Bill is Senior Vice President of Pfizer Vaccine Clinical Research and Development, and responsible for global clinical research and development of vaccines to meet licensure and post licensure requirements. He has over 35 years of experience in vaccine development. Bill joined in 1999 as Vice President of Clinical Vaccine Research and Development for Wyeth, now Pfizer Inc. Other experience includes: Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Director of the Diagnostic Virology Laboratory at Vanderbilt University Hospital.

Dr. Gruber’s clinical research group has been responsible for global clinical research and development of now licensed pneumococcal conjugate, meningococcal conjugate, rLP2086 meningococcal B, influenza and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) vaccines, as well as investigational Staph aureus, C. difficile, HIV, RSV, parainfluenza, HSV vaccines, pentavalent meningococcal vaccine, and mRNA vaccines against influenza and varicella-zoster. Dr. Gruber also guides the clinical research and development for Pfizer’s Group B streptococcus and RSV maternal immunization vaccine programs, as well as vaccines against Lyme disease and next generation COVID-19 vaccines.

He is Board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Fellow of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, member of the Society for Pediatric Research, and member of the America Society for Microbiology.

Consultant/reviewer: NIAID, PATH, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and scientific journals.

Education: BA, Mathematical Sciences, Rice University, Houston, Texas; MD, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; Pediatric Residency, Chief Residency, and Pediatric Infectious Disease Fellowship, Baylor College of Medicine, and Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, Texas.

Authorship/co-authorship on more than 200 original research articles, invited articles, and book chapters.

SVP Vaccine Clinical Research and Development, Pfizer Inc

Dr. Mary Anne Marovich joined NIAID’s Division of AIDS as the Director of the Vaccine Research Program in 2012 to lead the development, strategic planning and coordination of global clinical testing and preclinical research on HIV vaccines and biologics. The Program has built an increasingly diverse and complex portfolio of vaccine candidates, monoclonal antibodies, and adjuvants for early-stage clinical testing through large scale international efficacy trials to find effective and acceptable protection from HIV infection. More recently, Marovich supported the federal COVID response (formerly Operation Warp Speed) as co-chair of the clinical vaccine development team and lead on anti-viral monoclonal antibodies for prevention.

Marovich comes to NIH from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR)/Military HIV Research Program, where she served as chief of vaccine research and development since 2005. In that position, she led, directed, and developed a global HIV vaccine research program. Additionally, Marovich directed the Dendritic Cell Laboratory and the MHRP’s Rockville Vaccine Assessment Center and led multiple early-stage HIV and non-HIV vaccine clinical trials. She also served as chair of the WRAIR Institutional Review Board.

Marovich earned bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry and chemistry at Illinois State University and a medical degree at Loyola University of Chicago. In 1993, she completed her internal medicine residency, then became chief medical resident, followed by clinical infectious disease training at the University of Colorado. During residency, Marovich earned a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Marovich worked in NIAID’s Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases as a clinical fellow studying immunology from 1995-1998 and as a clinical associate from 1998-99 while she completed her infectious disease fellowship.

A professor of medicine with the Uniformed Services University’s Department of Medicine, Marovich has won several honors for academic research and teaching excellence. She is a member of the American Medical Association, Infectious Disease Society of America, American Society of Tropical Medicine, and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
Division of AIDS, Director, Vaccine Research Program

Peter Marks received his graduate degree in cell and molecular biology and his medical degree at New York University and completed Internal Medicine residency and Hematology/Medical Oncology training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He has worked in academic settings teaching and caring for patients and in the industry on drug development. He joined the FDA in 2012 as Deputy Center Director for CBER and became Center Director in January 2016.

Wei Shen received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in 2005 and received postdoctoral training in immune-oncology at National Cancer Institute with a focus on T cell function in the skin barrier and inflammatory bowel disease/colon cancer. In 2015, Wei Shen joined ITI and worked on the evaluation and optimization of a DNA vaccine against tree nut allergy and liver carcinogenesis. Currently, Wei Shen is the Associate Director of Vaccine Discovery within the Research and Development Department leading a team to develop the next generation of DNA/RNA vaccines based on the UNITE® platform in order to provide novel treatment options for unmet medical needs in the field of Oncology and Allergy.

Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc.

Sidi Chen joined the Yale Faculty in 2015 in the Department of Genetics, Systems Biology Institute, and Yale Cancer Center. His research focuses on providing a global understanding of biological systems and development of novel breakthrough therapeutics. Chen developed and applied genome editing and high-throughput screening technologies, precision CRISPR-based in vivo models of cancer, global mapping of functional drivers of cancer oncogenesis and metastasis. He is leading a research group to seek global understandings of the molecular and cellular factors controlling disease progression and immunity. His group continuously invents versatile systems that enable rapid identification of novel targets and development of new modalities of cancer immunotherapy, cell therapy and gene therapy. His goal is to uncover novel insights in cancer and various other immunological diseases and develop next generation therapeutics.

Dr. Chen received a number of national and international awards including the Pershing Square Sohn Prize, DoD Era of Hope Scholar, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Blavatnik Innovator Award, Yale Cancer Center Basic Science Research Prize, AACR NextGen Award for Transformative Cancer Research, Ludwig Foundation Award, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow, Dale Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists, TMKF Innovative/Translation Cancer Research Award, BCA Exceptional Research Grant Award, MRA Young Investigator Award, V Scholar, Bohmfalk Scholar, Ludwig Family Foundation Award, St. Baldrick’s Foundation Award, CRI Clinic & Laboratory Integration Program (CLIP), MIT Technology Review Top 35 Innovators (Regional), and Sontag Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award. He has invented >20 patents / patent applications and founded two biotech startups.

Nektaria Karavas is the Global Director of Business Development for Nasal Vaccines, Antivirals, and Immuno-stimulants at Aptar Pharma. Ms. Karavas joined Aptar Pharma in 2004 and has held various commercial roles executing long-term strategy within key customer and global accounts in North America focusing on nasal drug delivery.

She has contributed to multiple nasal development programs, and supported commercial scale up and product launches for New Drug Applications (NDA) using an Aptar delivery device for key pharmaceutical clients across different therapeutic indications.

Nektaria holds a Bachelor of Science from McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Dr. Phanramphoei (Jibby) Frantz is a researcher in the Innovation Lab: Vaccines at Institut Pasteur, France and Virology and Cell Technology laboratory at National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) in Thailand. Dr. Frantz started to study the pathogenesis of the Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus (PEDV) in 2011. She was a part of the team which was the first group to succeed in creating an infectious cDNA clone of PEDV. She began to work at the Institut Pasteur in France with funding from a Franco-Thai Fellowship to develop a measles-vector based dengue vaccine in 2014. This subsequently created the first collaboration between Institut Pasteur and BIOTEC to develop a vaccine against PEDV. She successfully applied for and was granted the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Individual Fellowship to continue her work on vaccine projects. Through years of training, she is now an expert in the use of the measles virus, a live-attenuated vaccine (LAV), as a platform to develop new vaccines against current and emerging infectious diseases. Additionally, she is also a EURAXESS ambassador promoting scientific collaboration between ASEAN and European countries. (https://bit.ly/3TFip5h)

National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC) & Institut Pasteur