Hosted by Dr. Michael Hayden from the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia, the event will feature inspiring lectures by the recipients of 2024 Canada Gairdner International Award Drs. Michel Sadelain and David Klenerman.
About the speakers
Dr. Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Cell Engineering and the incumbent of the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he is a Member of the Immunology Program and the Department of Medicine. Dr. Sadelain has made seminal contributions to the conception, development and application of CD19-CAR T cell therapy for cancer. His research has primarily focused on human cell engineering and its potential to establish tumour immunity, and draws on signalling, genome editing, epigenetic programming and pluripotent stem cells to create potent and safe CAR T cells for multiple cancers and other pathologies.
Dr. David Klenerman, FMedSci FRS, is a British biophysical chemist and a professor of biophysical chemistry at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. This year, he has been recognized for developing the underlying methodologies that led to Solexa-Illumina Next Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS), a technology that has enhanced our basic understanding of life, converting biosciences into ‘big science’ by enabling fast, accurate, low-cost and largescale genome sequencing – the process of determining the complete DNA sequence of an organism.