Emmanuelle Charpentier

Professor

Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology

Steve Rees

VP of Discovery Biology

AstraZeneca

Steve Rees is Vice-President of the Discovery Biology department at AstraZeneca with global responsibility for reagent generation, assay development and functional genomics.  Prior to this Steve led the Screening Sciences and Sample Management department at AstraZeneca with accountability  for Compound Management, the human tissue BioBank, Hit Discovery and Lead Optimisation biology support to preclinical discovery projects.  Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Steve worked at GlaxoSmithKline for 24 years in various roles.   Steve has led multiple international collaborations, has authored >65 scientific papers and has spoken at many international symposia.  He is currently Chairman of the European laboratory Research and Innovation Group, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for LifeArc, the Centre for Membrane Protein Receptor Research at the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham and Axol Bioscience Ltd.

Richard Sherwood

Professor

Harvard University

My lab combines high-throughput genomic screening with machine learning to understand genome function in normal and diseased contexts. My work aims to advance precise genomic medicine and novel gene therapy applications.

Samantha Maragh

Leader of Genome Editing Program

NIST

TJ Cradick

Head of Genome Editing

CRISPR Therapeutics

George Church

Professor

Harvard

Abraham Scaria

Vice President & Head of Ophthalmology

Casebia

Dr. Scaria obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. He did postdoctoral training at St. Louis University School of Medicine working on RNA splicing mechanisms in adenoviruses and virus-host interactions. Dr. Scaria then worked as a Senior Fellow at University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle before joining Genzyme Corporation to work on gene therapy for Cystic Fibrosis. At Genzyme and later at Sanofi-Genzyme, Dr. Scaria held various positions with increasing responsibilities for two decades finally heading up both the gene therapy research group and the ophthalmology research efforts. Currently, Dr. Scaria is the VP & Head of Ophthalmology at Casebia Therapeutics where he is developing gene-editing based therapies for ocular genetic diseases.