Contributors & partners

Joan-Albert ARNAIZ, MD PhD


Associate Professor, Department of Pathology,
Pharmacology and Microbiology
University of Barcelona


Bio

Joan-Albert Arnaiz   received his degree in Medicine and Surgery (M.D.) at the University of Barcelona, Spain in 1989 and his PhD degree in 2006 at the University of Barcelona. He was trained as a clinical pharmacologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Presently he is a Senior Specialist Physician in the Clinical Trials Unit of the Clinical Pharmacology Unit at the Hospital Clínic, Barcelona and Associate Professor, in the Department of Pathology, Pharmacology and Microbiology, University of Barcelona.

Contact: Joan Albert Arnaiz

Sylvette Bas PhD

Spécialiste FAMH en immunologie, Biologiste cadre de la Division de Rumatologie, Hôpital Universitaire de Genève (HUG)

Bio

PhD de l'Université de Lyon (France). Assistante, puis maître assistante  et chef de travaux au Département de Biochimie Médicale de l'Université de Genève, elle devient ensuite biologiste cadre dans la Division de Rhumatologie de l'Hôpital Universitaire de Genève.

En plus de son activité dans le diagnostic de laboratoire, ses principaux intérêtes et activités en recherche étaient: l'association des autoanticorps avec les diagnostic et le pronostic de la polyarthrite rhumatoïde et l'immunopathogenèse de l'arthrite réactive à Chlamydia trachomatis. Elle est actuellement investigatrice principale dans un projet de recherche étudiant le rôle des cytokines Th17 dans les infections à Chlamydia trachomatis.

 

Contact: Sylvette Bas

Sylvette Bas PhD

FAMH specialist in immunology, Staff Biologist of the Rheumatology Division, University Hospital of Geneva (HUG)

Bio

Sylvette Bas received a PhD from the University of Lyon (France). She was assistant, « maître assistante », and « chef de travaux » at the Department of Medical Biochemistry of the University of Geneva. She then became staff biologist at the Division of Rheumatology at the University Hospital of Geneva and got a FAMH in Clinical Immunology.

Along with her diagnostic laboratory activity, her major research interests/activities were: the association of autoantibodies with diagnosis and prognosis of rheumatoid arthritis and the immunopathogenesis of Chlamydia trachomatis reactive arthritis. She is now working as principal investigator in a research project studying the role of Th17 cytokines in Chlamydia trachomatis infections.

 

Contact: Sylvette Bas

Blake Wood, MPH

Statistical Center for HIV/AIDS Research and Prevention (SCHARP)
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Seattle, Washington, USA


Bio

Since 2006, Blake Wood has served as Senior Project Manager for the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery's (CAVD) Vaccine Immunology Statistical Center (VISC) where he has lead statistical data analysis and software development projects focused on immunological assay development and standardization. Since 2007, Blake has worked closely with the CAVD's Comprehensive Antibody – Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium (CA-VIMC) in the development, testing and implementation of an external proficiency testing program for the Neutralizing Antibody Assay for HIV-1 in TZM-bl cells. During this period, Blake has also directed the work of teams of statisticians, data managers and software engineers in the development of web-based tools and analytic methods for immunological assays.

Contact: Blake Wood

George Blaskó, MD, PhD


Semmelweis Medical University, Budapest. Hungary


Bio

George Blaskò received his MD degree in 1972 at at Semmelweis Medical University, Budapest and his PhD degree in 1996.
From 1972 to 1990 he was a postgraduate fellow in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical University
From 1972 to 1975 he was a junior member in the same Department. In 1982 1975-1982: scientific member, 1982-1990: senior consultant
From 1990 to 1994, he worked as head of department and head of the clinicopharmacological unit in the “Szent Imre” Governmental Hospital of Budapest.
He then join Chinoin-Sanofi (1994-1995:), Sanofi-Winthrope (1994-1995), Sanofi-Synthelabo (1994-1998) and in 2005, Sanofi-Aventis as manager of medical marketing. In 2005, he was appointed medical director of Sanofi-Aventis Hung.
Since 2006 he is professor and head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Management and Organization, Medical and Health. Science Center, Pharmaceutical
 Institute, Debrecen University.

Contact: George Blaskò

James Binley, PhD


Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, 3550 General Atomics Court, Room 305, San Diego, CA 92121, USA


Bio

James M. Binley,  has been focused on the general topic of neutralizing antibodies and HIV for 18 years. He obtained his Ph.D training in the lab of Dennis Burton, at The Scripps Research Institute, where he investigated the natural antibody response to HIV-1 using phage display antibody libraries prepared from long term non-progressing HIV+ patients. In 1995, James moved to a post-doctoral position in the laboratory of John Moore at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and later the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he was hired as an Instructor. During this time, he became involved in various projects, some of which were  related to the newly discovered HAART treatments and the identification of the HIV-1 coreceptor. He went on to work on neutralizing antibody vaccine designs, initially developing the so called "SOS" mutant that links gp120 and gp41 in a native manner by introduction of an intermolecular disulfide bond. In 2001, James moved back to Scripps and Dennis Burton's lab as a Staff Scientist and pursued projects centered around the use of pseudoviruses both for studying antibody neutralization and as a platform for vaccine design. He also managed various projects for the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Consortium in New York. In 2004, he moved to The Torrey Pines Insitute in San Diego to take an Assistant Member position and in 2009 was promoted to Associate Member. He is now developing a large panel of mutants in a prototype primary virus Envelope, JR-FL, to assist in trying to understand the epitopes targeted by broadly neutralizing antibodies in patient sera. A major part of this effort involves the use of native PAGE as a way to visualize neutralizing antibody binding to native functional trimers derived from infectious particles.

Contact: James Binley

Fredrik Theodoor Bosman

Director - Institute of Pathology University of Lausanne

Bio and Research

Fred Bosman studied medicine in Leiden, where he also earned his PhD (in cytogenetics and histochemistry) and trained in pathology. In 1981 he was appointed professor of pathology and chairman of the (new) department of pathology in Maastricht. In 1990 he became chairman of the department of pathology of the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam and in 1995 he took up a position as director of the University Institute of Pathology in Lausanne.
Fred Bosman’s interests in diagnostic pathology have focused primarily on gastrointestinal and endocrine pathology. These two fields came together in his studies on endocrine differentiation in digestive tract cancer, where he made several original contributions, notably on the impact of neuroendocrine differentiation on tumor behaviur and on the endocrine differentiation inducing capacity of the extracellular matrix. He developed an early interest in the application of immunohistochemistry and later on in molecular genetic analysis for diagnostic purposes and in his experimental work focused mostly on these aspects of pathology. This resulted in important contributions to the notion that in the development of cancer, the interaction between cancer cells and tumor stroma – more specifically the extracellular matrix – is an essential element. In the area of molecular pathology especially genetic abnormalities in colorectal cancer and in adenocarcinoma in Barrett’s esophagus were addressed. Furthermore the role of telomerase activation in cancer development and as a diagnostic tool have been explored.
Fred Bosman has been very active in developing new approaches towards under- and postgraduate medical education, as an educator but also as associate dean for education in Lausanne. He has been socially active in a variety of functions a.o. as member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the ISREC, as member of the Swiss Cancer League Scientific Advisory Board (WIKO), as president of the Foundation Biobank-Suisse and recently as vice president of Oncosuisse and president of the European Society of Pathology.

