George Fu Gao has been a key leader in the public health field, making remarkable contributions to research and discovery through basic research, clinical evaluation and advocacy. He has made many remarkable contributions to the scientific field of control and prevention of emerging infectious diseases. He obtained his DPhil degree from Oxford University, UK and did his postdoc work in both Oxford University and Harvard University (with a brief stay in Calgary University). Gao worked in Beijing Agricultural University (1986-1991), Oxford University (2001-2006), Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy Sciences (2004-2008, Director-General). China CDC (Director-General, 2017-2022), National Science Foundation of China (Vice-President, 2018-2022). Gao is a member (academician) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a foreign member of the U.K. Royal Society (RS), a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, a fellow of African Academy of Sciences and a fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).

Melanie Saville, MBBS, is PATH’s Chief Scientific Officer. She leads PATH’s product development division, which includes a global team dedicated to the development, introduction, and scale of vaccines, medical devices, and diagnostics.

Dr. Saville is a distinguished physician specializing in virology with more than two decades of experience developing and licensing vaccines for global use. Her contributions over the past 20 years have included the development of vaccines for seasonal and pandemic influenza, as well as pediatric combinations and vaccines against rabies, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, Ebola, and SARS-CoV-2.

Before joining PATH, Dr. Saville worked with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), where she served as the Executive Director of Vaccine Research and Development, leading technical teams supporting vaccine development. She also served as the R&D and manufacturing workstream leader for COVAX, part of a global collaboration to speed development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.

Dr. Saville holds a medical degree, a master’s degree in medical virology, and a Bachelor of Science in molecular biology from University College, London.

Dr. Hun Kim is the President of Global Business at SK Bioscience. His role is to oversee the company's product and platform portfolio in a comprehensive perspective from R&D to commercialization through global alliance and external innovation.

Dr. Hun Kim started his biopharmaceutical career in 1992 as a researcher at Green Cross Corporation, In 2000, he moved on to Berna Biotech, a part of Crucell at present. In 2008, he joined SK Chemicals,the parent company of SK Bioscience, and lead the company's expansion in vaccine R&D, Quality and manufacturing capabilities.

Under his oversight, the company developed and received approval for cell culture-based influenza vaccines (SKYCellflu/SKYCellflu Quadrivalent), varicella/herpes zoster vaccines (SKYVaricella/SKYZoster),and Pneumococcal Conjugation Vaccines. During the Pandemic, it successfully manufactured and supplied COVID-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and NovaVax. With support from CEPI and BMGF, SK Bioscience also developed its own COVID-19 vaccine (SKYCovione), which became the first domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine to be approved in Korea.

Prof. Ken J. Ishii, M.D., Ph.D., currently Director for Int. Vaccine Design Center, The Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo, has 27 years of experience in Vaccine R&D since 1998 including 7 years as a IND reviewer at US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 15 years as a basic immunologist at Osaka University, 9 years as a vaccine adjuvant expert at National Institute (NIBIOHN), 2 years as managing director at AMED (medical funding agency), as well as Advisor for PMDA (regulatory agency), GHIT (global fund) and CEPI. He has contributed to basic research on infectious diseases and immunology, resulted in numerous books and over 250 periodical publications and 35,000 citations with H-index 84 as well as over 50 patents related to vaccine and adjuvant, and to regulation of many vaccines and guidelines for vaccine preclinical and clinical trials in Japan and US.

Dr. Raman Rao joined as the Chief Executive Officer at Hilleman Laboratories in February 2020. Dr. Rao has more than two decades of experience in research and development, manufacturing and commercialisation of vaccines for infectious diseases in global pharma and biotech companies. Prior to joining Hilleman Laboratories, Dr. Rao served as the Vice President of Global Product Operations with Takeda, Singapore, where he enhanced the global product portfolio while successfully leading an international team across Japan, Singapore and the United States. The teams worked in the areas of dengue, norovirus, zika, polio and other vaccines.

Dr. Rao started his career in 2002 with Shantha Biotechnics Limited, part of Sanofi Aventis Group in India, in Clinical Research and Scientific Affairs. He holds a MD in Medical Microbiology from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research.

He plans to carry forward Dr. Maurice Hilleman’s legacy for providing effective solutions for global health, especially those impacting low- and middle-income countries.

Meng LI has been leading the International business team of CNBG since 2013, oversees CNBG’s international cooperation and registration activities. She also serves on the board of CNBG-Virogen, and the board of Emerging Biopharmaceuticals Manufacturers Network (EBPMN). During her 19 year experiences in biological industry, she established extensive networks with academia, NGOs, enterprises internationally, and successfully completed a number of landmark projects. Including the bOPV capacity expansion and prequalification program with BMGF (received over 23Million USD financial supports from BMGF, prequalified by WHO in 2019), establishment of CNBG’s first JV with foreign enterprise, the first overseas acquisition by CNBG, roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine PhIII trials in 6 countries and its registration in over 100 countries. Meng Li has successfully signed a number of in-license, research cooperation, commercialization and industrialization projects with NIH, Oxford, France Institut Pasteur, PATH, IVI, biotech companies and developing country manufacturers. She worked as temporary advisor to WHO inspectorate during WHO’s first inspection to China NMPA in 2010, and was elected as the executive committee member of DCVMN from 2014-2016.

Dr. Bin Wang is the Co-founder, Chairman of Advaccine Biotechnology Co LTD. He is also holding a distinguished professor position at the Fudan University School of Basic Medical Sciences and serves as the chairman for the Nucleic Acid Vaccines branch of the Chinese Vaccine Society. His research area is focused on the effects of therapeutic vaccination to activate T cells and the mechanism of immune regulations. He has developed novel adjuvants and recombinant vaccines, novel DNA vaccine delivery, and led to several developed vaccines being tested in human clinical trials. He received his Ph.D. from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine in 1990. He completed his postdoc training in virology and immunology at the Wistar Institute in 1992 in Philadelphia. He became an instructor and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School from 1993 to 1998. He was a professor and served as the Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology for six years at the College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University before he joined Fudan University. He was one of the very early DNA vaccine technology inventors in the 90’s and performed the first-in-human DNA vaccine trials in 1994-1996. He has been involved in several clinical trials of therapeutic vaccines against chronic HBV infections in recent years and invented a novel prophylactic RSV vaccine currently under clinical phase II testing. He has published over 160 peer-review articles and awarded 35 US and 30 Chinese patents. He serves as an editorial board member for several international journals and executive member in several professional societies.

Dr Robbert van der Most obtained his cum laude PhD in 1994 at Leiden University (Netherlands) on the topic of coronavirus molecular biology. He then conducted postdoctoral work on the immunology of chronic viral infection with Dr Rafi Ahmed(UCLA, Eiory University, USA) and flavivirus molecular biology with Dr Jim Strauss (Caltech, USA). Upon return to the Netherlands he worked on RSV vaccine immunology, focusing on the mechanisms of vaccine-enhanced disease. In 2004, he joined Dr Bruce Robinson's team at the University of Western Australia to study immune oncology and the immune-modifying effects of chemotherapy. In 2008, he joined GSK Vaccines in Belgium, in roles of increasing responsiblility, leadingTranslational Science, After a brief period at CEPl, he joined BioNTech as Vice-President Translational Science in 2022, leading a team of experts in the infectious disease portfolio, in 2024 he started his own consultancy business, aiming to provide scjentific and development advice to biotech and pharma companies, as well as not-for-profit organizations.

Dr. Bo Ying has dedicated over a decade of his career to the technology research into nucleic acid -based therapeutics and the development of transformative drugs. He founded Abogen, a biotechnology company with a mission of curing otherwise untreatable diseases through mRNA science and technology. 

As the founder, Dr Ying also has served as Chairman of the board and CEO of Abogen. Under his leadership, the company has established its own proprietary mRNA platform and delivery technology that allowed the development of the therapeutics and vaccines for infectious diseases, cancer, and rare diseases. Most recently, Abogen’s mRNA platform capabilities have come together to allow the authorized use and approval of first China made mRNA vaccine against the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Prior to founding Abogen, Dr Ying had held several roles at numerous leading biopharmaceutical and biotechnologies companies in the US, mainly responsible for leading drug formulation, process development, technology transfer and manufacturing. Across his career, he takes pride in a broad array of innovative drug developing experiences in siRNA, mRNA-based therapies for tumor immunotherapy、cancer vaccines and gene-editing drug product candidates. 

Dr. Ying received his bachelor’s degree in life sciences from Fudan University, Shanghai, and Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences from Northeastern University. He is credited as the inventor of a dozen issued patents and patent applications, and his work appears in journals such as Cell and Lancet. 

Over the years, Dr. Ying has held several positions in influential organizations. From 2018 to 2019, he served as the president of the Chinese-American BioMedical Association (CABA) in Boston, where he made contributions to the advancement of science and technological innovation with great potential to improve human health.

Dr. Chen has been a Professor at the State Key Lab of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Medical University since 2013. Dr. Chen received a medical degree from Shanghai Medical College in 1984. He obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Chen completed his postdoctoral training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School.  From 1997-2001, Dr. Chen served as a Senior Research Fellow at Merck Research Laboratories, where he was the first inventor of Merck's Ad5-based AIDS vaccine that entered clinical trials worldwide. Dr. Chen served as Vice President of R&D for GlaxoSmithKline in 2009-2011 and as Vice President at Sanofi Pasteur in 2012. Dr. Chen has over 200 publications in infectious diseases, vaccine research, and cancer research. His current research is focused on vaccine and antibody research on adenovirus, influenza virus, and emerging viruses. Since 2020, Dr. Chen has been working on developing user-friendly intranasal vaccines and mucosal immunity.

Tim is the Chairman & CEO of GPN Vaccines. He has extensive expertise in the life sciences, executive management and venture capital investment. Tim was previously CEO of ANU Connect Ventures, a $30M pre-seed VC fund, the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation at The University of Sydney and Professor & Head of Microbiology at the University of Bristol, UK.

He is an active angel investor working with investment groups throughout Australia and US to assist early-stage companies to raise capital and develop their innovative technologies and in 2022 was named Australian Angel Investor of the Year. Tim is also Chairman of Brain Changer Pty Ltd, Flex-G Pty Ltd, Dentroid Pty Ltd and Gamma Vaccines Ltd, and Director of PPB Technology Pty Ltd, a Trustee Director of Griffin Accelerator Holdings Pty Ltd and an Honorary Adjunct Professor at the University of Adelaide.

Yasuo Yoshioka， PhD

Group Leader，The Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases of Osaka University

Education;              

1995-1999; Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University (Awarded the degree of B.S.).

1999-2001; Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University (Awarded the degree of M.S.).

2001-2004; Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University (2004; Awarded the degree of Ph.D. from Osaka University)

Brief chronology of employment;

2004-2006; Research Scientist, National Institute of Health Sciences (Tokyo, Japan)

2006-2012; Specially Appointed Associate Professor, The Center for Advanced Medical Engineering and Informatics, Osaka University (Osaka, Japan)

2012-2014; Associate Professor, Laboratory of Toxicology and Safety Science, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University (Osaka, Japan)

2015-2020; Specially Appointed Associate Professor, Vaccine Creation Project, BIKEN Innovative Vaccine Research Alliance Laboratories, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University (Osaka, Japan)

2020-2024; Specially Appointed Professor, Vaccine Creation Project, BIKEN Innovative Vaccine Research Alliance Laboratories, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University (Osaka, Japan)

2015-Present: Group leader, The Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases of Osaka University (Osaka, Japan)

Yoshimasa Takahashi, PhD, graduated from University of Tokyo. He received his postdoctoral training at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, where he worked on understanding the basic mechanisms for humoral immune memory and antibody responses. He joined the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) in Japan, and became Director at the Department of Immunology. He was appointed to Director of the Research Center for Drug and Vaccine Development, NIID in 2021. He also holds the position of Guest Professor at seven universities. In this role, he trains graduate students in Immunology and Vaccinology.

Dr. Takahashi's research focuses on comprehending lymphocyte biology to unravel the humoral and cellular immune responses that underly vaccine effectiveness. By implementing high-throughput approach for human antibody analysis and isolation, he has identified novel classes of broadly protective antibodies against influenza, SARS-CoV-2, and other viruses. Multiple R & D for next-generation of vaccines and antibody therapeutics are on-going based on these findings.

Hao Chen is the Vice President for mRNA Portfolio at GSK. He leads the end-to-end CMC development for mRNA assets across stages and therapeutic areas. Before this, he was the Associate Vice President at Merck Research Lab (MSD), leading both the process development and clinical manufacturing for Merck’s vaccines and advanced biotechnology pipeline with diverse modalities. Hao has over 20 years of biologics and vaccines development and manufacturing experience from preclinical to commercial life cycle management. He has contributed to various biologic and vaccine products including Keytruda, Arexvy, and Capvaxive. Hao received his BS in Fine Chemical Engineering and MS in Biochemical Engineering at Zhejiang University, PhD in Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, and Executive MBA at HEC Paris.

Amine Kamen is Professor of Bioengineering at McGill University, and Canada Research Chair in Bioprocessing of Viral Vaccines. He is Researcher Emeritus of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) where he was employed until early 2014, as head of the Process Development section of the Human Health Therapeutics Portfolio. At NRC, he established one of the North America largest and most advanced governmental centers for animal cell culture addressing process development and scale up of biologics. Also, he developed with his team and licensed to industry multiple technology platforms for efficient manufacturing of recombinant proteins and viral vectors and vaccines and led technology transfer to manufacturing sites for clinical evaluation and commercialization. His current research activities focus on uncovering mechanisms associated with cell production of viral vectors and viral vaccines; cell and metabolic engineering; process control and monitoring; and process analytical technologies and digitalization of intensified productions of viral vectors for gene delivery and vaccination. He published close to two hundred papers in refereed international journals and acts as experts on scientific advisory committees for several national and international private and public organizations in the Biomanufacturing and Life Sciences sector.

TSW is Professor of Biomanufacturing at the University of Sheffield (UK). He leads the £7.6M UK–Southeast Asia Vaccine Manufacturing Research Hub (UK-SEA Vax Hub). He also serves as Deputy Director of the £38M National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre (NAPIC). Beyond Sheffield, TSW holds adjunct appointments with BIOTEC (Thailand) and the Bandung Institute of Technology (Indonesia). His achievements include the RAEng | Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship (2019), RAEng Industrial Fellowship (2016), MRC Career Development Fellowship (2007), and JSPS Invitational Fellowship (2023). Under his leadership, the UK-SEA Vax Hub received the IChemE Global Award in the Biopharma category (2025). With over 20 years’ expertise in protein engineering and engineering biology, his research spans biopharmaceuticals, enzyme biocatalysis, and alternative food production. He authored A Practical Guide to Protein Engineering (ISBN: 978-3-030-56898-6), now translated into German (ISBN: 978-3-031-32826-8). TSW co-founded Evolutor Ltd (2022), developing microbial strains for biomanufacturing via accelerated evolution, and ReNewFood Ltd (2024), creating protein-based flavour ingredients for alternative foods. As academic coach for Sheffield’s iGEM teams, he guided the 2019 team to a Gold Medal and Best Open Project, and the 2022 team to an Impact Grant, Gold Medal, and Best Hardware nomination. His career has been shaped by mentorship from leading figures including Nobel Laureate Prof. Frances Arnold, Prof. Ulrich Schwaneberg, Prof. Sir Alan Fersht, and Prof. Alexander Steinbüchel.

