Speakers

Professor Dan Barouch

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, USA

Dan Barouch, M.D., Ph.D., is director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In addition, he is a key part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery, the National Institutes of Health Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and Immunogen Discovery, and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard.

Dr. Barouch received his Ph.D. in immunology from Oxford University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

His laboratory focuses on studying the immunology and virology of HIV-1 infection and developing novel vaccine strategies. His laboratory has explored a series of novel vaccine technologies, including adjuvanted DNA vaccines, poxvirus vectors, and alternative serotype adenovirus vectors in both preclinical and clinical studies. In particular, he has advanced a series of novel adenovirus vector-based HIV-1 vaccine candidates from concept and design to preclinical testing to phase 1 clinical trials that are currently underway in both the U.S. and sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Barouch is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases, and he is committed to mentoring students, clinical fellows, research fellows, and junior faculty and to providing clinical care to patients with infectious diseases.

Associate Professor Sammy Bedoui

Peter Doherty Institute for Infection & Immunity, Australia

Sammy Bedoui holds a medical degree from the Hannover Medical School in Germany and heads a laboratory at the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne. Sammy is Co-Theme leader of Immunology at the Doherty Institute and is Director of an international PhD student exchange program with the University of Bonn in Germany, having previously held positions at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, the National Institute of Neuroscience in Tokyo and the Hannover Medical School. Sammy’s work has shed new light into understanding how dendritic cells integrate multiple signals into protective immunity against infections. His research has defined how particular types of T cells protect the host from bacterial infections, uncovering that these responses are regulated through the stimulation of inflammasomes in dendritic cells. His work on virus infections has identified how different dendritic cell types contribute to the initiation of virus-specific immunity and has delineated how specific viral fragments and in coordination with innate mediators augment these responses. Ongoing work interrogates how cues derived from cell death, microbiota and innate signals regulated immunity against intracellular infections and cancer.

Professor Yasmine Belkaid

NIH, USA

Sponsored by Mucosal Immunology Special Interest Group of the ASI

Dr. Yasmine Belkaid obtained her Ph.D. in 1996 from the Pasteur Institute in France. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at NIAID on immune regulation during infection, she joined the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation in Cincinnati. In 2005, she joined the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases at NIAID and was appointed senior scientist in 2008. She is currently the Director of the NIAID Microbiome program and the co-director of the NIH Center for Human Immunology. Her laboratory has defined fundamental mechanisms that regulate tissue homeostasis and immune responses and uncovered key roles for the microbiota and dietary factors in the maintenance of tissue immunity and protection to pathogens.

Professor Gabrielle Belz

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne

Gabrielle Belz is a Senior Principal NHMRC Fellow at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. She graduated from the University of Queensland after training in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery and subsequently was subsequently awarded a PhD and a Doctor of Veterinary Science. She completed her postdoctoral training at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital with Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty after which she joined the WEHI faculty. Her research contributions have been recognized by a number of awards including a Wellcome Trust Overseas Fellowship, HHMI international fellowship, the Gottschalk Medal (Australian Academy of Science), Elizabeth Blackburn NHMRC Fellowship and election as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (2018). She has organized multiple conferences in immunology and serves on multiple national and international editorial and scientific advisory boards. She studies the key cellular, transcriptional gene networks controlling naïve and memory T cells in infections and the mechanisms underlying how individual innate immune cells develop and contribute to protection against infections.

Doctor Maté Biro

University of New South Wales, Sydney

Dr. Maté Biro received his PhD at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany in 2011. His doctoral work focused on the biophysics of cellular actin cortex assembly. He previously studied Physics (BSc) and then Bioinformatics and Theoretical Systems Biology (MSc) at the Imperial College in London, UK, and did his Masters research at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. He has worked at a particle accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan and as a Research Associate at the Bioinformatics Institute of A*STAR in Singapore. In 2012, he moved to Sydney and the Centenary Institute at the University of Sydney, working on T cell migration and antitumour functions. Dr. Biro joined EMBL Australia as a group leader at the Single Molecule Science node at UNSW in January 2016. His research, highly multidisciplinary in nature, focuses on the dynamics and regulation of the actin cytoskeleton, notably during the migration of cytotoxic lymphocytes and tumour cells, and the mechanical interactions between them.

