2025 Program

• Tissue Generation and Repair
• Engineered Immunity; Finding the Sweet Spot
• Neuronal Control of Immune Response
• JAK/STATS in Disease
• Metabolic Dysfunction and Inflammation
• Precision Medicine for Immune Dysregulation

• Allergy – Mechanisms to Treatments
• Microbiome and Immunity
• Systems Immunology & AI
• Immune Dysregulation, Lessons from Monogenic Disease
• Environment Impact on Immunity & Inflammation
• Vaccines, Emerging Pathogens & Post-infectious Syndromes
• Alloreactivity from Transplant to Maternal-fetal Interface
• Immuno-oncology
• Ocular and Neuroinflammation

Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA
NIAID/NIH

Dr. Marrazzo is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she oversees a $6.3 billion budget that supports research to advance understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. She was previously the C. Glenn Cobbs Endowed Chair and Director of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and was Treasurer of the IDSA from 2021-2023, having served on the board since 2018.

Dr. Marrazzo researches the vaginal microbiome, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis. She has had leadership roles in the NIH HIV Prevention Trials Network and the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium. She has been a leading voice in communicating science during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ira Mellman, PhD
Genentech

Ira Mellman came to Genentech in 2007 after 20 years as a faculty member at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he was chair of his department, a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, scientific director of the Yale Cancer Center, and Sterling Professor of Cell Biology & Immunobiology. Dr. Mellman has an AB from Oberlin College & Conservatory and a PhD in Genetics from Yale, and was a Fellow at the Rockefeller University with Ralph Steinman. Dr. Mellman’s laboratory is known not only for advances in fundamental cell biology in the area of membrane traffic (notably, the discovery of endosomes) and for applying these insights to understanding the cellular basis of the immune response. Of particular importance to cancer immunotherapy have been his laboratory’s pioneering contributions to elucidating how dendritic cells initiate immunity or maintain immune tolerance. Recently, his group has turned to elucidating how T cell signaling is regulated by immune checkpoints, and how personalized cancer vaccines and cell-based therapies can be used to enhance anti-tumor T cell responses. Ira ran all of oncology research at Genentech until the end of 2014 when he decided to concentrate his efforts on cancer immunotherapy and became Vice President of Cancer Immunology. His group was responsible for having brought Genentech’s anti-PD-L1 antibody, Tecentriq® (atezolizumab), to the clinic, an approved blockbuster drug for a variety of indications. Since 2007, Ira also oversaw the initial discovery or early development of Genentech’s cancer vaccine programs directed against patient-specific mutant neo-antigens using mRNA (in collaboration with BioNTech) and DNA (in collaboration with Nykode) based platforms, tiragolumab (anti-TIGIT, now in pivotal trials), Cotellic® (MEK inhibitor cobimetinib), Lunsumio® (mosunetuzumab, anti-CD20/CD3 bispecific), and Polivy® (anti-CD79b ADC).

Ira is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization, a Fellow of the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and the former Editor in Chief of the Journal of Cell Biology. He has also served on the editorial boards of Cell, the Journal of Experimental Medicine, EMBO Journal, OncoImmunology among others, and is the recipient of many named lectureships, honorary professorships, and awards, including Yale University’s Wilbur Cross medal, the Peter Dougherty Lecture at St. Jude’s, the Lloyd J. Old Award for Cancer Immunotherapy (from the AACR), and the Richard Smalley Award (from SITC). He has also served on the boards of AACR, SITC, ASCB, the Melanoma Research Foundation, the Lupus Research Alliance, and the Cancer Research Institute.

Ira also remains an ex-musician and frustrated composer and songwriter whose most recent work explores the underinvestigated genre of “bio-rock”.

David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc
University of Pennsylvania

David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the youngest faculty members to receive tenure at Penn Medicine. He is also co-Founder/President of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, co-Founder/President of Every Cure, and national bestselling author of ‘Chasing My Cure.’

Dr. Fajgenbaum is also a patient battling a deadly disease that he discovered a repurposed treatment for that is saving his life and others. He has advanced 13 other repurposed treatments and pioneered a new field called computational pharmacophenomics to accelerate drug repurposing.

One of the youngest awardees of multiple top grants, Dr. Fajgenbaum has published nearly 100 papers in journals like NEJM, been profiled by The New York Times, TODAY, and GMA, and received numerous awards like the 2023 Philadelphia Citizen of the Year Award. Dr. Fajgenbaum received a BS (Georgetown), MSc (Oxford), MD (UPenn), and MBA (Wharton).

Yasmine Belkaid, PhD
Institut Pasteur

Prof. Yasmine Belkaid is the President of the Institut Pasteur (Paris) and the head of the Metaorganism laboratory at the Institut Pasteur. She obtained her Master in Biochemistry at the University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene in Algiers, Algeria and her PhD from the Institut Pasteur in France. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA) on immune regulation during infection, she started her research program at the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation in Cincinnati. In 2005, she joined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) where she served as department chair of the Laboratory of Host Immunity and Microbiome, Director of the trans-NIH Center for Human Immunology and founder and Director of the NIAID Microbiome program prior to joining the Institut Pasteur in 2024. Her work explores fundamental mechanisms that regulate tissue homeostasis and host immune responses and uncovered key roles for the microbiota and dietary factors in the control of immunity and protection to pathogens. It also explores the role of the immune system in organismal remodeling and the impact of infections on the mother-child dyad. Prof. Belkaid is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and she is the recipient of numerous awards including the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the Emil von Behring Prize, the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award, the Robert Koch Award and the AAI Excellence in Mentoring Award.