International Conference on Cellular Immunotherapy in Pediatric Oncology (CIPO)

Biography

Dr. Michael Betts received his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of North Carolina in 1998 and completed his postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Richard Koup at the NIH Vaccine Research Center in 2005.  During that time, he made key contributions to the understanding of human viral T cell immunity through the development of innovative assays to study human T cell responses that are now standard in the field, including the CD107a degranulation assay, polyfunctional intracellular cytokine staining, and peptide matrices for antigen specificity deconvolution. He has continued the study of human T cells in the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine Department of Microbiology in 2005, where he has now risen to the rank of Full Professor with tenure. His lab currently conducts studies on human and non-human primate T cell responses and regulation in the context of vaccination, infection, autoimmunity, and therapeutics, focusing most recently in three areas: 1) Understanding the heterogeneity of T cell responses temporally and anatomically in the context of infection, vaccination, and autoimmunity; 2) Defining T cell heterogeneity using single and bulk cell genomic approaches in blood and tissues in viral and autoimmune contexts; and 3) Development of mRNA-lipid nanoparticle-based strategies to target and transiently modify human T and NK cells for novel therapeutic approaches.

Biography

Dr. Bollard received her medical degree at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She is board certified both in pediatrics and hematology. She worked in New Zealand and London, England, before moving to Houston, Texas, in 2000 where she was a Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Immunology at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). In August 2013, she was recruited to Washington, DC, to join Children’s National Hospital and George Washington University. She is currently the Senior Vice President & Chief Research Officer and the Dr. Robert J. and Florence T. Bosworth Distinguished Professor of Cancer and Transplantation Biology Research and the Director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research. She is a Professor of Pediatrics and of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at George Washington University and the Associate Center Director for Translational Research and Innovation at the GW Cancer Center. Dr. Bollard is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP), is a past president of the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT), and the immediate past President of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT). She was a member of the Cellular, Tissues, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee of the FDA from 2015 to 2019 and was an associate editor for the journal Blood from 2014-2021. She is currently Editor in Chief of Blood Advances and  has >250 peer reviewed publications. Dr Bollard has been independently NIH funded for over 15 years - her bench and translational research focuses on improving outcomes for patients after transplant and on the development of novel cell therapies for cancer and virus-associated diseases.

Biography

Dr. Fry is a Professor of Pediatrics, and Immunology; Executive Director and Charles C. Gates Endowed Chair of the Gates Institute for Cell and Gene Therapy at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Children’s Hospital Colorado. He previously served as Head of the Hematologic Malignancies Section in the Pediatric Oncology Branch at the NIH where he led efforts in Cellular Immunotherapy for pediatric leukemia. Dr. Fry’s research focuses on the preclinical and clinical development of cellular immunotherapy for pediatric cancers. He serves as the Vice Chair of the Committee for Scientific Affairs for the American Society of Hematology and in a leadership role on the Cellular Therapy Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group. He was elected into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2015 and the Association of American Physicians in 2026.

Biography

Dalia Haydar, PharmD, PhD, is a pediatric cancer immunotherapy researcher and Assistant Professor at Children’s National Hospital and George Washington University. She leads a translational research program focused on engineering next-generation cellular therapies for children with brain tumors. Her work spans CAR T-cell design, immune microenvironment remodeling, manufacturing innovations, and clinical translation. Dr. Haydar is passionate about bridging discovery science and clinical application, and has led multiple immunotherapy programs from the laboratory to FDA IND approval and upcoming clinical trials. She is committed to advancing curative therapies for children through collaborative, team-based science. 

Biography

Andras Heczey MD is a physician scientist and Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, University of Washington. He is the Scientific Director of Translational Research - Cell, Gene and Protein Therapeutics at the Seattle Children's Research Institute (SCRI). He is a member of the multidisciplinary Solid Tumor team of Seattle Children's, the Ben Towne Cancer Center of SCRI, and the Immunotherapy Integrated Research Center of the Fred Hutch Cancer Center.

He has over 15 years’ experience in developing first-in-human / first-in-child cell and gene therapeutics in the preclinical and clinical setting. His lab has strong emphasis on effective collaborations to ensure rapid preclinical testing, cost effective cGMP process development and timely clinical trial implementation. The main focus of the lab is on novel cell and gene therapies for children and adults with solid tumors using state-of-the-art synthetic immunology and genetic engineering tools to redirect the immune system and eliminate cancer.

Biography

Dr. Michael Jain is an Associate Member and ICE-T Medical Director in the Moffitt Cancer Center Department of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy. Dr. Jain earned his MD and PhD at McGill University in Montréal, in the province of Québec, Canada. His PhD in Cell Biology was completed under the supervision of Dr. John Bergeron. Dr Jain completed an Internal Medicine Residency and a Hematology Residency at the University of Toronto. He completed a Clinician Scientist Training Program and Clinical Fellowship in Lymphoma and Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation at Princess Margaret Cancer Center, University of Toronto. Dr. Jain’s clinical interests focus on treatment modalities for relapsed lymphoma, particularly stem cell transplantation and cellular and immunotherapies. His research interests include translational research in lymphoma and early-phase clinical trials. 