Frank Konings, Ph.D., is Program Director of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Global Health Institute (HKJCGHI) and the Epidemiology, Public Health and Impact (EPIC) unit of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). Based in Hong Kong, he oversees operational activities and leads technical work on epidemiology, surveillance, and pandemic preparedness.

He previously served in leadership roles at WHO Headquarters and its Regional Offices for the Western Pacific and Eastern Mediterranean, supporting national health authorities in managing major infectious disease threats, including influenza, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19. At WHO Headquarters, he contributed to the global COVID-19 response as a member of the Incident Management Support Team and coordinator of the Virus Evolution Working Group.

Dr. Konings’ current priorities at HKJCGHI include supporting pandemic preparedness by strengthening global surveillance networks for pathogens with pandemic potential; advancing data-science-driven research at the intersection of AMR, climate change, and vaccines; and expanding HKJCGHI’s global partnerships and capacity-building initiatives.

He holds a Ph.D. in Virology from New York University and an M.Sc. from Leiden University, and serves on the World Bank Pandemic Fund’s Technical Advisory Panel (TAP).

Dr Jack Tan is a Principal Investigator at the MRC Translational Immune Discovery Unit. His research group focuses developing next-generation protein nanoparticle-based vaccines and antibody therapeutics against infectious diseases. He is particularly interested in understanding how the architecture of protein nanoparticle vaccines influences their immunogenicity, as well as investigating mucosal vaccine immunity to improve vaccine design against respiratory pathogens such as coronavirus. Jack is part of an international consortium (Oxford-Caltech-CPI-Ingenza) funded by the Coalition of Epidemics Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop novel a pan-sarbecovirus (SARS like betacoronavirus) nanoparticle vaccine. He is also a Career Development Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences-Oxford Institute.

Professor Adrian V. S. Hill FRS is the Director and Founder of the Jenner Institute, and Mital Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University. He is a passionate believer in the power of molecular medicine to address many of the most egregious health care inequities globally. His group have been leaders in the development of adenoviral and other vaccines against infectious diseases and he has tested these in extensively in over eighty clinical trials in Africa and Europe. In partnership with the Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca the Jenner Institute developed rapidly a ChAdOx1 vector-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine which saved an estimated 6.2 million lives in 2021 alone.

His lab also designed a newly licensed high efficacy malaria vaccine, R21/Matrix-MTM, which has recently shown unprecedented high efficacy in a phase III trial in four African countries, again in partnership with the Serum Institute of India and also Novavax Inc. This vaccine promises to make a major impact on reducing the 500,000 childhood deaths from malaria each year. In 2021 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and is a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).

Dr. Siber is an infectious disease trained physician with more than 40 years of experience in developing vaccines and antibody products. From 1996 to 2007, Dr. Siber served as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Wyeth Vaccines (now Pfizer) where he led the development and approval of multiple innovative childhood vaccines, including Prevenar 7 and 13, the first pneumococcal conjugate vaccines,  Rotashield, the first rotavirus diarrhea vaccine, Meningitec, the first meningococcal meningitis conjugate vaccine and FluMist, the first nasal influenza vaccine. Prior to Wyeth, Dr. Siber was Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Medicine at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Director of the Massachusetts Public Health Biologic Laboratories where he developed multiple vaccines and immune globulins, including Respigam, the first antibody licensed for respiratory syncytial virus. Dr. Siber most recently was a Co-founder and Board Member of Affinivax which developed a 24 valent pneumococcal vaccine and was acquired by GSK in 2022. Dr. Siber currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of AdVaccine, CanSino, Clover, Everest Medicines, ILiAD, Valneva, Vaxart and Vaxxinity and has been a consultant to the NIH, EU, WHO and the Gates Foundation. Dr.Siber was member of the Board of  Trustees of the International Vaccine Institute. Dr Siber has received multiple awards including the 2016 Albert Sabin Gold Medal in vaccinology. Dr. Siber holds an MD degree from McGill University in Canada, received post‑doctoral training in Internal Medicine at Rush‑Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago and Beth Israel Hospital in Boston and training in Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Professor Chris Chiu is an Infectious Diseases physician and Immunologist. He trained as a clinician at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, followed by a PhD supported by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training fellowship and then an MRC Clinician Scientist fellowship, during which he worked in Rafi Ahmed's group at Emory Vaccine Center. His research focuses on mucosal pathogenesis and protective immunity in human respiratory viral infections, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza and SARS-CoV-2. To understand why some people suffer life-threatening illness while others have only mild/asymptomatic infection, he has developed a set of unique experimental medicine techniques using infection and vaccination. This is exemplified by his recent role as Chief Investigator of the first SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study, which together with his other programmes aims to enhance our understanding of how respiratory viral illnesses may be better prevented and accelerate the development of more effective vaccines.

My research, funded by UK Medical Research Council fellowships (Career Development Award: 2019 – 2024; and Senior Fellowship: 2024 - 2029) and US National Institute of Health grants, focuses on next-generation vaccines against major bacterial pathogens. Using the chief causes of bacterial meningitis as exemplar, my lab is currently employing innovative use of Reverse Vaccinology 2.0, and bacterial and synthetic cell glycoengineering to the development of a next-generation, combined meningococcal-pneumococcal glycoconjugate vaccine. Efforts in my lab are also geared towards understanding the human adaptive immunity to, and prevention of disease due to, AMR pathogens of concern, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Professor Kaissar Tabynov, PhD, is a leading vaccine scientist with over 20 years of experience in the development and implementation of vaccines for both human and veterinary use. He has led the creation of three influenza vaccines for healthcare -Refluvac (H1N1), Kazfluvac (H5N1), and Kazfluvir (seasonal flu) - and seven veterinary vaccines, including against avian influenza (H5, H7), equine influenza, and brucellosis. Refluvac and Kazfluvac were the first registered vaccines in Kazakhstan's modern history. Kazfluvir completed Phase I–III clinical trials involving 2,344 volunteers and was deemed safe and immunogenic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he led the development of two innovative platforms: NARUVAX-C19, an intramuscular nanoemulsion-based subunit vaccine, and NARUVAX-C19/Nano, an intranasal chitosan nanoparticle vaccine. Both demonstrated high immunogenicity and passed rigorous preclinical safety testing.

Professor Tabynov also spearheads the development of PollenVax, a recombinant allergy vaccine targeting Artemisia pollen-induced rhinitis and asthma. This novel approach offers a promising alternative to traditional allergen-specific immunotherapy (ASIT), with enhanced efficacy and convenience. His work has laid a strong foundation for Kazakhstan’s vaccine technology landscape.

Marco Cavaleri is Head of Office, Biological Health Threats and vaccines strategy. He is the Chair of EMA COVID Task force and responsible for EMA activities for emergent pathogens, vaccines and AMR.

Marco Cavaleri is a Pharmacologist who spent several years in industry in R&D mainly in the area of anti-infectives covering different positions in preclinical and clinical development.

In 2005 he joined the EMEA as Scientific Administrator in the Scientific Advice and Orphan Drugs Sector, specifically being in charge of anti-infectives and vaccines scientific advice procedures.

In 2009 he was appointed as Head of Section for Anti-infectives and vaccines in the Safety & Efficacy Sector, Human Medicines Development and Evaluation Unit.

司龙龙博士，中国科学院深圳先进技术研究院合成生物学研究所研究员、博士生导师，定量合成生物学全国重点实验室副主任，国家高层次人才（青年），国家重点研发计划首席科学家。博士毕业于北京大学，在哈佛大学Wyss研究所、哈佛医学院完成博士后研究工作。实验室研究方向包括合成生物学驱动的疫苗技术、人类器官芯片、抗病毒药物。发表论文约50篇，其中代表性研究成果以通讯作者、第一作者（含共同一作）发表于Science、 Nature Biotechnology、Nature Microbiology、Nature Biomedical Engineering、Nature Chemical Biology、Science Advances、Nature Communications等专业期刊，申请和授权专利20余项。

Prof Xu qualified in Medicine from Capital Medical University (Beijing) and obtained a PhD in Clinical Immunology from Flinders Medical Centre (Australia) and became the fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (FRCPA) in 1999. He then joined the group of Prof Sir Andrew J. McMichael as a NHMRC research fellow at Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford.

In the past, Xiao-Ning served as Medical Research Council (MRC) Senior Clinical Scientist, project leader, and programme leader at MRC Human Immunology Unit (1995-2010), Oxford University, where he led research projects involving immune correlates of protection against emerging infectious diseases including HIV, SARS, and avian influenza. In 2010, he joined Novartis as the Head of Novartis Vaccines Research China, Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics based in Shanghai, and in 2013, he became the Chair professor in Human Immunology at the Imperial College London based at South Kensington Campus.

Professor Honglin Chen’s research focuses on the molecular virology of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and pathogenic respiratory RNA viruses, including emerging influenza viruses and coronaviruses. He has established multiple research programs and platform technologies with emphases on molecular determinants of cross-species transmission in avian influenza viruses and coronaviruses, as well as the development of intranasal vaccines aimed at controlling respiratory virus transmission through the induction of mucosal immunity. His work on influenza viruses led to the pioneering development of the DelNS1 live-attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) platform. This system allows for the combination of vaccines targeting respiratory viruses and seasonal influenza into a single formulation. One of the DelNS1 LAIV vaccines, the DelNS1-RBD COVID-19 vaccine—developed using this platform—has received approval for human use in China. He founded Hong Kong Universal Biologicals Limited (HKUBio) to advance respiratory viral disease prevention. Several vaccines, including the DelNS1-Flu, DelNS1-RSV, and DelNS1-H5N, are currently in various stages of development. Beyond his virology research, Professor Chen serves as Director of the Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) Laboratory at the University of Hong Kong’s State Key Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases, where he oversees critical research involving high-risk pathogens.

Ruben Rizzi, physician by training, SVP of Global Regulatory Affairs at BioNTech. I joined the company in December 2019 just before the pandemic, and I have been the global regulatory lead for BioNTech for our COVID-19 development. Currently, I am still supporting the lifecycle of our COVID-19 vaccine, and I am co-leading the Global Regulatory Affairs department at BioNTech and working closely with the teams that are responsible for the development of BioNTech´s pipeline, post-approval activities and labelling

Professor Cheol-Heui YUN grew up in Gwang-ju, a southwest region of Republic of Korea. He was educated at the Chonnam National University for B. Sc. and the Seoul National University for his M. Sc. in Animal Nutrition. He obtained his Ph. D. at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada in the area of immune modulation and mucosal immunology. Then, he pursued his professional career at leading research institutes in different region of the world including International Vaccine Institute (IVI, Korea), USDA and NIH (MD, USA) and Gothenburg University (Sweden) where he undertook research related to stress, vaccine/adjuvant, infection and host protective immunity.

He published over 290 SCIE papers to date and has been the recipient of prestigious awards, including Cargill-KAST (Korean Academy of Science and Technology) Bioscience Award (2023), Seoul National University Excellence in Teaching Award (2018), Distinguished teaching award by Kukdam Foundation (2010), and official commendation for from the cabinet minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology (2007, 2022). For scientific researches, Prof. Yun and his team have focused on the action mechanism of protective immune responses against various biological stresses including infection, mucosal immunity, vaccine/adjuvant, systems serology and nutritional immunology and immunometabolism. Currently, he is a member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) since 2023.

Dr. Madden obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of London, U.K. He has held several senior academic and industry positions. Dr. Madden founded Acuitas Therapeutics in 2009 and guided the company to a leadership position in the application of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology for delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics. Acuitas developed the LNP carrier used by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals for Onpattro™, the first approved RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutic and Acuitas LNP delivery technology is used in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, COMIRNATY®. More recently Acuitas in partnership with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania supported development of the first patient-specific base editor therapeutics used to successfully treat an infant with a life-threatening genetic disorder (Baby KJ). Dr. Madden has over 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals including publications in Nature. In 2020 Dr. Madden was made a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and in 2022 was a recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Innovation.

Luciana C.C. Leite, is Senior Researcher at the Vaccine Development Laboratory, Butantan Institute. She works in Vaccine Development, mainly using recombinant BCG technology and has participated in several of the Brazilian genomic projects with over 150 papers published and several patents. The first product developed, a recombinant BCG strain for improved bladder cancer treatment has the Phase I clinical trial planned for early 2026.  She is currently moving forward with the development of a new recombinant BCG strain as an improved vaccine against tuberculosis for both humans and bovines. She has been director of the Biotechnology Center and of the Vaccine Development Laboratory, vice president of the Butantan Foundation, and member of the Steering Committee of the Vaccine Manufacturing Network in Developing Countries (DCVMN) and of the National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio). She is currently member of the Academic Management Board of the Erasmus Mundus's Leading International Vaccinology Education (LIVE) and of the Brazilian TB Network and has been recently nominated member of Scientific Advisory Committee of the Coalition for Pandemic Preparedness and Innovation (CEPI).

Professor of Experimental Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College London. A respiratory physician and mucosal immunologist, he works on how the immune response both protects against viral infection but also causes disease.

He has published over 400 papers on vaccinology, the immunopathogenesis of pulmonary viral diseases and lung inflammation and has received prizes for his lifetime contribution to RSV research (Chanock Award, 2012), the EFIS Ehrlich/Metchnikoff Medal (2014) and the Per Brandtzaeg Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award in Mucosal Immunology (2024).

He was the first clinical President of the British Society for Immunology (2013-18), former President of the International RSV Society (2017-2025) and is a Council Member of the Academy of Medical Sciences (Chair of Governance Committee). He is a Trustee of the Science Media Centre, of the European Scientific Working group on Influenza (ESWI), of the International Society for Respiratory Viruses (ISRV) and Director of the HIC-Vac consortium (promoting human experimental challenge to accelerate vaccinology).

He advised the UK government on pandemics (SAGE, 2009-12; Chair/Vice-Chair of NERVTAG, 2015-2022). He has served on scientific advisory boards for GSK, Sanofi, Seqirus, AstraZeneca, BioNet (Asia), Pfizer, Moderna and Shionogi. He was made a Commander of the British Empire for services to Medicine and Immunology in 2022 and awarded the Imperial College Medal 2024. In June 2025, he was appointed to Main Panel A of the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF2029), Chairing Subpanel 1 (Clinical Medicine).

Dr. Lei Chen, Chairman and CEO at Yikang Biotech (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Osaka University. With substantial tenure at the Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, he has established expertise in structure-based development of innovative vaccines. His remarkable contributions encompass critical patents on prefusion RSV F proteins and seminal publications in Science and Cell regarding structural design of fusion glycoprotein immunogens. He has driven notable advancements in viral antigen research and immunogen design.

