Cell and Gene Therapy 2025

Sofia Ataide holds Master's degrees in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Lisbon University and International Health Management from Imperial College Business School. With approximately seven years at Clarivate, Sofia has excelled in various Sales and Partnership roles. Currently, she serves as a Senior Solutions Consultant, leveraging her deep-domain expertise and technical knowledge of Clarivate’s Clinical, Regulatory, and CMC solutions to provide practical business applications to clients.

Matthew Arnold is an analyst and content strategist at Clarivate, where he mines his colleagues’ expertise for thought leadership and tells the story of how Clarivate helps life science companies deliver medical innovations to patients. He has had a window onto the global pharma, biotech and medtech industries for 25 years, first as a reporter and now as a content marketer.

Steve is a renowned commercial leader in the industry, with over 30 years’ experience managing diverse teams to develop scalable market development strategies, across start-ups and multi-national organizations. He has successfully launched numerous clinical molecular diagnostics assays and spearheaded strategic growth initiatives for premier life science tools companies. He joins Broken String from Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he led the licensing and commercial supply channel for the Genetic Sciences and Clinical Oncology NGS divisions, responsible for building commercial partnerships and managing large contract deals to open new markets and expand the Company’s global customer base. Prior to this, he held executive level positions at Quest Diagnostics, Athena Diagnostics, Inc. and RainDance Technologies, in addition to leadership roles at Agilent Technologies and GE Healthcare.

Eric B. Kmiec, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of the Gene Editing Institute at ChristianaCare. He is also co-founder and chief scientific officer of CorriXR Therapeutics. Widely recognized for his pioneering work in the fields of molecular medicine and gene editing, Dr. Kmiec has developed CRISPR based genetic therapies for Sickle Cell Disease and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Dr. Kmiec holds faculty appointments at the University of Delaware and The Wistar Institute and has been an NIH and National Science Foundation supported principal investigator for 35 years. His laboratory has made major discoveries in the CRISPR/gene editing field, and he serves on numerous editorial boards, authoring 169 peer-reviewed publications and books. He has served as primary mentor for 18 doctoral students and numerous postdoctoral scholars. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Gene and Genome Editing. Dr. Kmiec is an accomplished speaker in human gene editing and its social and ethical impacts. He has received numerous service medals and awards, including the Eminent Scholar at Marshall University, Proudford Award in Sickle Cell Disease, Bio-Science Innovation Awards and the Philadelphia Life Science Innovator Award.

Dr Parone is an innovative scientist and accomplished leader in the biotech industry, with over 25 years of experience spanning both academia and the private sector. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, with a strong foundation in molecular biology and a focus on translational research. He began his career as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Geneva, later transitioning to the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California, San Diego. He then joined Fate Therapeutics, where he held roles of increasing responsibility. During his time at Fate Therapeutics, Philippe led the development of iPSC and patient derived immuno-regulatory cell therapies for the treatment of immune disorders, including T1D, MS and GvHD and he oversaw companywide IND enabling safety pharmacology studies for iPSC derived cell therapy products for the treatment of hematological malignancies. Prior to his role at EsoBiotec, Philippe was Director of Industrialization at Celyad Oncology where he was pivotal in directing research programs and advancing both autologous and allogeneic cell therapies into first in human studies. Currently serving as Chief Scientific Officer at EsoBiotec, Philippe directs scientific strategy and leads R&D efforts with a focus on developing advanced therapies for cancer and immune disorders. Philippe's leadership drives cutting-edge advancements in cell and gene therapy, positioning EsoBiotec at the forefront of the biotech industry.

Matthew Porteus MD, PhD is the Sutardja Chuk Professor of Definitive and Curative Medicine and a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and Maternal-Child Health Research Institute at Stanford. He is the Director of the Stanford Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine and the co-Executive Director of the Stanford Cell and Gene Therapy GMP Facility called the Laboratory for Cell and Gene Medicine. His primary research focus is on developing genome editing as an approach to cure disease, particularly those of the blood (most notably sickle cell disease) but also of other organ systems as well. He received his undergraduate degree at Harvard in History and Science where his honors thesis studied the recombinant DNA controversy of the 1970s. He then completed his MD and PhD training at Stanford, clinical training in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital, and post-doctoral research training with Noble Laureate David Baltimore at CalTech. He works as an attending physician on the Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant service at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital where he cares for children under going bone marrow transplantation for both malignant and non-malignant diseases. His goal is to combine his research and clinical interests to develop innovative curative therapies. He served on the 2017 National Academy Study Committee of Human Genome Editing and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for WADA on Cell and Gene Doping and the NIH NexTRAC advisory committee evaluating the emergence of new technologies. He has been a scientific founder of CRISPR Tx and a founder of Graphite Bio and serves on several SAB’s. He is a strong advocate for assuring that the next generation of transformative medicines reaches the global community in partnership with those communities