Professor Antje Blumenthal

The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute

Associate Professor Antje Blumenthal heads the Infection and Inflammation Group at The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute. She graduated with a major in Microbiology from the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel (Germany), pursued her PhD research in Immunology at the Leibniz Research Center for Medicine and Biosciences (Germany), and undertook postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York (USA). Dr Blumenthl’s research focuses on innate immune sensors, regulators of inflammation, and discovery of new therapeutic opportunities for challenging infectious diseases, with a specific emphasis on tuberculosis and sepsis. The Blumenthal lab employs in vivo and in vitro model systems, and fosters cross-disciplinary collaborations with immunologists, microbiologists, systems biologists, chemists, clinical research teams and industry partners. This research is supported by major funding from international and national agencies and has been recognised through prestigious awards, invited conference presentations and research seminars. Dr Blumenthal holds editorial responsibilities at the Journal of Immunology, Infection and Immunity, and Frontiers in Immunology and provides leadership to the scientific community through various roles including ASI Annual Meeting Coordinator and Council member, conference organisation, and Chair of the UQDI Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Professor Sidonia Fagarasan

RIKEN Yokohama Institute

Team Leader of Laboratory for Mucosal Immunity, Center for Integrative Medical Sciences RIKEN. Graduated from “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Romania and worked as residency and specialty in Clinical Laboratory, Microbiology, Biochemistry and Hematology. After Mombusho Visiting Researcher, Kyoto University, received Ph.D., and Assistant Professor, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj, she was appointed to the Team leader, Laboratory for Mucosal Immunity, RIKEN. Her research activity includes impact of immune system on diversity, structure and resilience of gut microbiota, and an extended loop of activation; gut microbiota and systemic responses. Received 2005 Young Scientist Award from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan, 2013 NISTEP Award from MEXT, Japan.

Professor Richard Flavell

Yale University School of Medicine, USA

Dr. Flavell is Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his B.Sc. (Honors) in 1967 and Ph.D. in 1970 in biochemistry from the University of Hull, England, and performed postdoctoral work in Amsterdam (1970-72) with Piet Borst and in Zurich (1972-73) with Charles Weissmann where he developed Site Directed Mutagenesis/ Reverse Genetics. Before moving to Yale in 1988, Dr. Flavell established his lab at the University of Amsterdam (1974-79); then became Head of the Laboratory of Gene Structure and Expression at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London (1979-82); and subsequently President and Chief Scientific Officer of Biogen Research Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1982-88). Dr. Flavell is a fellow of the Royal Society, a member of EMBO, the National Academy of Sciences as well as the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Flavell served as the founding Chairman of Yale’s Department of Immunobiology for 28 years, stepping down in early 2016.

Professor Georges Grau

University of Sydney

Professor Georges Grau, MD (University of Liège) and Privat-Docent (University of Genève), is the Chair of Vascular Immunology at the University of Sydney since 2006. His research in immunopathological mechanisms of infectious diseases focuses on cytokines and the microvascular endothelium.

Working experience: with his team at the Vascular Immunology Unit, he has:

• analysed the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the interactions between microvascular endothelial cells and cells of the immune system.
• contributed to the elucidation of cytokine interactions leading to tissue injury, using in vivo intervention studies in various models of pathology, with particular attention to TNF.
• developed a brain endothelium co-culture system, to study blood-brain barrier changes in cerebral malaria, sepsis, multiple sclerosis, viral encephalitides and cryptococcal meningoencephalitis
• studied extracellular vesicles, particularly microvesicles and exosomes, released in these co-cultures and shown their role as crucial effectors of cytokine-mediated pathology
• deciphered critical molecular mechanisms of microvesicle release in inflammatory conditions
• shown that inhibition of microvesicle release can prevent pathology.

His 372 papers have been cited over 30,000 times and his h-index is over 90. Since 2015 he serves as Discipline Leader (Pathology), Marie Bashir Institute, and in 2017 he was elected President of the Australian-New Zealand Microcirculation Society (ANZMS).