Dr. Andre Ghetti is a biotech innovator and translational research leader with deep expertise in molecular biology, neuroscience, and drug discovery. As CEO of AnaBios Corporation and former President of Aviva Biosciences, he has built and commercialized cutting-edge human cell-based platforms for pharmaceutical R&D. Andre’s scientific leadership spans senior roles at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and the Salk Institute, with a proven record of advancing gene therapy, pain research, and translational methodologies. He is a recognized principal investigator on multiple NIH grants and a driving force behind Circurna’s technology and operational strategy.

Dr. Maggie Wang is the founder and director of Beth Bioinformatics, a company based in Hong Kong. She is also an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Her research focuses on unveiling mutation patterns in viral and human genome through the development of cutting-edge biotechnology methods. Her major contribution including developing the first-of-the-kind approach to predict vaccine effectiveness through genome analysis (Nature Medicine 2022) that is adopted by national FDA to approve new vaccine product, accurate forecasting of influenza virus evolution (Nature Communications 2024), and prediction for human phenotypes in multiple-population data (PLoS Genetics 2022), among others. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Human Genetics (Springer Nature), and is a recipient of Excellent Young Scientists Fund awarded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. At BethBio, she leads a passionate team to translate their world-leading biotechnologies to facilitate vaccine antigen design and therapeutics developments at international pharmaceutical industry partners.   

Michel De Wilde holds a PhD in Biochemistry and has a long and successful career in Vaccine Research and Development. He currently consults for the vaccine community and is member of several Scientific Advisory Boards

From  2001 till June 2013, Michel De Wilde was Senior Vice President, Research & Development, at sanofi pasteur where he drove the development and licensure  of a number of products.

From 1978 till 2000, De Wilde was at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals (now GSK Vaccines) where he held positions of increasing responsibility. He played a key role in the development of several new vaccines, most notably the recombinant Hepatitis B vaccine, as well as GSK’s Malaria vaccine.

Dr. Dan Barouch received his Ph.D. in immunology from Oxford University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He is currently the William Bosworth Castle Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, and part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery.  His laboratory focuses on studying the immunology and pathogenesis of viral infections and developing novel vaccine and treatment strategies.  His group has led the development of vaccine candidates for multiple pathogens of global significance, including HIV, Zika virus, tuberculosis, and most recently SARS-CoV-2.  His work contributed to the development of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and the evaluation of multiple COVID-19 vaccines and monoclonal antibody therapeutics.  He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2020 and received the King Faisal Prize in Medicine in 2023.

Rino Rappuoli is Scientific Director of the Biotecnopolo di Siena Foundation, Italy.  He is also Honorary Professor of Vaccinology at Imperial College, London, and Senior Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Siena. Prior positions held: Head R&D and Chief Scientist at GSK Vaccines, head of Vaccine R&D at Novartis, CSO at Chiron Corporation, head R&D at Sclavo.

He earned his PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Siena, Italy, and was visiting scientist at Rockefeller University and Harvard Medical School.

He is elected member of US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), Royal Society of London, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Awards received: Gold Medal by the Italian President, Albert B Sabin Gold Medal, Canada Gairdner International Award, European Inventor Award for Lifetime Achievement, Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, Robert Koch Award. He is President of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. He was voted the world's third-most influential person in the field of vaccines at the Terrapinn World Vaccine Congress in 2013. Currently, he is ranked second most important person worldwide in the specialty of vaccines by ScholarGPS.   He has published 826 works in peer-reviewed journals and an H-index of 165.

He introduced novel scientific concepts: genetic detoxification; cellular microbiology; reverse vaccinology; pangenome. Developed licensed vaccines: acellular pertussis containing a non-toxic mutant of pertussis toxin; first conjugate vaccine against meningococcus C; conjugate vaccines against meningococcus ACYW, MF59-adjuvanted seasonal and pandemic influenza. MF59 was the first vaccine adjuvant approved for human use after the aluminum salts; meningococcus B by reverse vaccinology; cell culture-based influenza vaccine, respiratory syncytial virus, CRM 197 as carrier of most conjugate vaccines.

Founder of the GSK Vaccines Institute for Global Health (GVGH) Professor Rappuoli is among the world scientific leaders dedicated to the sustainability of global health.

Sean Semple is the VP, Preclinical Research at Acuitas. As the inventor and pioneer of the ionizable lipid approach to formulate and enable nucleic acids in lipid nanoparticles, Sean has led numerous first-in-class oligonucleotide-LNP and siRNA-LNP nonclinical programs into clinical development, and recently collaborated on k-abe, the first LNP-enabled personalized CRISPR gene editing therapy. He contributed to the nonclincial development of COMIRNATY® (Pfizer-BioNTech), the first approved mRNA vaccine, which has been deployed globally, ONPATTRO® (Alnylam), the first approved RNAi therapeutic, and is actively engaged with Acuitas partners in several vaccine clinical trials.

John Tsang is a systems immunologist, computational biologist, and engineer. He is the Anthony N. Brady Professor of Immunobiology and Biomedical Engineering at Yale University, the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Systems and Engineering Immunology (CSEI), the Yale Lead and an Investigator at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York, and the co-Chief Scientific Officer of the Human Immunome Project (a non-profit dedicated to mapping human immune variation around the globe to develop AI models of human immune health for the benefit of all). Tsang has pioneered and established the concepts and predictive metrics of human immune setpoints and immune health including responses to vaccines, infections, autoimmunity, and therapeutics in human populations spanning the lifespan from infancy to old age. Tsang is also interested in programming immune cells to facilitate longitudinal immune and health monitoring of the entire body. Tsang has received numerous awards for his research and leadership in systems immunology, COVID-19, and human immunology. He has advised numerous programs and organizations, including the Allen Institute, the Gates Foundation, CEPI, World Allergy Organization, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Snow Medical (Australia), and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (Australia). Tsang earned his Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University and trained in computer engineering (BASc) and computer science (MMath) at the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Professor Willem Hanekom is Director of the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His TB vaccine contributions have included directing the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative at the University of Cape Town and the TB vaccine program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He currently holds professor positions at University College London, University of Cape Town and University of Washington. He is the previous chair of  the South African Immunology Society and the Federation of African Immunology Societies, and is a member of multiple international advisory committees in tuberculosis, vaccinology and translational immunology.

Dr. Alameh is an Assistant Professor at Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania and the Children Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and the co-director of the Engineered mRNA and Targeted Nanomedicine Core at the Penn RNA Institute for RNA Innovation.

Dr. Alameh obtained his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2017 from Polytechnique Montreal under the supervision of Dr. Michael D. Buschmann and joined the laboratory of the now Nobel laureate Dr. Drew Weissman. Dr. Alameh explored the development of a novel lipid nanoparticle (LNPs) based adjuvant platform and developed potent mRNA-based vaccines against various pathogens including Clostridium difficile.

His research program lies at the interface of nanotechnology, material science, engineering, and medicine to develop prophylactic and therapeutic nucleic acid-based delivery platforms and optimize their manufacturing. His team studies, and model Structure-Activity Relationships of material for improved delivery systems, and nucleic acid-based vaccines. 

Dr. Heba Wali is a senior leader in biological products and vaccine manufacturing with over 30 years of experience strengthening public health systems across Africa. She currently serves as Vice CEO of the Vaccines and Biotechnology City (VBC), leading the development of an integrated national ecosystem that connects research, development, and production to ensure manufacturing capacity, equity, and long-term system reliability for human and veterinary vaccines under a One Health approach. Previously, she was General Manager of Biogeneric Pharma Company, achieving GMP and ISO certifications, implementing eQMS and LIMS, and building international partnerships with the Serum Institute of India and Sanofi Pasteur. She also served as CEO of the Holding Company for Biological Products and Vaccines and Chairman and CEO of VACSERA, where she secured sustainable local supply, advanced technology transfer, and strengthened pandemic preparedness during COVID-19 through local production for covid vaccine . Dr. Wali has contributed as a WHO consultant for quality systems and was appointed as project manager for Egyptian National Regulatory Authority, supporting WHO recognition. She holds a PhD, MBA, Diploma in Total Quality Management, is a Certified Project Manager, and a DBA candidate.

Dr. Eric Tsao has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Synermore Biologics since the founding of the company in 2013.  He has over 25 years of direct experience with more than 20 products in clinical development, four US and EU approved products on the market, and eight biotech manufacturing facilities.  His areas of expertise include biological product development, process design, facility engineering, and operations.  Under his leadership, SYN023, an innovative anti-rabies monoclonal antibody cocktail, has been expertly developed and commercialized for rabies post-exposure prophylaxis.  Since 2008, Dr. Tsao has worked with Morningside Group on biotech investments.  He was instrumental in enhancing portfolio companies’ CMC capabilities. Dr. Tsao was the Vice President of Technical Operations at Aeras, a Gates Foundation sponsored vaccine development organization.  At MedImmune, Dr. Tsao rose to the position of Vice President of Process and Manufacturing Sciences responsible for process development as well as manufacturing of monoclonal antibodies and recombinant vaccines.  The development and manufacturing efforts led to the successful licensing of Synagis, FluMist, and Cervarix.  He was a process development scientist at Johnson & Johnson, where he focused on the development of cell culture processes and start-up of the commercial manufacturing facility for erythropoietin.  Dr. Tsao received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Hao Li is an associate professor and PhD supervisor at the College of Veterinary Medicine, China Agricultural University. He received his PhD degree from Tsinghua University in July 2017. From July 2017 to July 2019, he did his postdoctoral research at the School of Medicine, Tsinghua University. From July 2019 to now, he has worked at China Agricultural University and focused on tuberculosis immunology, TB vaccine development, and antibiotic resistance. He has published more than 30 articles in Nature Reviews Immunology, PNAS, Nature Communications, npj Vaccines, and other journals. Dr. Li serves as guest editor and youth editorial board member for multiple journals and as a reviewer for some journals and several grant agencies.

Currently, I serve as      a Board Director at GCBC Vaccines, overseeing both the Vaccines and      Injectable Manufacturing Sites at Medchal and MRP, Hyderabad, India. These      facilities were formerly operated by Sanofi Healthcare India Pvt. Ltd. and      were originally established as Shantha Biotechnics Pvt. Ltd. — one of      India’s pioneering biotechnology companies.

Following the      acquisition of these facilities, we successfully reinitiated the      manufacturing of Shanchol, achieving WHO Prequalification (PQ) within 1.5      years — a remarkable turnaround for a complex vaccine manufacturing      ecosystem. We subsequently signed a long-term agreement with UNICEF to      resume the supply of Shanchol to global public health programs.

This milestone is      particularly significant because Shanchol was the first Oral Cholera      Vaccine (OCV) to receive WHO Prequalification and became the first vaccine      included in the global OCV emergency stockpile. The product served the      UNICEF market until mid-2024, when manufacturing ceased due to the      facility shutdown and ownership transition. Restarting production within      1.5 years — along with securing Indian Marketing Authorization and WHO PQ      — represents a major achievement in regulatory, technical, and operational      excellence.

In parallel, we are      advancing a robust pipeline of pediatric and adult vaccines in      collaboration with global partners. This site marked the beginning of      India’s first recombinant vaccine manufacturing under Shantha Biotechnics.      Following the Sanofi divestment, our mission is to reestablish its global      stature and bring back the glory it once symbolized.

As Director of Programs & Strategy at the RIGHT Foundation, a Global Health R&D Funding organization in South Korea, Justin oversees the organization's investment portfolio and collaborates with current and prospective grantees to develop high-impact programs addressing critical global health priorities. With over a decade of experience in clinical vaccine development, he brings deep expertise in vaccine science to his investment oversight role.

Previously, Justin served as a Research Scientist at the International Vaccine Institute in South Korea, where he conducted research on enteric diseases, with particular focus on typhoid fever and cholera prevention strategies.

Justin holds a DPhil in Clinical Medicine from the University of Oxford and an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Margherita Coccia is a Director for Adjuvant Science and Technology at GSK. She received a M.Sc. in Biotechnology from the University San Raffaele in Milan and a PhD in Immunology from the Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. Margherita joined GSK in 2013 and has been involved in vaccine discovery ever since. Her main interests lie in the science of adjuvants and adjuvanted vaccines, with a focus on leveraging the interface between data science and immunology to design new immunostimulants and support highly potent vaccines.

Vega holds a degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and a PhD in Biotechnology. She has spent 20+ years in the R&D of big pharmas, working as Project Leader on multiple vaccine programs, with a special focus on meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines. She has published 70+ scientific papers and reviews and has participated as speaker at several international conferences.

She is currently Alliance Director at CARB-X, a global non-profit partnership aimed at accelerating antibacterial products to address drug-resistant bacteria.

Qiubin Lin is the Founder & CEO of Delonix Bioworks Ltd., a company that focuses on synthetic biology to develop medical solutions for infectious diseases and cancer, with a particular emphasis on antimicrobial resistance. Prior to this role, they served as a Senior Research Officer at the HKU-Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation. Qiubin Lin also co-founded PreciVax Therapeutics, where they served as the COO and worked on developing innovative vaccines for drug-resistant bacterial infections. Qiubin'searlier experience includes positions as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Hong Kong.

Qiubin Lin completed a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) in Bioengineering at Tianjin University from 2007 to 2011. Subsequently, from 2011 to 2015, they obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Cancer Immunotherapy from The University of Hong Kong.

Bali Pulendran, PhD

Violetta L. Horton Professor, and Director of the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection,

Department of Pathology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Fellow at ChEM-H (Chemistry,

Engineering and Medicine for Human Health), Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University.

Bali Pulendran is the Violetta L. Horton Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and

Director of the Institute for Immunology, Transplantation, and Infection, at Stanford University. He

received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D., from the Walter & Eliza Hall

Institute in Melbourne, Australia, under the supervision of Sir Gustav Nossal. He then did his postdoctoral

work at Immunex Corporation in Seattle.

Dr. Pulendran has had a transformative impact on human immunology and vaccinology by pioneering the

use of systems approaches to probe immunity to vaccination and infection in humans. In addition, Dr.

Pulendran discovered that dendritic cells, one of the key cell types orchestrating the immune response,

consist of multiple subtypes, which are functionally distinct. He also discovered the mechanisms by which

microbial stimuli program DCs to modulate T-helper responses and helped establish Flt3-Ligand as the

key growth factor for DCs in vivo. These groundbreaking findings helped define major paradigms in innate

immunity.

Dr. Pulendran’s research is published in front line journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Medicine,

and Nature Immunology. Dr. Pulendran serves on many advisory boards including that of Keystone

Symposia and on the External Immunology Network of GSK. He is a fellow of the American Association for

the Advancement of Science and the recipient of several honors and awards, including two concurrent

MERIT awards from the NIH, the AAI Ralph Steinman Award for Human Immunology, the Albert Levy

Prize, the ViE Award for the Best Research Team at the World Vaccine Congress, and is listed

on Thomson Reuter’s list of Highly Cited Researchers, which recognizes the world's most influential

researchers of the past decade, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank

in the top 1% by citations.

Andreas Holm Mattsson serves as Chief AI Officer at Evaxion, where he’s been at the forefront in silico-based vaccine target discovery. He has played a key role in developing Evaxion’s innovative AI-immunology™ platform, a proprietary AI technology for identifying novel vaccine targets for cancer and infectious diseases. Andreas brings a strong educational background in bioinformatics from the Technical University of Denmark and has previously worked at Novo Nordisk A/S. Since founding Evaxion in 2008, he has been an essential part of the company’s growth, serving in various executive roles. His journey in the biotech industry reflects his dedication to advancing science and improving healthcare through innovative solutions.