Contact: fred.bosman@chuv.ch

Erika Castro, MD PhD

Senior Clinical Research Scientist
Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center
Service of Immunology and Allergy
University Hospital CHUV), Switzerland

Bio

Ongoing projects

Contact: Erika Castro

Carlo Catapano

PIOSI/ Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland
Ospedale San Giovanni, 6500 Bellinzona, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Carlo Catapano

Alexandre Christinat

Pluridisciplinary Oncology Center
Universitgy Hospital CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Alexandre Christinat

Angelos Constantinou

Department of Biochemistry
University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Angelos Constantinou

Rafael Dal-Ré, MD, PhD, MPH

Medical Director, GlaxoSmithKline, Spain


Bio and Research

Member of the Spanish Society of Clinical Pharmacology (1991- ) and the American Society for Microbiology (1992- )
Member (1995-1998) and Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of The Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK. (1998- )

Member of the Pharmacovigilance National Commission, Ministry of Health 1993-1996

Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Pharmaceutical Medicine (1999- )
Member of the Experts Committee, Medicina Clínica (1999- )
Reviewer: Vaccine (2006- )

More than 140 papers in International and Spanish peer-reviewed journals, like, for instance, The Lancet, Pedriatrics, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Vaccine and Journal of Medical Virology

Major areas of interest: antimicrobials, vaccines, epidemiology, ethics and methodology of clinical research

Contact: Rafael Dal-Ré

Janice Darden, MS, Contractor


CRS Team Leader
Office for Policy in Clinical Research & Operations
Clinical Research Resources Branch
DAIDS/NIAID/NIH

Bio

Janice Darden, has devoted her career to Laboratory Science and training laboratory staff around the world. She received her Bachelors degree from Boston University and a Masters degree in science from John Hopkins. Her expertise in flow cytometry and laboratory quality assurance and quality control has provided her the opportunity to set up a Center of Excellence in Flow Cytometry in Bangkok, Thailand while working for the Thai government and to set up flow cytometry labs in East Africa for the U.S. Military HIV Research Program. Currently, she works for the Division of AIDS, NIH in their Office for Policy in Clinical Research and Operations supporting international labs performing clinical trials around the world. As the Leader of the Laboratory Methodology group for the OCTAVE project, she and her team have collaborated with laboratory scientists from various backgrounds to create the OCTAVE virtual lab.

Contact: Janice Darden

Nathalie Debard

PhD - Coordinator of Immunology Online and Oncology Online
HSeT Foundation, Epalinges Switzerland


Bio and Research

Nathalie Debard received a Ph.D. in immunology in 1996 from the University of Chatenay–Malabry (Chatenay–Malabry, France) and completed a postdoctorate in the laboratory of Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC; Epalinges, Switzerland). She was working on M cells, specialized cells of the epithelium associated with lymphoid follicules in the digestive tract and the airways.
She is now a project coordinator for Immunology Online and for Oncology Online. She participates in eLearning training at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and in courses organized by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Contact: Nathalie Debard

Fernando de Andres-Trelles, MD PhD


Professor of Pharmacology
Madrid’s Universidad Complutense: Schools of Medicine and of Dentistry
Madrid, Spain


Bio and Research

External advisor at the Spanish Medicines Agency. Member of the Spanish Medicines Evaluation Board, previously Chairman (1993-1999).

Member of the Paediatric Committee (PDCO), the Scientific Advice Working Party (SAWP) and the Patients and Consumer Organizations Working Party (PCWP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA). Previously member of the Committee of Human Medicinal Products (CHMP/CPMP) and of the Committee of Orphan Medicinal Products of the EMEA.

Contact: Fernando de Andres-Trelles

Jacques Demotes, MD PhD


ECRIN Project Coordinator
European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network INSERM
Institut Thématique Santé Publique
Paris, France


Bio and Research

Jacques Demotes-Mainard got a medical background as a neurologist, a research experience with a PhD in neurosciences, then more than 15 years of basic neurobiology, and a teaching experience as professor of cell biology. Clinical research was an opportunity to joint medical and research activities, and after coordinating a clinical research centre for a few years, Jacques Demotes was involved since 2004 in the initiation and development of the ECRIN project. This resulted in drastic changes in his activities, requiring new training in management (He recently got an MBA) and in research strategy, also leading him to act as Director of the biology and health research department at the French ministry of higher education and research, and to participate in various European projects and initiatives

Contact: Jacques Demotes

Pierre-Yves Dietrich

Oncology Department
Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Pierre-Yves Dietrich

Gian-Paolo Dotto

Professor - Department of Biochemistry University of Lausanne

Bio

Prof. G. Paolo Dotto received his MD from the University of Turin, Italy, in 1979, and his PhD in genetics from the Rockefeller University, New York, in 1983. After postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute/MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1987 Dr. Dotto joined Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, as Assistant Professor of pathology. In 1992 he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and soon after moved to Harvard Medical School, as Associate Professor of dermatology in the newly established Cutaneous Biology Research Center. In 2000 he was promoted to the rank of Professor at Harvard Medical School and Biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2002 he accepted a position of Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Lausanne.

Research

Molecular mechanisms of tumor invasion and metastasis

We are interested in molecular mechanisms that control self-renewal of epithelial cell stem populations versus their reversible exit from the cell cycle and irreversible commitment to differentiation, which is important for normal organ morphogenesis and homeostasis. Additionally, transformation of epithelial cells is closely linked to disturbances of their normal growth/differentiation program. An elucidation of this program is significant for new therapeutic approaches to human tumors, which are mostly of epithelial origin.We use primary keratinocytes and skin of both mouse and human origin as our main experimental model system. In particular, we are investigating the functional cross-talk among the Notch, p21WAF1/Cip1, calcineurin and Rho signaling pathways in control of a) the transition between keratinocyte stem cell populations and transit amplifying cells, b) the reversible versus irreversible commitment to differentiation and c) acquisition of the transformed tumorigenic phenotype.

Contact: Gian-Paolo Dotto

Ann Duerr


MD, PhD, MPH
Associate Director (Scientific Support)
HIV Vaccine Trials Network


Bio

Ann C. Duerr received her BSc from McGill University, her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her MD cum laude from Harvard Medical School. She then completed a Preventive Medicine Residency at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene. Dr Duerr joined the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 1991 as Chief of the HIV Section in the Division of Reproductive Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Under her direction, the HIV section expanded and developed a domestic and international research portfolio related to HIV and reproductive health of women. At the CDC Dr Duerr led the development of several notable multinational efforts, including: (1) the HIV Epidemiology Research Study (HERS), (2) research to increase awareness of refugee women’s health,(3) the investigation of HIV transmission in Thai couples, (4) an initiative on microbicide research, and (5) the ongoing Breastfeeding Antiretrovirals Nutrition (BAN) trial. Dr Duerr has received numerous honors, including the Surgeon General’s Exemplary Service Award, and the Public Health Service Special Recognition Award; she has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). She is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed publications, and in 1995 co-edited a book entitled HIV Infection in Women.

Current activities

Since 2003, Dr Duerr has been the Associate Director of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) in Seattle, WA. At the HVTN, Dr. Duerr has been actively involved in site development and protocol development and implementation. She heads the Scientific Support Unit which coordinates the development of protocols to evaluate candidate vaccines. She is the co-chair of the Concept Working Group, a group within the HVTN which develops and reviews protocols designed to answer more basic scientific questions using candidate HIV vaccines or licensed products. She also conducts independent research (with NIH support) on mucosal responses to vaccines in non-human primates and humans.

Contact: Ann Duerr

Farag Ibrahim Farag, MB. Bch/PhD/FACAAI


Professor
Allergy & Immunology Unit
Faculty of Medicine
Suez Canal University
Egypt


Bio

Farag Ibrahim Farag received his medical degree in 1978 from Cairo University, Egypt. He obtained his PhD from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, where he worked at the Influenza Research Center as a pre-doctoral fellow. After the completion of his PhD in 1987 he worked as a fellow at the Allergy/Immunology division, department of internal Medicine at Baylor. He returned to Egypt in 1989 where he was appointed as an assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology /Immunology., Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University.