Neal Flomenberg, MD graduated from the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in 1976. He began his Medical Oncology career at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1981 in the Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program working as both a clinician and laboratory investigator in the areas of T cell physiology, histocompatibility, immunologic redevelopment after blood/marrow transplant and improving the outcomes of patients receiving mismatched blood or marrow transplants. He led the cellular section of the 10th International Histocompatibility Workshop in 1987. He became Director of the BMT program at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1991. He returned to Jefferson in1994 where he launched and became Director of the BMT Program and eventually Chairman of the Department of Medical Oncology (2008) and Deputy Director of the Cancer Center (2007). In 2019, he received the Rudolph & Antoinette Roesler de Villers’ Lifetime Achievement Award from the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. In 2022, he joined Tevogn Bio as their Chief Science Officer. Tevogen is focused on using genetically unmodified CTLs to treat viral infections, the consequences of viral infections, viral induced cancers and sporadic cancers.

Ruiyuan Zheng is a Marketing Product Manager at ACROBiosystems, specializing in cell and gene therapy (CGT). With a PhD in chromatin and cell biology from the University of Cologne and postdoctoral research in organoid-based disease models at Heidelberg University, she brings deep expertise in iPSC technology and its applications in regenerative medicine. Now, she focuses on customer engagement and marketing analysis, leveraging her scientific background to drive innovation and strategy in the CGT field.

Andrew Mancini, PhD, is a cell engineering scientist and corporate development professional with a background in both technical research and business strategy in the cell therapy space. He began his tenure at MaxCyte, Inc. as a field scientist, working closely with cell therapy developers to optimize their gene editing workflows. He later transitioned to corporate development, where he now serves as Senior Corporate Development Manager. In his current role, Dr. Mancini leads both scientific partnerships and M&A initiatives as part of MaxCyte’s corporate development team. He works with academic and commercial cell therapy developers to assess and structure strategic collaborations, leveraging his technical expertise in cell engineering and gene editing to drive deal-making. His responsibilities include identifying and evaluating partnership and acquisition opportunities, conducting due diligence, and supporting MaxCyte’s corporate strategy, marketing, and business development efforts. Prior to his work at MaxCyte, Dr. Mancini earned his PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he specialized in primary cell gene editing, investigating the role of TERT mutations in glioblastoma. He then completed his postdoctoral training in Molecular Oncology at Genentech, further advancing his expertise in genome engineering and translational research.

Justin Eyquem, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at UC San Francisco (UCSF). He is also an affiliate of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute for Genomic Immunology. He holds Master’s degrees in BioEngineering and Genetics from the Paris School of Agronomy (AgroParisTech) and the University Paris VII. He earned his PhD in immunology and molecular biology from University Paris VII and the biotech company Cellectis, and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Michel Sadelain at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2019, he joined UCSF as a Parker Fellow and became an Assistant Professor in 2021. He is a member of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and UCSF ImmunoX. His work has been recognized by the 2019 Parker Fellow Award, the 2023 ASGCT Outstanding New Investigator Award, and the 2024 Pew-Stewart Award.

Dr. Sam Saibil is Staff Oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. His clinical practice includes patients with cutaneous malignancies as well as cancer of unknown primary. He also has a clinical interest in adoptive cell therapy and novel immunotherapies. He is involved in early-phase clinical trials of cell therapy using autologous TILs, gene-engineered T cells as well as bispecific antibodies. On the research side, he completed his PhD and postdoctoral research training in T cell biology. His current research program focuses upon the emerging field of immunometabolism and identifying strategies to manipulate metabolic pathways in immune cells to improve the efficacy of immune therapies.