Dr. Stanley A. Plotkin is Emeritus Professor of the University of Pennsylvania. Until 1991, he was Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor of Virology at the Wistar Institute and at the same time, Director of Infectious Diseases and Senior Physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. For seven years he was Medical and Scientific Director of Sanofi Pasteur, based at Marnes-la-Coquette, outside Paris. He is now consultant to vaccine developers and non-profit research organizations.

He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Medicine. His bibliography includes over 800 articles and he has edited several books including a textbook on vaccines. Dr. Plotkin has received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Rouen and the Complutense University of Madrid, He also has received the French Legion of Honor. Dr. Plotkin developed the rubella vaccine now in standard use throughout the world, is codeveloper of the pentavalent rotavirus vaccine, and has worked extensively on the development and application of other vaccines including anthrax, oral polio, rabies, varicella, and cytomegalovirus

Consultant and Emeritus Professor of the University of Pennsylvania, Vaxconsult, LLP

Paul Offit, M.D.

Director, Vaccine Education Center, Division of Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

WALTER A. ORENSTEIN, M.D.

Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Epidemiology, Global Health, and Pediatrics, Emory University.

KATHRYN M. EDWARDS, M.D.

Sarah H. Sell and Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Pediatrics

Thomas Breuer MD, MSc, is GSK’s Chief Global Health Officer, leading the Global Health team, a non-commercial group with a ring-fenced budget and more than 200 people, where success is measured by health impact not financial return. In this role, Thomas is responsible for Global Health R&D, which is developing new medicines and vaccines against high-burden infectious diseases in lower income countries and for Global Health Access & Capability activities, which are pursuing equitable access to GSK’s portfolio and pipeline. Before taking on his current role, Thomas led GSK’s Vaccines Development Organization for a decade and has been instrumental in the development and licensure of many of GSK’s vaccines. More recently, he was the Chief Medical Officer for GSK Vaccines. He began his career in internal medicine and public health. After six years in patient care he worked at the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, before joining the German Public Health Institute (Robert Koch-Institute) as Head of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in Berlin.

Chief Global Health Officer GSK

Dr. Dan Barouch received his Ph.D. in immunology from Oxford University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He is currently the William Bosworth Castle Professor of Medicine and Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, and part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery. His laboratory focuses on studying the immunology and virology of HIV-1 infection and developing novel vaccine and eradication strategies. His group has also applied their vaccine expertise to preclinical and clinical studies of other infectious diseases of global significance, including Zika virus, tuberculosis, and most recently SARS-CoV-2. His recent work contributed to the development of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which is now being rolled out in the United States and throughout the world. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2020.

William Bosworth Castle Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Director, Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Director, Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Ofer-Levy, PH.D.

Staff Physician & Principal Investigator, Director, Precision Vaccines Program, Division of Infectious Diseases, Boston Children's Hospital, Professor, Harvard Medical School

SHON REMICH, M.D.

Dr. Shon Remich is a passionate physician-scientist who has dedicated more than 25 years of his career to public and global health. He has been at the forefront of some of the largest public health challenges of the last century. During his 23-year military career, he completed board certification in Pediatrics and postdoctoral programs in Clinical Pharmacology (Georgetown/Walter Reed) and Allergy/Immunology (Walter Reed/NIH). He completed two overseas postings in Kenya, totaling eight years, where he directed the clinical development of both drugs (GMP IV artesunate) and vaccines (RTS,S) as countermeasures for malaria. During his second posting, he led the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for the Department of Defense.

Upon returning to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (D.C.), he directed the Translational Medicine department and Bioproduction facility and chaired the military’s largest Institutional Review Board. As the director of Translational Medicine, his team conducted multiple clinical trials for complex and debilitating diseases (HIV, Anthrax, Malaria, Hantavirus, Plague, Shigella, E. coli, and Influenza), including the first Ebola vaccine (VZV-Ebola) trial in the U.S.

After his military career, he joined Pfizer's clinical development team, supporting the U.S. licensure of the Japanese Encephalitis vaccine (Ticovax) and later played a key role in the development of the nation’s first COVID vaccine (Comirnaty). He then joined the vaccine business unit at Takeda to support the EMA approval of Qdenga, a dengue vaccine. After a short time at BioNTech, where he led its latent viral program, Dr. Remich joined a newly formed biotech company, Ovax. Ovax is committed to developing solutions to address the current epidemic and public health emergency related to overdose deaths.

Chief Medical Officer, OVAX Inc

DEREK O' HAGAN, PH.D.

