During Wolf Noe’s 26-year career in the Biotech industry, he played a leading role in cell culture process development, cell culture based manufacturing, and manufacturing alliances within various organizations. During the most recent years, Wolf was focusing on “new technologies” and “new directions for biologics”. Wolf has also been involved in many scientific organizations, such as ESACT, CCE, IBC, where he played a pivotal role in the industrial cell culture society. He joined IDEC in 2001 as head of Process Sciences where he focused mainly on high titer processes in upstream and downstream on monoclonal antibodies. After the merger between Biogen and IDEC in late 2003, Wolf was promoted to the role of Vice President of Biopharmaceutical Development for Biogen-IDEC development for both east and west coast locations. Since 2009, Wolf is in charge of Strategic Development and Technical Alliances at BIIB.

Arne Skerra is Full Professor at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Technical University of Munich, TUM), where he heads the Institute of Biological Chemistry. He holds a Diplom degree in chemistry from the Technische Universitaet Darmstadt and a PhD in Biochemistry from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen. After post-doctoral studies at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, and a group leader position at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main he became Associate Professor for Protein Chemistry at the TU Darmstadt. In 1998 he moved to TU Munich, where he was appointed to the Chair of Biological Chemistry at the Life Science Campus Weihenstephan. Arne Skerra started his scientific career in the field of protein engineering, where he pioneered the biosynthesis of functional antibody fragments in E. coli. Since then, he made several other important contributions and he is inventor on numerous patents. Dr. Skerra has authored more than 150 scientific publications and he received several fellowships and awards. He is Chairman of the section 'Biochemistry' in the Society of German Chemists (GDCh). His main field of research is the rational or combinatorial design and the structural analysis of proteins, with emphasis on biopharmaceutical applications.

Olivier Heudi obtained his diploma of advanced studies in physiology and pharmacology at Pasteur Institute Paris (France) in 1995 and his Ph.D. in life Sciences at the University of Angers France in 1999. He previously gained experience in the analytical field at GSK Stevenage (UK) where he has implemented LC-ICPMS and LC-MS/MS for the quantification of peptide in biological fluids and at Nestlé Lausanne (CH) where he developed LC-MS/MS methods for the identification and quantification of vitamins and natural ingredients in food products and in raw materials. Then he joined Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (Singapore) where he was leading the bioanalytical laboratory. In December 2006, Olivier was appointed as laboratory head in the DMPK group where he is now working on LC-MS/MS method development and implementation for the quantification of monoclonal antibodies, oligonucleotides and small molecules in biological matrixes. Olivier is active as reviewer in several analytical papers and has great interest in new technologies with special attention on large molecules..

Jijie Gu

Jijie Gu received his Ph.D in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1996. He did his post-doctoral training in immunology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School and cancer research at Harvard School of Public Health. He joined Abbott Laboratories in 2002 initially working on antibody generation and engineering. He has then worked on several therapeutic antibody and dual-specific antibody programs with a focus on target validation, assay development, and protein engineering. More recently, he has worked on developing novel forms of antibody-based therapeutics including multi-specific antibody and monovalent antibody technologies. He has also led biologics discovery project teams and has delivered drug candidates for preclinical/clinical development . He holds several patents and is the author of many peer-reviewed scientific publications.

U. Haupts received his PhD in 1996 at the Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried. He then performed a two-year postdoc at the Cornell University in the groups of Prof. McLafferty and Prof. Webb working in the field of mass spectrometry and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. After a three years period at SmithKline Beecham UK in the New Assay Technology group he joined Direvo Biotech in 2001. Since the  2008 aquisition of Direvo by Bayer Schering Pharma  he is now in their Biologics Research Germany department heading the Assay Technology and Analytics group. Both at Direvo and BSP the focus is on the optimization and engineering of Biologics.

Jean Francoise Mayaux graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris
PhD Thesis in Enzymology (1981) and Molecular Biology (1984). In 1992 he became Head of Molecular Biology, then Biotechnology at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer (RPR) and Head of HIV Research Program from 1990 to 1993. In 1997 ne moved to the position of Head of Vector Development & Production in Gencell (Gene Therapy subsidiary of RPR) and became Global Head of Biotechnology (Research) at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer in the year 2000. He then moved to Aventis Pharma in 2004 and became Lead Generation Coordinator for Aventis Paris (coordination of upstream Discovery Research platforms). In 2007 he held the position of Head of Genomic Sciences- Paris (Sanofi-Aventis Discovery Research) and became Global Head, Biotherapeutics & Protein Sciences (Disc. Res.) in 2010.

