Systems Immunology 2024 Resource Page

Note: Slides will be uploaded as they are received. 

Introduction to Systems Immunology – Emanuele de Rinaldis

Systems Immunology & Immune Oncology: A Data-Centric View – Magnus Fontes

Deep Dive into Scientific Case Studies – From Systems Immunology to Novel Therapeutic Insights – Emanuele de Rinaldis

Biology is Spatial: A Primer on Spatial Biology and its Applications in Oncology – Angela Hadjipanayis

Unraveling Immunity through Machine Learning and AI: A Primer for Immunologists – Shai Shen-Orr

Emanuele de Rinaldis, PhD, Sanofi, Course Director 

Emanuele de Rinaldis joined Sanofi in 2017 and is serving as the Global Head of Global Precision Medicine and Computational Biology (PMCB) at Sanofi. PMCB combines the use of disease data, advanced analytics, digital pathology, functional genomics, and high-throughput profiling technologies to increase Sanofi’s pipeline success and pace. Our combined use of data science and advanced technologies allows for a deeper understanding of disease etiology at the cellular and molecular level, the translation of these findings into novel target hypotheses, and the devising of data-driven strategies for patient stratification and precision medicine. Emanuele de Rinaldis has extensive experience in academia, biotech, and pharmaceuticals, discovering and applying systems biology, and high-throughput technologies, to enable precision medicine therapies in oncology and immunology. He published > 60 articles in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Human Molecular Genetics, Blood, Lancet, and others. Prior to joining Sanofi, he was the Head of Translational Bioinformatics and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at King’s College of London/BRC (NHS), Senior Scientist at Merck MRL, and a Scientific Software Engineer and Group Leader at Lion Bioscience AG.

Magnus Fontes, PhD, Roche. Course Director 

Magnus Fontes holds a PhD in Mathematics and is General Manager of Institut Roche in Paris; Roche’s institute for collaborative and multidisciplinary biomedical research, https://institut.roche.com/. Fontes is adjunct professor of mathematics at Lund University, Sweden, and co-founder and scientific advisor of the bioinformatics software company Qlucore, www.qlucore.com. Magnus Fontes has extensive industrial and academic experience. For example; 2003-2014 Head of the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at Lund University, Sweden; 2014-2017 Director at the Centre for Bioinformatics Biostatistics and Integrative Biology (C3BI) and Head of the International Group for Data Analysis, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France. Then 2018-2020 Principal Scientist and Head of Systems Cancer Immunology at Genentech, California, USA, before taking up his current role as General Manager of Institut Roche in 2020. Fontes has held several commissions of trust, e.g.: 2012-2013 President of the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry (ECMI); 2008-2015 Vice chairman of the Swedish National Committee for Mathematics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science; 2015-present Member of the Royal Physiographic Society of Lund and 2015-present Member of the Education Committee of FOCIS. Fontes’ research interests and publications cover fundamental mathematics as well as mathematical modeling applications, including development of methods and algorithms targeting biomedical and clinical applications. His current research is focused on modeling of pathogen-immune system interactions and systems immunology, trying to uncover functional biological mechanisms.

Angela Hadjipanayis, MSc, PhD, Sanofi, Course Faculty 

Angela earned her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Maryland in College Park MD, her Masters in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Georgetown University in DC and her PhD in Genetics from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Her thesis research focused on looking for genes that cooperate with Neurofibromatosis type 1 to cause NF1 juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia in mouse knockout models and human patient samples. In 2009, Angela moved to Harvard Medical School to work with Dr. Raju Kucherlapti and Dr. Lynda Chin in their Genome Characterization Center for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Angela was one of the original members of the TCGA network. Her postdoc project focused on developing a pipeline to discover translocations and fusions in 20 different cancer types with low pass whole genomes. Angela was involved in numerous stories that went into the TCGA publications. After postdoc, Angela moved into industry to have more direct impact on human disease. Her first stint was in Robert Plenge’s organization at Merck to build a genomics lab and apply genomics to translate/validate genetic based targets for the pharmacogenomics portfolio. After Merck, Angela spent the last 6 years at Pfizer in the Inflammation and Immunology Department as a project lead for various external programs as well as the genomics lead across all therapeutic areas working on applying genomics from early phase drug development to late phase back translation of FDA approved drugs. She currently is the Global Director for Disease Profiling Genomics and Flow Cytometry in PMCB, and her team focuses on the data generation platform for supporting the preclinical portfolio at Sanofi. 

Shai Shen-Orr, PhD, Technion / CytoReason, Course Faculty 

Systems Biologist Shai Shen-Orr is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, where he directs the laboratory of Systems Immunology and Precision Medicine. Shai develops novel analytics for studying the immune system—tools which he applies to study the drivers of immune variation and to further Precision Medicine. He is the Director of the Zimin Institute for AI Solutions in Healthcare and the co-director of Tech.AI, Technion’s AI umbrella organization. Shai’s research founded CytoReason, a PharmaAI leader in computational disease biology modeling to advance drug development in pharma, where he is the Chief Scientist.

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