Prof. Guzik is the Regius Professor of Physiology and Cardiovascular Pathobiology and an Honorary Consultant Physician in Cardiology at University of Glasgow, United Kingdom. He also serves as a Professor of Medicine at Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum in Krakow, Poland. His research focusses on vascular biology, hypertension, and clinical immunology. Main focus is on using translational approaches to understand disease pathology. Prof. Guzik is a recipient of many awards, including 2010 Foundation for Polish Science Award (the FNP prize) and European Research Council Grant. He also serves as Editor-In-Chief for Cardiovascular Research, the international journal of the European Society of Cardiology.

Prof. Yupo Ma - MD, MS, PhD is a hematopathologist, Medical Director of Flow Cytometry Laboratory, Scientific Director of Stem Cell Core at Department of Pathology, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, New York, USA. He is also Chairman and Founder of iCell Gene Therapeutics and worldwide known leader in application of CAR-T cells in oncology. Professor Ma obtained his MD title from the Jinan University College of Medicine P.R. China and PhD title from University of South Alabama College of Medicine. He completed his fellowships and residency at Harvard Medical School Boston, MA, Brown University Providence, RI and MD Anderson Cancer Center Houston, TX. In 2013-2015 he was named The Best Doctor in USA.His work is supported by several grants form FDA and NIH. He is a holder of 17 US patents in regenerative medicine and immunotherapy. He has published numerous high impact papers including several seminal papers related to CAR-T cell therapy.

Dr. Theresa Whiteside Professor of Pathology, Immunology, and Otolaryngology and a member of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, USA. She is a clinical immunologist with many years of experience in evaluating human immune-mediated diseases. She served as Director of the Immunologic Monitoring and Cellular Products Laboratory (IMCPL) at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center for 25 years, and is currently serving as an Interim Director. Her research has been focused on mechanisms of tumor-induced immunosuppression, cytokine networks, development of anticancer vaccines, immunobiology of human tumors, and the role of natural immunity in control of cancer progression. She also studied the mechanisms of tumor escape from host immune system, and the development of therapies designed to eliminate tumor escape. Her most recent investigations concern tumor-derived exosomes (TEX) and their role in cancer-induced immune suppression.

Lesley Forrester obtained her BSC (Hons) and PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 1981 and 1986 respectively. From July 1986 to 1993 she worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow including 4 years at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto, Canada. She returned to Edinburgh in 1993 to establish her own research group and was promoted to Chair of Stem Cell differentiation in 2012. Her current research is focused on identifying and characterizing the molecular processes involved in the production of haematopoietic cells from human pluripotent stem cells in vitro with the ultimate goal of generating therapeutic cell types.

University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom, School of Life Sciences, Professor of Immunology. He did a BSc at Kings College (London), an MSc at Brunel University (London) and PhD (Immunology) at the Royal London Hospital (London). Professor Fernandez worked in the field of transplantation immunology at the Royal London supported by the MRC. In 1990, he was appointed as a lecturer in Immunology in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Essex, in 1999 was promoted to Reader and in 2000 to Professor. Professor has been Director of the Cell Bio imaging Facility, Head of Molecular Medicine and recently Graduate Director in the School of Life Sciences. In 1996 he participated in the foundation of the European Society of Reproduction Immunology (ESRI) and in September 2005 hosted the 3rd European Congress in reproductive immunology at the University of Essex. In 2007, at the European Reproductive Congress in Germany, Professor was elected as member of the ESRI executive council. Research interests include cell-surface organization of immunoreceptors encoded by the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), in pregnancy development and embryonic tissues, in bacterial infection, and tumour progression. He was awarded grants and funding.

Dr Christien Voorter studied biology at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She performed a PhD study in Biochemistry at the same University with the subject “posttranslational modifications of eye lens proteins”. She joined the Department of Transplantation Immunology, Tissue Typing Laboratory at the Maastricht University Medical Center in 1996 and became codirector in 1998. She is known from her work in the HLA sequence-based typing area and has published many articles on this subject. She was a member of the EFI standard committee from 2009 till 2016 and joined the Accreditation Committee in 2008 as commissioner of the Benelux.

