Francois Meyer
Dr Sophie Papa
Sophie Papa is a Senior Lecturer and Consultant Medical Oncologist at King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Sophie undertook her medical training at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. She completed a PhD in cancer immunotherapy from King’s College London in 2011. She is a clinical academic with research interests in the field of immune-oncology. Her research interests include developing approaches to optimise personalised cell based immune therapies for solid tumour oncology and understanding adverse immune reactions triggered by checkpoint inhibitor therapy. She is also interested in the delivery of complex cell therapy trials for solid tumour indications. Sophie is a medical oncologist with a practice in malignant melanoma and is the lead for skin cancer research at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
Lynsey Whilding
Dr Lynsey Whilding is a postdoctoral research associate with nearly 10 years experience in cell and gene therapy. She currently works in the “CAR Mechanics” research group at King’s College London and is a consultant for the biotechnology company Leucid Bio. Lynsey undertook a PhD in viral gene therapy at the Barts Cancer Institute within Queen Mary University from 2008-2012. She then started a research position at Imperial College and moved to King’s College London in 2014 to continue developing chimeric antigen receptor T-cells for the treatment of solid tumours. Research has included pre-clinical testing of T4 CAR T-cells that target the extended ErbB family and a CAR targeting the integrin alpha v beta 6. A particular focus is on pancreatic cancer although the group investigates a number of CAR target antigens across multiple diseases and is running a Phase I clinical trial in patients with head and neck cancer, involving the intra-tumoural delivery of ErbB-targeted “T4” autologous T-cells.
Professor Andrew Sewell
Andy Sewell’s research interests have focused around how organisms deal with environmental adversity. He began his career at the University of Liverpool by applying his training in chemistry towards phytoremediation strategies. He then moved to the University of Utah in 1990 to work on gene activation by environmental stress and was promoted to the Faculty there in 1994. Tugged heartstrings saw him return to Oxford in 1995 to work on the strategies HIV and other viruses use to subvert human T-cell immunity. That same Welsh girl was influential in his relocation to Cardiff in 2006 to take up a position as Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Medicine. He continues in Cardiff and is currently a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator. His research focuses on T-cell antigens and the receptors that recognize them. This takes the Sewell laboratory in many different directions including transplant tolerance, autoimmune disease, immunity to infection and cancer immunotherapy. Of relevance to this meeting, the Sewell laboratory uses engineered T-cell receptors, chimeric antigen receptors and engineered T-cell ligands (peptides and synthetic compounds) to manipulate the immune system for therapeutic benefit. The Sewell lab is also dissecting out what the predominant cancer-specific T-cells respond to following successful tumour infiltrating lymphocyte therapy for melanoma and other cancers.
Professor Hinrich Abken
Paul Bartley
Pamela Wolfe
Pamela Wolfe is the Chief of the Enterprise Services Division of NASA’s Shared Services Center (NSSC) located in Bay St Louis, MS. Pamela is a graduate of the University of Southern MS and is responsible for managing the Agency IT help desk, the customer contact center, the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage (NCCIPS) which is a Federal data center facility, and robotics process automation. Pamela also services as the Innovation Champion for the NSSC.
During her tenure at the NSSC, Pamela established the Agency Information Technology Business Office to manage $400M in Agency IT contracts. As a charter member of NASA’s Shared Services Center, Pamela established processes and procedures for monitoring performance and reporting of metrics associated with service level agreements for the 60+ services provided across Financial Management, Human Resources, Procurement, and IT. Prior to joining NASA in 2006, Pamela held various Business and Financial management positions with Lockheed Martin and Sverdrup Technologies.
Pamela has been honored as the recipient of the NASA Superior Accomplishment Award, and the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal for her analytical support to the NSSC.
Ed Hansen
Edward J. Hansen brings more than 20 years of experience representing clients in technology transactions that involve significant business change. From the early stages of deals, Ed works closely with clients and their advisers on whole deal advice, often before a request for proposal is sent, and continues his support throughout the engagement’s life cycle.
Allyssa Williamson
Allyssa Williamson is the Innovative Automation program manager for Vistra Energy located in Dallas, Texas. Allyssa is a graduate of Texas A&M University and responsible for identifying and setting the strategic plan to implement new technological opportunities within the next wave of tools aimed at transforming and optimizing business processes. As the lead for launching robotic process automation across the enterprise, she established the Innovative Automation program and Center of Excellence in May 2017. During her tenure at Vistra Energy, Allyssa has experience in lean process optimization, revenue operations, and acquisition sales, with most of her focus rooted in continuous operational improvement practices. She has been awarded the Customer Quality Master award for achieving the highest level of lean skilling at Vistra Energy.
Guy Kirkwood
Guy Kirkwood is Chief Evangelist at UiPath, the leading RPA vendor. He has 20 years' experience in outsourcing and a particular interest in the future of shared services and BPO. He is a writer and presenter on RPA, cognitive and AI.
@guykirkwood