Mr. Dornsife, along with his wife, are international philanthropists committed to using their time, talent, and resources to help address a wide range of societal problems including a steadfast focus on improving the quality of life for all people. The Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at USC is named in the Dornsife’s honor. A 1965 graduate of the USC Marshall School of Business, he was a shot-putter on the University’s track team that won two national championships. He is a USC trustee; Vice President of the HEDCO Foundation, a Dornsife Family foundation whose mission is health and educational improvement; Chairman of the Herrick Corporation; and a board member of the Yosemite Conservancy. He is a major donor to World Vision, an international humanitarian agency providing water, sanitation, and hygiene(WASH) to 24 African countries, reaching over 20 million people with WASH today and proposed to reach over 35 million people by 2025 and currently recognized as of the largest water projects in the history of the world. Mr. Dornsife is driven to address unmet needs in hard-to-treat cancers.

Dr. Johnson is a MD/PhD graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who received his clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital. Following faculty appointments at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania and appointment within the HHMI as an Associate Investigator., he joined Merck & Co. during the “most admired” years where he ran and expanded several basic science laboratories along with a pre-clinical whole animal group and was a member of a number of clinical project teams., He then joined Chiron as VP of Pharmacology and Pre-clinical Affairs and a standing member of the Clinical Development Committee ultimately moving to the Corporate Development group to assist with licensing and M&A efforts. Dr. Johnson joined Kosan Biosciences as the VP in charge of pre-clinical, clinical, and corporate development when Kosan was a platform and pre-IPO company and helped build a strong portfolio of oncology drug candidates across Phase 1 to 3 clinical trials along with leading the significant licensing deals. After Kosan became a public company, Dr. Johnson advanced to Chief Medical Officer and ultimately CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. Kosan was subsequently sold to Bristol Myers Squib as part of their “String-of-Pearls” strategy. Dr. Johnson is a Trustee for the Hope Fund for Cancer Research and the Chief Medical Officer of the Lazarex Cancer Foundation.

For more information on Carol Stuckley, please visit her Linkedin page.

Dr. Hannah has a very rich over 30 year+ experience across the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries working on the development of investigational antineoplastic therapy (solid tumor and hematology) with a focus on molecularly targeted therapies. She has filed 36 US INDS (along with multiple international filings) and has played significant roles in the broad marketing approval of many anticancer therapeutics including talazoparib (Talzenna®); enzalutamide (Xtandi®); defibrotide (Difitelio®); carfilzomib (Kyprolis®); sunitinib (Sutent®); toceranib (Palladia®); irinotecan (Camptosar®) and filgrastim (Neupogen®). Dr. Hannah is an expert in translational medicine with parallel companion diagnostic development and has worked with many of the oncologists who are key opinion leaders in their respective fields. She has led in-licensing teams for oncology drug products and guided co-development programs between biopharmaceutical companies and between pharmaceutical companies and governmental agencies (e.g., National Cancer Institute). Dr. Hannah received her B.A in biochemistry and immunology from Harvard University and her M.B.B.S. (equivalent to a U.S. M.D.) from the University of Saint Andrews. She is a member of ASCO, AACR, ASH, ESMO, SITC, ASGCT and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Dr. Roh received her B.S. in Chemistry from Boston College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Boston University School of Medicine. She then completed her postdoctoral training in stem cell biology and cancer at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She is currently serving as director of Gene Therapy R&D and also head of both the R&D and pre-clinical teams. She oversees GenVivo’s vector platform and pipeline development, as well as pre-clinical studies at multiple CROs. Prior to joining GenVivo, Dr. Roh worked at Aliva Biopharmaceuticals (now Ablexis) in humanized mouse antibody mapping.

Ms. Svay has a BS in Cell/Molecular Biology from University of Washington and a BS in Chemical Engineering from Washington State University, an MS in Bioprocess Engineering from Keck Graduate Institute, and she is expected to receive her PhD in Biologics Process Engineering from Jefferson Institute of Bioprocessing in June 2025. She was instrumental in initiating, organizing, and directing many of the courses and programs within the Bioprocessing Engineering Operations of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center and was a co-founding Program Director for the Master of Engineering Degree in Biopharmaceutical Science at KGI. Along with other members of the faculty, she trained several generations of high performing level biopharmaceutical engineers through developing, educating, and hands-on training on the best practices for biomanufacturing of biologicals and emerging therapies including gene therapies. Through her responsibilities she developed and maintained professional relationships with many of the biopharmaceutical industry’s leading executives and opinion leaders.

Mr. Constantinescu is a graduate of UC San Diego with degrees in BS, Bioengineering and Master of Engineering, Bioengineering. He began his career as a Manufacturing Associate at Baxter Healthcare. Through a series of purchases, he worked at Baxalta, Shire and Takeda and worked his way up to Associate Director in Manufacturing Sciences at Takeda. During his tenure at Takeda he managed groups in commercial manufacturing supporting purification, cell culture, drug products, and assays. In his final position at Takeda in the RAPID group, he provided technical and methodological leadership for complex, high impact process/product investigations, such as plant shutdowns, patient stock-outs and events material to investors. His investigation responsibilities covered all 60+ global manufacturing sites, internal and external, across the small molecule, plasma, and biologics networks.

