Luigi Naldini received his M.D. from the University of Turin, Italy and his Ph.D. from the University of Rome. In the mid 90’s he moved to the Salk Institute in San Diego, USA, to carry out his research work in the laboratories of Inder Verma and Didier Trono, where they pioneered the development of lentiviral gene transfer vectors from HIV. He then spent 2 years in the biotechnology industry in San Francisco, before moving back to academia in Turin. Since 2008 he has been the Director of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy of Milan (SR-Tiget) and Professor at the “Vita Salute” San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy.

Luigi Naldini was elected as a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). He has been President of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT) and was appointed as an expert on the Human Gene Editing Study of the US National Academies of Sciences and of Medicine. He was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) in 2014 and from the ESGCT in 2015, the Jimenez Diaz Prize in 2016, and the Beutler Prize from the American Society of Hematology in 2017.

Adi Barzel, PhD is the president elect of the Israeli society for Gene and Cell Therapy. Dr. Barzel is a senior lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry at Tel Aviv University. He is also co-founder and acting CSO of LogicBio Therapeutics Inc, a Gene Therapy company developing life-long cures for serious early-onset rare diseases. In Tel Aviv University, the Barzel lab is developing novel methods to engineer lymphocytes for immunotherapy.

Prof. Harats founded VBL Therapeutics (NASDQ:VBLT) in 2000 based on more than 20 years of both research in the field of medicine and biotechnology as well as a strong background in management of early to mid stage biotechnology companies.   Prof Harats is also a professional and experienced consultant specializing in Biotechnology / Pharmaceutical healthcare companies. Prof. Harats, a professor of medicine in internal medicine at the department of human molecular genetics and biochemistry at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, the VP for R&D and the chairman of the IRB committee of the Sheba Medical Center.

Prof. Harats received his M.D. from the Hadassah Medical School, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Following an Internship at Sheba Medical Center and a resdency in Medicine at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, he conducted a fellowship in pulmonary medicine and research in Molecular Genetics at The University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). He was then a Visiting Scientist at Syntex Discovery for three years.

For the past 25 years Prof. Harats has been involved in "cutting edge" Research in Lipid Metabolism, Atherosclerosis and Vascular Biology. He was one of the pioneers who studied the role of the immune/inflammatory system in atherosclerosis and invented a new genetic tool for the treatment of angiogenesis, a process that plays a major role in cancer and cardiovascular disorders.

Prof. Harats is a KOL in the field of dyslipidemia and atherosclerosis both in Israel and abroad. He is involved in numerous clinical research trials of lipid-lowering agents. Professor Harats chaired the committee of the Israeli guidelines for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. He is a member of the Israel Medical Association, Israel Heart Society, American Heart Association and American Society of Gene-Therapy.

Professor Harats published more than 185 peer-reviewed research papers and chapters in books, his publications rewarded him with numerous prizes and grants.

Dr. Ayal Hendel is a Principal investigator in the faculty of life sciences at Bar-Ilan University. Dr. Hendel’s research focuses on developing CRISPR genome editing as a curative therapy for childhood disorders.

Dr. Hendel received his BA with High Honors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Biology and his MSc and PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Hendel carried out post-doctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine where he was part of a team that achieved therapeutically relevant genome editing frequencies in human hematopoietic stem cells confirming the potential of this technological breakthrough.

Dr. Elad Jacoby is a board-certified pediatric hematologist and oncologist, trained at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and at the National Cancer Institute. He specializes in pediatric leukemia and in cellular therapy for pediatric malignancies.  He heads the pediatric cancer immunotherapy center at the Sheba Medical Center, and leads translational research in novel cellular therapies, CAR T-cells and leukemia biology of resistance. Dr. Jacoby is a member of American Society of Hematology, the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation and the Resistant Disease Committee of the International-BFM study group in leukemia, and serves as the co-chair of the Israeli Study Group of Childhood Leukemia.

Dan Peer is a Professor and the Director of the Laboratory of Precision NanoMedicine at Tel Aviv University (TAU). He is the Vice Dean for Research at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences. From 2016, He is the Chair of Tel Aviv University Cancer Biology Research Center; the biggest Cancer Center in Israel that includes 17 affiliated hospitals and from 2017, the Founding and Managing Director of the SPARK program of Translational Medicine at TAU.

Prof. Peer’s work was among the first to demonstrate systemic delivery of RNA molecules using targeted nanocarriers to the immune system and he pioneered the use of RNA interference (RNAi) in immune cells. In addition, his lab was the first to show systemic, cell specific delivery of modified mRNA to cells to induce therapeutic gene expression of desired proteins within the immune system that has enormous implications in cancer and inflammation.