In 1992 During the Gulf war he was recruited by the Saudi Government to work as a Consultant Immunologist at King Fahad Teaching Hospital at the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. He was assigned the responsibility of acting as the Head of the Immunology section of the Laboratory department as well as the Director of the Allergy/Immunology clinic.
In 1997 he returned to the Suez Canal University where he was appointed as the director of the Allergy/Immunology Unit of the Suez Canal University Teaching Hospital.
In 1998 he was promoted to the rank of associate professor then to a full professor in 2003.
In addition to his academic affiliation with the Suez Canal University he was appointed in 2005 as a Consultant of allergy/Immunology at VACSERA , the Holding Company of Biological Products and Vaccines of Egypt. In 2006 he was also hired as a Consultant of Immunology at the International Medical Center of the Egyptian Armed forces.

Contact: Farag I. Farag

Gerd Felder


Associate director
Koordinierungszentrum für Klinische
Studien Universitätsklinikum
Düsseldorf, Germany


Bio

Work experience

Contact: Gerd Felder

Danna Flood


MPH, Associate Director, HIV Vaccine Trials Network


Bio

Danna Flood has been involved in clinical, basic science and public health-related HIV research for the past 17 years. She has a Masters of Public Health (MPH) degree with a concentration in international health from the University of Washington, with thesis research on cancer incidence in migrant populations. She has also done graduate work in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Activities

Danna is Associate Director for Training at the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) Core in Seattle, WA. Her work in the HVTN is centered around international site expansion and site development efforts, which involves designing approaches to identify critical training needs, developing curriculum for conduct of HIV vaccine research, implementing training plans, facilitating mentoring between sites and research programs, and iteratively evaluating training efforts to facilitate continuous improvement. In addition to the OCTAVE project, Danna is also involved in several cross-research program collaborations, including PAVE (Partnership for AIDS Vaccine Evaluation), and the Partnership for Enhancement of Human Research Protections (PEHRP), which brings IRB/IEC members throughout Africa and the Caribbean together to participate in training and establish regional collaborations.Danna co-chairs the HVTN's Training and Education Committee.

Contact: Danna Flood

Nicole Frahm


Assistant Professor
Dept Global Health
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Seattle, Washington, USA
HVTN

My research addresses the influence of HIV sequence diversity on its recognition by cytotoxic T lymphocytes, as well as the factors governing the recognition of sequence variants both in HIV-infected subjects and in vaccine trial participants. More recently, my research also includes the assessment of immune responses to viral vectors used as immunogens in HIV vaccine trials to help understand how pre-existing cellular immunity to the vector influences the quality of vaccine-induced immune responses. In my role as the Associate Laboratory Director for the HVTN, I provide leadership and scientific support for the HVTN Laboratories. This includes (but is not restricted to) oversight of the Endpoints Laboratory, which is responsible for the generation of validated immunogenicity data for all HVTN trials, and of the R&D Laboratory, which provides ancillary and exploratory data leading to a more complete view of the immune responses generated by HIV vaccines.

Contact: Nicole Frahm

Jonathan Fuchs


Assistant Professor - MD, MPH
Director of Vaccine Studies
San Francisco Dept of Public Health
San Francisco, California, USA

Bio

Jonathan Fuchs received an M.D. from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey (New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA) and an M.P.H. from Columbia University (New York). He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of California (San Francisco, California, USA) in 2000, and he is now Director of Vaccine Studies at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California (San Francisco) and co-chair of the Training and Education Committee for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (Seattle, Washington, USA).

Contact: Jonathan Fuchs

Stefan Gerber

Obstetrics and Gynecology specialist - Médecin associé PD MER

Bio

 

Research

 

Contact: Stefan Gerber

Anita Gillis


Research Assistant II
The Henry M. Jackson Foundation and US MHRP

Anita Gillis has worked in the Humoral Immunology Core Laboratory at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the last three years, primarily focused on ELISAs and HIV neutralization work. She received Bachelor of Science degrees in Microbiology and in International Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Currently she is pursuing a Masters in Public Health at George Washington University with ambitions to work in Maternal and Child healthcare as well as HIV/AIDS public health efforts.

Contact: Anita Gillis

Hongmei Gao


Research Assistant II
Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research & Development
Duke University

Hongmei Gao received her medical degree from Zhejiang Medical University in Hangzhou, China and practiced medicine for 3 years in Tianjin Third Central Hospital in Tianjin, China. For the past six years, Hongmei has worked at Duke University in the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development. This laboratory performs standardized assessments of neutralizing antibodies elicited by pre-clinical and clinical candidate AIDS vaccines for various networks funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Hongmei’s initial work in the laboratory focused on HIV, SIV and SHIV neutralization work and training of visiting scientists. She played a key role in the validation and optimization of the Neutralizing Antibody Assay for HIV-1 in TZM-bl cells as well as the development and implementation of an external proficiency testing program for this assay.

Since 2006, Hongmei has served as a Program Manager for the Comprehensive Antibody – Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium (CA-VIMC), a central service facility for the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD). In this role, Hongmei manages the operational and technical activities of the CA-VIMC, a consortium consisting of 29 co-investigators at 21 institutions worldwide. Hongmei facilitates the establishment of valid laboratory criteria to judge candidate vaccine immunogens based on antibody responses in preclinical and clinical stages of development. She oversees a program for training scientists from developing countries with the goal of facilitating international vaccine trials and enabling new scientific initiatives that will lead to more rapid vaccine discovery.

Contact: Hongmei Gao

Kelli M. Greene


Duke University, Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research & Development


Bio

Kelli Greene received her Bachelor of Science degrees in Microbiology and English from North Carolina State University. For the past seven years, Kelli has worked at Duke University in the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development. This laboratory performs standardized assessments of neutralizing antibodies elicited by pre-clinical and clinical candidate AIDS vaccines for various networks funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Kelli’s initial work in the laboratory focused on HIV, SIV and SHIV neutralization work, isolation and characterization of virus, and training of visiting scientists. She was also actively involved in the laboratory’s implementation and maintenance of GCLP compliance. Kelli played a key role in the development and recent implementation of an external proficiency testing program for the Neutralizing Antibody Assay for HIV-1 in TZM-bl cells.

Activities

Since 2006, Kelli has served as a Program Manager for the Comprehensive Antibody – Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium (CA-VIMC), a central service facility for the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD). In this role, Kelli manages the operational and technical activities of the CA-VIMC, a consortium consisting of 29 co-investigators at 21 institutions worldwide. Kelli facilitates the contribution of key reference reagents, validated assays, shared standard operating procedures, new assay technologies and development of increased laboratory capacity through the establishment of a global network of core and regional laboratories, in support of developing an effective AIDS vaccine.

Contact: Kelli Green

Richard Herrmann


Director, Klinik für Medizinische Onkologie
Universitätsspital, CH-4031 Basel, Switzerland
President, Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research SAKK)
Effingerstrasse 40, 3008 Bern, Switzerland

Bio

 

Research

 

Contact: Richard Herrmann

Viviane Hess

Klinik für Medizinische Onkologie


Universitätsspital, CH-4031 Basel, Switzerland

Bio

 

Research

 

Contact: Viviane Hess

Shu-Fang Hsu Schmitz


Head of Statistics Unit
Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research SAKK)
Effingerstrasse 40, 3008 Bern, Switzerland

Bio

 

Research

 

Contact: Shu-fang Hsu Schmitz

Richard Iggo

Professor - Bute Medical School

Bio

Richard Iggo graduated in physiology and medicine from the University of Bristol. He trained in Internal Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford and the Hammersmith Hospital, London. In 1987 he became an ICRF clinical fellow in David Lane's lab and received his PhD from the University of London in 1991. He was then appointed as a junior group leader at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, Lausanne, where he was promoted to senior scientist in 1997. In 2005 he was appointed to the chair of Molecular Medicine at the University of St Andrews.

