SCIENTIFIC BOARD
LUIGI NALDINI
Ph.D., M.D.
Co-Founder
Executive Scientific Board Chairman
Dr. Luigi Naldini is Professor of Cell and Tissue Biology and Cell and Gene Therapy at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University School of Medicine in Milan, and Director of the San Raffaele-Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy and of the Division of Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cells & Gene Therapy at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute.
Pioneer of the development and the applications of lentiviral vectors for gene therapy and he has continued to investigate new strategies to overcome the major hurdles to safe and effective gene transfer, bringing about innovative solutions that are not only being translated into new therapeutic strategies for genetic disease and cancer, but have also allowed novel insights into hematopoietic stem cell function, induction of immunological tolerance, and tumor angiogenesis.
Member of several Scientific Committees of the ASGCT, ESCGT, American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), International Society of Cell Therapy (ISCT). Ad Hoc scientific advisor on EMEA and WHO committees for the evaluation of novel gene transfer medicines.
He served as President of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.
Inventor of 58 granted international patents and 45 pending. Luigi Naldini has published 305 papers in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.
HONORS
– Elected Member of EMBO, the European Molecular Biology Organization, in 2008.
– Awarded the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator grant, which recognizes top EU scientists with an outstanding achievement track record in 2009.
– Premio Sapio of the Italian Research (Health Area) in 2012.
– Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy in 2014.
– Human Gene Therapy “Pioneer Award” 2014.
– Premio Gili Agostinelli for Biological and Medical Sciences from the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino in 2014.
– Honorary doctorate from the Vrije University, Brussel, in 2015.
– Outstanding Achievement Award from the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy in 2015.
– The Jimenez Diaz Prize, Conchita Rábago de Jiménez Díaz Foundation, Madrid, in 2016.
– Premio Capitani 2016 , Milan, Italy
– The Beutler Prize from the American Society of Hematology (ASH), USA, in 2017
– The Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, Lausanne, in 2019
– The Global Health Pioneer Award, Dubai, in 2019
– Nominated “Grande Ufficiale” dell’Ordine “Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana”, one of the highest ranking honor in Italy, from the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister of Italy , on December 27th 2019
– Elected “Socio Corrispondente – Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali” at the “Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei”, the oldest Scientific Academy in the world, on July 26th, 2022
– Phacilitate Advanced Therapies Lifetime Achievement Award, Miami, USA, in 2024
Bernhard Gentner
Ph.D., M.D.
CO-Founder
Executive Scientific Board Member
Dr. Bernhard Gentner, Associate Professor of Immuno-Oncology, Department of Oncology UNIL&CHUV, Attending Physician, Immuno-Oncology Service, Hematologist, Specialist in Hematologic Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, Hematopoietic Stem Cell Engineering Lab, Hi-TiDe, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne, Translational Advisor & EU X-PAND Consortium Task Leader, San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget), Milano.
Until 2022, Bernhard has been a Group Leader at SR-TIGET and Staff Hematologist at the San Raffaele Hospital, Milan. Bernhard completed his MD studies at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA. He trained in internal medicine at Erlangen University Hospital and hematology at San Raffaele Vita-Salute University. He is a recipient of the Young Investigator Award of ESGCT.
Kenneth C. Anderson
M.D.
Dr. Kenneth C. Anderson is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School as well as Director of the LeBow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Research Scientist and American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor. After graduating from Johns Hopkins Medical School, he trained in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and then completed hematology, medical oncology, and tumor immunology training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over the last four decades, he has focused his laboratory and clinical research studies on multiple myeloma. He has developed laboratory and animal models of the tumor in its microenvironment which have allowed for both identification of novel targets and validation of novel targeted therapies, and has then rapidly translated these studies to clinical trials culminating in FDA approval of novel targeted and immune therapies. His paradigm for identifying and validating targets in the tumor cell and its milieu has transformed myeloma therapy and markedly improved patient outcome.