Sara Gamberini obtained a Medical Biotechnology Master Degree in 2002 and a Human Genetics Doctorate Degree in 2007 at Turin University.
She has been working as a Molecular Biology Researcher in the Biotechnology In Vitro Biological Quality Control Department at Merck Serono Ivrea Site since March 2006. She set up and validated according to GMPs principles a method for microbial identification by DNA analysis. This method is currently used for identification of microbial contaminants in samples from Merck Serono production sites. She is also involved in many validation processes within the Biotechnology Department.
Before moving to pharmaceutical industry she worked in the field of Molecular Oncology and in the field of Molecular Epidemiology at Turin University.

David Humphreys graduated with a first class honours degree in molecular biology from the University of Durham (UK) in 1992 before completing a PhD at the University of Birmingham (UK) in 1995. His PhD investigated the folding and augmented expression of heterologous proteins in the E. coli periplasm, using protein disulphide isomerase as a chaperone.
David joined UCB-Celltech in 1995 where he first applied his scientific skills to many aspects of the engineering of antibody constructs and their expression in various hosts. Research interests have included; Fab and antibody engineering, E. coli strain engineering, protein secretion and folding and improved PEGylation strategies. His work has resulted in multiple peer reviewed publications, reviews and granted patents.

Dr Eric Ezan is the head of the Laboratory for Drug Metabolism at the CEA (Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique, Saclay/Paris). His laboratory experience principally concerns the development of immunological methods and mass spectrometry for the discovery of biomarkers and quantification of small molecular weight drugs and recombinant proteins for preclinical and clinical applications.

Bernard Vanhove, PhD, studied immunology in Brussels and in Vienna and was recruited by the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) in 1999 to develop novel immunosuppressive approaches in the field of organ transplantation. He has been the principal investigator of national and international grants (French Research National Agency, Roche Organ Transplantation Research Foundation) and is now a team leader at the Institute of Transplantation-Urology-Nephrology at the University of Nantes, France, where he is studying mechanisms of transplant tolerance. He is one of the co-founders of TcL Pharma, a French biotech company devoted to immunointervention in transplantation and autoimmunity.

Michael Rudolf received a PhD degree in immunology from the University of Berne, Switzerland in 1996. Between 1997 and 2000, Michael carried out his post-doctoral training at Loyola University in Chicago, where he worked in the field of tumor immunology, Papilloma virus and cell culture techniques. In 2000 he joined Biogen Idec in San Diego as a staff research scientist, where he was responsible for the preclinical development of monoclonal antibody candidates targeting tumor cells as well as designing in vivo models for proof-of-concept studies. In late 2005 Michael was recruited back to Switzerland to help to spin out the newly founded Kenta Biotech from the parent company. Under his guidance Kenta Biotech has build up a successful R&D program, which developed several new antibodies from the discovery phase to preclinical POC in animals and to clinical development.

Dr. Jens Herold

Jens Herold is ”Head of Project Management” at TRION Pharma and member of its Management Team since 2009. He joined the company in 2006 as Project Manager and brought in this function removab® successfully to the market. Before that, Dr. Herold managed early development projects at Vakzine Projekt Management and held several management positions with SWITCH Biotech. He was also a co-founder of Iguazu Biosciences, San Francisco. Jens Herold is a biologist by training and received his Ph.D. from the University of Würzburg for his work on the replication of coronaviruses in 1995 and did his post-doctoral research in virus replication at the University of Würzburg and UCSF, San Francisco. Jens Herold is author of more than 20 publications and patents.

Prof. Dr. Melvyn Little

Prof. Little is the scientific founder of Affimed and has been active for more than 20 years in antibody research both in academia and at Affimed. After postdoctoral work on the mechanism of action of estradiol at the Max-Planck-Institute for Cell Biology in Wilhelmshaven, he joined the scientific staff of the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and habilitated at the Faculty of Biology, University Heidelberg ("Structure and Function of Microtubule Proteins"). From 1990 to 2000 he headed the research group "Recombinant Antibodies" at the DKFZ. Prof. Little is co-founder of the biotech company Affitech A/S (Oslo, Norway). Together with Dr. Tomlinson (CSO of former Domantis, UK), he was initiator of the "1st International Recombinant Antibody Congress", which took place in Berlin in May 2002. He is editor of the recently published book “Recombinant Antibodies for Immunotherapy” (Cambridge University Press) and has been an invited speaker at numerous international meetings on the subject of antibody engineering.