Research

The Iggo lab has two main goals: to develop viral therapies for colon cancer, and to develop quantitative transformation protocols that model human breast cancer. The virus projects are based on replicating adenoviruses with multiple modifications to restrict replication, alter tropism and activate prodrugs. The breast cancer project is based on microarray analysis of biopsies collected from patients enrolled in a large European clinical trial. The relevance to breast cancer of genes identified on the microarrays is tested using lentiviral transduction of human mammary epithelial cells.

Contact: Richard Igo

Sheila Keating, PhD, MSPH

Staff Scientist
Blood Systems Research Institute
270 Masonic Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118

Bio and Research

Dr. Keating is a Staff Scientist at the Core Immunology laboratory at Blood Systems Research Institute, San Francisco. Dr. Keating received a PhD in vaccine immunology at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford, UK and an MSPH in Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. Her research interests focus on immune responses in infectious diseases and diagnostic assay development.

Contact: Sheila Keating

Alexander Knuth

Oncology Clinic and Policlinic
University Hospital
Zürich, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Research

 

Contact: Alexander Knuth

Liz Kroboth

Training Projects Manager
HIV Research Section
San Francisco Department of Public Health
San Francisco, California

Bio and Research

Liz is Training Projects Manager for the METiS project at the HIV Research Section of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, where she works on a variety of projects including planning and coordinating workshops, developing curricula, and designing evaluations. Liz has over 5 years of experience in research and project management in the fields of curriculum development and market research.

Contact: Liz Kroboth

Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl, MD PhD


Professor emeritus Lausanne University

CEO HSeT Foundation
Health Sciences eTraining (HSeT) Foundation, Epalinges, Switzerland

 

Bio

Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl received an M.D. from the University of Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland) in 1967 and a PhD at Rockefeller University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with George Emile Palade at The Rockefeller University (New York, New York, USA) and subsequently became an Assistant Professor at Yale University School of Medicine (New Haven, Connecticut, USA). In 1975, he returned to the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Lausanne, where he became a full professor in 1984. He joined ISREC as a senior staff member in 1982. He is a member of EMBO. Together wiith Prof. Marian Neutra, he founded OraVax, Inc a vaccine company now Acambis, Inc. In 2000, he became Project Leader of Immunology Online, and in 2004, co-chair of the OCTAVE project. He is a Board member odf EuroVacc. He is since 2003 Professor emeritus at the University of Lausanne.

Research

Mucosal immunity and mucosal vaccinology

Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl has conducted research on epithelial cell membrane trafficking, mucosal immunity and mucosal vaccine design, and on antigen sampling in the gut with special emphasis on M cells, the epithelial antigen sampling cells present in the folliccle-associated epithelium of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue.

.

Contact: Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl

Christine Kubiak, PharmD- PhD


Executive Manager, ECRIN coordination
Inserm
Institut Thématique Santé Publique
Recherche Clinique et Thérapeutique
Paris, France


Bio

Christine Kubiak joined Inserm in 2006 as executive manager for the European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network (ECRIN) project. Her responsibilities include the daily management of the project, the coordination and support to the different working groups and the development of project activities.
Prior to this present job, she worked 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry in clinical development activities and in the management of multinational clinical trials in rheumatology, neurology, infectious diseases, vaccines and contrast agents for medical imaging. She was in charge of the development of clinical development plans, of the development, organisation and management of clinical trials (phase I to IV) and the coordination of European programme of clinical trials.
Her most recent position was as quality manager and project manager at Clinical Research Centre at the hospital where she was responsible of the implementation of the quality management system, the staff training and the coordination of clinical studies.

Contact: Christine Kubiak

Pierre Lafolie


PD Dr. - Head, Karolinska Trial Alliance -
Karolinska Sjukhuset


Bio and Research

Contact: Pierre Lafolie

Doris Lanz

Head GCP and Quality Assurance
SAKK, Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research
Effingerstrasse 40, CH3008 Bern, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Doris Lanz

Serge Leyvraz

MD. Prof. - Head of the Pluridisciplinary Oncology Center - CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Serge Leyvraz

Teri Liegler, PhD

Director
ARI-UCSF Laboratory of Clinical Virology
UCSF Box 1284
San Francisco, USA

Bio and Research

Dr. Liegler is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, HIV/AIDS Division located at San Francisco General Hospital. She is the Research Director of the ARI-UCSF Laboratory of Clinical Virology and Director of the UCSF-GIVI Center for AIDS Research Virology Core Laboratory. Dr. Liegler received a PhD in genetics from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests focus on clinical and translational research in HIV/AIDS, including viral-host interactions, transmission and prevention, antiretroviral drug resistance, viral pathogenesis and molecular diagnostic assay development.

Contact: Teri Liegler

Mitchell Luu, MSIII

Medical Student
School of Medicine
University of California, San Francisco

Bio and Research

Mitchell Luu is a 4th year medical student at UCSF. He graduated with honors from UCLA with a degree in Neuroscience. Currently, he is interested in clinical research in pediatrics and medical education and is considering a career in academic medicine.

Holden Maecker, PhD

Director
Immune Monitoring Center CCSR Building
269 Campus Drive
Stanford, California

Bio and Research

Dr. Maecker is Director of the Human Immune Monitoring Center at Stanford University, and a consultant in the field of flow cytometry. His research focuses on cellular immune responses to chronic pathogens and cancer, and the correlation of those responses with immune protection. Dr. Maecker received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, where he also did postdoctoral work. He previously held positions at Loyola University Chicago and BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA. He participates in several international groups related to immune monitoring.

Contact: Holden Maecker

Amapola Manrique

Ph.D., Science Officer, Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise

Bio and Research

Dr. Amapola Manrique is a Science Officer at the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a unique alliance of independent organizations around the world dedicated to accelerating the development of a preventive HIV vaccine. As a Science Officer, Dr. Manrique is responsible for implementing the vision of the Enterprise through identification, development, and management of initiatives that support the Scientific Strategic Plan for HIV vaccine development. Dr. Manrique also directs the scientific program for the annual AIDS Vaccine conference, the largest and most important global scientific conference focused on HIV vaccine research.
Prior to joining the Enterprise, Dr. Manrique was the Scientific Coordinator to the AIDS Vaccine 2008 conference in South Africa, which brought together approximately 1,000 scientists, community advocates, funders, and policy makers from around the world.
Dr. Manrique did her doctoral training with Prof Dr. A. Trkola and Prof Dr. S. Bonhoeffer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Her studies focused on the humoral immune response to HIV and its effect on virus replication and evolution HIV.
Dr. Manrique holds a masters degree in molecular biology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and a Ph.D. in biology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Contact: Amapola Manrique

Sara Mach Pascual MD

Médecin Adjoint dans le service d'Hématologie des Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG)

Bio

Spécialiste FMH en Médecine interne et Hématologie. Spécialiste FAMH en Hématologie. Médecin consultant dans le laboratoire AMS-MNS, Genève. Co-responsable du cours de travaux pratiques en Hématologie, 2e année, unité circulation, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève.