Michele de Palma
Ph. D.
Michele de Palma teaches cancer biology at the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of several scientific publications. Michele obtained his Ph.D. in Cell Biotechnologies from the University of Turin Medical School, where he studied the contribution of bone marrow-derived cells to tumor angiogenesis under Prof. Luigi Naldini, a co-founder of Genenta. His work has led to first-in-kind clinical trials of engineered monocytes in patients with brain and haematological cancers.
Lisa Coussens
Ph. D., M.D.
FAACR
Dr. Lisa Coussens is Chairwoman of the Department of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology and Associate Director for Basic Research in the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University, where she holds the Hildegard Lamfrom Endowed Chair in Basic Science. Dr. Coussens’ research focuses on dissecting the roles of normal immune cells in regulating various facets of solid tumor development, identifying leukocyte activities that are co-opted by early tumors to support ongoing cancer development and in understanding the role leukocytes play in regulating responses to cytotoxic, targeted and immune-based therapies. Utilizing mouse models of mesothelioma, cutaneous, head and neck, pancreas and mammary carcinoma, her research identified critical immune-regulated pathways for therapeutic targeting that are being clinically translated in combination with chemotherapy in women with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, pancreas cancer and head/neck squamous cancer. In recognition of her contributions for revealing underlying mechanisms of cancer development, Dr. Coussens has been acknowledged with multiple awards, including the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Gertrude B. Elion Award (2001), the AACR-Women in Cancer Research Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship (2012), the 13th Rosalind E. Franklin Award from the National Cancer Institute (2015), a Doctor in Medicine (honoris causa) from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina (2018), the 12th AACR-Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship (2018), a Career Award from the European Academy of Tumor Immunology (2018) and the 2018 Susan G. Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in Basic Science. She has been elected as Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS; 2018); Fellow of the AACR Academy (2019); and recently elected as President of the American Association for Cancer Research (2022-2023).
Richard Flavell
Ph.D., FRS
Richard Flavell is Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his B.Sc. (Honors) in 1967 and Ph.D. in 1970 in biochemistry from the University of Hull, England, and performed postdoctoral work in Amsterdam and Zurich. Richard was previously first Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam, Head of the Laboratory of Gene Structure and Expression at the National Institute for Medical Research, London, and President and Chief Scientific Officer of Biogen Research Corporation). His research focuses on using transgenic and gene-targeted mice to study innate and adaptive immunity, T cell tolerance and activation in immunity and autoimmunity, apoptosis, and regulation of T cell differentiation. Richard is a fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the National Academy of Medicine.
Miriam Merad
Ph.D., M.D.
Dr. Miriam Merad, is the Director of the Precision Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the Director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC). Dr. Merad is an internationally acclaimed physician-scientist and a leader in the fields of dendritic cell and macrophage biology with a focus on their contribution to human diseases. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the recipient of the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. In 2020, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her contributions to the field of immunology.
Hervé Wolf Fridman
Ph. D., M.D.
Professor Wolf H. Fridman is Professor Emeritus of Immunology at the Paris Descartes University Medical School in Paris, France. He received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Paris. After 10 years in the laboratory headed by Jean Dausset, he created his own laboratory at the Cancer Research Centre in Villejuif in 1976, then moved to Institut Curie in 1983 and created in 2007 the Cordeliers Research Centre, a 500 people joint research structure between INSERM, University Paris Descartes and University Pierre et Marie Curie. He also headed the Immunology Laboratory of European Hospital Georges Pompidou in Paris.
Patrick Y. Wen
M.D.
Dr. Patrick Wen is a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of the Center For Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Chief of the Division of Neuro-Oncology in the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital. He is a former President of the Society For Neuro-oncology and Editor-In-Chief of Neuro-Oncology and a current member of the Response Assessment in Neuro-oncology (RANO) Steering Committee. His research is focused on novel treatments of brain tumors and developing improved responses assessment, endpoints and trial designs for brain tumor trials.