Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Mark Bonyhadi, PhD
Dr. Bonyhadi is a Senior Advisor at Qiming Venture Partners USA, in Seattle, WA. Prior to joining Qiming USA in December of 2018, Dr. Bonyhadi held positions of Vice President of Research, Head of Academic Affairs, and Vice President of Process Research Sciences from 2013-2018 at Juno Therapeutics (acquired by Celgene Corporation). Dr. Bonyhadi’s focus for over 20 years has been to drive the development of bench-based ideas and early phase clinical studies into the commercialization of novel cell therapies. His special interests include gene-modified T cells, hematopoietic stem cells, new technologies for cell processing / manufacturing, as well as technologies that can correlate cell characteristic from collection through formulation and clinical outcome.
Sylvia Daunert, PharmD, MS, PhD
Dr. Daunert is the Lucille P. Markey Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Miller School of Medicine and the Director of the JT Macdonald Foundation Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute of the University of Miami. Dr. Daunert was the Gill Eminent Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Daunert was also a Distinguished Professor of the College of Arts & Sciences and a University of Kentucky Research Professor. Dr. Daunert’s research focuses on the development of bio-inspired nanotechnologies to solve biomedical and environmental problems. Her group genetically engineers living cells and proteins for environmental detection, molecular sensing, molecular diagnostics, point-of-care tests, biomarker identification, and drug delivery. Additionally, the research of the group focuses on the development of targeted and responsive drug delivery systems. Dr. Daunert’s work has been featured in over 300 publications, patents, and highlighted by the scientific media and popular press. Dr. Daunert was elected to the Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia of Spain and is an Academic D’Honor of the Reial Acadèmia de Farmàcia de Catalunya. In 2015, Dr. Daunert received the title of Ilustrísima Doctora and in 2016 the title of Excelentísima Doctora from the Kingdom of Spain. Finally, in 2018 Dr. Daunert was awarded a Professorship at the Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Peking Union Medical College.
Dr. Bruce Levine, PhD
Dr. Levine is a Barbara and Edward Netter Professor in Cancer Gene Therapy, is the Founding Director of the Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility (CVPF) in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Levine has overseen the production, testing and release of 3,000 cellular products administered to more than 1,300 patients in clinical trials since 1996. He is co-inventor of the first FDA-approved gene therapy (Kymriah), chimeric antigen receptor T cells for leukemia and lymphoma, licensed to Novartis. Dr. Levine is co-inventor on 28 issued US patents and co-author of over 180 manuscripts and book chapters with a Google Scholar citation h-index of 90. He is a Co-Founder of Tmunity Therapeutics, a spin out of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Levine is a recipient of the William Osler Patient Oriented Research Award, the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Healthcare Innovation, the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match ONE Forum 2020 Dennis Confer Innovate Award, serves as President of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine.
Jerome Ritz, MD
Dr. Ritz is an Executive Director of Connell and O’Reilly Families Cell Manipulation Core Facility and a Professor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ritz’s laboratory focuses on the assessment of donor immune function after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and characterization of immune mechanisms responsible for graft versus leukemia (GVL) and graft versus host disease (GVHD). These laboratory studies have led to new clinical approaches to enhance GVL and prevent or treat GVHD and further laboratory studies to assess the immunologic effects of these new treatments. His laboratory study also incorporates other novel immune therapies for hematologic malignancies. These include cytokines, checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines and adoptive cellular therapies such as CAR-T cells and activated NK cells. Dr. Ritz is also the Executive Director of the Connell and O’Reilly Families Cell Manipulation Core Facility at DFCI. This GMP cell manufacturing facility supports both adult and pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant programs at DFCI, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital and provides a variety of novel cellular products for patients enrolled on clinical trials at DFCI and affiliated hospitals. This facility is a critical resource for both academic investigators and industry sponsors interested in developing innovative cellular therapies.
Isabelle Rivière, PhD
Dr. Rivière is the Director of the Michael G. Harris Cell Therapy and Cell Engineering Facility at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), New York, NY. During her graduate studies at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, MA, she developed MFG/SFG based retroviral vectors for in vivo long-term expression of transgenes in hematopoietic cells which are widely used in clinical studies worldwide. After completing her postdoctoral work at NYU, she joined the faculty of MSK in 1999 where she focuses on developing novel strategies for cell therapies and immunotherapies. Her laboratory investigates genetic approaches to enhance various cell types including T lymphocytes and stem cells for the treatment of cancer and genetic blood disorders. Over the past 20 years, she has conceived and implemented multiple gamma-retroviral vector, hematopoietic and T cell manufacturing processes for several Phase I/II clinical trials. Her lab currently supports multiple CAR T cell-based clinical trials for the treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumors. She also investigates immunological functions of CAR T cells in clinical trials and animal models. She has served as member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) and the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM). She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Commercialization of Cancer Immunotherapy C3i (Canada) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT). She is Scientific Co-founder of Juno Therapeutics Inc.