BRIAN M. BAKER, PhD

Dr. Baker is the John A. Zahm Professor of Structural Biology in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame. At Notre Dame, Dr. Baker directs a world-renowned research laboratory specializing in structural immunology. Through his work, he has made seminal contributions to our understanding of how T cell receptors ‘see’ antigen, the features of TCRs and antigens that promote immunogenicity, and the mechanisms underlying T cell discrimination between self and non-self. His research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the American Cancer Society. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

MARC BETTER, PhD

Dr. Better is a biotechnology professional with more than 30 years’ experience in cell therapy and biologics CMC.  Most recently, Dr. Better has advised companies developing cell and gene therapy products as a consultant with Pharmefex and Cell One Partners.  Previously he served as Senior Vice President, Product Sciences at Kite, a Gilead Company, where he led process and analytical development, process characterization and process validation activities leading to the successful US licensure of Yescarta, a first in class anti-CD19 CAR T cell therapy.  Dr. Better joined Kite in Jan 2013 where he brought experience in biologics CMC; upstream, downstream, analytical and drug product development; GMP manufacturing; commercial manufacturing support; technology transfer; contract manufacturing; and regulatory interactions. He is also experienced authoring and reviewing regulatory documents for global submission, and working with regulatory agencies in the US, Europe, Japan and China.  His expertise also includes working with CMOs as a customer and as a provider. Prior to joining Kite, Dr. Better was Executive Director, Process Science at Boehringer Ingelheim, Executive Director, Process Development at Amgen and in key leadership roles at both Abgenix and XOMA.   Dr. Better received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Brandeis University and holds a B.S in Microbiology from Michigan State University.

STEVEN M. DUBINETT, MD

Dr. Dubinett is Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Vice Chancellor of Translational Research at UCLA. He is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Director of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Lung Cancer Research Program. As a member of NCI’s Translational Research Working Group, Dr. Dubinett participates in designing pathways to clinical goals and has been the principal investigator on numerous NCI and private industry-sponsored cancer immunotherapy clinical trials. He previously chaired the FDA Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee to oversee cellular and immunotherapy studies for cancer. Dr. Dubinett received his MD from New Jersey Medical School, completed his residency and fellowship training at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

TERRY HERMISTON, PhD

Dr. Hermiston is founder and CEO of GLAdiator Biosciences. He has a biotech career spanning over two decades, and was Vice President and head of Bayer’s U.S. Innovation Center at San Francisco from 2007 to 2016. At Bayer, he headed the US Biologics research within Bayer HealthCare’s world-wide pharmaceutical research organization. Prior to Bayer, Dr. Hermiston was Scientific Director for the Global Gene Therapy Research and Gene Technology Departments for Berlex Biosciences and its parent company, Schering AG. Prior to Berlex, he was head of Oncolytic Virus Research at Onyx Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Hermiston has published more than 60 research papers and reviews, and holds over 20 granted patents. He has served on the Board of Directors for the California Healthcare Institute, Biotech Partners, and Jennerex Biotherapeutics.

Dr. Hermiston did his postdoctoral fellowship at the St. Louis University School of Medicine. He holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Virology from the University of Iowa and a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from Iowa State University.

ANUSHA KALBASI, MD

Dr. Kalbasi is a physician-scientist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at UCLA focused on new immune-based therapies for the treatment of sarcoma and melanoma. As a radiation oncologist, Dr. Kalbasi specializes in the treatment of sarcoma and melanoma, and also leads clinical trials, including studies of adoptive T cell therapy. Dr. Kalbasi received his medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and completed his residency training at the University of Pennsylvania. His pre- and post-doctoral work were conducted as an HHMI-NIH research fellow at the National Cancer Institute, at the Abramson Cancer Center (University of Pennsylvania) and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCLA).

ALLAN J. PANTUCK, MD, MS, FACS

Dr. Pantuck is the Chairman, Co-Founder, and Chief Medical Officer of Athos Therapeutics Inc. Prior to Athos, he was a Co-Founder of Kite Pharma, a leading cell therapy company that successfully developed and obtained FDA approval for an innovative cancer immunotherapy and was acquired by Gilead Sciences in 2017. He is currently a Professor of Urology at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Executive Chair of the UCLA IRB Committee, Vice Chair of Academic Affairs for the Department of Urology and a member of the Executive Committee of the Institute of Urologic Oncology. Dr. Pantuck serves on the scientific and advisory boards of several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. In addition to authoring several pending US patent applications, Dr. Pantuck has lectured internationally, written over 300 peer-reviewed biomedical publications, and consulted for major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies providing his expertise on regulatory strategy and clinical trial design.  He performed his urology/oncology fellowship and was awarded a Masters of Clinical Research from UCLA School of Medicine, and holds an MD degree from Robert Wood Johnson/Rutgers Medical School.