 

Contact: Sara Mach Pascual

Sara Mach Pascual MD

Medecin Adjoint. Service of Hematology, University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG)

Bio

Specialist FMH in Internal medicine and Hematology. FAMH specialist in hematology. Consulting hematologist of the AMS-MNS laboratory, Geneva. Shared responsability for the practical course in Hematology, second year, circulation unit, University Hospitals of Geneva.

 

Contact: Sara Mach Pascual

Guilherme Marson, PhD

University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Bio

Guilherme Marson was trained as an organic chemist. In 1999, he shifted his interest towards the development of educational software. In 2003 he obtained a PhD at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) on biochemistry education. This work yielded instructional software on chromatography, protein structure, and molecular biology, the former developed in collaboration with Donald Voet (University of Pennsylvania). He received two awards in 2004 and 2005 from the Brazilian minister of education. He is also serving as a referee for the science education community and he is participating in pedagogical training on the development and the application of technology in education.Guilherme Marson was the coordinator of Oncology Online and the Master program MASIO, He returned to Brazil but continues to work for HSeT as a consultant.

Contact: Guilherme Marson

Dr Koleka P. Mlisana, MB ChB, MMedPath(Micro)


Head of Vaccine and Pathogenesis Research
Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in SA(CAPRISA)
Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine
Congella, South Africa


Bio and Research

Dr Mlisana is the head of the HIV Vaccine and Pathogenesis Research at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), a research institution within the University of KwaZulu-Natal based at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine. Dr Mlisana is also the protocol co-chair for the previously NIH funded Acute Infection Study. Her current research work focuses on HIV pathogenesis and vaccines and she is the site PI of SAAVI (South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative) and HVTN 503 grants. She also is currently a site project director for the CAPRISA 004 Microbicide trial that is using Tenofovir gel.
Dr Mlisana has worked as a consultant medical microbiologist in a private pathology laboratory before; where she focused on HIV education for the clinicians in the private sector in the mid and late 1990s. Her current interests in the field of HIV and AIDS are: HIV prevention – vaccines and microbicide trials, acute HIV infection, HIV in female sex workers; training of healthcare workers in HIV disease management and community education.

Contact: Koleka Mlisana

Giorgio Massimini


Therapeutic Area Expert Oncology
PDCO Site Head
F.Hoffmann- La Roche AG, Bldg 682, Grenzacherstrasse 124, CH 4070 Basel, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Giorgio Massimini

David C Montefiori, PhD


Professor and Director
Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development
Department of Surgery
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, NC, USA

Bio and Research

David Montefiori is Professor and Director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development in the Department of Surgery at Duke University Medical Center. His major research interests are viral immunology and AIDS vaccine development, with a special emphasis on neutralizing antibodies. One of his highest priorities is to identify immunogens that generate broadly cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1 for inclusion in vaccines. His work with HIV-1 began in 1985 while in the Department of Pathology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he developed one of the earliest high throughput assays to measure HIV-1 neutralization. He moved to Duke in 1993, where he continued his studies of the antibody responses in HIV-1 infected people and in nonhuman primate models of AIDS virus infection and vaccination. For the past two decades his laboratory has served as a national and international resource for standardized assessments of neutralizing antibody responses in preclinical and clinical trials of candidate AIDS vaccines. His laboratory is funded by the National Institutes of Health as part of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) and the Primate Core Immunology/Virology Laboratories. His laboratory also receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD). He has published over 300 original research papers that have helped shape the scientific rationale for antibody-based HIV-1 vaccines.

Contact: David Montefiori

Christiane Moog, PhD


INSERM/UDS, Institute of Virology, University of Strasbourg, France

Bio

Christiane Moog has spent more than 19 years in the field of HIV research. After two years of research on anti-HIV compounds as Senior scientist appointed by Synthelabo Research, she create and developed a National HIV Neutralization Laboratory at the Institute of Virology in Strasbourg under the aegis of the ANRS (National agency fro AIDS research in France). Since then, she trained scientists and graduate students on neutralization assays. She was involved in the development of several neutralizing assays and of collaborative studies to compare the assays between laboratories, in proficiency testing and in validation studies. She developed a research team studying the mechanism of HIV neutralization using various HIV target cells. She recently found that an Fcgamma mediated mechanism of inhibition participated to the HIV inhibition by neutralizing antibodies when antigen presenting cells expressing Fcgamma receptors were the HIV targets. Moreover, additional HIV-specific antibodies, with non-neutralizing activity in the "conventional neutralizing assays", displayed efficient Fcgamma mediated inhibitory activity on macrophages or dendritic cells. These results open new perspective in the development of immunogens able to induce HIV inhibitory antibodies by vaccination.

She also participated to different Phase I/II prime-boost vaccination studies intended to induce neutralizing antibodies in France and in Europe. She is currently involved in the EuroNeut41 study, a European project sponsored by the 7th FP, aiming to develop a mucosal vaccine able to induce protective inhibitory IgG and IgA antibodies against gp41.

Contact: Christiane Moog

Olivier Michielin

Pluridisciplinary Oncology Center - CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Olivier Michielin

Sandie Munier

PhD – Assistant Professor, Université Paris 7 and Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

Bio and Research

Sandie Munier received a PhD in virology in 2005 from the University of Paris 7 (Paris, France) and completed a postdoctorate in the Institut Pasteur. She was working on the cellular reservoirs and the mechanisms of transcriptional latency of HIV, and on the nuclear import of the HIV genome.
She is now an Assistant Professor in the Unité de Génétique Moléculaire des Virus à ARN headed by Pr. Sylvie van der Werf. She works on influenza viruses, with a focus on the neuraminidase as a molecular determinant of the host range and as a target for antiviral drugs.

Contact: Sandie Munier

Philip Norris, MD

Associate Director
Blood Systems Research Institute
270 Masonic Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118


Bio and Research

Dr. Norris is the Associate Director of Blood Systems Research Institute and an Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. His current research interests include effector and regulatory T cell responses to viral infections (HIV, WNV, HTLV) and exploration of the immune consequences of blood transfusion. The emphasis of research projects is on using human samples to define how the immune system determines disease outcome, and when applicable mouse models are utilized to corroborate correlative findings in humans.

Contact: Philip Norris

Fiona O'Neill, PhD


Workforce Development Lead
National Institute for Health Research
Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre (NIHR CRN CC)
Leeds, UK

Bio

Early experiences nursing in acute and community settings in inner city Manchester shaped an interest in change and improvement in the NHS and how to support individuals and teams to develop their practice to benefit patients. Fiona has an interest in approaches to adult learning, that encourage reflection, innovation and the capacity to apply learning to practice. Fiona has been involved in a number of national leadership and practice development initiatives for NHS clinical staff. She has complemented these interests with research projects including a recent international study of the interface between medical schools and health care organisations.

Fiona joined the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre in the spring of 2009 as Workforce Development lead. She welcomes the opportunity to be part of the policy commitment to support the clinical research workforce to achieve the ambition of Best Research for Best Health. Current projects include the development of sustainable and high quality national standard GCP training for clinical research staff working on NIHR portfolio studies

Contact: Fiona O'Neill

Jo-Ann Passmore


Division of Medical Virology
Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine
University of Cape Town Medical School, Observatory
7925 Cape Town
South Africa


Bio

Jo-Ann Passmore, PhD is a Lecturer in the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, UCT. She currently holds an Intermediate Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust in Infectious Diseases (2006-2010) and has been mentored through the MRC (South Africa) Career Development Program (2003-2006). The work being carried out by Dr Jo-Ann Passmore explores HIV-specific immune responses present in the female genital tract in both established and early HIV infection and compares these to dominant HIV responses in blood. It is increasingly being recognized that an important aspect of HIV’s pathology involves events at the mucosa and there is a clear need to establish reliable, sensitive and validated methodologies for investigating mucosal immune responses in future vaccine studies.
.