Professor Ronald N Germain

NIH, USA

Ronald N. Germain received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976 Since then he has investigated basic immunobiology, first on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, from 1982 -2012 in the Laboratory of Immunology, NIH and then as Chief of what is now the Laboratory of Immune System Biology at NIAID, NIH. He and his colleagues have made key contributions to understanding MHC class II molecule structure–function relationships, the cell biology of antigen processing, and the molecular basis of T cell recognition. More recently, his laboratory has explored the immune system using dynamic and static in situ microscopic methods that his laboratory helped pioneer. He has published nearly 400 scholarly research papers and reviews. Among numerous honors, he was elected Associate (foreign) member of EMBO (2008), elected to the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences USA (2013), received the Meritorious Career Award from the American Association of Immunologists (2015), chosen as NIAID Outstanding Mentor (2016), elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2016) and has been designated an NIH Distinguished Investigator. He has trained more than 70 postdoctoral fellows, many of whom hold senior academic and administrative positions at leading universities and medical schools

Professor Tom Gordon

Flinders University, Flinders Medical Centre site of SA Pathology

Tom Gordon is a graduate of the University of Adelaide and Professor and Head of the Department of Immunology at Flinders University and the Flinders Medical Centre site of SA Pathology. He is a clinical immunologist, rheumatologist and immunopathologist with an interest in systemic autoimmune diseases, particularly lupus and Sjögren’s syndrome. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California and was a Greenberg fellow at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. He is an International Member of the American College of Rheumatology and past member of the ANA Committee of the International Union of Immunological Societies. He has more than 30 years of funding from the NH & MRC for his translational research program on autoimmune diseases and has pioneered mass spectrometric sequencing of human autoantibody repertoires. He has published extensively in the Journal of Immunology, PNAS, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Lancet, Arthritis and Rheumatism and Gastroenterology. He was awarded the Parr Prize in Rheumatology in 1995 and the International Ethel Baxter award of the American College of Rheumatology in 1998 and 1999 for research on autoantibodies in Sjögren’s syndrome.

Professor Lennart Hammarström

Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Dr. Hammarström earned his Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, in 1979, and became a professor at the Institute in 1997. He has been working on various aspects of clinical immunology for the past 40 years, concentrating on the genetics of immunodeficiency diseases and different forms of immunotherapy for these patient categories.

He has been contributing to these fields by identifying several novel genes associated with antibody deficiency diseases, including XLA, CVID and IgA deficiency. In the immunotherapy field, he has pioneered the use of novel forms of administration of gammaglobulin and the use of novel sources of antibodies and antibody fragments for therapeutic use in immunodeficiency patients, using genetically engineered lactic acid bacteria for prophylaxis and therapy in infections affecting mucosal sites.

Lately, his work has concentrated on the genetics of CVID and IgA deficiency, the most common primary immunodeficiency in the Western world, using large scale NGS and secondly, the introduction of neonatal screening for PID in Sweden using a combined TREC/KREC assay with pioneering work into running WGS on all newborns.

Associate Professor Kim Good-Jacobson

Monash University

Associate Professor Kim Jacobson leads the B cells and Antibody Memory laboratory at Monash University, investigating epigenetic modifiers underlying the formation of immune memory to acute or chronic infection. She is a Bellberry-Viertel Fellow, a former Victorian Young Tall Poppy Science Award recipient, and her work has been published in Science, Nature Immunology and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. A/Prof Jacobson completed her PhD at the Centenary and Garvan Institutes in 2007, followed by postdoctoral training at Yale University, where she revealed a novel role for the inhibitory receptor PD-1 in humoral responses. She returned to Australia in 2010 to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute before moving to Monash in 2015. Her recent work has made key insights into genetic and epigenetic regulation of B cell memory, as well as discovering how antibody-secreting cells turn on the appropriate molecular program to migrate to their survival niche and provide lifelong protection. Her current work focuses on understanding how humoral responses become dysregulated during chronic infectious disease as well as antibody-mediated autoimmunity.

Professor Michael Jensen

Seattle Children’s Hospital, USA

Dr. Jensen is an internationally recognized leader in the field of CAR T cell immunotherapy with over 20 years of experience in the research and clinical translation of this therapeutic modality. He has focused on the applications to childhood cancers. Dr. Jensen graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and then completed training in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at the University of Washington(UW)/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC). Dr. Jensen is the Janet & Jim Sinegal endowed professor of pediatric cancer research, University of Washington School of Medicine and serves as co-head of the Cancer Immunology Program of the UW-FHCRC Cancer Consortium, as well as Director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research at Seattle Children's Research Institute. Dr. Jensen is a co-founder of Juno and Jewel Biotherapeutics, Inc. and the not-for-profit CureWorks collaborative.

