Yu-Hwa Lo came to the Jacobs School in July of 1999. He has established a new lab to investigate biologically inspired photonic systems. A member of the Materials and Device Layer for the California Institute of Technology and Telecommuncations, he is collaborating with Professors Andy Kummel and William Trogler (Chemistry and Biochemistry) on early-warning biosensors. He is responsible for designing infrared photon counters in a joint effort with IBM's Almaden Research Center to build a quantum-communications system. He was Associate Professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, prior to coming to UCSD. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in electrical engineering in 1987.

Dr. Rao works at the intersection of genomics  and  image informatics, across biological scale (cells, tissue and organ). He is interested in developing multi-modal decision algorithms that link and integrate various measurements (imaging, genomics etc) to characterize disease. His algorithms for phenotypic measurements encompass data from 2D/3D microscopy, radiology and histopathology. He is also interested in methodological aspects of genomic analysis and image assessment. In the context of these investigations, Dr. Rao collaborates with clinicians, biologists, engineers and data scientists.

Alexandre Alloy obtained his PhD in computational biology at Columbia University where he used systems biology approaches to study the transcriptomics of paediatric acute leukaemia’s at the bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing levels. After graduation, he joined Bristol Myers Squibb to work as a computational biologist. His expertise revolves around immuno-oncology, biomarker identification, patient stratification and bioinformatics algorithm development.

Joshua Campbell received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from Boston University. He performed his postdoctoral research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT where he worked with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to identify novel mutational drivers of lung cancer. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine where he develops novel Bayesian approaches to analyze data from single-cell genomic technologies to analyze cellular heterogeneity in lung and prostate cancer.

Dr. Rao works at the intersection of genomics  and  image informatics, across biological scale (cells, tissue and organ). He is interested in developing multi-modal decision algorithms that link and integrate various measurements (imaging, genomics etc) to characterize disease. His algorithms for phenotypic measurements encompass data from 2D/3D microscopy, radiology and histopathology. He is also interested in methodological aspects of genomic analysis and image assessment. In the context of these investigations, Dr. Rao collaborates with clinicians, biologists, engineers and data scientists.

Yu-Jui Chiu received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California San Diego in 2017. After working in a start-up company in San Diego, he joined Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center (CEDAR) at OHSU, Oregon in 2018. His research focuses on developing single-cell platform and biomedical chip to achieve cancer detection from both tissue and liquid biopsy sample.

Miten is an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz. He did his PhD in Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics at UC Santa Cruz in the nanopore group. His prior work and research interests include developing biological methods and software for: 1) analyzing genomics data; 2) long read sequencing of DNA and RNA; 3) resolving homopolymers and base modifications; 4) the nanopore MinION and PromethION sequencing platforms; and 5) sequencing and analysis of different classes of RNA (mRNA, rRNA, tRNA, non-coding RNA). His long term interests include combining sequence and structure information from DNA (genomics), RNA (coding and non-coding), and proteins, to better understand genome organization and function.

Eric received his PhD in molecular biology from Portland State University and has extensive experience in the fields of virology, microbiology, biochemistry, and biotechnology. Eric's research was primarily focused on virus-host interactions in terrestrial hot spring environments.

Namit Kumar is currently a Principal Scientist at the division of Informatics & Predictive Sciences in Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). He received his PhD from Rutgers University, New jersey with dual major in Computational Biology and Molecular Biosciences conducting research on identifying drivers of intestinal development and disease. Prior to BMS, Dr. Kumar worked at Merck developing new single-cell sequencing methodologies like REAP-seq with applications including identifying and validating drug targets. His current research at BMS broadly focusses on using multi-omics approaches to identify clinically applicable biomarkers and indication selection strategies for drugs moving in early clinical trials.