Dr. Andrew M. Hebbeler, Ph.D. is a global leader in health security and biodefense, with more than two decades of experience advancing science, technology, and policy solutions to combat infectious disease threats. He is the inaugural Director of Biosecurity at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), where he developed CEPI’s first biosecurity strategy and oversees efforts to ensure robust funding oversight, strengthen partner capabilities, advance equity, reduce emerging and converging technology risks, and accelerate biosecurity innovation across CEPI’s multi-billion-dollar global vaccine portfolio.

From 2021 to 2023, Dr. Hebbeler served as Principal Assistant Director for Health and Life Sciences at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he led U.S. government initiatives to accelerate pandemic preparedness, reduce risks of life sciences research, and strengthen global health security. He played a central role in shaping the American Pandemic Preparedness Plan, the U.S. National Biodefense Strategy, and U.S. support for the 100 Days Mission.

Previously, he was Senior Director and Lead Scientist for Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and earlier held senior roles at the U.S. Department of State and the White House OSTP, where he directed U.S. biosecurity and cooperative threat reduction programs. He began his public service leading the State Department’s Biosecurity Engagement Program, a $40M initiative to secure dangerous pathogens, mitigate dual-use risks, and strengthen public and animal health systems worldwide.

Dr. Hebbeler earned his B.A. in biology and philosophy from Thomas More University and his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He completed postdoctoral training at The J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, where his research focused on immune responses to infectious diseases and cancer.

Andrew McMichael qualified in Medicine from the University of Cambridge in 1968 and studied for a PhD in Immunology at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research with Dr Ita Askonas, 1971-74.  After a fellowship with Dr Hugh McDevitt at Stanford University he returned to Oxford in 1977 where he has worked since.

In 1977, he first showed that human cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses to influenza virus were HLA restricted and in 1986, with Alain Townsend, showed that class I HLA molecules present peptides to CTL. Applying this to HIV-1 he identified the first epitopes seen by CTL in this infection. He went on to show that virus could escape from CTL by mutation, and later showed that this happens with all epitopes, undermining T cell control of the infection. In 1996, with Mark Davis and John Altman, he first introduced HLA tetramers into the study of T cell immun responses to human infections. Also, he and Cesar Milstein discovered CD1 and later, with Veronique Broad, he first identified the ligand for the NK cell receptor NKG2/CD94 as a specific peptide bound to HLA-E. Currently he is working with Louis Picker on the role of HLA-E restricted T cells in protection against SIV and HIV-1.

Andrew McMichael was founder director of the MRC Human Immunology Unit 1998-2010 and Director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine 2000-2012. He is currently Emeritus Professor in the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Academy of Medical Sciences, is an EMBO member and is an International Member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was knighted for services to medical science in 2008. He was awarded the VCANBio  International Cooperation Award in 2017.

Yunlong Richard Cao is an immunologist and Assistant Professor at Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center (BIOPIC), Peking University. Cao obtained B.S. in Physics from Zhejiang University and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University. Cao’s research focuses on B-cell adaptive immune response, antibody drugs and vaccine designs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he made key contributions to the understanding of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies, humoral immunity of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and infection, and antibody immune escape of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Cao’s research has been published in Nature, Cell, The Lancet Infectious Diseases and Cell Host & Microbe. Cao is a member of WHO Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) Scientific Advisory Committee. Cao’s work was listed among “China's top 10 scientific advances” and “China's top 10 advances in life sciences” in 2022. Cao was listed among "35 Innovators Under 35" (China) in 2021 by MIT Technology Review and “Ten people who helped shape science in 2022” by Nature (Nature’s 10).

Jingxin Li, PhD, Professor, is working at Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Her research is focused on vaccine clinical evaluation and immunization strategy. She has participated in a lot of epidemiology investigations and a series of clinical trials of novel vaccines, including Enterovirus type 71 vaccine, recombinant human Ad5 vectored Ebola vaccine, and Covid-19 vaccines. She has got National Natural Science Outstanding Youth Founds and Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Funds for Distinguished youths, and hosted or participated in seven National Natural Science Founds or National Science and Technology Major Projects. She has published over 25 articles in medical journals on vaccine clinical studies, including Nature Med, Lancet Respir Med, Lancet Glob Health, etc.

Dr. Tonya Villafana is Vice President, Franchise, Medical & Scientific Affairs, Vaccine & Immune Therapies at AstraZeneca. She has dedicated her career to protecting millions of people around the world from the most challenging infectious diseases.

Over her career, Dr. Villafana has developed vaccines and monoclonal antibodies targeting areas of distinct unmet medical need, including COVID-19, influenza, malaria and RSV among others. Most notably, Dr Villafana led the development of Beyfortus/nirsevimab, a novel long-acting RSV monoclonal antibody which was the first to offer protection against RSV disease to all infants entering their first RSV season. With over 45 approvals across the globe, over 6 million infants have received nirsevimab and effectiveness data demonstrates significant public health impact.

Dr. Villafana led the accelerated late-stage development of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, Vaxzevria, working with multiple stakeholders including the University of Oxford and COVAX to enable broad vaccine access. This once-in-a-generation effort led to more than 3.1 billion doses being delivered to 180 markets, saving an estimated 6 million lives. The Oxford-AstraZeneca team was awarded the Copley Medal for this achievement. Her team was also responsible for the development of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 mAbs, Evusheld and Sipavibart.

Dr Villafana has held roles previously at the World Bank, at the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and in academia at Harvard School of Public Health.

She has served on multiple scientific committees and advisory boards.  In 2021, she was appointed as a Fellow of the International Society of Vaccines and in 2023, she was named as one of Endpoints News Top 20 Women in Biopharma R&D.

Dr Villafana received a PhD in immunology from Weill Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences and an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. She has over 60 publications in leading scientific journals including the NEJM, Lancet and Nature Medicine.

Dr. Tao Zhu, Ph.D. the University of Pittsburgh

Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of CanSino Biologics Inc. 

Dr. Zhu is a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the “Healthy China Construction” professional committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party. 

Dr. Zhu focuses on the research and development of biological products. He established multiple core technology platforms, including viral vector, polysaccharide protein conjugate vaccine, VLP recombinant vaccine and mRNA vaccine technology at CanSino. Multiple projects led by him have been selected as national “Major Science and Technology Projects for New Drug Creation” and “Major Science and Technology Projects for Infectious Diseases”. 

Dr. Zhu has led the team to develop a series of vaccine products, of which 6 vaccine products have been registered and marketed, another 7 vaccine products are in different stages of clinical studies. He co-developed the adenovirus vector-based Ebola virus vaccine (2018), the Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine (Convidecia, 2021), the Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine for Inhalation(Convidecia Air, 2022), and the Recombinant COVID-19 XBB Vaccine for Inhalation(2023), with the team of Academician Chen Wei of the Institute of Bioengineering, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, all of which have been marketed. Especially, Convidecia Air is the first developed inhalation vaccine product in the global. Menhycia, which was approved in 2021, is currently the only quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine on the market in China. Dr. Zhu also holds over 50 patents and 70 publications, including 15 papers from The Lancet publishers.

Dr. David Weiner directs a translational research laboratory at The Wistar Institute in the area of Molecular Immunology. His group is one of the pioneering research teams in establishing the field of DNA vaccines and immunotherapies. Important reports from his lab include the first DNA vaccine studied for HIV as well as for cancer immunotherapy, the early development of DNA encoded genetic adjuvants including the particularly relevant IL-12, advances in gene optimization, and advances in electroporation (EP) technologies resulting in improved gene delivery among others. His group worked with collaborators to become the first to move DNA technology into human study. His laboratory’s work helped revitalize the field through advancement of new synthetic DNA design and modification of EP delivery approaches resulting in potent immune induction as well as the first successful Phase IIb DNA efficacy study (for HPV immunotherapy) in humans. Dr. Weiner is the recipient of numerous honors including election as a fellow to both the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011 and the International Society for Vaccines in 2012. He is the recipient of the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award and received the Vaccine Industry Excellence Award for Best Academic Research Team in 2015 at the World Vaccine Congress. Weiner was honored with the prestigious Hilleman Lectureship in 2015 at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Grand Rounds session and received a Stone Family Award from Abramson Cancer Center for his groundbreaking work on DNA vaccines for cancer immunotherapy. In 2019, Dr. Weiner was honored with the Scientific Achievement Award from Life Sciences PA (LSPA). Dr. Weiner returned to Wistar in 2016 from his position at The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine as professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. From 1990 to 1993, Weiner held a joint position as assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at The Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Weiner is a co-founder of Inovio Pharmaceuticals and is a member of the Board of Directors. Dr. Weiner graduated with a B.S. in biology from SUNY at Stony Brook, N.Y., a M.S. in biology from the University of Cincinnati and a Ph.D. in developmental biology from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Dr. Jiang has overall responsibility for the strategic planning and operation management of Changchun BCHT Biotechnology Co., Ltd., and leads the full life-cycle development of the company’s vaccines from early discovery to market introduction. BCHT Biotechnology has grown into one of China’s leading vaccine manufacturers, with multiple products approved for launch and entering the international market.

Dr. Jiang completed his postdoctoral research at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, USA, following his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Jilin University. His research has resulted in 70+ peer-reviewed publications in international journals including PNAS, Journal of Virology, and Vaccine. As a principal inventor, he has applied for 35 domestic and international invention patents, of which 20 have been granted.

Dr. Jiang holds numerous important positions in China's vaccine field, including Vice Chairman of the Clinical Research Branch, China Association for Vaccines and the Bacterial Vaccine Branch, Beijing Association of Biological Products; and Youth Committee; Standing Committee Member of the Vaccine Basic Research Committee, Nucleic Acid Vaccine Branch, and Varicella and Herpes Zoster Vaccine Prevention and Control Branch at the China Association for Vaccines; and Member of the Committee on Bacterial Infection and Vaccine Research and the Council for the Promotion of International Vaccine Cooperation of the China Association for Vaccines. He has been recognized as a Top Innovative Talent of Jilin Province (First Tier) and recipient of the Outstanding Contribution Award for his contributions to public health and vaccine innovation.

Dr Morena Makhoana joined Biovac in 2004 and holds the role of Chief Executive Officer. He is a member of the Board and the Biovac Executive team. His mandate is to realise the objective of building vaccine manufacturing capacity in Southern Africa.
 
During Morena’s tenure, Biovac has secured three successful technology transfers with global pharmaceutical companies such as Sanofi and Pfizer that has allowed the company to grow its staff complement from 24 to over 400.
 
Morena is a medical graduate from the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa and has participated in numerous executive and business courses at both Harvard and Stanford Universities. Prior to his CEO role at Biovac he held the role of Deputy CEO and prior to that of Medical Affairs Director for Biovac.
 
He serves on a number of committees within the vaccine industry and serves as a board member of other healthcare and non-healthcare companies.

Olli Rundgren is the founder & CEO of Psyon Games, a multiple-awarded health games company. As an ex-football player and a high-stakes poker professional, Olli was compelled by the psychological power of games to motivate, engage, and drive behavior change.

For the past 13 years, he has explored how to use this power to make a positive impact in the world and built Psyon Games, a pioneering health games company trusted by top life science companies, NGOs, and governments.

Dr. Muthumani is a seasoned pharmaceu3cal execu3ve with extensive exper3se in developing immunotherapies, including vaccines and mAbs, for infec3ous diseases and cancer. He has led a transla3onal research laboratory at The Wistar Ins3tute and the University of Pennsylvania, holding prominent academic and industry posi3ons, including Associate Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Emerging Infec3ous Diseases. He served as Chief Scien3fic Officer (CSO) at GeneOne Life Science, Inc., specializing in vaccines and therapeu3cs, and later as Dis3nguished Scien3st, Vaccine & Advanced Biotechnologies Process R&D at Merck, USA. Currently, he is the President of Research & Development at Bharat Biotech Interna3onal Ltd, India. Throughout his career, he has fostered impacTul collabora3ons between academia and the pharmaceu3cal industry and secured major funding from organiza3ons such as NIH-HVDDT, DARPA, WW Smith, and the Emerson Collec3ve. Dr. Muthumani’s exper3se focuses on vaccine design and tes3ng, contribu3ng to the development of immunogens for viruses such as HIV, CHIKV, MERS-CoV, Zika, Nipah, POWV, MAYV, and SARS-CoV-2, several of which were among the first to reach human clinical trials. His work also includes pioneering novel vector-based delivery systems for immunomodulatory an3bodies to combat viral pathogens and cancers. With 132 peer-reviewed publica3ons, 42 patent submi`ed (22 awarded) patents, and mul3ple awards-including the Young Scien3st Award at the Nobel Symposium on Global HIV Therapeu3cs. Dr. Muthumani is recognized globally for his contribu3ons to vaccinology and immunotherapy. His leadership, mentorship, and dedica3on to addressing cri3cal public health challenges underscore his standing as a leading innovator in biomedical science.  

Falko Apel holds a PhD in infection Biology from The Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany. He started as a Project Manager at the Vaccine Formulation Institute (VFI) in 2020 and is currently Head of Clinical Projects at VFI.

Dr. Nakorn Premsri is a Director of NVI, Thailand, appointed in February 2019. He has the extensive experiences in health promotion, disease prevention and control as well as public health program management. He completed his medical training from Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, in 1993. He worked on public health management at Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health for 16 years
before moving to NVI. Importantly, he also has been working in vaccine development field since 2003.

As Director of NVI, He develops and manages national policies and strategies for vaccine security. He manages national funding to support vaccine research and development, production, and vaccination towards national vaccine security and self-reliance. He also facilitates collaboration with national and international vaccine partners, establishes
a vaccine information center for policy decision making and builds capacity among vaccine experts and human resources. Dr. Nakorn proposed the ASEAN Vaccine Security and Self-Reliance (AVSSR) initiative, to be endorsed at the ASEAN Summit in November 2019 with support from the ASEAN Health Minister Meeting. As AVSSR Focal Point, Dr. Nakorn is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the AVSSR Strategic and Action Plan 2021-2025 to ensure regional vaccine security.

Xia JIN，MD, PhD is currently an executive director and Chief Executive Officer of Immuno Cure BioTech Ltd., Hong Kong. He has hold a number of academic positions previously, including Professor of Fudan University Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, and its Director of Vaccine & Immunology Center; Distinguished Professor of the Chinese Academy of Science(CAS), and Deputy Director of Vaccine Research Center of the Institute Pasteur of Shanghai, and Deputy Director of CAS Molecular Virology & Immunology Key Lab. Before returning China, he has been a tenure-track Associate Professor of University of Rochester. His research focuses on the immune pathogenesis of human infectious diseases such as HIV and Dengue, and pre-clinical and clinical development of vaccines against these and other human pathogens.  He has published in 140 papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Science，J. Exp. Med.，J. Clin. Inv.，Nat. Commn., J Virol., Vaccine etc..