Senior Advisor Vaccines R&D, Senior Fellow at GSK

Prakash-K-Bhuyan, MD, PhD

Dr. Prakash Bhuyan is an infectious disease specialist with over 20 years of experience in academia and industry. Most recently, Prakash was Chief Medical Officer at Aerium. Before Aerium, he served as the Head of Clinical Development for Vaccines and Immune Therapies at AstraZeneca, organizing and managing the teams that developed COVID solutions (Vaxzevria™ and Evusheld™), as well as RSV and influenza-focused products. Previously, he was the Senior Vice President, Clinical Development, at Inovio Pharmaceuticals leading the product development of a novel HPV therapeutic into Phase 3, achieving pivotal trial success.

Prakash held vaccines and biologics leadership roles at Pfizer and Merck which resulted, respectively, in Trumenba™ becoming the first vaccine licensed in the US for the prevention of Meningococcal B disease and Vaxelis™, a pediatric hexavalent vaccine that makes complete childhood vaccination achievable, moving into Phase 3 development with subsequent US and EU licensures. Prakash earned an MD and PhD in Immunology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, a Specialization in Internal Medicine from Emory University, and a Sub-specialization in Infectious Disease from the University of Pennsylvania.

Chief Medical Officer, Aerium

Stephen L. Hoffman, MD

Chief Executive and Scientific Officer, anaria Inc.

Denise L. Faustman, M.D., PH.D.

Director of Immunobiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Ruxandra Draghia-Akli, M.D., PH.D.

Ruxandra Draghia-Akli, MD, PhD, is the Executive Vice President and Head of Research & Development (R&D) with the responsibility of evaluating opportunities for our early and late-stage pipeline, ensuring the company is maximizing the tremendous potential of Novavax’s proven technology, including the Matrix-M™ adjuvant. She has more than 20 years of experience in vaccines and global public health, and throughout her career, has contributed to discovery, development and commercialization efforts.

Dr. Draghia-Akli has previously served at Johnson & Johnson, as Global Head of Global Public Health R&D, delivering groundbreaking innovation to address climate-related, emerging and entrenched health threats, such as Dengue, coronaviruses, antimicrobial resistance, tuberculosis and leprosy. At Merck, she contributed to advancing innovative vaccines against Ebola, pneumococcal disease and human papillomavirus. She also worked with the European Commission, supporting programmatic, legislative, regulatory and policy issues in research and innovation. She was also responsible for securing start-up funding and grants at Advisys, Inc. (now Inovio Pharmaceuticals). Dr. Draghia-Akli focused on human genetics and advanced therapies research, notably on rare diseases. As scientific co-founder and research lead, her team delivered the first gene therapy product approved for animal applications in 2007.

Over her career, Dr. Draghia-Akli has authored many scientific publications and served on numerous boards and committees to help shape thinking on vaccine and public health issues.

Dr. Draghia-Akli received a baccalaureate in mathematics and physics from I.L. Caragiale Lycée, an MD from the University of Medicine Carol Davilla, and a PhD in human genetics from the University of Medicine Carol Davilla and undertook additional doctoral and post-doctoral training at University Rene Descartes and Baylor College of Medicine, respectively.

Executive Vice President, Head of Research & Development, Novavax

Michel De Wilde, PH.D.

Michel De Wilde holds a PhD in Biochemistry and has a long and successful career in Vaccine Research and Development. He currently consults for the vaccine community and is member of a number of Advisory Boards.

From 2001 till June 2013, Michel De Wilde was Senior Vice President, Research & Development, at sanofi pasteur where he drove the development and licensure of a number of products.

From 1978 till 2000, De Wilde was at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals (now GSK Vaccines) where he held positions of increasing responsibility. He played a key role in the development of several new vaccines, most notably the recombinant Hepatitis B vaccine, as well as GSK’s Malaria vaccine.

MDW Consultant, LLC

Prof. Alessio Lanna, Ph.D. is the Founder of Sentcell. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University College London on Medical Research Council-Ph.D. studentship (2011-2016) and then continued as a Sir Henry Wellcome Trust Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford (2016-2019). He currently holds an Honorary Professorship at UCL in recognition of paradigm shifting research in the field of cellular ageing and T lymphocyte senescence. He was the first to identify a hitherto unknown, multi druggable pro-ageing sMAC complex and the anti-ageing mechanism of telomere vesicle transfer at the immune synapse between APCs and T lymphocytes. He keeps on refining and sculpting the discoveries in the field of immune senescence. His mission is to make Sentcell a first in class compound making firm that will reverse or delay the ageing course of life. Lately, Alessio discovered the first functional cure to HIV applying T cell rejuvenation principles.

Professore Ordinario, University College London, Sentcell ltd (UK), CEO