 9966.HK) in 2019. Prior to Alphamab, Dr. Xu held R&D positions in Archemix, Serono and Biogen, where he had been involved in the development of recombinant therapeutics with several launched products. Dr. Xu has more than 20 years of innovative R&D experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Dr. Xu had made significant contributions to the evolving of biosimilar industry in China. Through collaboration, he led the development of more than 30 biosimilar drugs, including Bevacizumab (QILU), Recombinant Factor VIII (CTTQ), hCG (Livzon), TSH (SmartNuclide), and Pertuzumab (CTTQ). Dr. Xu invented Envafolimab, the first subcutaneous (subQ) injectable PD-L1 antibody launched in 2021, and more than 10 clinical-stage biologics, potentially FIC or BIC. He also led the establishment of cutting-edge platforms, such as single-domain antibody (sdAb), bispecific antibody, glycan conjugation for antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), dual payload ADC and high-concentration formulation. Dr. Xu’s focus is to develop the multifunctional antibodies and protein drugs with better precision, lower toxicity, and superior efficacy. Dr. Xu holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Nanjing University and a Ph.D. from the Chinese Academy of Science. Currently, Dr. Xu holds adjunct professorship in the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing University and Southeast University. He has led 5 national-level projects such as the "Major New Drug Development" special project. Dr. Xu has received numerous awards including “Major National Talent Programs”, the sixth "Suzhou Outstanding Talent Award", “Suzhou Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Mayor Award", "Top Ten Scientific and Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship Figures in Jiangsu" and so on.

Huan Yang has worked in both biotech and pharma, focusing on discovering next-generation CAR T cell therapy. He has played a key role in building Cell Therapy CAR engineering platforms and co-leading external allogeneic cell therapy programs at Merck. Prior to this, Huan gained valuable experience at TCR2 Therapeutics and Affyimmune Therapeutics, focusing on CAR engineering and T cell enhancement engineering. Over the last few years, Huan has been exploring approaches to enhancing the specificity and potency of CAR-T, with the goal of advancing cutting-edge off-the-shelf cell therapies.

Jason is a 5th-year chemical engineering PhD candidate at Caltech, coadvised by Professor Frances Arnold and Professor Yisong Yue, where he is supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the Google PhD Fellowship. Some of his notable contributions include developing workflows for AI-assisted protein optimization, generative models for protein design, and deep learning methods to discover and annotate enzymes.

I earned a Ph.D. from Durham University (UK) in protein science and biotechnology, followed by postdoctoral training at UT Southwestern Medical Center in the United States and a Research Assistant Professor role at Iowa State University. My research has been published in Science, Science Advances, Nature Communications, and eLife. I am currently a Senior Scientist II in the Target Protein Science group at IVAD, specializing in purification of challenging proteins for antibody discovery and immunization campaigns.

Jason Yasenchak is Vice President, Strategy for Multimodal Therapeutics at Dotmatics, which is accelerating research by enabling data-driven drug discovery. Throughout his 25+ year career in the biotech industry, Jason has been driven by a passion for connecting scientific operations with the platforms and data architectures that enable strategic decision making. Having recently joined Dotmatics, he brings an industry-based perspective to his role shaping strategy for multimodal therapeutics, where the rapid evolution of modern biologics development is creating new opportunities and new data challenges that are transforming the life sciences industry. A published researcher with eight peer-reviewed publications, Jason holds an M.S. in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology from Rutgers University and a B.S. in Biology from Moravian College.

Tangsheng Yi is an Executive Director of Inflammation Biology at Gilead Sciences, leading the immunology group in small- and large-molecule discovery from target validation to clinical studies. He also drives external business development and disease area strategy in Gilead’s Inflammation research. Before joining Gilead, he was a principal scientist in Genentech in Immunology discovery and a Howard Hughes postdoctoral fellow at UCSF for B cell immunity. Dr. Yi holds a Ph.D. from City of Hope and a B.S. from Nanjing University. He speaks globally with 40+ publications in Cell, Science Translational Medicine, and Immunity. As a personal fun fact, he coaches Science Olympiad, and is an avid badminton player.