Hayato Urabe oversees the teams responsible for all investment activities, partnership development, portfolio strategy and access strategy as well as explorative activities to look for technology seeds to apply to Global Health and their innovative financing models. Previously, Dr. Urabe worked in the technology/finance sector (energy, life sciences, telemedicine, water treatment, etc), focusing on strategic planning, start-up due diligence, and project management in Silicon Valley. Dr. Urabe has PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University and earned an additional Master’s degree from the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego.

I have been researching tuberculosis pathogenesis for 30 years. I graduated from Medical School in 1987 and had an Internship at Chungnam National University Hospital for 1 year, and then went back to Medical School for basic medical research. My first research project was about the purification and immunological characterization of antigen 85B, which is a major immune-reactive protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Since then, I have studied the immune response against several purified mycobacterial proteins in humans and animals, and the valuable proteins have been applied to diagnostic and vaccine development. In particular, I have identified several macrophage- or dendritic cell-activating proteins that can induce activation of T cells with bactericidal activity from the multidimensional fraction of Mtb culture filtrate proteins and tested the vaccine potential of these proteins and their fusion proteins in vitro and in vivo. Several vaccine candidates have been patented and some have been technology transferred. In 2021, I founded a startup (Myco-Rapha Inc.) focused on developing preventive and therapeutic TB vaccines with the potential to transform TB control worldwide. I feel well prepared to make our lab a major force in the world of TB vaccines.

Kee-Jong Hong (BS, Seoul National Univ; MS, Seoul National Univ; PhD, Texas Tech Univ) is currently a Professor at the Department of the Microbiology, Gachon University College of Medicine, Korea, Leading Korean National project for the mRNA Vaccine R&D, KmVAC (Korea mRNA Vaccine Initiative). He has conducted research and development related to the pandemic preparedness including Influenza, Coronavirus, Ebola virus, Nipah virus and Bioterrorism pathogens such as Anthrax, tularemia. He worked for the Korean Dsease Control and Prevention Agency (KCDA) for 10 years as a government officer, also worked as a director of the industrial research institutes including the Interpark BioConvergence (currently GradientBioConvergence) and the NKMax for another 7 years before joining the Gachon University. He is serving for the Korean Vaccine Society as a chair of publication committee, also serving for the Korean Society for Zoonoses as a vice president. In 2024, he was selected as a member of Scientific Advisory Committee for CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) and keeps working till 2027.

Dr. Jae Myun Lee, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. With over two decades of expertise in microbiology, immunology, and vaccine development, he serves as Deputy Director General of Vaccine Innovative Technology Alliance (VITAL) Korea and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group at the International Vaccine Institute.

Dr. Lee earned his M.D. and Ph.D. from Yonsei University, followed by postdoctoral training in pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on infectious diseases, vaccine delivery systems, and antiviral strategies, with notable contributions to SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics and therapeutics. He has published extensively in high-impact journals, including Developmental Cell, Journal of Controlled Release, Experimental & Molecular Medicine and Cell Reports, and holds multiple patents for Microneedle array patch and diagnostic technologies.

Dr. Manki Song has built extensive experience in public health, driven by a continuous interest in addressing health threats in developing countries. His career trajectory spans from foundational studies of viral diseases to active participation in global vaccine development efforts.

Early in his career, he concentrated on specific pathogens such as HIV, HCV, and tuberculosis. More recently, in his capacity as the Deputy Director General of Science at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), he has been involved in broadening research scopes. This work includes efforts toward developing vaccines against norovirus, hepatitis A virus (HAV), severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

He played a role in the successful inclusion of both IVI and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) into the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) Central Lab network. Currently, he is leading the effort to develop an SFTS vaccine utilizing CEPI’s prototype vaccine library project.

Dr. Xuefeng Yu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CanSino Biologics(CanSinoBIO), is one of the Co-founders of CanSino Biologics.

With more than 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and rich experience in industrial development and business management, Dr. Yu returned to China in 2009 and led a team to establish CanSinoBIO, which focuses on the research, development, production and marketing of high-quality human vaccines. Over the past ten years, Dr. Yu has led his team in setting up five major technology platforms and formed a highly competitive product pipeline, including a number of innovative vaccine products for the prevention of more than 10 indications, including meningitis, pneumonia, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, COVID-19, Ebola virus disease, herpes zoster, and tuberculosis, etc., as well as innovative R&D collaborations with a number of research institutes around the world.

Dr. Yu holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from McGill University, Canada, and received a B.S. degree in Biology and an M.S. degree in Microbiology from Nankai University. Prior to founding CanSinoBIO, Dr. Yu worked for Sanofi-Pasteur for many years, holding global management positions in its Product Development and Bacterial Vaccine Development Departments, and was one of the youngest executives at Sanofi Canada.

Dr Mateusz Hasso-Agopsowicz is the Technical Officer in the Immunization Department at the World Health Organization in Switzerland. His work focuses on vaccines in development, especially for vaccines with high impact in low- and middle-income countries. He leads the programme on Vaccines and AMR. Mateusz completed his PhD in immunology and epidemiology of infectious diseases from the London School of Hygiene of Tropical Medicine.

Peter Dull is the deputy director for Integrated Clinical Vaccine Development within the Global Health Division. In this role, he provides technical and strategic guidance on clinical development to the foundation’s program strategy teams, including Pneumonia and Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases, and external partners. In addition, he leads the foundation’s vaccine development activities for HPV vaccines, including efforts with reduced dose schedules.

Peter joined the foundation in 2014 after 10 years at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics where he was the clinical franchise head for Meningitis and Sepsis Vaccines. During that time, he led the clinical development and global licensure for a quadrivalent meningococcal glycoconjugate vaccine (Menveo; MenACWY-CRM) as well as a protein-based serogroup B meningococcal vaccine (Bexsero; 4CMenB). His work also included early clinical development of Group B strep glycoconjugate and Staph aureus vaccines. Prior to joining Novartis, he was an epidemic intelligence service officer in the Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and completed subspecialty training in infectious diseases at Emory University.

He received his medical degree at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Internal Medicine training at Oregon Health Sciences University.

Dr. Haitao Hu is a Professor at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prior to joining the Institute, Dr. Hu was a tenured associate professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Department of Microbiology and Immunology, where he was also a faculty member of the Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences and served on its Executive Committee. He received his PhD in Microbiology and Virology from the University of Pennsylvania under the mentorship of Nobel Laureate Dr. Drew Weissman. 

Dr. Hu’s research focuses on viral immunology and development of mRNA-based broad-spectrum vaccines for RNA viruses, including HIV and respiratory pathogens. Through collaboration with other investigators, his laboratory has developed protective mRNA-LNP vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and avian influenza (H5N1), and continues to advance mRNA vaccine strategies for HIV/AIDS. His laboratory is also developing RNA-delivered monoclonal antibodies as both prophylactics and therapeutics for viral infections.  Dr. Hu has served as an expert reviewer for major vaccine-related grant panels (U19 and P01) and as a peer reviewer for leading scientific journals, including Science Translational Medicine, Science Immunology, and Nature Communications.

Zhang Qiong is a Principal Investigator at the Guangzhou National Laboratory and a member of the GZNL-CDE "Research-Review " Innovative Vaccine Project Team. She serves as a reviewer expert at the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE), National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), where she has been deeply involved in developing three technical guidelines related to mRNA vaccines. Dr. Zhang is recognized as a Youth Top Talent under Guangdong Province's ZJ Talent Program and completed her postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).  Her research focuses on molecular virology and developing intervention strategies for viral infectious diseases. She has published 23 SCI papers, which have garnered over 1700 citations, with an H-index of 18. Dr. Zhang has led two overseas talent programs and one National Natural Science Foundation project, and has been a core contributor to the "Guangzhou National Laboratory Major Scientific and Technological Special Project."

Prof. Zhou serves as committee member for Glycoconjugate section of Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Clinical Medicine section of CSBMB, Bacterial Infection and Vaccine section of Chinese Association of Vaccines, Virology section of Shanghai Medical Association. Prof. Zhou specializes in mechanistic studies of glycoconjugates in cancer, infectious diseases and immune disorders. Prof. Zhou and colleagues discovered cancer-specific conserved glycopeptide epitopes of MUC1 glycoprotein, developed mRNA vaccines and licensed antibody products to global companies including BioLegend.  Prof. Zhou published more than 70 papers in scientific journals including Nature and Science with H index as 33. He has received thesis prize of University of Zurich (Switzerland), Irvington postdoctoral fellowship of New York Cancer Research Institute, Robert M. Chamberlain distinguished mentor award nomination at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, National level talent program (2013), and winning award of 10 top science and technology achievements with translational potentials of Tongji University (2020).

Andrew Lees is the founder and CEO of Fina Biosolutions LLC (Rockville, MD), a company dedicated to promoting affordable conjugate vaccines by making the technology accessible to emerging market vaccine manufacturers.  Among his contributions in the field, Andrew developed an efficient linking chemistry that is widely used in conjugate vaccines, a class that includes vaccines for S. pneumoniae and meningococcal disease.  The chemistry has helped to reduce the cost of these vaccines.   Andrew is also an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Vaccine Development, the Uniformed Services University, Dept. of Medicine, and the University of Toledo, Dept of Chemistry.  He has over 75 publications and 25 patents, mainly in the area of conjugate vaccines.   Andrew received his BS in chemistry from Harvey Mudd College (1976) and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins (1984).  Honors include the Uniformed Services Meritorious Service Award, the Harvey Mudd College Outstanding Alumni Award, the Johns Hopkins Distinguished Alumni Award, and the American Chemical Society Horton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Industrial Carbohydrate Chemistry.  On graduating from Hopkins, he was on the cover of Baltimore Magazine as one of “84 people to watch in ‘84” due to his role as a leading Baltimore area magician. 

Vikram Paradkar received PhD in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering from University of Iowa, USA followed by 34 yr professional career in leading Biotech companies in the areas of Technical Operations such as process & product development, clinical & commercial manufacturing of multiple classes of biotherapeutics including vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, cytokines, etc.  For last 13 years, serving as Executive Vice President – Technical Operations at Biological E Limited, India; a fully vertically integrated vaccine development and manufacturing organization.  Provides leadership and oversight to product development and manufacturing teams involved in supplying fifteen  WHO-Prequalified vaccines globally and a development portfolio of more than 10 vaccines in early to late stage of development.  Biological E supplies >1000 million doses of vaccines annually to more than 135 countries globally for routine immunization programs.  Vaccine product portfolio includes all production platforms; bacterial toxoids, recombinant proteins, inactivated bacteria, polysaccharide conjugates, live-attenuated viruses, inactivated viruses, adenovector-based vaccines and mRNA vaccines.  Significant experience and expertise in very large-scale vaccine manufacturing operations for highly cost-effective supplies for global health.

Trained as a biochemist at the Johns Hopkins University, the US National Institutes of Health and Duke University, Bill Hausdorff’s vaccine career started at the US Agency for International Development and Centers for Disease Control in Washington DC and Cairo, Egypt.  There he worked to catalyze introduction of new vaccines into developing country immunization programs. 

Bill subsequently spent 2 decades at two vaccine companies, Wyeth Vaccines in Rochester NY in the Scientific Affairs & Research Strategy group, and then at GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines in Wavre, Belgium where he served as Director of Epidemiology and later Vaccine Development Leader for pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.  In each company he made significant contributions to the design and development of Prevenar13™ and Synflorix™, respectively.  For the past 8 years he has been based in Washington DC at the international health NGO PATH, and is currently Lead, Meningococcal Vaccine Development and Vaccine Value Propositions. 

Bill is author of over 100 scientific articles, including multiple highly cited papers on the global distribution of pneumococcal serotypes and a recent review in Lancet Global Health on the need for and challenges to combination vaccine development and use.  He serves on WHO’s Product Development Vaccine Advisory Committee (PDVAC).

Naked DNA plasmids, when i.m. or i.d. administered without assistance, are relatively poor in transfection efficiency and consequently show low

level of immunogenicity. A possible solution to this problem is microneedle array patch (MAP) delivery which utilizes microscopic projection

arrays on a plaster to deliver a vaccine on the skin. We will report our recent progress in developing MAP-based DNA vaccines that can effectively

induce protective immunity against SARS-COV-2 variants. MAP technology may open a new avenue for novel vaccine development

Dr Abebe Genetu Bayih work with Africa CDC is as Ag Lead, Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM). PAVM is the African Union initiative to expand vaccine manufacturing in Africa. Before joining Africa CDC, he worked in CEPI as the Africa Engagement Lead and was also the Director General of Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI), Ethiopia from 2018-2021. Abebe is a Molecular Microbiologist trained at the University of Calgary, Canada. He did his PhD in the area of vaccine discovery.

Qihan Li, Ph.D., Professor, specializes in viral immunology and viral vaccine science, dedicated to the basic and applied research and product development of vaccines for emerging and re-emerging infectious disease.

Dr Ankur Mutreja, PhD, FRSB is currently a Director of External Affairs and Health Security at PATH operating from the UK and India. An experienced global health professional who has worked in industry, academia and public health, Dr Mutreja has significant expertise in R&D translation, tech-transfer, strategy, contract negotiation, tailored communication, and policy recommendation. In his previous role at CEPI where he was the country in-charge for India and Head of Global South Partnerships portfolio, he played an instrumental role in integrating R&D, Manufacturing, Access, Partnerships, Communications and Resource Mobilization plans of CEPI into a Global South Strategic Roadmap. Prior to CEPI, as a Group Leader of Global Health, he led a large international team of managers, scientists, and policy experts at the University of Cambridge where he managed several public health projects in vaccines, diagnostics, WASH, surveillance, and epidemiology. He has also served in the roles of Project Leader at the MSD-Wellcome Hilleman Laboratories and Industry-Academia Bridging Fellow at the Novartis Vaccines for Global Health, with a mission of making affordable vaccines suitable for LMIC needs. In his career, he has successfully raised funds, led, and delivered on large programs from Wellcome, WHO, BMGF, MRC, ESRC, TSB, Innovate UK, NIHR, BRC, Alborada Trust, DBT, ICMR and Hamied Foundation, among several others. Dr Mutreja has an excellent publication record and is on the board of and holds honorary positions at numerous key institutions and agencies of high repute.

Andrea Cossarizza (born December 11th, 1958) took the degree in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Padua, then he did his PhD in Oncology at the University of Bologna and University of Modena, and the Specialization in Clinical Pathology and Immunohematology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. When he was a medical student, he visited the Basel Institute of Immunology and then the New York University (NYU) Medical Center. After the degree, he spent some periods in different Institutes (Charing Cross Sunley Res. Ctr., London; Univ. Cochin, Paris; University of Califormia at Los Angeles - UCLA), in 1998 he became Associate Professor of General Pathology and Immunology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and in 2010 was appointed Full Professor (office taken in 2013).

Dr. Liu Yuanqing graduated from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University and was a surgeon at Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital. He completed his PhD in Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and was one of the pioneers on myeloid-derived suppressors in tumors. He was previously a senior research lead at Sanofi Pasteur French headquarter, where he contributed to various vaccine projects, including cancer vaccines, vaccines against infectious diseases, pediatric vaccines, adjuvants, etc. Dr. Liu is an industry veteran with extensive experience in the development of innovative vaccines for international market. He was a member of the EU Innovative Medicine Initiative. Since 2021, he has been the Chief Scientific Officer of Immorna Biotechnology. He is based in Shanghai where Immorna has established a high-standard R&D site aiming to accelerate the development of mRNA vaccines and drugs in China.