Associate Professor Roslyn Kemp

University of Otago, New Zealand

I have a background in fundamental T cell biology in the context of homeostasis and cancer. My current work focuses on the local immune response in people with colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases. Our research goals are to understand the gut immune response, how it changes in response to inflammation and cancer, and how we can best use knowledge of the immune response to better target drug therapies to individual patients. Our research approach uses high dimensional analyses of cytometry data, highlighting and interpreting the complexity of the immune response; a murine orthotopic colorectal cancer model that replicates human disease; and an ex vivo human intestinal organoid model that incorporates the immune system. I am President of the New Zealand Society for Oncology and Secretary-General of the International Union of Immunological Societies.

Professor Eicke Latz

Institute of Innate Immunity, University of Bonn, Germany

Eicke Latz studied Medicine in Göttingen and Berlin and worked as an intensive care physician at the Charité Hospital in Berlin. Starting 2000 he received post-doctoral training at Boston University and UMass Medical School in the Golenbock laboratory. He joined Faculty in 2006 and is currently Adjunct Full Professor at UMass Medical School.

In 2010 he founded the Institute of Innate Immunity at the University of Bonn in Germany, where a large group of international scientists investigate how the innate immune system functions to maintain health and under which situation innate immune dysfunction contributes to disease pathogenesis. His research focuses on identifying the most proximal mechanisms of innate immune activation in chronic inflammatory diseases. In 2016 Dr. Latz co-founded IFM Therapeutics, a biotech company that develops new medicines targeting innate immune receptors.

He furthermore holds an Adjunct Professorship at the Centre for Molecular Inflammation Research at the Norwegian Technical University in Trondheim and he heads the Research Unit Innate ‘Immunity in Neurodegeneration’ at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) in Bonn.

Dr. Latz is listed as a highly cited researcher in immunology yearly since 2014. In 2017 he received the Leibniz Price for his scientific contributions.

Professor Sharon Lewin

University of Melbourne

Sharon Lewin is the inaugural director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital; Professor of Medicine, The University of Melbourne; consultant infectious diseases physician, Alfred Hospital and a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellow. She is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist. Her research focuses on understanding why HIV persists on treatment and developing clinical trials aimed at ultimately finding a cure for HIV infection. She has given over 100 major invited talk internationally on the topic of an HIV cure. She is an elected member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society (IAS) representing the Asia Pacific region and co-chairs the IAS Global Advisory board for the Towards an HIV Cure initiative. In 2014, she was named the Melburnian of the Year in recognition of being an inspirational role model and for her contributions to the city of Melbourne.

Professor Karin Loré

Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Karin Loré is a professor in vaccine immunology at the Division of Immunology and Allergy, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. She trained in immunology and received her PhD from the Karolinska Institutet. She did her postdoctoral studies at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), NIH, USA. Karin’s research focus is on the immunological mechanisms by which different vaccine platforms interact with the innate immune system to regulate adaptive vaccine responses. Recent work has focused on biodistribution of vaccines after administration, vaccine antigen uptake and priming of T cell and B cell responses. Karin has extensive experience in leading late-stage preclinical vaccine studies in non-human primates both in collaboration with academia, the vaccine industry and funding agencies such as the Gates foundation. Her laboratory is also evaluating the responses in ongoing clinical studies investigating co-vaccination of selected licensed vaccines for synergistic effects as well as testing of a live pertussis vaccine.

Associate Professor Seth Masters

The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

A/Prof Seth Masters is head of the Inflammasomes and Autoinflammatory Disease laboratory at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. He holds a joint appointment at Glaxosmithkline (UK) and is appointed as a fellow of the Viertel Foundation, HHMI-Wellcome Trust and the NHMRC.

The Masters laboratory studies the innate immune system, which can be activated to cause autoinflammatory disease. A particular focus in this area has been the inflammasome protein complex which generates the cytokines IL-1b and IL-18. Understanding the molecular basis of inflammasome activation has been clinically actionable, as several of these inherited rheumatic conditions have excellent responses to with biologics that block IL-1b lead to excellent responses.