Dr. Gang Yin is Head of Discovery Services at WuXi XDC, where he leads global efforts to deliver integrated discovery solutions for ADCs and next-generation bioconjugates. A seasoned expert in ADC discovery and site-specific conjugation technologies, he has extensive experience in bioconjugation, linker–payload design, and advancing complex biologics from early discovery through development. Prior to joining WuXi XDC, Gang worked at Sutro Biopharma, where he served as a functional head and project leader in bioconjugate therapy development. He made significant contributions to multiple ADC programs—including bispecific and dual-payload ADCs—as well as vaccine and cytokine conjugates, all of which advanced into clinical development. He is an author of numerous publications and patents in the field of ADCs.

Francisco Ylera is the head of the R&D team that generated the Pioneer Antibody Discovery Platform. He has been with Bio-Rad for over 20 years and works on customer antibody generation projects designing the selection, antibody characterization, and method optimizations. Francisco has contributed to over 25 publications, patents and book chapters, earning more than 480 citations. Francisco holds a diploma in chemistry from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Free University Berlin, Germany. After his Ph.D., he did a postdoc at the Harvard Institute of Medicine, Boston, USA.

Jason Yu is a research scientist at MIT’s Koch Institute. His research integrates tissue engineering, biophysics, and machine learning to advance cell-based therapies and study tumor-T cell immunology. Holding a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from UW-Madison, Jason has over a decade of cross-disciplinary publications spanning materials science, physics, and cell biology. He specializes in the precise ex vivo manipulation of physical and chemical microenvironments to uncover the mechanistic drivers of cell-cell interactions.

Elcin Zan, MD is the Chair of Nuclear Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. Elcin focuses on exploring the full potential of Radiopharmaceutical Therapies in oncology to meaningfully improve patient outcomes in clinic and research. Elcin and her team develop AGI tools to study the collective intelligence of cancer from cells to body-wide networks integrating pathology and PET diagnostics.

Paulo received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Johns Hopkins University. As a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, his research provided novel insights on the biochemistry and biophysics of hydrogen tunneling metalloenzymes. He joined the Protein characterization and Developability group at Merck in 2022, where he now leads a small team supporting biophysical characterization of various drug candidates.

Xiaobin Zhang is an associate director in the bioanalytical science and immunogenicity group at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. In this role, Xiaobin leads a team to support the immunogenicity assessment of large therapeutics such as peptides, antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, multidomain proteins, AAVs and oligonucleotide-based therapeutics for oncology, neuroscience, gastrointestinal and rare diseases. Prior to his role at Takeda, Xiaobin was a Staff Scientist and Lead Scientist at Covance (now Labcorp, NC, USA) and mainly worked on the method development and validation for PK, ADA, and NAb assays. Xiaobin also served as a Senior Scientist for cell-based bioassay method development and validation in the GMP lab at PPD (NC, USA). He received his PhD from Peking University Health Science Center (Beijing, China) and postdoctoral training in University of Nebraska Medical Center (NE, USA) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (WI, USA).

Dr. Zhao was trained for Ph.D. and post-doc in USA and then worked in the area of drug R&D for over 15 years with Monsanto, Pharmacia, and ImmunoGen. In particular, he had played important role as a key member or program leader in the design, development, and process optimization of several ADC compounds turned into clinical trials and commercialization. In May of 2013, he returned to China with several his former colleagues, also senior scientists to co-found Hangzhou DAC Biotechnology Co., Ltd. At present, DAC has built patented, new generation ADC platform and generated more than 40 ADC pipelines, and seven of these ADCs are in the clinical trials now. So far, with the novel ADC technology platform, Hangzhou DAC has built up the partnerships with several well-known enterprises in China and MNC abroad.

Xin Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, and Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She obtained her PhD in Bioengineering with Dr. Michael Lin from Stanford University and did her postdoctoral training with Dr. Jim Wells at UCSF. Dr. Zhou’s research focuses on engineering functional protein sensors and switches for modulating biology. In the past, she has built proteins with versatile functions, including light-activated enzymes, phosphotyrosine recognition domains, antibody antagonists and agonists, and biosensors to measure SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Her work was recognized by many awards including an NIH Pathway to Independence Award and a Damon Runyon-Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists. Dr. Zhou’s new research group aims to leverage the power of protein engineering to gain a deeper fundamental understanding of malignancies and to discover new avenues for therapeutic intervention.