Ms. Albino has a BS in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from UCLA and an MPH in Public Health from Cal State, Northridge. Geraldine began her career at Alpha Therapeutics in QC Microbiology, followed by positions with increasing responsibilities at CancerVax Corp, and Brachytherapy Services rising to Quality Assurance Manager. She was a Center Quality Manager at Biomat USA, Inc. and a Quality Assurance Manager at Agensys. Ms. Albino has extensive Quality Assurance/Quality Control/GMP experience promoting continuous quality improvement, audit readiness, and compliance with government regulations/guidelines, company quality standards, and customer requirements for biopharmaceutical and medical devices manufacturing companies.

Ms. Liu has a B.S. in Chemistry from Xiamen University and a M.S. in Chemistry from Cal State University, Northridge. She began her career as QC analyst II at CTL Immuno Therapies and made a progression from QC Analyst II to QC Analytical Manager at Agensys, Inc. During her years with Agensys, she led QC team successfully supported over ten IND filings, and one of the products Ms. Liu’s team worked on has eventually made to commercialization. She is experienced in many aspects of QC operations, especially in trouble-shooting, OOS/OOT investigation, assay qualification/validation, instrumentation, and cell-based assays. She has particular experience in QC strategy, novel assay development, close interactions with QA and cGMP manufacturing, and regulatory issues.

Mr. Romeo has a BS in Biology from California Lutheran University and a Master of Engineering in Bioengineering from UC San Diego. He has over 23 years of experience in the biotechnology and Cell and Gene Therapy field working mostly in Manufacturing Sciences and Technology (MSAT) and Manufacturing Operations supporting Clinical to Commercial products. He began his career in Manufacturing operations as an entry level manufacturing associate in purification at Baxter Biosciences, before transitioning into a more technical career path in MSAT. Within MSAT Matthew performed technical transfers, facility start-up, equipment start-up, process support and continuous improvement starting as Technical Support Associate and working his way up to Associate Director of Site MSAT responsible for production support of Drug Substance, Drug Product and Finishing Operations over the course of 14 years working for Genentech, Amgen, and Takeda (formerly Baxter, Baxalta and Shire). Following this role, he took on roles as Associate Director Drug Substance and Drug Product Operations before moving on to the Cell and Gene Therapy world working as Director of technical transfer and product owner roles at Instil Bio.

Sarah Collins is an experienced leader who brings over 15 years of expertise in human resources, team development, and management to GenVivo. She has worked with large global organizations such as Samsung, Gap, and Calvin Klein, where she focused on building high-performing teams through recruitment, performance management, employee engagement, and retention. Sarah earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Mills College, holds a certificate in Human Resources Management from Cornell University, and is an accredited Human Resources Professional.

Dr. Kasahara has been working in the field of cancer research and gene therapy vector development for over 30 years. Dr. Kasahara’s research focuses on the improvement of vector technologies to make gene therapy more practical and clinically useful. To do so, the Kasahara Lab has pursued strategies for utilizing conventional vectors more efficaciously when applied to specific diseases, and developing the next generation of viral vectors for more efficient gene delivery. They have most recently developed novel vector systems that include cancer-targeted viruses, chimeric hybrid viral vectors, and tumor-selectively replicating viruses. Dr. Kasahara has held faculty positions in the Dept. of Pathology/Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at University of Southern California (USC), Dept. of Medicine/Dept. of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Dept. of Cell Biology/Dept. of Pathology at University of Miami and currently Dept. of Neurological Surgery/Dept. of Radiation Oncology at UCSF. As an academic researcher, he previously established the first Vector Core & Shared Resource facilities for gene delivery vector research at both USC and UCLA. He pioneered the development of tumor-selective retroviral replicating vectors (RRV) for gene therapy of cancer, and was scientific co-founder of Tocagen Inc., which evaluated this technology in first-in-human multi-center Phase I through international Phase III clinical trials. Dr. Kasahara was past President of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy of Cancer (ISCGT), and is currently a member of the Board of Directors for the Japan Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (JSGCT). Dr. Kasahara obtained his medical degree in 1986 from Tokyo Medical & Dental University, completed post-graduate clinical training and Board certification in Laboratory Medicine / Clinical Pathology at UCSF, where he also received his Ph.D. in 1994 from the Interdepartmental Program in Endocrinology for his research with Professor Y. W. Kan, a pioneer in genetic diagnostics.

