Speakers
Regional Biotechnology Conference 2023
Adrian Bot, MD, PhD
CSO and EVP of Research and Development at Capstan Therapeutics
Adrian Bot, MD, PhD, is the Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Capstan Therapeutics, a company developing next generation precision medicines. Previously, he held leadership roles at Kite Pharma and Kite, a Gilead Company, including Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Translational Medicine, respectively. At Kite, he contributed to the development of first-in-class cell therapy products for cancer. Dr. Bot has 25 years of experience in biopharmaceutical industry with focus on discovery and development of targeted therapies in general, and immunotherapies in particular. He obtained his MD in Romania at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Timisoara in 1993 and his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in 1998. Subsequently, he was a Guest Scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Dr. Bot also served in various senior R&D leadership positions at MannKind Corp and Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp, La Jolla, California. His prior activities and appointments include editorial boards (Journal of Immunology, International Reviews of Immunology) and leadership appointments in global professional societies (International Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer).
Adam Snook, PhD
Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Physiology, & Cancer Biology, Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University
Adam Snook, PhD is an Associate Professor at Thomas Jefferson University in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, & Cancer Biology. He is the Assistant Program Leader of the Immune Cell Regulation and Targeting (IRT) Program of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. He completed his graduate training in Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis at Thomas Jefferson University. After postdoctoral work in academia and industry, he joined the faculty at Thomas Jefferson University in 2013 where he is developing new options to prevent or treat gastrointestinal cancers. His work has led to 7 investigator-initiated clinical trials examining cancer chemoprevention, cancer vaccines, and CAR-T cell therapies.
Irene Rombel, PhD, MBA
CEO, President & Co-Founder, BioCurie
With a career in life sciences, spanning over 25 years in Biotech, Big Pharma, Consulting, Investing, and Academia, Irene is driven by a passion to transform great science and technology into disruptive products that will help patients and society, while creating shareholder value. Prior to BioCurie, Irene was Chief of Staff, Research, at Spark Therapeutics; Senior Director of Strategy and External Innovation at Janssen, J&J; Founder and President of Biomedical Intelligence LLC, a life science consulting company; an investment analyst for public and private equities, and an Assistant Professor at the Center for Biomedical Inventions, UT Southwestern Medical Center. Irene has advised and mentored many startup companies over the past 20 years, including serving as a JPAL for the J&J JLABS Incubator companies, and is on Columbia University’s Translational Therapeutics Accelerator Steering Committee and the Columbia University Irving Cancer Drug Discovery Advisory Board.
Irene started her career as an Assistant Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where she conducted research on DNA vaccines and cell targeting, and her postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and UC Davis contributed to the fundamental understanding of gene regulation. She received her PhD and BSc (First Class Hon.) in Biochemistry from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and her MBA from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. Irene is also a registered U.S. Patent Agent.