Research

Mucosal immunity of the female genital tract

Jo-Ann Passmore leads a small team of 2 staff scientists, 4 PhD and 2 M.Sc students at UCT focusing on HIV-specific immunity at the female genital tract. She has been principal investigator on grants from the Wellcome Trust, South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI), the HIV Pathogenesis Programme (Doris Duke Charitable Foundation), Medical Research Council (South Africa) and Poliomyelitis Research Foundation and laboratory PI on a grant from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) to investigate the impact of HIV infection on cervical mucosal responses during chronic and acute HIV infection. In the last 5 years, she has published 11 papers in international peer reviewed journals on this subject.

.

Contact: Jo-ann Passmore

Viv Peut


Post Doctoral Research Fellow
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Seatlle, USA


Bio

In the late 1980s and '90s, I was a teacher and gold miner in outback Australia. A career change in 2001 saw me studying for a molecular microbiology degree at the University of Queensland. I completed my PhD at the University of Melbourne (2008), investigating CD8 T cell responses to SIV infection in pigtail macaques. Having recently received a four-year grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, I am now conducting part of my Post Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, USA. I am currently characterising vaccine-induced CD4 T cell responses elicited by the participants in the STEP trial. I am also part of the Seattle Community Advisory Board, as I recognise the importance of liaising with the community about vaccine trials, HIV research and prevention. I look forward to meeting you all.

Contact: Viv Peut

Rita Pilger, M.Sc.

KKS Charité
Berlin, Germany


Degrees

M.Sc. Clinical Trial Management
State Examination in Food Chemistry
Physician Assistant of the Medical Association of Bavaria Occupational

Activities

basic research in redox metabolism, metabolic engineering, and cell aging. Since 2006 working with the field of clinical trail management at former Schering AG and Coordination Center of Clinical Studies Charité Berlin, Germany, (KKS Charité), specialised in pharmacovigilance and quality assurance.
Active member in the KKS network working group “quality assurance”, lead of the subproject “development of Standard Operating Procedures in pharmacovigilance for investigator initiated trials

Contact: Rita Pilger

Johannes Pleiner, MD, Dz


Associate Professor
Academic studies support office
Vienna Medical University,
Vienna, Austria


Bio

Johannes Pleiner received his degree in medicine in 1998 from the University of Vienna, School of Medicine.
In 1999, he was a Research Associate at the Dept. of Clinical Pharmacology, Medical University of Vienna.
He then did a Fellowship in Internal Medicine, Dept. of Clinical Pharmacology, Medical University of Vienna and worked in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Rheumatology, Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Endocrinology, Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine until 2006.
In 2005, he became Associate Professor.

Presently he worksas a staff Physician and Researcher at the Dept. of Clinical Pharmacology, Medical University of Vienna. He is the Head of the “Academic Studies Support Office” of the Medical University Vienna.

Contact: Johannes Pleiner

Victoria Polonis, PhD, Principal Investigator


Humoral Immunology Core Laboratory
Division of Retrovirology, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
The US Military HIV Research Program
Suite 200, 13 Taft Court
Rockville, MD 20850

Bio

Victoria Polonis has spent most of her 21 years of post-doctoral experience associated with the US Military HIV Research Program and in HIV vaccine development. She worked on oncogenic retroviruses for her doctoral dissertation and received a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from The Roswell Park Division of State University of New York at Buffalo, NY. Her 3 year post-doc at Walter Reed involved the characterization of newly induced antibody responses in HIV-positive patients immunized with HIV-1 gp160 in a vaccine therapy clinical trial. She then established HIV neutralization laboratories at Walter Reed, at SRA Technologies, Inc in Rockville, MD and at The Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (AFRIMS) in Bangkok, Thailand. While living in Bangkok and working at AFRIMS for three years, she trained scientists and graduate students on neutralization assays and participated in the evaluation of humoral immune responses in several clinical trials, including two Phase I/II prime-boost trials conducted in Thailand. Victoria is currently coordinating regional labs in Thailand and East Africa (Uganda) for the Duke University Antibody Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and serves as the Principal Investigator for the Humoral Immunology Core Laboratory of The USMHRP. She has worked on Janice Darden’s Virtual Laboratory team to contribute to the immunogenicity endpoint laboratory.

Contact: Victoria Polonis

Pascal Py, MS & MBA

HSeT Foundation
Epalinges, Switzerland

Bio

Pascal Py received a diploma in engineering in 1987 from the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs (Tarbes, France), specializing in information management systems. He completed an executive M.B.A. at the Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (Paris, France) and, since 1996, has been active in the eLearning field. At the Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (Poitiers, France), he developed a virtual campus (www.campus-electronique.tm.fr) that offers more than 100 online courses. Since 2001, he has managed various biomedical eLearning projects, as well as the development of the Learning Management System that is used by several Swiss universities, ISREC and the EuroVacc Foundation (Epalinges).

Contact: Pascal Py

Peter Rohner, PD

Médecin adjoint agrégé à la direction médicale de Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève

Bio

Formation en médecine vétérinaire,diplôme et doctorat de l'Université de Berne. Spécialiste FAMH en analyses médicales (microbiologie), Privat Docent. Plus de 20 ans dans le domaine de la microbiologie clinique avec une participation à plus de 70 articles originaux publiés dans des journaux avec politique éditoriale.

Contact: Peter Rohner

Peter Rohner, PD

Médecin adjoint agrégé, attached to the Medical Direction of the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG)

Bio

Curriculum, diploma and doctorate in veterinary medicine, University of Bern. FAMH specialist in laboratory medicine (microbiology), Privat Docent. Activity of more than 20 years in clinical microbiology with a participation in over 70 original papers published in journals with editorial policy.

 

Contact: Peter Rohner

Pedro Romero

Head of Division of Clinical Onco-Immunology - Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at Lausanne

Bio

 

Research

It is now well established that cancer patients may acquire tumor specific T- and B-cell immunity. Various types of human tumor cells often express multiple CTL-defined tumor antigens that are shared among tumors, providing the rationale for generic vaccines applicable to large subsets of cancer patients. Our main interests are in understanding the dynamics of tumor antigen-specific T cell responses and applying this knowledge to the design of peptide-based therapeutic vaccines.

Contact: Pedro Romero

Bernard Rossier, MD

Professor emeritus

Dpt of Pharmacology & Toxicology
University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Bio

Bernard Rossier. emeritus Professor and former Director of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and former Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne, is presently leading a research group working in the field of hypertension. He is recipient of many international Prizes in the field of nephrology. He is a member of EMBO, the Academia Europaea, the deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, and is a Foreign Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is Dr. honoris causa of the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He is member of the Louis Jeantet Foundation in Geneva and the Cloetta Foundation in Zurich.

Contact: Bernard Rossier

Michelle Rossier, MD

HSeT Project Coordinator - HOL, SCAHT, OOL and LOL

Bio

Michelle Rossier received an M.D. from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). She worked as a medical assistant at the Department of Physiology of the University of Geneva where she completed a MD thesis. She subsequently became postdoctoral research fellow, then assistant research physiologist at the Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco. She then returned to the Institute of Pharmacology at the University of Lausanne, where she became a “maître assistant”. From 1977 to 2006 she was Director of the clinical laboratories of Hematology, Clinical Chemistry and Microbiology at the Hospital of Morges, a 300 bed general hospital located near Lausanne, Switzerland. She joined the HSeT core team in February 2006 to become a project coordinator for several HSeT projects.