Edwin is enthusiastic and experienced Pathologist with extensive experience in pathology, experimental animal models of lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis, immunohistochemistry (IHC), multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF), western blot (WB), DNA, RNA extraction (PCR) and digital pathology analysis. He has over 10 years of experience in research and teaching to technicians, graduate students, doctors and postdoctoral fellows. He also has extensive experience in performing standard laboratory techniques for molecular biology such as DNA and RNA extraction, cell culture, manual and automated IHC and mIF staining and experimental animal models. He is the author and co-author of more than 100 paper in lung cancer, interstitial lung diseases from human and animal models, and immunofrofiling using different image analysis-based assessment; several abstracts and presentations at national and international scientific meetings, three book chapters and many other reports on pulmonary pathology and medicine topics. He is highly training to develop and optimize immunoprofiling panels by immunohistochemistry and multiplex immunofluorescence, for immune markers to develop prognostic immune profiling for Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma and other types of cancer. Finally, he has experience and expertise in histomorphometry and digital analysis using different scanning system as Aperio AT2, Aperio IF, MultiOmixTM, Mantra and Vectra® and using different image analysis software’s as Image Pro-plus, Aperio Tool Box, GENIE, InForm, HALLO, Tissue Studio and Image Mainer.

Matt Davis PhD joined Gritstone Oncology (NASDAQ: GRTS) in 2015 and is currently the Director of Molecular Biology and Sequencing responsible for various neo-antigen discovery and translational genomics efforts.  Prior to Gritstone, Dr. Davis conducted post-doctoral research at Warp Drive Bio in the discovery biology group.  He holds a PhD in Genetics from Yale with thesis research under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Schlessinger and previous to his graduate work he conducted cancer genomics research at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute.  

Jun Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University. Prior to joining SBU, he was an assistant professor in the Chemistry Department of SUNY Albany. He received postdoctoral training in the Department of Chemistry and the NanoSystems Biology Cancer Center at the California Institute of Technology. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from Purdue University. He has received several top awards including Chorafas Foundation prize.

Dr. Ehrhardt is a biophysicist with a Ph.D. in human physiology. Throughout her career, she focused on driving biomedical research through efficient application of innovative technologies and strategies. She built and led successful teams in industry, including at Merck, where she headed a laboratory providing leading technologies for cell-based research from early discovery through manufacturing; and at BMS where Dr. Ehrhardt led and grew an international clinical assay team to robustly cover large scale registrational and translational clinical analysis generating clinical decision-driving data and mechanistic insights for immuno-oncology, cardiovascular, immunology, metabolic and rare disease studies. Before returning to Merck, Dr. Ehrhardt fulfilled one of her scientific aspirations at CHDI Foundation, designing and implementing successful clinical biomarker discovery and development strategies for Huntington’s disease. Currently, at Merck, Dr. Ehrhardt is providing strategic and technical leadership for the development and implementation of industry-leading and QC-friendly cell-based assays and models for potency determination that reflect the unique mechanisms of biologics products in clinical studies and beyond. 

Ray’s lab studies include epigenetic regulation in retinal neurons. Eukaryotic genomes acquire heritable and reversible chemical modifications that play a large role in influencing expression patterns of genes. His lab uses the developing chicken eye and the human eye to study DNA methylation, an epigenetic modifier of the genome and how this modification effects transcription in retinal neurons. Additionally, he is actively involved with developing applied genomics and bioinformatics classroom materials for implementation into undergraduate courses.

Livnat Jerby is an Assistant Professor of Genetics at Stanford University. Her research focuses on multicellular dynamics, as a disease driver and therapeutic avenue, particularly in the context of cancer immunology. In her work, she aims to identify the drivers, molecular underpinnings, and causal structure of multifactorial immune evasion mechanisms, and use this information to identify new and more effective ways to augment and unleash targeted immunity via combinatorial interventions. To address this challenge at scale, she develops integrative approaches, fusing single-cell sequencing and imaging with machine learning, genetic and environmental perturbations. 

Thus far, her research provided new perspectives to key facets of tumor biology, encompassing metabolism, genetics, and immunology. As a postdoctoral fellow in Aviv Regev's lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, she identified regulators of T cell exclusion and dysfunction. She holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Biology and obtained her PhD in 2016 from Tel Aviv University, where she worked with Eytan Ruppin and developed new ways to interrogate cancer metabolism and genetics.