New research from the Masters lab extends to innate immune signalling pathways that lead to production of type I IFN. This includes the cGAS/Sting pathway of cytosolic DNA detection, which we find is triggered to cause neuroinflammation, and we also document the activation of the sensor PKR due to proteotoxic stress.

Professor Diane Mathis

Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Mathis obtained a PhD from the University of Rochester, and performed postdoctoral studies at the Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire des Eucaryotes in Strasbourg, France and at Stanford University Medical Center. She returned to Strasbourg at the end of 1983, establishing a laboratory at the LGME [later the Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculare et Cellulaire (IGBMC)] in conjunction with Dr. Christophe Benoist. The lab moved to the Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston in 1999. Through 2008, Dr. Mathis was a Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Associate Research Director and Head of the Section on Immunology and Immunogenetics at Joslin. Dr. Mathis is currently a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at HMS, and holder of the Morton Grove-Rasmussen Chair in Immunohematology. She is also a Principal Faculty Member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and an Associate Faculty Member of the Broad Institute. She presently serves on Advisory Boards of the HHMI, Genentech, Pfizer, Amgen and F-Prime Capital Partners (amongst others) and of several research institutes worldwide. Dr. Mathis was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2003, the German Academy in 2007, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. She received the FASEB Excellence in Science Award in 2016.

Her lab works in the fields of T cell differentiation, autoimmunity and inflammation. She has trained over 150 students and postdoctoral fellows.

Associate Professor Scott Mueller

Peter Doherty Research Institute, University of Melbourne

A/Professor Scott Mueller is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and laboratory head in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne, at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. Scott’s laboratory is focused on dissecting the fundamental cellular processes involved in immune responses in order to identify new targets for vaccine design and therapeutics. Utilising animal models and intravital microscopy techniques he has pioneered methods to image skin and discovered subsets of tissue-resident memory T cells that provide rapid, front-line defence against infections. His lab is interrogating cell dynamics and cell-cell interactions in vivo from the perspective of the immune cells (lymphocytes, dendritic cells) and stromal cells to achieve a detailed understanding of these processes from the cell to the tissue level during infections and cancer.

Professor Toshinori Nakayama

Chiba University, Japan

Professor Toshinori Nakayama leads the Department of Immunology in the Graduate School of Medicine at Chiba University, Japan. He graduated from the School of Medicine at Yamaguchi University and then received his PhD from the Graduate School of Medicine at The University of Tokyo. He joined Chiba University in 2001 and has been in his current position since 2004.

He was appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine in April 2015. His primary research area of interest is immunological memory, and his research team proposed that allergies and autoimmune diseases develop when disease-causing (pathogenic) cells are induced in memory helper T (Th) cell subsets and suggested the “pathogenic Th cell population disease induction model” (Nakayama et al. Ann. Rev. Immunol. 2017). Such refractory chronic diseases may be cured by eliminating pathogenic T (Tpath1, 2, 3) cells. His team has been investigating the immunoregulatory role of the molecule CD69 in order to identify an anti-CD69 antibody to prevent inflammatory responses related, for example, to asthma, colitis, and arthritis in mouse studies. In collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, they have established humanized anti-CD69 and anti-CD69 ligand (Myl9) antibodies, hoping these can find use in treating intractable inflammatory diseases.

Professor Pam Ohashi

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Canada

Dr. Ohashi received her Ph.D from the University of Toronto with Dr. Tak Mak, and did her post-doctoral training at the University of Zurich with the Nobel Laureate Dr. Zinkernagel, and Dr. Hans Hengartner. She is the co-Director of the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Professor in the Departments of Medical Biophysics and Immunology at the University of Toronto. She is also the Director of the Tumor Immunotherapy Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Her interests include understanding CD8+ T cell biology and mechanisms that regulate anti-tumor immunity.