Biography

Dr. Klebanoff is cellular immunologist and medical oncologist with nearly 25 years of experience in the pre-clinical and clinical development of T cell-based immunotherapies for the treatment of solid and hematologic cancers. Prior to joining Memorial Sloan Kettering, he was an assistant clinical investigator and a NIH-Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Dr. Klebanoff pioneered the paradigm that T cell subsets with the memory-like attributes are a critical determinant for adoptive immunotherapy efficacy. Further, he resolved how host lymphodepletion – a standard practice for nearly all cellular immunotherapies – enhances the potency of adoptively transferred T cells through the removal of homeostatic cytokine “sinks.” The Klebanoff laboratory is currently focused on the discovery and targeting of shared neoantigens resulting from recurrently mutated driver genes, including RAS, PIK3CA, and TP53, using TCR gene therapy. 

Clinically, Dr. Klebanoff has contributed to the successful early phase development of numerous T cell-based therapies. These include an anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that would become FDA approved (Yescarta®), tumor infiltrating lymphocyte therapy for the treatment of melanoma (Lifileucel) and other common cancers, and TCR gene therapies targeting epitopes derived from NY-ESO-1 (Letetresgene), MAGE-A3, and HPV16.

Dr. Klebanoff is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and recipient of several prestigious awards, including a National Institutes of Health MERIT Award, the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award, and the Janet Rowley Award.

Biography

Gavin Lindberg is President and Co-Founder of the Evan's Victory Against Neuroblastoma Foundation.  Based in Maryland and established in 2011, The EVAN Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Gavin and his wife Wendy in memory of their only child. Evan passed away from neuroblastoma in 2010 at the age of 7.  The Foundation proudly serves the childhood cancer community through its patient & survivor wellness, research, advocacy & education programs. 

Gavin is a frequent speaker at pediatric oncology research and advocacy meetings, and the Congressional Childhood Cancer Caucus Summit held each September on Capitol Hill. His commentaries on childhood cancer have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and Pediatric Blood & Cancer. 

Gavin serves as a Patient Advocate on the National Cancer Institute’s Pediatric Immunotherapy Network, Pediatric & Adolescent Solid Tumor Steering Committee, and National Clinical Trials Network Correlative Sciences Committee.   He is also an Advocate on the Cancer Grand Challenges NexTGen & KOODAC Pediatric Teams, and the New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy (NANT) Consortium.  In 2007, Gavin was the Founding President of the Band of Parents, a neuroblastoma research non-profit based in New York City.

Prior to transitioning full-time to The EVAN Foundation in 2021, Gavin spent 25 years as a government relations and patient advocacy professional in Washington, DC. He is originally from Michigan and has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Michigan State University. Gavin and Wendy live in Germantown, MD.

Biography

Kevin McNerney, MD, MS, is a pediatric hematologist-oncologist specializing in blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) and cancer immunotherapy at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. 

Dr. McNerney earned a B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Illinois and his medical degree from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He completed his pediatric residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, followed by fellowship training in pediatric hematology-oncology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Driven by a strong interest in cancer immunotherapy, particularly chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, he pursued additional subspecialty training in pediatric cancer immunotherapy and BMT at CHOP and earned a Master of Science in Translational Research from the University of Pennsylvania.  His current clinical practice focuses on hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and cellular immunotherapies for children and young adults with cancer and other hematologic disorders. 

Dr. McNerney's research focuses on improving outcomes and reducing treatment-related toxicities for pediatric and young adult patients receiving cellular immunotherapies. His work includes clinical trials and multi-institutional collaborative studies, with a particular emphasis on understanding, preventing, and managing the severe inflammatory toxicities associated with CAR T-cell therapy. He serves as a sub-investigator on multiple clinical trials and co-leads collaborative research efforts examining CAR T-cell toxicities across national multi-institutional consortia.

Biography

Rosa Nguyen is a Lasker Clinical Scholar, an NIH Distinguished Scholar, and Head of the Pediatric Solid Tumor & Immunotherapy Section in the Pediatric Oncology Branch at the National Cancer Institute. She leads a laboratory and clinical research program dedicated to developing new immunotherapies for patients with solid tumors and bringing them into the clinic.

