Véronique Chotteau, Phd
Associate Professor Véronique Chotteau, Director of AdBIOPRO, Centre for Advanced Bioproduction by Continuous Processing. Chotteau is Associate Professor, Principal Investigator of the Cell Technology group, Dept. Industrial Biotechnology, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology, and Health, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden. She has a background of MSc Electrical Engineering, MSc Biotechnology, PhD Automatic Control/Modelling/Biotechnology (University of Louvain, Belgium), and has built her career in the biopharmaceutical area. Chotteau has more than 30 years of experience in mammalian cell culture including ≥10 years in biopharmaceutical industry (at Pharmacia Upjohn/Biovitrum, Stockholm, nowadays Swedish Orphan Biovitrum). She joined KTH in 2008, when she was offered to lead the animal cell cultivation activities. Her group is focusing on cell-based processes for biologics production, high cell density perfusion of CHO and HEK293 cells, mathematical modelling, and production of viral vectors. Her group was the first to publish cell densities higher than 200 million cells/mL in CHO cell perfusion process.

 

Giuseppe Del Giudice, MD

Giuseppe Del Giudice obtained his M.D. degree and the post-graduated Specialization in Infectious Diseases at the University of Milan, and the PhD degree in Immunology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He then spent 12 years in Switzerland studying the immune response to malaria parasites first at the University of Geneva, then at the University of Lausanne. At the two universities he was appointed as Privat Docent in Immunology. At the same time, he also covered the position of medical officer (staff member) of the World Health Organization, Division of Communicable Diseases, WHO Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland. 

In 1996 he became Senior Research Director at the Research Center of Chiron Vaccines, in Siena, Italy, which then became Novartis Vaccines, and then GSK. During these years he covered positions with increasing responsibilities becoming responsible of Translational Medicine with Novartis Vaccines and then with GSK Vaccines. During these years he was responsible of several projects on research and development of vaccines against various viral and bacterial diseases as well as on vaccine adjuvants, both parenteral and mucosal. 

He is author and co-author of more than 300 publications and member of several international societies and scientific institutional national and supranational boards. 

He retired from GSK on 1 January 2021. Now he is an independent consultant for various organizations on aspects related to vaccine development and to vaccination. 

 

 

Ali Ellebedy, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. 

Ali Ellebedy is a viral immunologist. He was born in Egypt. He graduated with a B.S. in pharmaceutical sciences from Cairo University in 2004. It was during his time at pharmacy school that he was first exposed to- and became fascinated with immunology. In 2006, he moved to the US where he examined studied influenza virus vaccines at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN for his PhD He then moved to Emory University in Atlanta, GA, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Rafi Ahmed. At Emory, he studied human B cell responses to viruses. In 2017, Ali joined the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis as an Assistant Professor. His team studies the factors determining the ultimate fate of B cells once they are engaged via virus infection or vaccination. He is a tenured associate professor and co-director of the Center for Vaccines and Immunity to Microbial Pathogens at Washington University School of Medicine 

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Wayne C. Koff, PhD. 

Wayne C Koff, PhD., is the founding President and CEO of the Human Vaccines Project, a non-profit R&D consortium focused on decoding the human immune system to accelerate vaccine and therapeutic development.  In 2019, Dr. Koff was named by Foreign Policy along with Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Melinda Gates, Angela Merkel, and others as one of the 100 Global Thinkers who have “ had a profound impact on the planet in the last 12 months.”   In July 2020, Dr. Koff was appointed Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.  Prior to joining the Project, Koff served as CSO and Sr. VP, R&D at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), leading IAVI’s research and development program. 

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Geert Leroux-Roels, PhD

Geert Leroux-Roels obtained the MD degree from the Ghent University in 1976. During his medical studies and the specialty training in internal medicine he conducted doctoral research in clinical pathology and immunology. After obtaining a board certification in internal medicine and a PhD degree in biomedical sciences, he carried out postdoctoral research in the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California and in the Laboratory of molecular biology at the Ghent University. He was appointed professor of medicine and director of the laboratory of clinical pathology in 1989. 

Over the past 30 years, Geert Leroux-Roels and his team have studied the human immune response to HBV, HCV, HIV and influenza. A small animal model (human liver in uPA-SCID mouse) was developed that allowed for the in vivo study of hepatotropic pathogens like HBV, HCV, HEV and Plasmodium falciparum(malaria).

Geert Leroux-Roels has founded the Center for Vaccinology (CEVAC-Ghent University and University Hospital) and directed this unit for three decades. During this period, more than 275 clinical vaccine trials have been conducted. Numerous candidate vaccines (HAV, HBV, [HAV+HBV], HSV, HPV, HIV, TB, malaria) and a series of new adjuvant systems have been clinically evaluated. Geert Leroux-Roels is author and co-author of over 290 peer-reviewed articles and member of several international societies and scientific advisory boards. On 1 October 2017 he reached the Emeritus status but remains active in the field of vaccinology and applied immunology as a study physician and co-investigator at CEVAC and as a consultant in vaccines.

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Maxime M. Mahe, PhD

Maxime M. Mahe obtained his PhD from the University of Nantes at INSERM. Since 2012, Dr. Mahe has developed new methodologies for studying both murine and human intestinal stem cells using organoid model systems both at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and now at INSERM in Nantes. His lab has developed and characterized organoids of the human intestine with the endeavour to study gastrointestinal development and physiology in health and diseases.

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Marie-José Quentin-Millet, PhD

Marie-José Quentin-Millet, PhD, is currently self-employed and offers consulting services in the field of biologics and vaccine development from pre-clinical to licensure. She is retired from the pharmaceutical industry, Sanofi Pasteur, where she held various roles in R&D, and in general management where she was responsible for transversal processes including Risk Management. In over 30 years of career and different positions within Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of Sanofi, she contributed to the development and licensure of vaccines currently serving public health, including the hexavalent pediatric vaccines, the flu differentiation strategy and products, the meningococcal conjugate vaccines and dengue vaccine. She was active within the local ecosystem in biosciences, and was a board member in several Foundations, Institutions and Universities.  

Marie-José Quentin-Millet, is French, and was raised in the United States where she spent over a decade of her life. She received her PhD degree in Biochemistry from the University of Lyon; performed a post-doctoral fellowship at NICHD, NIH Bethesda and trained at the University of Pennsylvania, in the Advanced Management Program Wharton Business School and at EM Lyon Business School, where she received her Certificate as Board Member.  

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