A translational biologist and laboratory researcher, Dr. Ashworth’s research focuses on understanding breast cancer genetics to improve the treatment and care of patients. He was a key part of the team that identified the BRCA2 breast cancer susceptibility gene that is linked to an increased risk for some types of cancer. Ten years later, he discovered how to kill BRCA1- and 2-related tumor cells by treating them with PARP inhibitors which are drugs that increase the damage caused by the broken DNA repair machinery in those cells. Three different PARP inhibitors are now approved by the FDA. Prior to joining UCSF in January 2015, he served as Chief Executive of the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Director of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre in London, United Kingdom. In 2016, Ashworth and UCSF’s Pamela Munster, M.D., established the Center for BRCA Research, one of only two such centers in the US. The mission of the Center is to provide a place for families with BRCA and other mutations to receive personalized care and planning for their long-term health and well-being. He also started the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF CAN) that launched in 2016. SF CAN is the first comprehensive cancer plan for a major city and its partners include the City of San Francisco and numerous health and community organizations. Ashworth also chairs the UC Cancer Consortium, an alliance of the five UC cancer centers holding comprehensive cancer center status, the highest designation possible from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute. Ashworth is an elected member of EMBO, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has received a number of scientific prizes and awards, including The European Society of Medical Oncology Lifetime Achievement Award, the David T. Workman Memorial Award of the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, the Meyenburg Foundation’s Cancer Research Award, the Basser Global Prize, the Genetics Society Medal, and the 2017 Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in Basic Science from the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Dr. Ashworth received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University College London. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Department of Biochemistry, University College London.

An internationally recognized cancer geneticist and oncologist, Dr. Gruber, is a physician-scientist who focuses his clinical practice and research program on precision medicine and the genomics of cancer in order to improve treatment and care for cancer patients and their families. Dr. Gruber is an expert in Lynch syndrome and hereditary susceptibility to colorectal cancer, and he has broad experience in the care of patients and families with inherited susceptibility to cancer. He currently leads the Center for Precision Medicine at City of Hope. Dr. Gruber earned his Master of Public Health and Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale University. He earned his medical degree and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and completed fellowships in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins and in clinical medical genetics at University of Michigan. Dr. Gruber has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1998 and is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation.

Dr. Kasahara has been working in the field of cancer research and gene therapy vector development for over 30 years. Dr. Kasahara’s research focuses on the improvement of vector technologies to make gene therapy more practical and clinically useful. To do so, the Kasahara Lab has pursued strategies for utilizing conventional vectors more efficaciously when applied to specific diseases, and developing the next generation of viral vectors for more efficient gene delivery. They have most recently developed novel vector systems that include cancer-targeted viruses, chimeric hybrid viral vectors, and tumor-selectively replicating viruses. Dr. Kasahara has held faculty positions in the Dept. of Pathology/Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at University of Southern California (USC), Dept. of Medicine/Dept. of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Dept. of Cell Biology/Dept. of Pathology at University of Miami and currently Dept. of Neurological Surgery/Dept. of Radiation Oncology at UCSF. As an academic researcher, he previously established the first Vector Core & Shared Resource facilities for gene delivery vector research at both USC and UCLA. He pioneered the development of tumor-selective retroviral replicating vectors (RRV) for gene therapy of cancer, and was scientific co-founder of Tocagen Inc., which evaluated this technology in first-in-human multi-center Phase I through international Phase III clinical trials. Dr. Kasahara was past President of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy of Cancer (ISCGT), and is currently a member of the Board of Directors for the Japan Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (JSGCT). Dr. Kasahara obtained his medical degree in 1986 from Tokyo Medical & Dental University, completed post-graduate clinical training and Board certification in Laboratory Medicine / Clinical Pathology at UCSF, where he also received his Ph.D. in 1994 from the Interdepartmental Program in Endocrinology for his research with Professor Y. W. Kan, a pioneer in genetic diagnostics.

Dr. Shamlou has considerable experience in both academia and industry. He served as the George B. and Joy Rathmann Professor and Director of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center at Keck Graduate Institute at Claremont College and most recently at Thomas Jefferson University as the founding Vice President & Executive Director of Bioprocessing. Between his time in Academia, Dr. Shamlou also advised Eli Lilly on process design and GMP production for over 10 years. He also served as an adviser to Celltheon on developing its scalable production platform for accelerating GMP production. Dr. Shamlou was a Professor and Deputy Head of Department of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at University College London. His research at UCL was supported by 20 different industry and government grants and 35 PhD and postdoctoral researchers. Dr. Shamlou has served on several national and international scientific committees and advisory boards, and he has supervised and co-supervised doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. He has published two books and more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, invited lectures, and seminars. Dr. Shamlou received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering and was a postdoctoral fellow in polymer processing at the University of Bradford in the UK.

The Wang laboratory focuses on an emerging field of “immunobioengineering” with the aim of employing engineering tools and principles to quantitatively understand the immune system in health and disease and to develop novel molecular and cellular immunotherapies by precisely modulating disease-specific immune responses. Dr. Wang is the director for the Center for ImmunoEngineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. He also served as the Chief Scientific Officer for Simcere Pharmaceuticals and is currently the Scientific Founders and Advisory Board for Appia Bio. Dr. Wang received his B.S. in Material Science and Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.