Prof. Peer has more than 100 pending and granted patents. Some of them have been licensed to several pharmaceutical companies and one is currently under registration (as a new drug in inflammatory bowel disease). In addition, based on his work, five spin-off companies were generated aiming to bring innovative personalized medicine into clinical practice. 

Prof. Peer received more than 30 awards and honors and he serves on the scientific advisory board of more than 10 companies, and on the editorial board of more than 15 journals. He is an associate Editor of the Journal of Controlled Release. Prof. Peer is a past President of the Israeli Chapter of the Controlled Release Society, and a Past Member of the Board of the Israel Young Academy of Science.

Prof. Angel Porgador is a full professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences (FOHS) in Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He did his MSc and PhD at the Weizmann institute and then trained at Duke University Medical Centre, NC and at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, MD, USA. Prof. Porgador served as the Deputy Dean for Research at the FOHS and is currently serving as Deputy Vice President and Dean for R&D. He also served as the president of the Israel Immunological Society and is currently serving as the president of the federation of Israeli societies for Experimental Biology (FISEB-ILANIT) and the president of the Israel Society for Cancer Research (ISCR). Prof. Porgador published 120 scientific publications with over 11000 citations and HI of 47 (google scholar). His research focuses on innate immunity, recombinant immune receptors, cancer immunome and cellular-based therapeutic approaches to diseases.

Yoram Reiter is a Professor of Immunology and heads the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at the Faculty of Biology. He has >20 years of experience in molecular immunology in the fields of cancer immunotherapy, antibody engineering, T cell biology, autoimmunity. He did his undergraduate studies at the Tel Aviv University and his master’s and PhD degrees are from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Immunology. He was a post doctoral fellow (1992-1997) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, where he developed new approaches in antibody engineering and cancer targeted therapy with Dr. Ira Pastan. During his post doctoral work he developed a novel strategy to stabilize recombinant antibody fragments  which is currently being used in the application of recombinnat antibodies and T cell receptors in the clinic. From 1997-8 he was a senior scientist at Peptor Ltd. establishing research in drug discovery. In 1998, Prof. Reiter was recruited to the Technion department of Biology as a Faculty member where he established the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology and Cancer Immunotherapy leading a research program at the cutting edge of molecular immunology, antibody engineering, cancer research and immunotherapy. He develops new approaches for cancer immunotherapy and his lab is considered as the leading laboratory in the world working on recombinant antibodies mimicking the specificity of immune killer cells. Reiter’s team also developed a novel T cell engagement strtagey that recruits viral-specific immunity to destroy tumor cells. Reiter’s works spans T cell biology, recombinnat antibodies and their fusions related to oncology, infectious diseases and autoimmunity. Reiter work include also interdisciplinary collaborations in the field of systems biology and immunology as well as nanoscience bridging molecular biology and Nano electronics. Reiter’s leadership in the field of TCR-like antibodies was acknoledged by numerous research grants including a National Institutes of Health RO1 research grant as foreign investigator, DIP the Israeli-Greman coorporation program, EU FP6 Collaboration grant and many others. Over the years Reiter’s research group and graduates consisted of > 60 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Some of his graduates have now senior positions in academia and industry in Israel and the US (5 of his gradiates are now professors in universities in Israel and abroad). Reiter published >100 research papers and reviews in the professional scientific literature and is frequently invited to scientific meetings. Reiter’s work yielded >30 patents and his lab raised >$10million in research grants from government (Israeli and USA), private funds, as well as industry. He won prizes from the Technion, Israel Academy of Sciences, Industry and others. His laboratory collaborates with many leading groups in the US and Europe and his lab had multiple collaborations with biopharama in translational c ollaborations of his scientific work including with Teva, Pfizer and Applied Immune Technologies (AIT). Reiter is founder of Applied Immune Technologies (AIT) Ltd. which develops novel antibody-based immunotherapy approaches for cancer and autoimmunity, AIT raised in series A and B investment rounds $22million. In December 2015 AIT was aquired and merged by Adicet Bio Inc. a California based biopharma focused on the development of next-generation cell immunotherapies. The merged company raised $51million in series A round from Orbimed and Novartis venture funds and in August 2016 entered into a collaboration agreement with Regenron Pharmeceticals to develop next-generation engineered immune-cell therapeutics receiving $25 million upfront payment as well as research funding over a course of five-year research term. Prof. Reiter is a member of various scientific committees in Israel and abroad. Reiter was the dean of the Faculty of Biology at the Technion (2006-2008), a member of the managing committee of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion (2005-2009), and the director of the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary center for Life Sciences and Engineering (2013-2016), a wide Technion center that fosters infrastructure and research at the cutting edge interfaces of life sciences, medicine, nanotechnology, and engineering. Reiter holds the Sam Sebba Academic Chair in Sciences of the Technion. As of January 2019 Reiter was elected again to serve as the dean of the Faculty of Biology at the Technion.