Prof. Bartosz Grzywacz has graduated with honors from Wroclaw Medical University in 1999 and completed internship and worked as internal medicine resident physician in the Lower Silesian Centre for Cellular Transplantation, Wroclaw, Poland from 1999 to 2005. His scientific experience includes a year of research as a medical student in the Department of Immunohematology of the Leiden University Hospital in 1996/97 under the supervision of Prof. Frans Claas. Prof. Grzywacz has moved to Minneapolis, USA in 2005 to be a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Dr Michael Verneris at the University of Minnesota, studying the development and biology of Natural Killer cells. In 2009 Prof. Grzywacz has entered residency training in the USA in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison Wisconsin, which he completed with board certification in Anatomic and Clinical pathology in 2013. Subsequently Prof. Grzywacz has completed fellowship training in hematopathology at the Cleveland Clinic in 2014 with board certification in hematopathology. Prof. Grzywacz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota since 2014. He is practicing hematopathology at the University of Minnesota Medical Center and conducts translational research focusing on Natural Killer cells in lymphoma, leukemia and immunotherapy.

Dr Jacek Toporski after graduating from Wroclaw Medical University in 1986 worked at the Department of Immunotherapy, K. Dłuski Hospital in Wrocław and under the lead of Prof. A. Lange. Actively involved in the setting up of the Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit at this hospital. At the same time assistant at the Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, L. Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy. Since 1991 member of the transplant team at Department of Pediatric Hematology and Immunology under the lead of Prof. J. Bogusławska-Jaworska. Doctoral dissertation in 1995 on peripheral stem cell mobilization and collection in children. Introduced haploidentical stem cell transplantation in the regular clinical use. Since 2004 senior consultant at the Department of Pediatric Oncology at Lund University Hospital, then since 2010 the head of this Department. Between 2016 and 2019 the head of Pediatric Hospital at Lund University Hospital. Since 2020 senior consultant at Center of Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy - CAST, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. Main field of interest – haploidentical stem cell transplantation, allogeneic stem cell transplantation in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, stem cell transplantation in pediatric non-malignant diseases, cellular therapy. Principal investigator of ongoing studies on CAR T cell therapy in resistant/refractory leukemia at Karolinska, Hospital. Specialist in pediatrics, pediatric oncology and oncology, specialist in clinical transplantation.

Dr Milena Sokolowska is a Head of the Immune Metabolism group at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research, University of Zurich, Davos, Switzerland. She is an internationally trained immunologist and internal medicine specialist with an expertise in innate and adaptive immunity, lipid biology, microbiome, and multi-omics technology. Her research encompasses involvement of immunometabolism, microbiome and respiratory viruses in immune tolerance and in the pathogenesis of allergic, pulmonary and autoimmune diseases.

Prof. Eva Martínez-Cáceres, MD (University of Valencia, Spain), trained as specialist in clinical Immunology (Clinic Hospital, Barcelona), obtained her PhD on the role of CD27 in human thymus (U. Barcelona, 1993). Her post-doctoral research (The Netherlands Cancer Institute) was devoted to analyse mechanisms of human T-cell development. In 1996 she moved back to Barcelona, (Vall d’Hebron Hospital), where she started her research on the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS). In 2001 she moved to Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital, as consultant immunologist, where she expanded her scientific interest to other autoimmune diseases, mechanisms of immunological tolerance and diagnostic immunology.
Her research focuses on the analysis of immunological mechanisms of peripheral tolerance. By using in vitro and animal models, her group aims at identifying new biomarkers for disease monitoring and prediction of treatment response, in the context of immune-mediated diseases. Since 2007 she has been involved in the development of cell-based tolerance-inducing therapies for autoimmune diseases, specifically MS. Her group has developed a tolerogenic cellular product consisting of autologous monocyte-derived tolerogenic dendritic cells loaded with a pool of myelin peptides to treat MS patients. This therapy has been tested in animal models of MS and a Phase I/IIa clinical trial is ongoing in active MS patients (Clinicaltrial.gov NCT02903537).

Dear Sirs,

We would like to inform you that in order to avoid broadcast delays, all sessions will be held without direct participation of the leaders, i.e. without „live contact”.

Before each session, a board will be displayed with the title of the session, the names of the leaders and the programme.

Available forms of communication: you will be able to ask questions, provide answers or make comments in the discussion only through the chat room which will be available during the session.

Immediately before the Congress, i.e. on May 26th, you will receive a link to access the event.

The presentation of the posters will be held on Friday, May 28 at:
17.15 – 18.15, Poster session 1
18.15 – 19.15, Poster session 2

Detailed poster session program will soon be available on the Congress web page.

Please be advised that the lead poster’s author should be online and ready to answer the questions on chat dedicated to each poster session.

All submitted abstracts qualified for poster presentation will be published in the abstract e-book after the Congress.