Professor S. Louise Cosby, a member of staff of Queen’s University of Belfast for over 20 year, was appointed to the Chair of Microbiology in 2002. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (London); Previous/present board membership: the Biochemistry and Cell Biology Committee, BBSRC, UK; Biochemistry Board, Science Foundation Ireland (previous chair of a Bioscience panel); Infections and Immunity and Host Defence Panel, Health Research Board, Ireland; Gerson Lerman’s Group’s Healthcare Advisor’s Board, USA. SLC is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Neurovirology, USA and an external assessor for appointments and promotions in Medical Microbiology, University of Malaysia.

Céline Monnet, PhD, is Project leader in the Antibody Engineering laboratory of MILLEGEN SA since January 2007. Dr Monnet is a Molecular and Cellular Biologist, with an expertise in recombinant antibody engineering and phage display screening processes. She obtained her PhD from the University of Paris XI in 2001, specialising in antibody engineering at the CEA/bioMérieux research Unit, (Saclay, France). Previously, she held a 2 year research-fellowship in neurobiology at the Fer à Moulin research institute in Paris (France) and a 3 year research-position in neurovirology at the CPTP research institute at the Toulouse University Hospital (France). She is co-author of 10 peer-reviewed publications in international journals and co-inventor on 1 patent.

Professor Jeff Evans is Professor of Translational Cancer Research at the Centre for Oncology and Applied Pharmacology, University of Glasgow, Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Glasgow, and Group Leader (Translational Cancer Therapeutics Group) at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow. He is also Deputy Head of the Division of Cancer Sciences and Molecular Pathology, University of Glasgow.

His initial medical training was at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, and he trained in Medical Oncology at Charing Cross and St. George’s Hospitals, London. His clinical interests are in Upper GI Cancers and Melanoma, and his research interests are in the pre-clinical and clinical development of novel anti-cancer agents including molecular targeted therapies and gene therapy. He leads the Phase I clinical trials and drug development team in Glasgow, and runs the Analytical Services Unit. The Translational Cancer Therapeutics Group is supported by Cancer Research UK and is developing novel laboratory models to determine how novel molecularly-targeted anti-cancer agents might best be evaluated in subsequent clinical trials, and is developing bio-markers of anti-tumour activity to specific agents that can be applied to biological samples collected from patients in clinical trials of novel anti-cancer agents.

Professor Evans is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London), a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and a Member of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland. He is a member of the Scholarship Committee of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, a member of the National Cancer Research Network Upper GI Cancer Clinical Studies Group, Cancer Research UK New Agents Committee, and a member of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Cancer and of The Open Cancer Journal. He is a former member of the Cancer Research UK Feasibility Studies Committee, of the Executive Committee of the British Association for Cancer Research, of the MRCP (UK) Part II Examination Board, of the AICR (Association for International Cancer Research) Scientific Advisory Committee, and a former member of the UICC (International Union against Cancer) American Cancer Society Beginning Investigators Fellowships Committee, and the UICC Translational Cancer Research Fellowships Committee.

Frédéric LEGROS, PhD, Director, Business Developmenent and Technical Support, joined Vivalis in January 2008. Dr LEGROS is a molecular and cellular Biologist. Before joining Vivalis, he obtained his PhD from the University of Paris VII in 2002. He worked at the Inserm Research Unit 523 (Hopital Pitié Salpetrière, Paris, France) during 3 years and then joined the technology transfer office of the Institut Pasteur (Paris) where he was in charge of the therapeutic proteins technologies. He is co-author of several peer-reviewed publications in international journals.

Syd Johnson, Ph.D., V.P. of Antibody Engineering at MacroGenics, Inc., has over twenty years of industrial experience encompassing all aspects of the antibody engineering field.  Prior to joining MacroGenics in 2001, he spent eleven years at MedImmune, Inc., where he led the preclinical efforts to develop humanized monoclonal antibodies.  Dr. Johnson is the inventor of Synagis, MedImmune’s anti-RSV product, which is still the only licensed monoclonal antibody product for prevention of viral infection.  Prior to that, he worked for six years at Genex Corporation, during which time he was involved in pioneering work in the development of single chain Fv technology for the production of antibody fragments in E. coli.  He currently oversees all aspects of  monoclonal antibody development and protein engineering projects at MacroGenics, from antigen design through process development and tech transfer to manufacturing.