Dr. Jie Zhou is a joint Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiation and Cellular Oncology and Chemistry at the University of Chicago and a member of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC). Her research program sits at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and medicine, with a central focus on understanding the complex dynamics of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and translating these insights into next-generation cancer immunotherapies. The Zhou Lab specializes in antibody and biologics discovery, developing innovative strategies to engineer proteins, antibodies, viruses, and cells with therapeutic potential. The lab maintains diverse, state-of-the-art biologics libraries—including humanized nanobody (VHH), Fab, affibody, and antibody repertoires—and leverages advanced display technologies, such as phage, yeast, mammalian, and viral platforms, and computational protein design to accelerate discovery. With a background that spans organic synthesis, chemical biology, protein engineering, cancer biology, and immunology, Dr. Zhou leads a highly multidisciplinary team that integrates fundamental science with translational goals. By combining expertise in chemical design, molecular engineering, and immune regulation, her program aims to pioneer transformative approaches in precision immunotherapy and bridge the gap between discovery research and clinical application.

Haisun Zhu, PhD, is currently the associate director of antibody platform at Institute for Protein Innovation. He oversees an antibody development pipeline including target protein selection, expression, purification, and antibody discovery using yeast display platform. Previously, he was a Principal Scientist at Novo Nordisk R&D responsible for therapeutic antibody development.

Dr. Marie Zhu is Chief Technology Officer and EVP at WuXi XDC, leading Discovery and Development. With over 30 years in biopharma, she has contributed to over 25 biologics, including ADCs, and played a key role in the development of Padcev and Disitamab Vedotin. Specializing in ADC technology, she has driven 10+ IND approvals and holds 27 patents. Dr. Zhu holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a B.S. from Tsinghua University.

Dr. Zhukovsky has over 25 years of international experience in the research and development of novel immune-oncology therapies. He is currently serving the CSO of Ichnos Sciences. At Ichnos he is engaged in applying optimized novel bi- and trispecific antibody technologies to the development of immunotherapeutics for cancer. His background includes work in discovery, antibody engineering, and translational sciences, including the construction of drug discovery platforms. Dr. Zhukovsky is a co-founder and partner at ZM Scientific, a consultancy firm that advises biotechnology companies and works with investment firms by providing expert due diligence. Previously, he served as the CTO at GO Therapeutics where he created a T Cell Engagement platform to enable the leveraging of the company’s cancer cell-targeting antibodies. He also served as the CSO at Biomunex Pharmaceuticals, focused on developing immunotherapies based on checkpoint inhibitors and T cell engagers leveraging their bispecific antibody platform. As the CSO at Affimed, he led the optimization of their T and NK cell engager platforms and advanced candidates from discovery through clinical development. An Fc-optimized anti-CD19 program, which he has conceived of and led at Xencor, was subsequently licensed to a partner for clinical development; it has received a market authorization in the US and in Europe (Monjuvi/tafasitamab). Dr. Zhukovsky performed a postdoctoral fellowship at Genentech, Inc. He received a PhD in biochemistry from Brandeis University.

Stefan works as Senior Director at Merck Healthcare KGaA (EMD Serono), Germany, where he heads Global Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering (ADPE). He holds a PhD in chemistry as well as a habilitation in biochemistry. In addition, he is Professor of Biomolecular Immunotherapy at Technical University of Darmstadt.

Jonathan Zmuda, Ph.D. is a Senior Director of Cell Biology R&D at Thermo Fisher Scientific located in Frederick, MD (USA). Dr. Zmuda leads a team of scientists dedicated to developing new products for applications including transient protein expression, viral vector production and nucleic acid delivery. Dr. Zmuda received his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park and his BSc degree from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.

Dr Sebastian Zoll is a structural biologist and protein biochemist. He began his academic journey with studies in biology at the University of Marburg in Germany, focusing on cell biology, parasitology and virology. He then obtained his PhD in structural biology from the University of Tübingen, Germany where he studied the mechanism of cell wall cleavage in multi-resistant Staphylococci stains. After a short stay at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) in Prague, Czech Republic where he worked on the structures of intra-membrane proteases, Dr Zoll became a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Biochemistry in Oxford, UK. In Oxford he greatly expanded his knowledge in the fields of structural biology and protein engineering while he was working on complex surface proteins of human parasites. During this time Dr Zoll became interested in the unique biology of the sleeping sickness parasite and its interplay with the human host. In 2019 he established his own laboratory at the IOCB in Prague where his group was studying the interactions of human innate immune factors with parasite surface antigens with as focus on structure determination by cryo-EM. In September 2024, Dr Zoll joined Icosagen as head of protein structural analytics where he has established the new cryo-EM facility.