Associate Professor Jane Oliaro

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne

Dr Jane Oliaro obtained her BSc (Hons) degree from Monash University in Melbourne and PhD from Massey University in New Zealand, followed by an INSERM postdoctoral fellowship in Montpellier, France. She returned to her hometown Melbourne to undertake postdoctoral work at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and in 2015 became Head of the Immune Defence Laboratory at the Peter Mac. Jane has been the recipient of multiple NHMRC project grants, one of which was included in the NHMRC ‘Ten of the Best Research Projects’ for 2010 and an NHMRC fellowship. She was also awarded a NHMRC Inaugural Achievement Award for her research on T cell polarity proteins and asymmetric T cell division. Her laboratory focuses on the regulation of cytotoxic lymphocyte-tumour cell interactions, and therapies that enhance anti-tumour immunity.

Dr Daniel Pellicci

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Dr Daniel Pellicci completed his PhD in 2013 in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. He is Group Leader of the Cellular Immunology group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and his research uses flow cytometry, protein biochemistry and transcriptome analysis to understand the role of unconventional T cells in health and disease. Unconventional T cells make up a large proportion of T cells in humans and rapidly mount potent immune responses upon activation. For this reason, these cells represent potentially important immunotherapeutic targets. He has recently generated novel tetramers to investigate the role of CD1-restricted T cells in tuberculosis, which claims over 1.5 million lives each year. Daniel is supported a CSL Centenary Fellowship and NHMRC project grants.

Professor Susan Prescott

University of Western Australia

Prof. Susan L. Prescott MD, PhD, is a paediatrician, immunologist and internationally acclaimed physician scientist, well known for her cutting-edge research into the early environmental determinants of health and disease. At the global level, as the Founding Director of inVIVO Planetary Health, her current work focuses on the interconnections between human health and planetary health - promoting holistic value systems for both ecological and social justice. Locally, she is a Director of the ORIGINS project, which examines how the environment influences all aspects of physical and mental health throughout life. She was the founding President of the DOHaD Society of ANZ, and previously served as a Director of the World Allergy Organization. Susan is also an artist and award-winning author of several books including The Allergy Epidemic, The Calling, Origins and gold medal winning book The Secret Life of Your Microbiome.

Associate Professor Kristen Radford

University of Queensland

A/Prof Kristen Radford leads the Cancer Immunotherapies Group at Mater Research, University of Queensland in the Translational Research Institute in Brisbane Australia. She completed her PhD in melanoma biology at the University of Newcastle, NSW and was awarded NSW Young Australian of the Year for this work. Following a postdoc at Cancer Research UK in London, she joined the newly established Mater Research Institute where she developed a dendritic cell vaccine that was translated to a first-in-man clinical trial for metastatic prostate cancer. Her group first characterised the rare human CD141+ dendritic cell subtype that is now widely considered to be the key cell type required for inducing tumour immune responses as being important targets for anti-tumour and anti-viral immune responses. She is now pursuing the therapeutic potential of this discovery with international funding to develop vaccines that specifically target human CD141+ DC in vivo. A/Prof Radford is also Director of the Australian Humanised Mouse Program. “Humanised” mice are immunodeficient mice reconstituted with human hematopoietic stem cells that develop functioning human immune cells, including dendritic cells. These are emerging next-generation models for human immuno-oncology and are valuable models for understanding human dendritic cell biology and evaluating new human cancer immunotherapies.

Professor Jürgen Ruland

Technical University of Munich

Prof. Ruland concentrates his research on signaling processes in the immune system, both normal and when deregulated due to disease. With his research group, he investigates how normal immune cells recognize pathogens and initiate immune defense. The group is also examining how pathologically deregulated signals in blood cells lead to the development of cancer. The goal of their research is to provide a basis for therapeutic manipulation of the immune system.

Prof. Ruland studied medicine in Giessen and Pittsburgh with a degree in pharmacology. After medical and research work at TUM, Freiburg University, the Ontario Cancer Institute and the AMGEN Research Institute at the University of Toronto, he became head of a junior research group of the German Cancer Aid at TUM in 2003. He served as professor of molecular immunology at TUM from 2010 to 2012 and was appointed professor of clinical chemistry at TUM in 2012. He is member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Cancer Aid committee for promoting young medical professionals and scientists. He is spokesperson for the SFB 1335 "Aberrant Immune Signals in Cancer" and successfully raised his second ERC Advanced Grant in 2019.

