Sarah is Director of the Cell Therapy Manufacturing Unit at Celyad, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapies for cancer. She has over 10 years of experience in cell therapy, biomedical research, development and quality control.She is a pharmacist from education and has a PhD in pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, specialised in stem cell biology. In 2010, she joined Promethera BioSciences, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of cell therapy products based on allogeneic adult stem cell technology to treat liver diseases. She headed the R&D, QC and Preclinical Departments. In 2015, she joined Celyad. Sarah initially led the immune-oncology program at R&D level, focused on technology transfer, product characterization and optimization. In 2016, she became Head of the QC Department, covering release of clinical products and raw material, analytical method development and translational research activities. In 2020, all operational activities including Production, QC, Validation and Tech transfer of processes, methods, equipment, raw material and viral vector became under her responsibility.

Dr. Viswanathan is a Scientist at the Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network, and an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and at the Department of Medicine of the University of Toronto. Her research is focused on developing anti-inflammatory cell based therapies including next generation mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) therapies and immunotherapies. Dr. Viswanathan’s lab is also focused on bioprocess optimization and translation of these cell-based therapies into clinical investigations. Dr. Viswanathan is a co-Principal Investigator of a recently completed trial using autologous MSCs to treat knee osteoarthritis patients, a North American first.As a translational scientist, Dr. Viswanathan chairs a Cell Therapy Stakeholder Group that engages Health Canada on cell therapy related policy issues. She serves on several committees at the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT) including the Mesenchymal Stromal Cell (MSC) committee and the North American Legal and Regulatory Affairs Committee. She is Associate Editor of Cytotherapy, the official journal for ISCT, and serves as an elected member of ISCT’s Board of Directors.

Sarah is Director of the Cell Therapy Manufacturing Unit at Celyad, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapies for cancer. She has over 10 years of experience in cell therapy, biomedical research, development and quality control.She is a pharmacist from education and has a PhD in pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, specialised in stem cell biology. In 2010, she joined Promethera BioSciences, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of cell therapy products based on allogeneic adult stem cell technology to treat liver diseases. She headed the R&D, QC and Preclinical Departments. In 2015, she joined Celyad. Sarah initially led the immune-oncology program at R&D level, focused on technology transfer, product characterization and optimization. In 2016, she became Head of the QC Department, covering release of clinical products and raw material, analytical method development and translational research activities. In 2020, all operational activities including Production, QC, Validation and Tech transfer of processes, methods, equipment, raw material and viral vector became under her responsibility.

John Paul Tomtishen III is currently employed by Legend Biotech where he serves as the Site Managing Director of Legend's corporate headquarters in Somerset, NJ and is responsible for Legend's back office functions, including Engineering/Facilities and Sourcing/Procurement. John also has oversight over Legend's US Manufacturing and Technical Operations teams and is responsible for developing robust global CMC strategies to ensure best-in-class, end-to-end manufacturing and supply chain capabilities for Legend's cell and gene therapy product portfolio.

BRUNO MARQUES has been building and leading theProcess & Product Development team at Century Therapeuticssince 2019. Prior to Century, Bruno spent 14 years developingand commercializing biopharmaceutical products at Merck andGlaxoSmithKline. At GSK, he held leadership roles in process developmentand portfolio management, contributing to the launchof drugs such as Nucala (mepolizumab), and eventually joinedtheir Cell & Gene Therapy platform as Director of ManufacturingStrategy in support of autologous immunotherapies. Bruno is aChemical Engineer by training, with a PhD from Carnegie MellonUniversity and a BS from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Lior Raviv joined Pluristem in 2011 and currently serves as Vice President of Operations & Development. Prior to that Mr. Raviv served as Process development engineer and Projects manager & Product development Team leader at Pluristem. Prior to joining Pluristem and during the years 2010-2011, Mr. Raviv held the position of R&D Analytical Researcher at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. Mr. Raviv holds a M.Med.Sec in pharmacology from the Ben Gurion University and a B.S.c, in Biotechnology engineering from the Ben Gurion University.

Sean O’Farrell is a Senior Scientist within the R&D team at GammaDelta Therapeutics Limited., a young, London-based biotech startup company exploiting the unique properties of human tissue and blood-resident γδ T cells as a novel immunotherapy for cancer and inflammatory diseases. Before joining GammaDelta Therapeutics, Sean undertook cross-institutional PhD and postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Professor Adrian Hayday at King’s College London and The Francis Crick Institute. During his PhD and postdoc, Sean worked in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline to further understand the immunological mechanisms of action of adjuvanted influenza vaccination and how these might drive vaccine efficacy and/or adverse events in a clinical setting. Within his current role, his primary interests include process understanding and utilising design of experiments to improve product function and phenotype within the cell therapy field. Sean’s primary responsibility in the organisation is to bridge cell therapy culture processes from R&D to process development.

Dr Ramin Baghirzade is the Global Head of Business Development for Cell & Gene Therapy (C&GT) at AGC Biologics. With 15+ years of experience in life science and healthcare, Dr Baghirzade previously held roles of increasing responsibility at Roche and Lonza in global business development, strategic marketing and market intelligence functions. He holds a PhD Degree in Medical Sciences, as well as an MBA.