This fall Livnat joined Stanford Genetics to establish a multidisciplinary lab that will harness machine learning in combination with clinical data and extensive functional testing to dissect and target immune dysregulation in cancer, aiming to leverage the versatile, interconnected function of genes, cells, and tissues for disease detection, prevention, and treatment.

Ajay Nair’s research is focused on developing computational techniques to identify cellular regulatory interactions from high-throughput data. He completed his engineering master’s degree from IIT-Delhi holding first rank and Joint-PhD in Computational Biology from IIT-Bombay and Monash University, Australia. His postdoc training was with Prof. Andrea Califano and Prof. Robert Schwabe at Columbia University. Ajay and his team have identified regulatory interaction and identified drugs in Ovarian cancer and gastric cancer as well as identified and characterized disease causing fibroblasts in COVID-19 affected lungs, human ICC and liver metastases.

Alexandre Alloy obtained his PhD in computational biology at Columbia University where he used systems biology approaches to study the transcriptomics of paediatric acute leukaemia’s at the bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing levels. After graduation, he joined Bristol Myers Squibb to work as a computational biologist. His expertise revolves around immuno-oncology, biomarker identification, patient stratification and bioinformatics algorithm development.

Yu-Hwa Lo came to the Jacobs School in July of 1999. He has established a new lab to investigate biologically inspired photonic systems. A member of the Materials and Device Layer for the California Institute of Technology and Telecommuncations, he is collaborating with Professors Andy Kummel and William Trogler (Chemistry and Biochemistry) on early-warning biosensors. He is responsible for designing infrared photon counters in a joint effort with IBM's Almaden Research Center to build a quantum-communications system. He was Associate Professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, prior to coming to UCSD. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in electrical engineering in 1987.

John M Rossi is Vice President of Translational Medicine at Syncopation Life Sciences.  John is an experienced Cell Therapy and Biotechnology leader with over 22 years of experience building robust clinical pharmacology, predictive biomarker, and correlative science processes to support oncology drug development. Most recently John was Senior Vice President of Research and Head of Translational Medicine at CERo Therapeutics. At CERo, John helped to guide Research, Process Development and Vector Sciences teams to advance preclinical initiatives. Prior to CERo, John was Senior Director and Head of Clinical Pharmacology at Kite, a Gilead Company. At Kite, John played an instrumental role in supporting global approvals of both Yescarta® and Tecartus® as well as IND approvals to advance investigational autologous T cell therapy products (KITE-363 and KITE-222). Among John’s notable achievements at Kite, he has represented the organization through numerous external scientific presentations and collaborative manuscripts with leading academic researchers in the cell therapy field. Significant scientific accomplishments include the discovery of novel metrics to characterize CAR T cells based on functionality and fitness, novel biomarker knowledge helping to elucidate CAR T-cell mechanism of action in humans, mechanistic information on CAR-related toxicities, novel insights into the biology of the tumor immune microenvironment, and the pivotal role of IL-15 in the context of CAR T-cell function. John began his tenure in clinical pharmacology and biomarker development at Amgen in 2002, leading global biomarker development for Phase III registrational trials in oncology (trebananib, AMG386), and preclinical, first-in-human and Phase II clinical trials (AMG780, AMG224 and AMG176). John has co-authored over 35 publications in the field of cell therapy and is co-inventor on 9 issued or submitted patents. John earned his Master of Science degree in Molecular Biology at Portland State University and his B.S. degree in Biology at Pitzer College in Claremont CA.

Sam Shrivastava is the Chairman, Founder, and CEO of Asha Therapeutics, a neuro-centric biotechnology company creating de novo compounds through its proprietary AI-driven tech platform. Asha’s lead assets have demonstrated efficacy in murine models and human cells for indications including AD, PD, ischemic stroke, and cancer.

Losing both of her parents to cancer at a young age, Dr. Jen Elliott has devoted her career to advancing oncology research and enhancing the patient experience. With over 23 years’ experience spanning the Human Genome Project, the launch of gene editing and global companion diagnostics implementation Jen welcomes the opportunity to explore the latest breakthroughs and challenges in the liquid biopsy landscape at the annual NGIO event.