Contact: Michelle Rossier

Curzio Ruegg

Chef and Director
Division of Experimental Oncology
Lausanne Cancer Center
University Hospital CHUV
1011 Lausanne, Switzerland

Bio

Curzio Rüegg received his medical degree from the University of Basel, and trained in immunology in Basel and cell biology at UCSF in San Francisco.
In 1993 he moved to Lausanne with a SCORE fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to head the research laboratory of the Centre Pluridisciplinaire d’Oncologie (CePO).
In 1999 he was appointed Médecin Adjoint and joined the Medical Faculty of the University of Lausanne as Assistant Professor. He was promoted Associate Professor in 2003 and in 2002 he became affiliate scientist at ISREC. He is now Médecin Chef and Director of the Division of Experimental Oncology at the Lausanne Cancer Center.
He coordinates the angiogenesis program of the National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR) Molecular Oncology. He is a member of several international scientific committees (UICC, DFG, CRUK, SENDO) and co-founder of Diagnoplex, a company dedicated to molecular diagnostic and monitoring of cancer. He is co-organizer of international conferences on angiogenesis and tumor progression at the Centre Stefano Franscini (Ascona) and at the European School of Hematology.
He coordinates the angiogenesis program of the National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR) Molecular Oncology.

Research

His current research interest mainly focuses on the study of tumor host interaction, in particular tumor angiogenesis and, more recently, on the role of angiogenesis, inflammation and radiotherapy-induced stromal modification on tumor metastasis. His research on the effect of TNF, integrin antagonists and COX-2 inhibitors on tumor angiogenesis, have lead to the development of novel therapeutic approaches to target tumor vessels and inhibit tumor progression.

Contact: Curzio Ruegg

Panagiotis Samaras

Oncology Clinic and Policlinic
University Hospital
Zürich, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Panagiotis Samaras

Becky Schweighardt

PhD
Senior Scientist, Monogram Biosciences, Inc.


Bio and Research

BS Biology, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
PhD Biology (Pathobiology Graduate Program), Brown University
Post-doctoral Training, Gladstone Institute of Virology & Immunology, UCSF

My research work focuses on HIV-1, HIV-2, and SIV neutralizing antibody responses, viral escape pathways, and epitope mapping. In addition to studying how these viruses evolve to escape antibody pressure, our research group also studies how viral fitness is affected by the escape mechanisms. We are also working to identify HIV-1 infected subjects with broadly-neutralizing antibody activity and are currently working with a team of academic collaborators to identify the monoclonal antibodies responsible for the activity within these individuals.

Contact: Becky Schweighardt

Marcella Sarzotti-Kelsoe

Associate Research Professor of Immunology
Director, Central QAU (CHAVI, CAVD/CA-VIMC, Duke HVTN)


Bio and Research

For the past seven years Dr. Sarzotti-Kelsoe has played the leading role in the creation of a Global Quality Program within the Duke University academic environment. She is the Director of the Duke Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) Central Quality Assurance (QA) Program, which oversees compliance to Good Clinical Laboratory Practice (GCLP) guidelines by multiple national and international laboratories in Africa, China, Thailand, India, UK and Europe for three pre-clinical/clinical international trial networks for HIV vaccines: the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI), the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) and the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD). The merged Duke CFAR QA Program is the result of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise efforts to create consortia of multiple Investigators around the world with the aim of finding an HIV vaccine, and it was created to consolidate efforts and to eliminate unnecessary duplications. The Duke CFAR QA Program includes activities such as: providing guidance on all aspects of GCLP compliance to laboratories conducting immunogenicity endpoint assays for pre-clinical and phase I-III clinical studies, training on GCLP compliance, consulting laboratories on assay validation, establishing proficiency testing programs, auditing laboratories for GCLP compliance. Dr. Sarzotti-Kelsoe is also an Associate Research Professor in Immunology at Duke University conducting basic studies in Immunology on the development of T cell responses in newborn mice and in immunodeficient children following stem cell transplantation.

Contact: Marcella Sarzotti-Kelsoe

Gabriella Scarlatti

MD PhD Director Viral Evolution and Transmission Unit
DIBIT- San Raffaele Scientific Institute
Via Olgettina 58, 20132 Milan, Italy


Bio

In 1987, Gabriella Scralatti received her M.D. degree form the University of Medicine and Surgery, Milan, Italy and in 1991, she specialized in Pediatrics at the University of Milan, Italy.
In 1994, she received a Ph.D. degree at the Microbiology and Tumorbiology Center, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
From 1994 to 2002, she work as a Researcher at the Laboratory of Immunobiology of HIV, DIBIT, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy and since 2001 as an Associate Professor in Virology she worked at the Microbiology and Tumorbiology Center, Karolinska Institutet.
Since 2002, she is Head of the Viral Evolution and Transmission Unit, DIBIT, at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan.

Research

Gabriella Scarlatti has been primarily studying the pathogenic mechanisms of mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission and paediatric HIV/AIDS, introducing in 1993 the concept of virus phenotypic and genotypic evolution and selection during transmission. In the last years she became coordinator of NeutNet, an EC-funded project on the “standardisation of HIV neutralisation assays to be used in vaccine research and clinical trials”, and coordinator of the Humoral Immunity platform of the Network of Excellence-EUROPRISE on HIV vaccine and microbicides.
Since 2006 partner in the GHRC consortium supported by the B&M Gates Foundation. Developing strategies for standardization of procedures for HIV research in close cooperation with the “Vaccine Monitoring” and “Vaccine Discovery” Consortia. Organizing laboratory theoretical and wet courses together with the WHO/UNAIDS for resource-limited countries (Russia, Africa, Asia, South America).
Since 2008 she is the coordinator of the FP7-EC funded project “NGIN-next generation immunogens inducing broadly reactivity neutralising antibodies”: Goal is to gather the skills and efforts of 15 European research groups in trying to identify new HIV-1 immunogens apt for vaccine development.

Contact: Gabriella Scralatti

Michael Seaman, PhD

Assistant Professor in Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, USA


Bio & Research

Michael Seaman has served as the Director of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery’s (CAVD) Pre-clinical Neutralizing Antibody Core Laboratory since 2006, as part of the Comprehensive Antibody-Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium (CA-VIMC) funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His laboratory is responsible for providing standardized neutralizing antibody assay services to CAVD-funded investigators, and is extensively involved in the CA-VIMC Standard Virus Panel Consortium, Neutralization Serotype Discovery Program, and Acute Specimen Acquisition Program. Dr. Seaman also directs a Site Affiliated Laboratory for supporting phase I/II human clinical trials in association with the HIV Vaccine Trial Network (HVTN) and additional programs testing candidate HIV-1 vaccines. He obtained his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 2000, and was a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Norman Letvin at Harvard Medical School for three years where he investigated methods for augmenting the magnitude and breadth of T-cell responses elicited by candidate HIV-1 vaccines.