Mr. Sun was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Sinopharm CNBG in 2025. He worked as Vice President of Sinopharm holding for one year, and served as Vice President of CNBG from 2023 to 2024.

Mr. Sun has dedicated his career to pharmaceutical quality management, regulatory affairs, and regulatory inspection. He has held quality control and quality management roles at multinational pharmaceutical companies including Novartis and Baxter. He also led analytical method transfer and localized production validation for multiple imported pharmaceutical products.

In 2008, he joined the national drug regulatory authority, and served in the Center for Food and Drug Inspection, the Department of Drug and Cosmetic Regulation, and the Department of Policies and Regulations, focusing on drug inspection and the development of the quality management system for drug regulation.

He led the revision of the GMP for Drugs (2010 Revision) and its appendices, developed the inspection procedures and evaluation criteria for drug GMP certification, and launched key regulatory initiatives.

As convener, he led the successful WHO assessment of China’s National Regulatory System for Vaccines.

Graduated from the Itajubá Medical School in 1989, Esper Georges Kallás completed his medical residency in Infectious Diseases at the São Paulo Municipal Civil Servant Hospital and a master's degree at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). Defended in 1996, his dissertation analyzed the risk factors for HIV infection in the São Paulo House of Detention. In 1999, he completed his doctorate at Unifesp, with co- tutorship at the University of Rochester, in the United States, researching the antigen- specific production of cytokines by T lymphocytes after infection and vaccination. Full Professor at the Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases at the School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo (FMUSP), where he has been a faculty member since 2009. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he worked on the front lines of clinical care and as a member of the São Paulo State Contingency Center, an organization that monitored and coordinated actions against the spread of SARS-CoV-2. He was the principal investigator of several clinical trials, such as for the dengue vaccine and CoronaVac phase 3. Among his research areas are treatment of HIV infection, vaccines, the effects of the cell cycle on the genetic variation of HIV-1, immunology of infectious diseases, host-parasite relationship and clinical immunology.

Dr. Yan graduated and earned his B.S. and Ph.D at Wuhan University. He continued to work as a teaching staff member in College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University until 1998. From 1998 to 2002, he worked with Prof. Michael E. Lamm as a Research Associate in Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio and conducted scientific research on mucosal immune functions of IgA in relation to virus infections. He returned to Wuhan University in autumn 2002 and joined in the newly established Modern Virology Research Center, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University as an associate professor. In 2006, he moved to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he was appointed as a professor and group leader to set up an independent research lab named Mucosal Immunity Research Group. His lab is a group member of the State Key Laboratory of Virology in China. He has continued his research on the mucosal IgA functions against virus infections and focused more on the intra-epithelial activities of IgA against viral non-surface and non-structure components, which helps to reveal novel anti-viral mechanisms of IgA antibodies. His lab demonstrated that measles virus (MV) non-surface protein such as matrix protein (M), non-structural protein such as phosphoprotein (P) specific IgA can interact with viral newly synthesized proteins during IgA transport through the viral infected epithelial cells, and inhibit viral replication intracellularly. He also extended his study in developing optimized recombinant flagellin as mucosal adjuvant for designing novel subunit mucosal vaccines. He obtains 3 patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and 4 patents issued by the State Intellectual Property Office of the PRC related to novel flagellin adjuvants as well as anti-caries vaccine and anti-RSV vaccine. His research is mostly funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.

I have over 25 years of experience in influenza research and vaccine development. I received my PhD from Fordham University in the United States and previously served as an Assistant Professor at New York Medical College. My work improved globally adopted methods for generating high-yield influenza vaccine seed strains, including the WHO-distributed pandemic H1N1 strain X-179A used worldwide from 2009 to 2015. I am currently developing an mRNA-based Zika vaccine and advancing a recombinant protein Mpox vaccine with IND approval.

Yi Tao, Ph.D. is a researcher in epidemiology and medical statistics, engaged in The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University. Yi Tao specializing in clinical trial design, pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) modeling, and data-driven health solutions. Yi Tao as a sub-investigator participated in over 30 clinical trial projects, led and contributed to several nationally funded research, published 15 research papers as the first or corresponding author, granted 2 patents.

Yi Fang, MD, PhD

Professor; Chief Pharmacist

Director, Phase I Clinical Trial Research Unit

Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing, China

Dr. Yi Fang is Professor and Chief Pharmacist at Peking University People’s Hospital, where he serves as Director of the Phase I Clinical Trial Research Unit. As a principal investigator, he has led over 300 early-phase clinical trials, including more than 170 first-in-human studies of biologics and innovative therapies. He is an external expert for the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE), NMPA, and holds leadership roles in multiple national pharmacology and clinical research committees. Dr. Fang’s work focuses on early clinical translation, clinical pharmacology, and innovative therapeutic development.

Alejandra Gurtman, MD, is Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer, Vaccines. She is responsible for early- and late-stage clinical development of Pfizer’s vaccine pipeline. She has provided oversight and leadership for the Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccine program that resulted in approval of both RSV adult and maternal indications in the US and Europe. Alejandra joined the Vaccine Research and Development group in 2005 and has over 30 years of clinical research experience.  She was a critical member of Pfizer’s COVID 19 vaccine program supporting all aspects of development and strategy. She was instrumental in bringing the adolescent and pediatric program forward for Emergency Use Authorization.

Before this role, she was the Global Clinical Lead for the Staphylococcus aureus vaccine (SA4Ag) and prior to that, she led the Prevnar 13 Pediatric Program through all phases of development.  She also provided significant strategic and tactical support to the Prevnar 13 Adult Program and studies performed in high-risk immunocompromised children and adults.

Alejandra received her medical school and internal medicine training at the University of Buenos Aires, School of Medicine, Argentina, and postdoctoral training as fellow and chief fellow of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York.  She served on the faculty of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine as Associate Professor.  In her academic role she gained experience in conduct of clinical trials, care of high-risk populations, and was the founder and director of the Mount Sinai travel medicine program.

Dr Gurtman is the author/co-author on 100 original research articles and book chapters.

Dennis Yu is the founder and CEO of Value Biologics. Dennis received PhD and MBA degrees. He has over 30 years of global biopharma experience in R&D and biomanufacturing. Prior to founding Value Biologics, he has been working for big pharma and biotech including Novartis, BMS and Wuxi Biologics. He has led R&D teams to develop and manufacture over 30 biopharmaceuticals covering vaccines, antibodies, protein drugs and nucleic acid drugs, some of which have been regulatorily approved and commercialized successfully. In Value Biologics, he’s been working on advanced mRNA-LNP platforms including circular mRNA and organ targeting LNP to develop novel vaccines, therapeutics, cell and gene therapies for unmet medical needs.

Alejandro D. Cané, MD

Pfizer – Head of Medical, Vaccines Research Organization

Dr. Alejandro D. Cané is a distinguished pediatrician and specialist in pediatric infectious diseases, honored graduate of the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He holds a master’s in clinical and Pharmacological Research from Universidad Austral and has completed the Advanced Course of Vaccinology, jointly organized by the Merieux Foundation and the University of Geneva.

Dr. Cané serves as Professor of Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, and Pharmacology at Universidad Austral. He completed his residency at Children’s Hospital “Ricardo Gutierrez” and has extensive experience in pediatric infectious diseases, bone marrow, and liver transplant across leading hospitals in Argentina.

With more than 200 published articles and contributions to several books in pediatrics, infectious diseases, and vaccines, Dr. Cané is recognized as a prolific author and collaborator in his field.

Dr. Cané joined Wyeth in 2006 as Medical Manager for Vaccines and has since held progressive leadership roles across Latin America, Canada, Emerging Markets, and North America within Pfizer. He led medical and scientific affairs teams in the U.S. and International Developed Markets and, since January 2024, directs the US Vaccines and Antivirals Medical Team. Dr. Cané was appointed the Vaccine Head of Medical within the Vaccine Research Organization as of July 1st, 2025.

-17+ Years in Vaccine Clinical Development 

-Former Director, Guangxi CDC Vaccine Clinical Research Institute (2010-2022), managing nearly 300 clinical trials and serving as PI for 70+ vaccine trials, including large-scale, multi-center efficacy studies. 

-CDE and national vaccine task force expert, contributing to national vaccine trial regulations, guidelines, and major drug innovation projects. 

-Led groundbreaking trials: world’s first EV71 inactivated vaccine, China’s first mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, HPV, rotavirus, rabies, IPV, bOPV, influenza, pneumococcal, and meningococcal vaccines. 

-Published 30+ SCI; editor for Vaccinology (7th Edition) and Preventive Vaccine Clinical Trial Design and Implementation. 

-Former roles in national industry committees: NMPA Drug Review Committee, State Council Vaccine R&D Task Force, National Immunization Program, and GCP inspector.

35 years of industry experience 

Former executive at global companies in China, the US, and Europe, including Amador, Worg, Alexion (AstraZeneca), Shire (Takeda), CancerVax (Amgen), and Elan (Perrigo). 

Extensive expertise in Quality Management & Regulatory Affairs, Medical Affairs & Clinical Development, and experience on both the sponsor and CRO. 

Former FDA/CBER reviewer.

Gerardo Guillen is currently the Scientific Director of the Cuba China Biotechnology Joint Innovation Center, Yongzhou, Hunan and Senior Researcher at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), Havana, Cuba. He received his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Master's in Chemistry in 1986 from I.I. Mechnikov University, Odessa, and his doctorate in Biological Sciences in 1995 from the University of Havana. His research focuses on prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine development against hepatitis, dengue, meningitis, whooping cough, cancer, and COVID-19; and the development of biotechnological drugs for cancer, infectious diseases, wound healing, cardio protection, neuroprotection, autoimmunity. Dr. Guillen is a Professor at the University of Havana and the Latin American School of Medicine, a Distinguished Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, and a Member of the Cuban and TWAS Academy of Sciences. He has been a Full Member of the Cuban Society of Immunology since 1996 and an Honorary Member since 2012. He has published 285 scientific articles and has been awarded the Biology Prize from the Academy of Sciences of Developing Countries (TWAS), the annual prize from the Cuban Chemistry Society, and the Gold Medal for the “Abdala" COVID-19 vaccine patent granted by the World Intellectual Property Office. He is a member of numerous tribunals, and academic arbitration committees, a scientific advisor, organizing committees, lecturer, and expert in different countries, international events, and biotechnology companies.

Dr. Xizhou Zhu is an Associate Professor under the Hundred Talents Program at the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on nucleic-acid–based therapeutics, rational vaccine design, and immunoengineering for cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. Zhu received his Ph.D. and postdoctoral training at The Wistar Institute in the United States, with a focus on translational immunology and vaccine development. He made key contributions to the rapid development of the DNA-based COVID-19 vaccine INO-4800, one of the earliest nucleic acid vaccines to advance into global clinical trials. His research spans DNA-encoded vaccines, nanoparticle delivery systems, and antibody engineering, including the development of afucosylated antibodies to enhance immune effector functions. He has also conducted innovative studies integrating CAR-T cell therapies with bispecific antibodies to overcome immune escape and improve anti-tumor efficacy in virus-associated cancers such as EBV and HPV. His work has been published in leading journals, including Nature Communications, Cell Reports, and Advanced Science, and has resulted in multiple patent applications. At the Institute of Process Engineering, Dr. Zhu aims to leverage AI-driven drug discovery tools to rationally design and engineer biologic macromolecules, enabling the rapid development of next-generation vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics.

Chen obtained Ph.D. on polymer science from Nankai University in 1993. From 1994 to 1998, he was Postdoctoral Researcher and later Research Assistant at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Then he spent the period 1998−2001 as Postdoctoral Researcher in the University of Düsseldorf and the University of Mainz. Since 2001, Chen was Professor at the Institute of Chemistry CAS and moved to Sun Yat-sen University in 2013. He works in Henan University since 2024. He obtained the “Distinguished Young Scholars” by the National Science Foundation of China (2006) and the “Wang Bo-Ren Polymer Research Award” by the Chinese Chemistry Society (2011). He served for Polymer as an Associate Editor from 2007 to 2018. He also was on the Advisory Board Panel of Polymer, Macromolecules and ACS Macro Letters. He has published over 300 research articles in Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communication, Science Advances, Biomaterials, ACS Nano, ACS Macro Letters, Macromolecules et al and has over 30 patents approved. His research interests: Materials chemistry, Delivery technology, Vaccines and adjuvants, Materials for inflammation control.

Dr. Xiangrong Song is a recognized leader in RNA drug development and targeted delivery technologies. With nearly 20 years of experience in nanomedicine and translational research, she has advanced multiple novel therapies from concept to clinic. She is the scientific founder and General Manager of WestGene Biopharma and a professor at the National Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Sichuan University.

Under her leadership, WestGene has successfully developed China’s first mRNA-based adjuvant approved under EUA, and advanced several first-in-class mRNA drugs into clinical trials in China and the US. The company’s in vivo CAR-T program, also led by Dr. Song, has entered clinical evaluation, offering a new approach to scalable and accessible cell therapy.

Dr. Song’s work has been recognized with top national innovation awards and multiple honors for scientific achievement. She actively serves on editorial boards and biotech committees, and continues to drive global collaborations in oncology, immunotherapy, and next-generation delivery platforms.

Xuesong Wang earned her Ph.D. from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is currently a Senior Research Scientist of Mass General Hospital specializing in immunology, vaccinology, and virology within an academic setting. Her expertise includes vaccine development, T- and B-cell immunology, therapeutic antibody discovery, and antibody feedback mechanisms, with a particular focus on infectious diseases such as hepatitis C virus (HCV), HIV, and other viral pathogens. She has authored 18 publications in leading journals, including Science Immunology, Nature Immunology, Immunity, Gut, The EMBO Journal, and The Journal of Infectious Diseases, serving as first or co-first author on multiple studies .

Dr. Yelin Xiong is the Vice President at Yither Biotech Co. Ltd. In this role, she is responsible for early-stage discovery to clinical material manufacturing of various vaccine candidates. Yelin has extensive research experience in immunology and vaccine development against infectious diseases. Prior to the current position, Yelin had over 20 years of industry experience in research, process development/scale-up, GMP manufacturing and CMC management in Sanofi pasteur. She received a Doctorate degree in Immunology and Cell Biology from John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University and had postdoctoral training in Emory University and University of Toronto.          

Shenglan Tang, MD, MPH, PhD

Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans International Distinguished Professor at Duke University

Co-Director of Global Health, Duke Kunshan University, China

Director of Innovation Lab for Vaccine Delivery Research, China

Dr. Tang has more than 30 years of experience undertaking research on health systems reform, disease control/prevention and maternal and child health in China and other developing countries and has provided consultancy services on health systems strengthening to many international  organizations and governments of developing countries. In 2012, Dr. Tang came to Duke from the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), based in Geneva, where he was Unit Leader for TB/HIV and Health Systems. Before his assignment at WHO, Tang was a faculty member at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in UK and at the School of Public Health of Fudan University (formerly Shanghai Medical University), China.