Professor Ranjeny Thomas

University of Queensland

Professor Thomas is Professor of Rheumatology at University of Queensland, Translational Research Institute, consultant rheumatologist at Princess Alexandra Hospital, fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and Chief Technical Officer of the Uniquest spin-off company Dendright.

Her research seeks to understand autoimmune disease and restoration of immune tolerance. Through this work, she developed dendritic cell-based antigen-specific immunotherapy in the first proof-of-concept trial in Rheumatoid Arthritis. She developed a liposome immunotherapy that targets dendritic cells to induce antigen-specific tolerance. The product, DEN181, was developed by Dendright, in partnership with Janssen-Biotech, the US pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, for the indication of RA. DEN-181 is in early-phase clinical trials in RA. Thomas is progressing the development of liposome-based tolerance strategies in other autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes, as well as nanoparticle-based dendritic cell targeted cancer vaccines. She has also contributed major insights into how the microbiome is involved in causing spondyloarthropathy, leading to the development of disease biomarkers and therapeutic strategies.

Professor Jose Villadangos

Peter Doherty Institute, Australia

Jose Villadangos is a Professor of the University of Melbourne with a dual appointment in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Peter Doherty Institute and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Bio21 Institute. Jose obtained his Ph. D. from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 1994. Subsequently he trained at MIT, Harvard Medical School, and The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. He established his laboratory at WEHI in 2001 and moved to The University of Melbourne in 2011.

José has authored over 120 papers. He has received funding from the Human Frontiers Science Program, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Cancer Research Institute, the Anti-Cancer Council, the NHMRC and the ARC. José is the Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Immunology and was the President of the International Congress of Immunology 2016. He is an Honorary Life Member and recipient of the Derek Rowley Medal of the ASI.

Jose’s research interests include: (i) Mechanisms of antigen presentation by classical and non-classical MHC molecules; (ii) The development and regulation of dendritic cell functions; (ii) Regulation of membrane proteostasis by ubiquitination; (iii) Adoptive T cell therapy against cancer; (iv) Anti-viral immunity; and (v) mechanisms of immunosuppression post-sepsis or trauma.

Professor Ari Waisman

University Medical Center Mainz

Prof. Dr. Waisman graduated in Life Sciences at the University of Tel-Aviv, Israel, in 1986. From 1986 until 1989, he made his Master in Science at the department of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. He then continued for PhD in the same institute, at the Department of Immunology, under the supervision of Prof. Edna Mozes studying a mouse model for systemic lupus erythematosus. The PhD finished in 1994, and he moved to make his first post doctorate study under the supervision of Prof. Lawrence Steinman from Stanford Medical School studying the mechanism of DNA vaccination in a mouse model of Multiple Sclerosis and implementing the research in order to treat the mice. In the year 1996 he moved for a second post doctorate period to Cologne, Germany, where he generated different mouse models to study autoimmunity under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Klaus Rajewsky. In 2001 he became an independent group leader in the Institute of Genetics in Cologne where he continued to study autoimmunity using the technique of conditional gene targeting. In April 2005 he moved to Mainz as he was nominated an Associate Professor for Pathophysiology. In 2011 he became the Head of the Institute for Molecular Medicine in the University Medical Center Mainz.

Associate Professor Di Yu

John Curtin School of Medical Research, Canberra

A/Prof. Yu was awarded his PhD from the Australian National University (ANU). After conducting postdoctoral training at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, he joined Monash University and was appointed as a faculty member and Group Leader from 2011-2016. He returned to ANU and was appointed Associate Professor in 2017. His team investigates the mechanisms underlying the functions of T cell subsets in health and disease. Through understanding such mechanisms, his group aims to design new strategies to monitor the immune system and modulate immune pathways using cytokine-based therapies to treat autoimmune diseases, infection and cancer. A/Prof. Di Yu has made several major contributions to the area of follicular T cells. He has authored more than 50 publications in journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, Nature Medicine and Immunity, which have attracted over 8,000 citations (Google Scholar). A/Prof. Yu is the recipient of Bellberry-Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship (2017), Milstein Young Investigator Award from International Cytokine & Interferon Society (2016), an NHMRC Excellence Award (2010), a Frank Fenner Medal from ANU (2008), an International Research Award from the Australian Society for Medical Research (2007), and a New Investigator Award from the Australasian Society for Immunology (2006).