Contact: Michael Seaman

Cristiana Sessa

PD. Dr. - Vice-head Oncology Department - Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Cristiana Sessa

Barbara L. Shacklett, PhD

Associate Professor
Medical Microbiology and Immunology &
Division of Infectious Diseases, Dept. of Medicine
School of Medicine, UC Davis
Davis, CA 95616 USA

Bio and Research

Dr. Barbara Shacklett, PhD, Associate Professor, UC Davis has a dual background in virology and immunology. Dr. Shacklett’s research laboratory focuses on mucosal immunity, primarily mucosal T-cell responses to HIV in the gastrointestinal and genitourinary tracts. Current research interests include: mucosal immunity to HIV in “HIV Controllers”, HIV infection of the female reproductive tract, and HIV infection of the central nervous system. Dr. Shacklett’s laboratory recently published a study in the journal Blood which revealed that polyfunctional mucosal T-cells, capable of expressing multiple cytokines/chemokines and releasing cytolytic granules, are significantly enriched among individuals who control HIV in the absence of antiretroviral therapy. These responses in the gastrointestinal mucosal tissues may play an important role in the containment of virus. Dr. Shacklett serves as scientific director of the Optical Biology (Flow Cytometry) shared resource at UC Davis. She is also a charter member of the NIH study section "AIDS Immunology and Pathogenesis" (AIP), and a regular member of the study section "Host-Virus Interactions" of the French AIDS research agency ANRS. She is also the instructor of record for a graduate-level course in Mucosal Immunology offered at UC Davis, and for a course in Medical Immunology at the UC Davis School of Medicine

Contact: Barbara Shacklett

Phillip Shaw

Professor - Department of Experimental Pathology University of Lausanne

Bio

 

Research

 

Contact: Phillip Shaw

Elizabeth Sinclair

Assistant Professor
Director Core Immunology Laboratory
UCSF Dept Medicine, Div Experimental Medicine
San Francisco

Bio and Research

Dr. Sinclair is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Division of Experimental Medicine (DEM) located at San Francisco General Hospital. She is the Director of the DEM Core Immunology Laboratory (CIL) and Flow Cytometry Core, and the UCSF-GIVI Center for AIDS Research Immunology Core. Dr. Sinclair received a PhD in medicine from the University of London and did postdoctoral studies at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology. Her research is focused on the role of the immune response in HIV pathogenesis and how flow cytometry applications can be applied to clinical and translational research in HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.

Contact: Elizabeth Sinclair

Florin Sirzén

PDCO Site Head
F.Hoffmann- La Roche AG, Bldg 682, Grenzacherstrasse 124, CH 4070 Basel, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Florin Sirzen

Ivan Stamenkovic

Professor - Department of Biochemistry University of Lausanne

Bio

Prof. Ivan Stamenkovic obtained his MD from the University of Geneva in 1978. Following residencies in internal medicine and in pathology, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Brian Seed in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) as postdoctoral fellow. In 1988, he was appointed Assistant Professor of pathology at HMS. In 1990 he started his own laboratory in the Department of Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with a joint appointment at the MGH Cancer Center. In 1992 Ivan Stamenkovic became Associate Professor of pathology at HMS. In 2001, he accepted a position as Professor of experimental pathology at the University of Lausanne.

Research

Molecular mechanisms of tumor invasion and metastasis

While much of Ivan Stamenkovic's early work has been in the field of immunology, his more recent research has dealt with the molecular mechanisms of tumor progression and metastasis. His two main goals are to understand how co-operation between adhesive and proteolytic functions of tumor cells promotes their invasion and dissemination, and to identify the molecular events in tumor-host interactions that are critical to tumor growth. In addition, his laboratory is studying the biology of sarcomas, some of which are among the most aggressive types of cancer. Several sarcomas contain signature chromosomal translocations which give rise to fusion genes that encode transcrition factors or transcritional activators believed to play a role in sarcoma development. To understand their implication in sarcoma development and behavior, relevant fusion genes are being expressed in various types of mesenchymal stem cells, from which sarcomas are believed to originate, and their effects on cell behavior and gene expression profile changes are being studied.

Contact: Ivan Stamenkovic

Frank Stenner

Oncology Clinic and Policlinic
University Hospital
Zürich, Switzerland

Bio and Research

 

Contact: Frank Stenner

Jean-Luc Veuthey

1992-Professor in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Geneva
2004-Vice Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, University of Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland

Bio and Research

Development of separation techniques in pharmaceutical sciences.

>220 publications in scientific peer revues, >50 lectures in international congress >200 posters in national and international congress.

 

Contact: Jean-Luc Veuthey

Peter Westerling, PhD


Project manager & Sweden European Correspondent

Karolinska Trial Alliance
Karolinska University
Stockholm, Sweden

Bio

Peter Westerling started his life in Stockholm, Sweden where he still lives. His academic CV includes a master’s degree in biology (with a specialisation in ethology), a bachelor degree in biomedicine and a bachelor degree in pedagogy.
In 1991 he defended his thesis in medical pharmacology on the GABA system (CNS pharmacology), and subsequently received his doctors degree.

During almost 15 years he then worked at different pharmaceutical companies, including Astra, Boehringer Ingelheim and Lilly. His positions were all in relation to clinical development of new pharmaceutical drugs. He worked as clinical project manager, scientist, director and project leader, but also as GCP responsible and as Nordic CRO manager. He, thus, has quite extensive knowledge about the industry.

Presently he is the unit manager for a support and training unit at Karolinska Trial Alliance and chairs the Swedish network (SweCRIN). In ECRIN he also acts as the co-leader of WP8 (Quality Assurance). Thus, quality is a key word for him."

 

Contact: Peter Westerling

Lindsay Wieczorek, MS


Laboratory Manager
Henry M. Jackson Foundation and USMHRP
Rockville, MD USA

Bio and Research

Lindsay Wieczorek has worked at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation in the Department of Retrovirology for the last four years. She manages the Humoral Immunology Core Laboratory while working as a graduate student to design novel HIV-1 immunogens. She received a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While working at the HMJF she received a Masters in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins Univeristy. She is currently attending Catholic University of America, persuing a doctorate in Cellular and Microbial Biology

 

Contact: Lindsay Wieczorek

Diana Winter, MS


Austrian European Correspondent
Academic studies support office
Vienna Medical University Vienna, Austria


Bio

Diana Winter received in 2007 a Bachelor of Science Degree in Cognitive Science on memory and syntactic processing.
In 2009 she obtained her Master of Arts degree in Business in Applied Knowledge Management.
Presently she works in the Academic studies support office, contributing to the network ECRIN, consulting investigators and sponsors in planning and conducting their clinical trial (application documents, protocol development, insurance, patient information)

 

Contact: Diana Winter

Emanuele Zucca

PD Dr. - vice-Head of the Research Division, Head of the Lymphoma Unit -
IOSI, Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland

 

Bio and Research

Dr. Zucca trained in internal medicine and medical oncology in Italy (research fellow at the Laboratory of Toxicology, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Milan in 1982-1983 and Intern at Department of Internal Medicine, State University of Milan, from 1983 to 1985), United States (Research fellow at the University of Kentucky, VA Medical Center, Lexington, Kentucky from 1986 to 1987) and England (in 1988-89 at the Division of Medical Oncology, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, England, as recipient of the ESMO / Sterling Oncology Fellowship 1989 of the European Society for Medical Oncology for an experimental project related to the use of molecular biology methods in the diagnosis and follow-up of follicular lymphomas).
Since 1989 at the Division of Medical Oncology of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland, where he is presently vice-Head of the Research Division, and Head of the Lymphoma Unit. He also represents IOSI in the SAKK lymphoma working group.
His research programs have been devoted to the application of molecular methods for the detection of minimal residual disease in lymphomas and more recently to elucidate the effect of antibiotic therapy in low grade gastric MALT lymphomas and to study the antigen-dependent mechanisms in the development of this type of lymphoma.
In addition to laboratory-based translational research programs he has been frequently involved in the design and conduct of several lymphoma clinical trials as principal investigator or chairperson.
He is a co-founder of the IELSG (The International Extranodal Lymphomas Study Group) which is running several co-operative clinical and pathological studies.

 

Contact: Emanuele Zucca