Luigi Bonfatti is Executive Advisor at RVMC (Regionalized Vaccine Manufacturing Collaborative). As member of RVMC Leadership he has global accountability on industry (and industry associations) engagement as well as for Asia regionalization agenda.

Before joining RVMC, Luigi has been supporting Chiesi Farmaceutici, Italian largest pharma company, in managing the integration of its largest acquisition to date (a fully fledged rare disease company) and adjust its operating and governance business models.

Prior to that, Luigi has spent 25 years at GSK Vaccines in a variety of senior roles in business development, supply, marketing and strategy of growing importance. During the last 8 years at GSK he created and grew a self-standing business unit in charge of integrations, divestments and strategic partnerships. As general manager of this business unit, Luigi was overseeing commercial and industrial partnerships and product transfers allowing him to have a unique end-to-end understanding of the vaccine industry and value chain.

Luigi holds a chemical engineering degree from Polytechnic School of Brussels University as well as an MBA from Solvay Business School.

Liang Xiaofeng, Professor of Medicine, is currently the Dean of Jinan University - Kangtai Vaccine Industry Research Institute, the Chair Professor of Jinan University, and the vice president of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association. He used to be the deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, he is a visiting professor at Peking University, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Shanxi Medical University.

He is the member of the World Health Organization Hepatitis Expert Advisory Committee (STAC), the vice chairman of the United Nations Advisory Committee on Life Sciences and Human Health (CCLH), a member of the National COVID-19 Expert Group, China, the deputy editor-in-chief of the Chinese Journal of Global Health (English), the vice president of CAST UN Consultative Committee on Life Science and Human Health, the Executive Committee of the World Federation of Public Health Associations.

He has undertaken a number of scientific research work on the prevention and control of infectious diseases. As the first/corresponding author, he has published many academic papers on high impact journals such as the New England Journal and The Lancet. He has published 27 English papers as the first author or corresponding author with a total of 2196 citations. In 2011, he translated and published the fifth edition of Vaccines. In the early stage of COVID-19 in 2020, he has translated and published Guidance for Coronavirus Disease 2019 - Prevention, Control, Diagnosis and Management (English Version) as a translator in chief.

He has won the Special Allowance of the State Council of China, the title of Young and Middle-aged Expert with Outstanding Contributions by the Ministry of Health, the title of "Wu Jieping - Paul Janssen Medical Pharmaceutical Award". His research "Chinese first effective prevention and control and integrated innovative research on the H1N1 influenza pandemic" won the first prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award.

Christopher Gill has an MD from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and an MS from the Tufts School of Graduate Biomedical Studies.  Dr. Gill is an infectious disease specialist by training. From 2002-2008 and again from 2011-2023 he was a faculty member of the Department of Global Health at Boston University School of Public Health rising eventually to the level of full professor of Global Health.  During the intervening years 2008-11 he was the clinical director for the development of the MenACWY-CRM conjugate meningitis vaccine for Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics. His work has centered broadly on child-survival in the areas of diarrheal diseases, pneumonia, and neonatal survival. However, his largest concentration of work has focused on better understanding the epidemiology of pediatric respiratory infections, notably Streptococcus pneumoniae, Bordetella pertussis and Respiratory Syncytial Virus.  At BU, Dr. Gill was the 2015 recipient of the Norman Scotch Award for excellence in teaching at Boston University School of Public Health, and the 2016 recipient of Boston University's Metcalf Cup and Prize. The Metcalf Cup and Prize is BU's highest teaching honor and is awarded to one of BU's >3500 faculty across its 17 colleges and schools each year.  At the Gates Foundation, Dr. Gill’s main areas are development of combination vaccines and expanding the impact of HPV vaccination globally. 

Dr. Jicui Dong is the Unit Head of the Product Policies, Access and Manufacturing Support Unit at the WHO. She leads diverse teams that assist Member States in addressing gaps in access to health products, including medicines, vaccines, medical devices, IVDs, assistive technologies, medical countermeasures, and controlled medicines. Her unit’s work spans multiple critical areas, such as medicine selection and use, intellectual property, product development, technology transfer, local production and manufacturing support, supply chains, pricing, and procurement.

Dr. Dong  is responsible for the World Local Production Forum and the WHO Biomanufacturing Workforce Training Initiative. Previously, she headed the Local Production and Assistance Unit and led the unit to receive the WHO Director General’s Award for Excellence in 2021 and 2024. Among her 20+ years in WHO,  Dr Dong also has rich experience in the normative work and managing the global health R&D demonstration projects  under the GSPAPHI, among others.  

Dr. Dong received her PhD in Biology in Switzerland, MSc in Pharmacology in China, and MBA in the UK. She also received executive training in trade, diplomacy and public health and extensive training in innovation, entrepreneurship, etc. in Switzerland and USA. 

Dr. Justin Jia had 20+ years of analytical development and quality control experience in the U.S. and China. Justin is the head of Quality Control and Analytical Development at WuXi Vaccines, a global leader in vaccine CDMO. In response to the rapid growth and high demand of global vaccine development and manufacturing, his team has delivered 800+ product-specific analytics and 15+ PCT patents on 250+ therapeutic target molecules, and is well equipped to provide one-stop vaccine analytical development and quality control services at WuXi Vaccines.

Xiawei Wei, Professor, Changjiang Distinguished Professor, supported by National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars, graduated from the Department of Pharmaceutics of Zhejiang University in 2010 with a bachelor's degree, and graduated from the School of Pharmacy in Sichuan University with a doctor's degree. Currently, she is the director of the International office of West China Hospital, Sichuan University. She is the deputy director of the National Clinical Medical Center for Geriatric Diseases, and the director of Laboratory of Aging Research and Cancer Drug Target in West China Hospital. She is a committee member of ASGCT - American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy and the youth president of the Asia-Pacific Alliance for Gene and Cell Therapy. Her main research interests are development of recombinant protein vaccines and adjuvants, intranasal vaccine and mucosal delivery, and pulmonary inflammatory diseases and tumor immune microenvironment, as well as the translational research of small molecule anti-tumor drugs. She has published more than 110 papers in Nature, Nature Communications, EMBO Molecular Medicine, Advanced Science, Molecular Cancer, ACS Nano etc.(H-index=56). She has served as the Editorial Board Member or deputy editor of four SCI journals, and won the 2018 Yao Ming Kang De Scholar Award.

Beijing special expert, Beijing COVID-19 prevention and technology talent, Beijing Normal University adjunct professor, Tsinghua University doctor, Oregon State University postdoctoral. Dr. Sun Le studied under Professor G. Sato, a member of the American Academy of Sciences, scientific Advisor to President Nixon, inventor of monoclonal antibody drugs, and Professor Zhao Nanming, former Dean of the School of Life Sciences and Medicine of Tsinghua University. Formerly Director of production and scientific research at Upstate/Merck USA; Founded A&G Pharmaceuticals in the United States in 2000 and served as President. Having undertaken a number of major national and Beijing science and technology projects, Jingtiancheng, as a key enterprise in Beijing's infectious disease emergency prevention and control platform, has played an important role in the fight against rabies, hand-foot-mouth EV71, avian influenza H1N1/H7N9, new Pornia virus, Norovirus, Ebola virus and novel coronavirus. Established a huge library of infectious disease pathogens antibodies, including pneumonia 18, HPV9, meningitis 4, DPT, rabies, Bunya Virus, EV71, CA16, HBV, HCV, HEV, HIV, IPV, rubella virus, RSV, RAV,JEV mouse mab thousands of species. In this outbreak, Dr. Sun Le was supported by the Major COVID-19 Emergency Project of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Gates Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Project respectively.

Xu Zhu,

Senior Consultant of Zhongyi Health Research Institute (Beijing)

He trained in the hospital of Xinjiang Medical University, China.

1983 - 1996, he focused on the research of heart diseases intervention in Xinjiang Medical University, and  went Leuven University as a fellow researcher on epidemiology of hypertension prevention. 

He served at China CDC from 1996- 2002, as the program manager to support national EPI program related to vaccine cold chain, policy development and international program cooperation.

After joined UNICEF China office from 2002- 2019, has gained working experiences on child immunization, and diseases prevention program related on immunization, policy advocacy, communication and child health information management system development.

Since 2019, he served as senior consultant to provided technical support for vaccine and immunization project for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Beijing) and Zhongyi Health Research Institute.

Jingyou (Jay) Yu, Ph.D., is a Principal Investigator at the Guangzhou National Laboratory (GZNL) and a professor affiliated with the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University. Dr. Yu earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University followed by postdoctoral training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-Harvard Medical School. His research is centered on understanding the mechanisms of immune defense against viruses at mucosal surfaces and developing innovative mucosal vaccine strategies. He is also dedicated to improving current vaccine platforms, such as adenoviral-vectored and mRNA vaccines, to enhance their safety, efficacy, and affordability

Dr. Yu has an extensive publication record, with papers in leading journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Nature, Science, Cell, and Cell Host & Microbe. Throughout his career, he has received numerous accolades, including the American Society of Virology Travel Award, the OSU Distinguished Research Award, the Harvard Chinese Life Sciences Annual Distinguished Research Award, and the CROI New Investigator Scholarship.

Dr. Jasmina Puc earned her PhD in Biosciences from the University of Ljubljana in 2016, specializing in gene identification related to leanness in mice. She joined Sartorius BIA Separations in 2018 as a project manager, focusing on nucleic acids and developing scalable processes for DNA and RNA therapeutics using CIM technology. In March 2025, she transitioned to the business development unit as a product manager, where she continues to enhance production processes for plasmid DNA, messenger RNA, and other nucleic acid-based therapeutics, including saRNA, tRNA, ssDNA, and cRNA.

Bachelor of Pharmacy from West China School of Pharmacy, Master of Science in medicinal administration from the University of Macau. Currently engaged in research on regulatory science at School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University (under Professor Yang Yue's research group). Research areas include combined vaccine development and regulation, oncology drug evaluation, health economics assessment, and clinical pharmacist services.

Since 2016 Romain has been President, Co-Founder and CEO of Combined Therapeutics Inc (CTx), a spin-out biotech company from the Langer Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). CTx integrates nanomedicine and ground-breaking mRNA technology to enhance immunotherapies by safely delivering nucleic acid-based therapeutics to patients. To do this, our team developed a unique Nanomedicine Platform (DMPCTx) which directs and enhances immunotherapies in solid tumors, directing expression of customise mRNA in targeted cells only, achieving enhanced efficacy and Multi-Organ Protection. Our platform is formulated in a lipid nanoparticle, which is engineered to concentrate the immunotherapy’s activity in specific cell types whilst sparing other tissue. Evident in the 2019 engineering of WO/2019/051100, CTx work encompasses the composition for expressing polypeptide within a target organ, the composition comprising of delivery particles and at least a first mRNA sequence complexed with the delivery particle.
and directorial positions across the Institut Mérieux group, including ABlinc (USA), Shantha Biotechnics (India), Transgene (China and France). My responsibilities stretched from managing the Mycobacterial antigen vaccine, Patent WO/2014/009438A2 in China, leading the international research program for immunology and cancer in
, I held various global, managerial
Shanghai, to global medico, strategic marketing and technological partnering.

Chunlin Xin serves as Vice President of External Innovation at CanSino Biologics, overseeing international scientific partnerships and platform strategy. He has played a key role in the establishment and maturation of mRNA technology capabilities in China, including lipid nanoparticle delivery systems, clinical development programs, and pandemic-era manufacturing scale-up.

Beyond product development, Mr. Xin has been engaged in dialogues with WHO, MPP, and regional partners on sustainable models for mRNA technology transfer and ecosystem building. His work emphasizes the transition of mRNA from an emergency response tool to a long-term, institutionalized public health platform.

He brings industry, regulatory, and global health collaboration perspectives to discussions on how East Asia can contribute to and integrate with the evolving global mRNA manufacturing and innovation network.

Charles Gore has served as Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool since July 2018. With a background in patient representation and public health advocacy, he has led the expansion of MPP’s work beyond HIV and viral hepatitis into essential medicines, COVID-19 treatments, and health technologies, including pandemic preparedness and vaccine-related licensing.

A former hepatitis C patient, Charles founded The Hepatitis C Trust in the UK and later helped establish the European Liver Patients Association and the World Hepatitis Alliance, serving as its President from 2007 to 2017. His advocacy contributed to WHO resolutions on viral hepatitis and the adoption of the Global Health Sector Strategy to eliminate hepatitis B and C by 2030.

Martin Friede, PhD, is an internationally recognized expert in vaccine research and development with more than three decades of leadership experience spanning global health, industry, and academia. His career has focused on advancing vaccine technologies, strengthening biomanufacturing capacity in low- and middle-income countries, and guiding high-impact global health initiatives.

Dr. Friede served at the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2003 to 2025, most recently as Head of the Vaccine Research Unit, where he led global programmes to define global vaccine R&D priorities, develop strategic innovation roadmaps, and expand access to cutting-edge vaccine technologies. He established and oversaw the WHO mRNA Technology Transfer Programme, enabling the development of sustainable mRNA vaccine and therapeutics manufacturing capacity across multiple regions. Since September 2025, he has been a Senior Advisor to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP).

Johnny is a public health professional with expertise at the intersection of science, business and global access to medicines. During his academic career at Ghent University and Washington University in St. Louis, he focused on developing and evaluating novel diagnostic tools or control strategies for helminth parasites in animals and humans. After completing his MBA, he joined a boutique Belgian consulting firm that provided advisory services to low- and middle-income country clients on establishing local biomanufacturing capacity. He recently joined the Medicines Patent Pool as a Business Development and Licensing expert, where he supports the implementation of the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme.

Sushant Sahastrabuddhe, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., is the Associate Director General of the Innovation, Initiatives, and Enterprise Development unit at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI).

Dr. Sahastrabuddhe has been with IVI for 15 years and has led multiple vaccine development programs, including those for typhoid conjugate, chikungunya, and COVID-19 vaccines. He is a medical graduate from India, holds a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (USA), and an M.B.A. from Indiana University (USA).

Before joining IVI, Dr. Sahastrabuddhe worked with the National AIDS Research Institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

He has authored more than 40 manuscripts and two book chapters, and holds academic affiliations as Adjunct Professor at the College of Medicine, Yonsei University (Republic of Korea); Research Fellow at the Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie, Team GIMAP, Université Jean Monnet / Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (France); and Visiting Professor at the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Dynamics, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University (Japan).

In 2021, Dr. Sahastrabuddhe was awarded honorary citizenship by the Seoul Metropolitan Government in recognition of his contributions to global public health.