Biography

Francisco J. Quintana, PhD is a Professor of Neurology at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Program on Immunology of Aging at the Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation, and an Associate Member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Dr. Quintana, a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires (1999, Argentina), obtained his PhD in immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science (2004, Israel). He received postdoctoral training at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Harvard Medical School. In 2009, Dr. Quintana joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Quintana’s research is focused on Neuroimmunology, investigating signaling pathways that control inflammation and neurodegeneration, with the ultimate goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets for immune-mediated and neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Quintana has published over 240 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. Dr. Quintana's work identified the transcription factor AHR as an important regulator of inflammation driven by adaptive and innate immune cells. He defined mechanisms by which cell-cell interactions, metabolism, the microbiome, and environmental chemicals control inflammation and neurodegeneration. Dr. Quintana’s work guided the development of Tapinarof, the first FDA-approved AHR-targeting drug for the treatment of psoriasis.

Dr. Quintana is the recipient of the Lady Anne Chain Prize for Academic Excellence and Scientific Achievements, the Junior Investigator Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Pathway to Independence Award of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Award for Outstanding Research Achievement form Nature Biotechnology, the Tecan Award for Innovation, the Harry Weaver Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Mentor Award from Harvard Medical School, the Milestones in Multiple Sclerosis Research Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Association of Immunologists-BD Biosciences Investigator Award, ISI Most Highly Cited List, the Barancik Prize of Innovation in Multiple Sclerosis Research, IGNITE BWH award and the Raices Prize for Excellence in Research (Argentina). In 2021, Dr. Quintana was named the Kuchroo Weiner Distinguished Professor of Neuroimmunology, and in 2025, he was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors.

Biography

Sneha Ramakrishna, MD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Hematology, Oncology, Stem Cell Transplantation & Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Ramakrishna cares for children with solid and brain tumors and leads a translational research program focused on developing and understanding CAR T-cell therapies for these patients. Her work integrates first-in-human clinical trials with a robust reverse translational correlative science platform to define the immune determinants of CAR T-cell success and failure in patients.

Dr. Ramakrishna's laboratory applies novel single-cell and multi-dimensional profiling to patient samples collected from investigator-initiated CAR T-cell trials, revealing critical features of T-cell and myeloid immune biology that govern CAR T-cell activity (Nature 2022; Cancer Cell 2024). Building on these patient-driven discoveries, her team develops clinically relevant models and new strategies to enhance CAR T-cell efficacy for pediatric solid and brain tumors.

Biography

Claudia Rossig received her medical degree at the University of Luebeck in Germany, then joined the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology of University Children´s Hospital Muenster, Germany, as a Clinical Fellow. Between 1998 and 2000, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Malcolm Brenner in the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA. After finishing her clinical training as a Pediatrician in 2005 and her speciality registration as a Pediatric Hematologist and Oncologist in 2007, she is now director of the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology in Muenster. Since 2023, she is an affiliated group leader at the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology in Utrecht, NL. Her experimental research focuses on the development of engineered T-cell strategies to treat pediatric solid cancers.

Biography

Dr. Barbara Savoldo is a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Scientific Faculty Director of the Advanced Cellular Therapeutics Shared Resource at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research focuses on the development and clinical translation of genetically engineered cellular therapies for hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. She uses T and NKT cells as therapeutic platforms, engineering CARs and TCRs and developing strategies to enhance immune-cell trafficking, persistence, functional fitness, and resistance to the tumor microenvironment. Her work has contributed to the translation of multiple cellular therapies from preclinical development to early-phase clinical trials, including approaches for lymphoma and pediatric solid and brain tumors.

Biography

Dr. Timothy Spear, MD, PhD is a physician scientist in the Division of Oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He received his MD and PhD at Loyola University studying the cross-reactivity of T cell receptor (TCR) engineered T cells and subsequently completed Pediatrics Residency and Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at CHOP. His research interests are focused on mRNA vaccination strategies for childhood cancers, including personalized neoantigen vaccines and vaccines to enhance the efficacy of cellular therapies.

Biography

Dr. Nick Vitanza is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington and a physician-scientist supported by an NIH Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT)(R37) Award. He completed his pediatric oncology fellowship at New York University, followed by a pediatric neuro-oncology fellowship and postdoctoral research at Stanford University. At Seattle Children’s, he is a pediatric neuro-oncologist, the Scientific Director of the Brain Tumor Research Program, and the CNS CAR T cell Lead. Clinically, he has designed multiple intracranially-dosed first-in-human trials delivering HER2-, EGFR-, B7-H3-, and multi-antigen-targeting CAR T cells to children with CNS tumors. In the Lab, he studies aggressive pediatric brain tumors such as DIPG/DMG, ATRT, and medulloblastoma with a focus on translating discoveries to clinical trials. His team has developed CNS cancer models, identified epigenetic and immunologic cancer vulnerabilities, and engineered cellular therapeutics such as chemotactically-enhanced B7-H3 CAR T cells. His findings have been published in Cancer Cell, Cancer Discovery, Nature Communications, and Nature Medicine. A strong advocate for swift and transparent collaboration, Dr. Vitanza leads international efforts dedicated to curing pediatric brain and spinal cord tumors and participated in the White House’s Cancer Moonshot Brain Cancers Forum.