Rajkumar Noubade is an Immunologist and Senior Scientist in Oncology department at Amgen San Francisco. His lab focusses on investigating ways to exploit components of tumor microenvironment to potentiate anti-tumor immunity.

Dr. Sarbajit Mukherjee is a gastrointestinal medical oncologist with a research focus on novel clinical trials and cancer immunotherapy. During his fellowship at University of Oklahoma, Dr. Mukherjee also earned a Master’s degree in clinical and translational science. His current work involves understanding the biology of gastrointestinal cancers and designing novel clinical trials to improve patient outcomes. He has led over a dozen clinical trials as a Principal Investigator (PI) and received six grants as a PI or co-investigator. Many of his clinical trials are investigator-initiated and grant-funded through national agencies. His work has resulted in several national/international presentations, awards, and peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Mukherjee frequently serves on national/international guidelines panels and grant review panels. He is invested in teaching and mentoring his junior colleagues as well as organizing and moderating educational and scientific meetings. 

Paul Lammers, MD, MSc, joined Triumvira Immunologics as President and CEO in January 2018, for which he raised a $ 55 million Series A round of financing. Before Triumvira, Dr. Lammers served as President & CEO at Mirna Therapeutics, for which company he raised $160 million through venture capital and Federal and State government funding, as well as a public listing on NASDAQ. Previously, he served as Chief Medical Officer and Head of US Product Development for EMD Serono. During his early industry tenure, Dr. Lammers also held various executive/senior management positions in clinical development, medical and regulatory affairs, at different pharmaceutical companies, as well as at small public and privately held biotech companies. Dr. Lammers serves as Lead Independent Director for publicly-traded Salarius Pharmaceuticals, and as Director for private biotech company, Immunomet

Stefan Glück, MD, PhD, FRCPC is medical oncologist and currently is VP, Head Oncology franchise in Medical affairs at Regeneron. He leads a fast growing team of internal experts in the field of Hematology and Oncology. Prior to that he was V.P. Global Medical Affairs, at Celgene Corporation since October 2014 until December 2019. He oversaw oncology activities worldwide, as well as the Immuno-Oncology program in solid tumors and hematology. He also contributed to activities of Celgene around Early Assets.

He previously served as a Sylvester Professor in the Department of Medicine at Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Florida until September 2014. From 2003–2008, he was the Clinical Director of the Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute, and from January 2009 - December 2010 Assistant Director of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Chief, Division Hematology & Medical Oncology. He has been a PI of 37 clinical studies of breast cancer in Miami, as well as investigator in numerous scientific, translational projects. Before his move to Miami, Dr. Glück was Director of Southern Alberta Breast Cancer Program at the Tom Baker Cancer Center, a Professor in the departments of oncology, medicine, pharmacology & therapeutics at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and Deputy Head, Dept. of Oncology at the University of Calgary. He completed his medical studies at the Free University of West Berlin, Germany. The internship in Berlin was followed by residency in internal medicine and fellowship in hematology at the Heinrich Heine Universität in Düsseldorf, Germany, and a medical oncology & bone marrow transplant fellowship at the Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada.

Dr. Glück was presented the “America’s Top Oncologists” 2008 award from Consumers’ Research Council of America, as well as “Best Doctors in America” honor since 2006, and has annually earned that prestige every year to 2014. This award was warranted after less than 3 years of working in the United States.

Dr. Alison Crawford is an Associate Director of immuno-oncology at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. She has >18 years of immunology research experience, including > 9 years in the pharmaceutical industry. At Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, her team is responsible for IND-enabling studies as well as mechanistic studies using bispecific antibodies for oncology indications. She led the in vivo pre-clinical research efforts on REGN4018 (MUC16xCD3) and REGN5668 (MUC16xCD28) to advance the antibodies through to IND submission. Dr. Crawford completed her BSc in Immunology from Glasgow University before being admitted to the Wellcome Trust Ph.D. program at Edinburgh University where she focused on T cell memory. Her post-doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania examined T cell exhaustion during chronic viral infection and the use of checkpoint blockade to alleviate this exhaustion.