Titus Kretzschmar (PhD, biochemistry) graduated from the University of Hannover (Germany) in 1992. Since then he has been working in the biotech/pharma environment. Main affiliations include Ciba-Geigy AG (Basel), where he set up systems for selection of antibodies by phage display, and MorphoSys AG (Munich-Martinsried), where the work with phage display resulted in the commercialization of the “HuCAL GOLD” antibody libraries. In 2004 he was appointed to lead the R&D efforts of the amaxa AG, a Cologne-based biotech firm that provides devices and protocols for the “nucleofection” of primary cells and other hard-to-transfect cell types. After the acquisition of amaxa by the Lonza AG (Basel) in 2008 he became Lonza`s CSO & Head of LIFT (“Lonza Innovation for Future Technologies”). With the beginning of 2010 he returned to the biotech world and joined as CSO the Delenex Therapeutics AG (Zurich-Schlieren), a VC-financed company founded in 2009 that develops the next generation of antibody fragments for therapeutic applications.

In his current position, UB leads a Protein Engineering unit (Biologics Engineering cc Roche-Glycart) within Roche Pharma Research in Penzberg, Germany. Prior to that, he served as CSO in the functional genetics and Pharmacogenetics companies, Xantos and Epidauros (now Beckmann Coulter) respectively. His Ph.D thesis covered the development of expression systems for bacterial production of recombinant reteplase (at Boehringer Mannheim). After his thesis, he worked as Postoc and Associate Scientist at the NIH/NCI (I. Pastan Lab) on antibody stabilization/engineering and recombinant immunotoxins.

Dr. Cao is a trained immunologist and molecular biologist, who obtained a PhD in Molecular Genetics in 2001 from Fudan University in Shanghai. Qingyu is active in the field of protein immunogenicity screening and risk mitigation fields and her past research focused on T-cell activation, cell cycle control and apoptosis, carried out at the Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology (Univ. Rochester, Rochester, NY). She has a wide range of research experiences in molecular and cellular immunology. She was in charge of business development and scientific project management in Algonomics, leader in pre-clinical immunogenicity screening services, now part of the Lonza Applied Protein Services group. Before joining Algonomics. Dr. Cao has worked in Sanofi-Pasteur where she focused on the field of market research and analysis of new vaccines feasibilities.

7 years ago Anne B. Tolstrup joined the Danish biotech company Symphogen, where she holds the position as Director for the Antibody Expression department. Here, her focus has been to develop and implement strategies for cell line development and manufacturing of recombinant antibodies, including recombinant polyclonal antibodies, a new class of therapeutics that Symphogen has brought into clinical development.
Prior to joining Symphogen, Anne worked with drug discovery in the Danish biotech companies Inoxell and Pharmexa, holding positions as Director and Project Manager 1997-2003.
Anne has 20 years experience with mammalian cell cultivation and has worked on multiple drug discovery and development projects. She has extensive experience in collaborating with CMOs and CROs.

Yasmina Abdiche

Yasmina Abdiche is an Associate Research Fellow at Pfizer’s biotherapeutic site in South San Francisco, California, formerly Rinat Neuroscience, which she joined in 2004. She leads the Biosensor Group that supports multiple projects at all stages of research using complementary label-free technologies including Biacore, ProteOn, Octet, and KinExA.
 
Prior to joining Rinat-Pfizer, she spent four years as a post-doc in Professor David Myszka’s lab at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. She focused on optimizing methods to characterize the interactions of small molecules with proteins and lipids using Biacore and comparing these results to solution methods.  She played a role in establishing carbonic anhydrase as a benchmark model system in the biosensor community and also contributed ideas of functionality to early versions of the Scrubber data analysis program, which has evolved into a sophisticated tool used across several biosensor platforms. She graduated from Oxford University, UK with a PhD in Biological Chemistry and a Masters degree in Chemistry.

Andy can draw on 28 years experience in biomedical sciences since graduating from University College London.  Andy joined Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) in 1991 following a PhD and post doc studying antibody mediated autoimmune diseases in London and Oxford.  At CAT Andy was one of the pioneers in antibody engineering by phage display and led the project team that discovered and optimised the anti TNF-alpha monoclonal antibody adalimumab (Humira™), the first fully human antibody to be licensed for therapeutic use. Since joining Quotient Bioresearch in 2005 Andy has managed a research team that used LC-MS/MS to discover novel biomarkers which has led to the development of BioMS™, Quotient’s platform for protein quantification by mass spectrometry.  Andy also oversaw the installation of the Gyrolab® immunoassay platform at Quotient Bioresearch which has been used in numerous studies over a wide range of different therapeutic proteins over the past three years.