Team
Consortium Board
Monika Holubová, PhD
Group leader of the Laboratory of Tumor Biology and Immunotherapy, Biomedical Center, Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University
Dr. Holubová’s interest is in understanding iNKT mechanisms and developing iNKT cell-based therapies for transplant and oncological patients. She is responsible for the translational program in the Biomedical Center in connection with University Hospital Pilsen where she is the leading expert in cell manufacturing, flow-cytometry and single-cell based analysis.
Antonia Rotolo (chair), MD, PhD
Research Assistant Professor of Immunobiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Rotolo is an internist with clinical expertise in hemato-oncology and hematopoietic stem cell transplant and research interest in iNKT and CAR immunotherapy. She has established a canine iNKT model to provide a valuable link between mouse preclinical studies and human clinical trials. Her goal is to accelerate clinical applications of off-the-shelf, allogeneic iNKT and CAR therapies.
Lucie Houdová, PhD
Group leader of the Clinical data science lab of European Centre of Excellence NTIS, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia
Dr. Houdová’s main interest is research of IT tools for applications of personalized and precise medicine, primarily focused on the area of hematology and oncology. She is experienced in data analysis, methods and information systems design, computer modeling for decision support in medicine and technical practice. Currently, she is vice- chairman of the ELIXIR CZ Board (European Life-Science Infrastructure for Biological Information – Czech node).
Scientific Advisory Board
Mark A. Exley, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer at Imvax, Inc., MiNK Rx Senior Advisor & SAB Member
Dr. Exley performed the first functional characterization of human 'NKT' cells, co-isolating the NKT-specific monoclonal antibody and putting this mAb through multiple clinical trials. Dr. Exley has published well over 100 peer- reviewed articles, reviews and commentaries. He is an Associate Editor at the Elsevier journal Clinical Immunology as well as on Editorial Boards. He has been on many NIH and other US and Worldwide grant reviews panels. He has been widely invited to lecture on NKT and related immune cells.
Dominik Schneidawind, MD, PhD
Senior Attending Physician and Program Director Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies, Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology, University Hospital Zurich
Dr. Schneidawind’s research focuses on immune tolerance, bone marrow transplantation and adoptive immunotherapy, with specific interest in novel approaches to the treatment of acute leukemias, graft-versus-host disease and systemic sclerosis. He has contributed seminal discoveries to the field of invariant Natural Killer T and FoxP3 regulatory T cell biology.
Federico Simonetta, MD, PhD
Senior Attending Physician, Division of Hematology, Department of Oncology, Geneva University Hospitals, Group leader, Department of Pathology and Immunology, University of Geneva
Dr. Simonetta focuses on development of immune-effector and immune-regulatory allogeneic cellular therapies for treatment of hematologic malignancies and graft-versus-host-disease (GvHD) respectively. In addition, he studies mechanisms of immune-reconstitution after allogeneic HSCT and CAR T cell therapy with a particular focus on the identification of biomarkers for immune-monitoring. He made significant contributions to the field of biology of iNKT cells and CAR-iNKT cells