Yiwei Zhong, Ph.D., is a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Basic Medical Sciences at Fudan University. Her work focuses on vaccine adjuvants and delivery systems. Over the past decade, she has conducted extensive research on novel vaccine adjuvant design and the mechanisms of systemic and mucosal immune activation. Her achievements include developing a novel Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine, which has successfully completed a Phase II clinical trial. Additionally, she has created rapid evaluation systems for cellular and humoral immune responses to address the lengthy preclinical assessment cycle for vaccines. To tackle the challenge of low mucosal delivery efficiency, she has also developed a novel delivery system with sustained-release and thermosensitive properties. She has led or participated in over 10 national and provincial-level research projects, including key projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), NSFC International Cooperation projects, and the National Key Research and Development Program of China. She has authored or co-authored more than 10 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals such as NPJ Vaccines, iScience, and International Immunopharmacology. She holds substantial intellectual property, including 4 filed invention patents and 1 authorized patent.

EDUCATION 1991.09-1996.07  Bachelor of Medicine, Clinical Medicine. Lanzhou Medical College 1999.09-2004.06  M.D in Pathology and Pathobiology, West China Medical Center of Sichuan University 2004.06-2006.09  Post-doctor, Genetic Institute, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University 2011.05-2011.11  Visiting scholar at MIT, USA  ACADEMIC CAREER 1996.7-1999.9   Teaching assistant, Department of Pathophysiology, Lanzhou Medical College      2006.09-present  Associate Professor，Professor,  Head of Institute of Pathogen Biology,  School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University

89-95; Ph.D. Univ. of Texas at Austin, Department of Microbiology 

96-97; Postdoc. in Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope (COH), Department of Molecular Biology 

98-2000: Beckman Fellow 

2001-2004: Staff scientist in Molecular Biology in COH

2004-2005: Director of RNAi Core in the Department of Molecular Medicine of COH 

2006-2017: Founder and CEO/CTO, Genolution Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,Seoul Korea

2018-present:  Founder and general manager of NA Vaccine Institute, Inc.

Jamie initially read Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK and then completed his D.Phil. at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University, Oxford, UK under supervision by Professor Andrew McMichael where he focused on the host's immune response to HIV, SIV and EBV infection. After leaving Oxford University, Jamie joined the immunology team of Frances Gotch at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Imperial College, London. He continued to work on HIV during his post-doc, turning his attention to the immune responses of long term non-progressors. Jamie joined the staff of Nature Immunology prior to its launch in 2000 and became Chief editor in 2005.

Andrew Wong is a highly experienced professional with a strong background in biotech, vaccine development, and business management. Currently serving as the Senior Advisor to the Board of Directors at Walvax, Andrew has made significant contributions to the company's global operations.

Before taking on this advisory role, he was the General Manager of Shanghai Wotai Biotechnology Co., Ltd. from 2019, where he led a global team of over 50 professionals. His team was responsible for global vaccine registration, sales, marketing, technology transfer, and business development. Under his leadership, the team became one of China's leading vaccine export groups, expanding into 21 foreign markets such as Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia, and Thailand. His efforts led to a remarkable 25% compound annual growth rate in vaccine exports over the past five years.

Andrew's tenure at Walvax also includes an eight-year stint as Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Shanghai Zerun Biotechnology Co., Ltd. From 2015 to 2020, he played a crucial role in securing major research and development grants, including a $7.5 million funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the development of HPV vaccines. Additionally, he was instrumental in securing R&D grants for Covid-19 vaccines, totaling $26 million from the Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Andrew's academic background includes training in medicine and immunology (MSc) at West China Medical University (now Sichuan University), molecular biology (MSc) at the University of Manitoba, and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. His 30-year career includes about 12 years of experience at Amgen Inc., where he contributed to the development of recombinant antibody therapeutics and anticancer drugs. With his extensive experience in biotech, vaccine research, and global business development, Andrew Wong has been a driving force in Walvax’s global expansion and success in the vaccine market.

Farzana Muhib, Senior Program Officer, PATH’s Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access.

Farzana Muhib brings 20 years of experience in a range of public health disciplines, including disease surveillance, epidemiology, vaccine demand forecasting, vaccine impact and cost-effectiveness modeling, country decision-making and vaccine implementation.  While at PATH she has worked on multiple vaccine development (Malaria, ETEC and Shigella) and introduction projects (Japanese Encephalitis, HPV, Typhoid, and COVID-19) to build evidence for global, regional, and country decision-makers to consider when contemplating introduction of vaccines. During the course of her career, Ms. Muhib has worked in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Mongolia. She currently leads multiple projects including the Gavi funded Middle Income Country Multi-Country Technical Assistance Project, which is developing and implementing TA tools in Indonesia, Ukraine and Vietnam.

Prior to joining PATH, Ms. Muhib worked at Results for Development Institute (R4D), and at Johns Hopkins University on the Pneumococcal Vaccine Accelerated Development and Introduction Project (PneumoADIP) and the US Centers for Disease Control.  

Ms. Muhib holds an MPH from Emory University, and  MA in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Professor Hanna M. Nohynek. MD PhD Chief Physician, Unit Prevention Health Threats, Department Public Health, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland. She completed her medical studies, PhD and international health and travel health competence in Helsinki. She is former secretary and present member of the Finnish NITAG, and lead of the Strategic development of covid-19 and influenza vaccination programmes. She was instrumental in designing the HPV vaccine introduction to the Finnish NIP.
Her research interests are register based vaccine impact studies, evidence-based policy/decision making, vaccine safety, hesitancy, respiratory infections (covid-19, RSV, influenza, pertussis and pneumococcus). She led communications development in IMI DRIVE (www.drive-eu.org, brand-specific influenza vaccine effectiveness) and was Public Health task lead in IMI PROMISE (imi.promise-eu, RSV prevention). She has authored >200 original articles (incl first scientific report on association between pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccination vs narcolepsy), and teaches, guides elective, graduate, and PhD students. She has served expert committees evaluating HBV, PCV, rota virus and covid-19 vaccines in Finland, and as advisor to EU, IMI, IVI, iccdr,b, WHO, GAVI, SIDA/SRC, Finnish MOFA. She was the Chairman of the WHO SAGE external evaluation (EAGSE), Chairman EPIET 1998-2001, EDCTP 2002-3.
She presently is chair of WHO SAGE, formerly chair of SAGE working group on covid-19 vaccines, member of WHO SAGE subgroup influenza vaccines, a member of GAVI Programme and Policy Committee, a member of the ECDC NITAG coordinating committee, and Advisory Board of the ECDC & EMA Vaccine Monitoring Platform, and board member of the International Vaccine Institute, and also board member of the icddr,b. She belongs to the Faculty of ADVAC since its initiation 2000-, initiated EPIET vaccine module 1997, and Finnish Diploma Course Global Health 2000. She practices clinical medicine at the travel health clinic Aava, Helsinki. A book on her life was published in April 2024

Dr Rakesh Aggarwal is a Professor of Gastroenterology at Sanjay GandhiPostgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow. He has worked extensively onepidemiologic, clinical, molecular and immunologic aspects of viral hepatitis, withmore than 350 published papers.

In relation to viral hepatitis, he served for several years on WHO's global Strategicand Technical Advisory Group on Viral Hepatitis, HIV and Sexually TransmittedInfections (STAG-HHS), WHO South-East Asia Region's Strategic and TechnicalAdvisory Group on HIV, hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STAG-HHS-SEAR) and Expert Panel for Verification of Hepatitis B Control.

He has held several editorial positions, including at Journal of Gastroenterology andHepatology (JGH), and has been the President of the Indian National Association forStudy of the Liver.

He is also Chair of the JGH Foundation, which co-owns JGH and JGH Open.

Dr Nhamo Archibald Gonah, born in January 1963, is a Consultant Pediatrician with the Ministry of Health and Child Care in Zimbabwe since 1997.  He has been involved in child health programs at National Level, namely Immunization, Polio eradication, Child Survival Strategy, IMNCI (Integrated Management of Childhood Illness) and the development of the Maternal and Child Health Road Map.

Dr Gonah is a part time lecturer with the College of Health Sciences in Zimbabwe. He is a prominent researcher in the field of public health, with a particular focus on infectious diseases and vaccination strategies in Zimbabwe.   

He is the Chairperson of ZIMNITAG (Zimbabwe NITAG) since 2014.  He assisted in NITAG trainings in 6 Countries in the WHO-AFRO Region.  He is passionate about strengthening NITAGS on the African Continent.

He is a strong advocate for maintaining high quality standards in the vaccine filed in general. 

Outside professional duties, Dr Gonah enjoys playing golf and traveling.

Dr. Shabir Madhi is a Professor of Vaccinology and Director of the Medical Research Council Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa. He holds the position of Research Chair supported by Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation in Vaccine Preventable Diseases and co-Director of the African Local Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE). He is also the immediate past-Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (2011-2017) in South Africa and Current Chair of the National Advisory Group on Immunization in South Africa.

Professor Madhi has been involved in research on vaccine-preventable diseases, including in HIV-exposed children, since 1997. His research included undertaking pivotal studies on the efficacy of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) and rotavirus vaccines in Africa. These studies contributed to the WHO recommending the introduction of these life-saving vaccines into public immunization programs globally, and also prompted South Africa to be the first in Africa to introduce these vaccines in its national immunization programs. More recently, his research focus has expanded to the prevention of infectious diseases during early infancy, including studies on the role of maternal immunization in improving fetal outcomes and reducing early-infancy morbidity and mortality.
Professor Madhi has contributed to over 360 peer reviewed articles in international journals. He is recipient of a number of awards for his research, including the ESPID Young Investigators Award, the National Research Foundation President’s Award for Transformation of the Science Cohort, the TW Kambule NRF-NSTF Award: Senior Black Researcher over the past five to 10 years (2010), Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research at University of the Witwatersrand, and the South African Medical Research Council: Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also an A-rated Scientist (internationally recognized) by the National Research Foundation since 2011.

He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate training at Wits, qualified as a pediatrician in 1996, obtained his PhD in 2003, and is certified in Infectious Diseases in South Africa. Since 2017, he is an elected member of the Royal Society of South Africa and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).

Graduated in Industrial Pharmacy at Faculdades Oswaldo Cruz, specialist in Health Law at USP, in Business Management at ESPM and Executive MBA-Health at Insper. He took complementary courses in biotechnology at North Carolina State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his career at Fundação Butantan in April 2007 in the Quality area. He is currently Director of Strategic Partnerships and New Business development.

博士，男，中国国籍，现为沃盈投资委派瑞吉生物的技术负责人，曾供职于多家一流学术机构(包括美国哈佛大学及美国国家卫生研究院疫苗研究中心)。

陈博士于2002年7月至2009年10月于中国疾病预防控制中心性病艾滋病预防控制中心担任研究人员；2012年6月以来先后就职于国内多家创新疫苗研发公司。

陈博士于1999年7月取得四川大学生物技术学士学位，于2002年6月取得北京师范大学生理学硕士学位，于2009年7月取得中国疾病预防控制中心的免疫学博士学位，于2009年至2011年于康涅狄格大学及南卡罗来纳医科大学参与免疫系统博士后研究。于2007年12月获国家科学技术进步奖二等奖。

陈博士发表了50多篇研究论文，并有30多项专利。

Zhang Qian（Chloe ZHANG）, International Business Director of Sinovac Holding Group Co.,Ltd., member of Council for the Promotion of International Vaccine Cooperation, graduated from School of Economics & Management, Tongji University and ESSEC business school. She has over 16 years’ experience of international business development, registration and collaboration in vaccine industry, she previously served as Director General of International Business in BioKangtai Group, leading multiple technology license-in, international RA, export and localization projects. She joined SINOVAC in 2025, in charge of international business of Middle East, Africa and Euroasia Region. She leads the business growth in multiple emerging market countries through private market distribution, public tender, tech transfer and local production. She is also responsible for communication and cooperation with embassies and consulates in China and international organizations.

I am a Professor and Principal Investigator (PI) at the National Engineering Technology Research Center of Immunobiological Products. I am also a Young Changjiang Scholar of the Ministry of Education.   My research mainly focuses on the infection and immune mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus—a major pathogen causing hospital-acquired infections—as well as the preventive and therapeutic drugs against this pathogen.   In the past five years, I have been in charge of 6 national-level research projects, including the National Key R&D Program, the Major National Science and Technology Program for Infectious Diseases, and the Key Research Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.   As the first author or corresponding author, I have published more than 10 SCI papers in internationally renowned journals such as Science Translational Medicine, Nature Communications and PNAS.

Peter Tygesen is Business Development Director, Vaccine Adjuvants at SPI Pharma. An organic chemist by training, he has spent more than 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry, with over a decade focused on vaccine adjuvant innovation. Before joining SPI Pharma in May 2025, Peter led Brenntag Biosector (later Croda Denmark), a global supplier of aluminium and saponin-based adjuvants and then served as Managing Director for Vaccine Adjuvant Systems at Croda Pharma. Across these roles he has helped shape the modern adjuvant landscape, supporting the development of safe, effective, and more accessible vaccines worldwide.

Dr. Cong Sun is an Associate Research Fellow and Master's Supervisor at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, recognized as a Young Talent of the Guangdong Special Support Program and a Guangzhou Young Science&Technology Talent. His research focuses on herpesvirus, especially in innovative viral vaccines and drug development, as well as the mechanisms and structural biology of viral infections. Over the past three years, he has published 30 papers as first or corresponding author in high-impact journals including Nature (2025, 2026), Nat Microbiol, Cell Host Microbe, and Adv Mater. He also chairs the 2024 Gordon Research Seminar on Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma and serves as a youth editorial board member for journals including hLife and Research.

Mingxing Xiao holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Lanzhou University. His work focuses on the total synthesis of natural products, the discovery of small-molecule drugs, the development of novel adjuvants, with a strong commitment to advancing innovations from the lab to market-ready applications.

 As Senior Director and Interim Head of External R&D, Sanofi Global Vaccines R&D, Sean is overseeing the search and evaluation of hundreds of external innovative opportunities each year to support Sanofi Vaccines’ global pipeline strategy and has directly contributed significantly to the closing of multiple exclusive licensing and acquisition deals valued at over $2 billion USD and a $280 million AUD collaboration agreement with Queensland State Government Australia. Sean has over 20 years of extensive vaccine R&D and business development experience. Before joining Sanofi, Sean was Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Altravax from 2013 to 2015 and Executive Director & Head of the Vaccine Research Institute at Simcere Pharmaceutical Group from 2010 to 2013. Prior to Simcere, he worked as a Senior Scientist and Project Leader on multiple vaccine programs at Maxygen for 9 years. Sean received his Ph.D. degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Delaware and his postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University.

Dr. Xiaobin He, Ph.D., is a renowned scientist with extensive expertise in viral vector development, gene therapy, and neuroscience. He previously served as an Associate Researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and has led multiple projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Dr. He has also secured over 30 patents related to viral vectors and was recognized under the “3551 Optics Valley Entrepreneurial Talent Program.” In 2014, he founded BrainVTA (Wuhan) Co., Ltd., focusing on translating neuroscience technologies into practical applications. Building on this foundation, he established Genevoyager (Wuhan) Co., Ltd. in 2022, creating a globally leading platform for large-scale AAV production along with cGMP-compliant manufacturing system for viral vectors, proteins, and vaccines. Genevoyager offers one-stop CRO/CDMO services for gene therapy products, protein drugs, and therapeutic vaccines, with the ultimate aim of enhancing the safety and efficacy of innovative medicines, driving pipeline development, and delivering tangible benefits to patients.