Christian Buchholz
Paul Ehrlich Institut, Germany
Christian Buchholz 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. He holds a PhD from the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry and a Diploma in Microbiology from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. At the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Christian Buchholz is for more than 20 years active in the gene therapy field. His research into the safety and efficacy of gene transfer resulted in more than 140 articles focussing on the engineering of vector particles to understand their cell entry and improve their applicability in molecular medicine. Making use of viral vectors targeted to T cell surface markers, his team was the first to provide proof-of-principle for the in vivo generation of human CAR T cell, a therapeutic strategy that has meanwhile brought benefit for cancer patients in early clinical trials.
Thomas Hassing Ronøe Carlsen
Novo Nordisk, Denmark
Thomas Carlsen is CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Cellerator P/S, established in 2023 with the mission to accelerate the development of cell-based therapies into clinical trials, and to establish a new key unit in the cell therapy ecosystem. Before becoming CEO in February 2023, he has held several positions in Novo Nordisk A/S, including Department Manager in the department of Virology, and as Director for Cell Therapy Process Development, based in Copenhagen and in Tokyo. He was deployed to Tokyo to work for Novo Nordisk A/S business partners, Heartseed. Thomas Carlsen holds an MSc in Human Biology from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in Virology under the Copenhagen Hepatitis C program, University of Copenhagen, where he had a research visit to Ghent University.
Dirk Grimm
University of Heidelberg, Germany
Dirk Grimm is Full Professor of Viral Vector Technologies at the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University and Executive Director of BioQuant, the university’s interdisciplinary research center for the quantitative analysis of molecular and cellular systems. His research interests include the development and application of synthetic AAV vectors for human gene therapy, as well as the natural mechanisms and the therapeutic and diagnostic uses of RNA interference in mammals and humans. He received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Netherlands Society of Gene & Cell Therapy in 2020 and a Research Award from the German Duchenne Foundation in 2017. Dirk Grimm holds a PhD in Biology from Heidelberg University and a Diploma in Biology from the University of Kaiserslautern.
Felix Lorenz
Captain T Cell, Germany
Karl-Johan Malmberg
University of Oslo, Norway
Karl-Johan Malmberg is Full Professor and Director of the Center of Excellence Precision Immunotherapy Alliance (PRIMA) at the University of Oslo, where he also serves as Group Leader at the Department of Cancer Immunology, Institute for Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital. In addition, he is a visiting scientist and group leader at the Department of Medicine and Center for Hematology at Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, and Scientific Director of the Center for Advanced Cell Therapy at Oslo University Hospital. Since 2020, he has also been Co-director of NextGenNK, a competence center in NK cell biology hosted by Karolinska Institute. He trained as a physician at Karolinska Institute, earned his PhD there in 2003 with a dissertation on mechanisms of immune escape and their implications for cancer immunotherapy, and was recognized as a specialist in hematology in 2011. His research focuses on immunology and immunotherapy, with a particular emphasis on cancer immunology and NK cell biology.
Stephan Mielke
Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Luigi Naldini
Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Italy
Luigi Naldini is Director of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy in Milan and Full Professor at San Raffaele Vita-Salute University. Over the past 25 years, he has pioneered the development and clinical translation of lentiviral vectors, establishing them as a key platform for gene therapy of previously untreatable genetic and hematologic diseases. His work has advanced safer and more effective gene and cell therapy strategies, yielded fundamental insights into hematopoietic stem cell biology, immune tolerance, tumor angiogenesis and genome editing. Luigi Naldini is an elected member of EMBO, the European Molecular Biology Organization, a past President of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, and has served as expert on the “Human Gene Editing Study” of the US National Academies of Sciences and of Medicine; to name just a few of his positions. Among other things, he was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Awards from the ASGCT and from the ESGCT, the Beutler Prize and the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine.
Florence Renaud
Sorbonne University, France
Knut Steffensen
Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Anna Sureda
Catalan Institute of Oncology, Spain
Anna Sureda currently serves as Head of the Hematology Department at the Institut Català d’Oncologia (ICO) in L’Hospitalet, Barcelona, Spain, and holds an academic appointment as Full Professor of Hematology at the University of Barcelona. The clinical hematologist is internationally recognized for her expertise in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cellular therapies. Her clinical and research interests focus on the treatment of lymphoid malignancies – particularly Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas – through innovative transplant strategies and immunotherapeutic approaches, including CAR T-cell therapy. She has also played a pivotal role in advancing supportive care and the management of transplant-related complications. Anna Sureda served as President of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) from 2020 to 2022, and as President of the Spanish Group for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (GETH-TC) from 2020 to 2024.
Joseph Tintelnot
Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany
Joseph Tintelnot is a Principal Investigator and serves as Senior Physician at the II. Department of Medicine of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), where he also leads an Emmy Noether Research Group. His research focuses on deciphering and overcoming resistance mechanisms to chemotherapy, targeted therapies and immunotherapies in gastrointestinal cancers, with a particular emphasis on the role of the immune system and microbiota in pancreatic cancer. He is a member of the International Microbiome and Cancer Working Group and has received several awards, including the Dr. Martini Prize, Germany’s oldest medical prize, and the Vincenz Czerny Award of the German Society of Hematology and Oncology. Joseph Tintelnot studied Human Medicine at the University of Hamburg and obtained his Dr. med. from UKE.
Angela Vollstedt
Novartis, Austria
Alici, Evren (Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden)
Bentler, Martin (Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany)
Janjigian, Yelena (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA)
Mandelboim, Ofer (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel)
Moser, Tobias (University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany)
Qasim, Waseem (University College London, London, UK)
Schiffelers, Raymond (University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands)
Schirmacher, Peter (Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany)
Sureda, Anna (Catalan Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain)
Tsukerman, Pini (Nectin Therapeutics Ltd, Jerusalem, Israel)
André, Thierry (Hôpital Saint-Antoine, Paris, France)
Buchholz, Frank (Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany)
Kuball, Jürgen (University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands)
Ledergerber, Dorothea (TIGEN PHARMA, Lausanne, Switzerland)
Mackensen, Andreas (University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany)
Mielke, Stephan (Karolinska Institutet and University Hospital, Karolinska CCC, Stockholm, Sweden)
Pichon, Chantal (French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) & University of Orléans, Orléans, France)
Sclafani, Francesco (Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium)
Abken, Hinrich (RCI – University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany)
Guedan, Sonia (August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain)
Hudecek, Michael (Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany)
Klobuch, Sebastian (Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Lowdell, Mark (University College London, London, Great Britain)
Olweus, Johanna (Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway)
Rengstl, Benjamin (BioNTech SE, Mainz, Germany)
Smyth, Elizabeth (Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge, Great Britain)
Tonn, Torsten (Technical University of Dresden, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden, Germany)
Abken, Hinrich (RCI – University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany)
Cathomen, Toni (Medical Center – University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany)
Chabannon, Christian (Institut Paoli-Calmettes, Marseille, France)
Ciceri, Fabio (IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Milan, Italy)
Dienstmann, Rodrigo (Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain)
Haanen, John (The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Kordasti, Shahram (Kings College London, London, UK)
Rössig, Claudia (Münster University Hospital (UKM), Münster, Germany)
