Team Category: Key Advisors

Dr. Lenz is the Associate Director for Clinical Research and Co-leader of the Translational Science Program at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Keck Medicine of USC and Co-Director of the Center for Cancer Drug Development at USC Norris. He is also Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and the J Terrence Lanni Chair for Cancer Research in the Division of Medical Oncology with Keck School of Medicine of USC.

An active researcher, Dr. Lenz’s National Cancer Institute-funded laboratory is developing novel agents in his preclinical models in GI cancer. As a transformational clinical investigator and translational scientist, Dr. Lenz was the first to lead the first prospective randomized Phase II trials using gene expression from FFPE specimens. He also discovered that primary tumor location of colorectal cancer (CRC) is an independent predictive and prognostic marker, now in the NCNN guidelines. Dr. Lenz accelerates translational and clinical research and provides training and mentoring in the design and implementation of investigator-initiated trials.

Dr. Lenz earned his M.D. degree at the Johannes-Gutenberg Universität in Mainz, Germany. In 1991, he completed his internship, residency, and fellowship training at the Eberhardt Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany. He obtained special fellowship training at Universität Wien (Austria), George Washington University and Harvard Medical School. He has published over 570 peer reviewed manuscripts with an h-index of 113.

Prof. Aurélien Marabelle is a physician-scientist with expertise in oncology (MD) and immunology (PhD). His clinical practice is dedicated to early phase clinical trials of cancer immunotherapies within the Drug Development Department (DITEP) of Gustave Roussy Cancer Center in France. He leads a translational research laboratory (LRTI) within the INSERM U1015 with a focus on mechanisms of action of immune targeted therapies. He is also the director of the Clinical Investigation Center BIOTHERIS dedicated to intratumoral immunotherapies (INSERM CIC1428). He is a full professor of Clinical Immunology at the University of Paris Saclay. Dr Marabelle was initially trained as a scientist in the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and King’s College London and as a clinician at the Léon Bérard Cancer Center in Lyon, France. He did his post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Prof Ronald Levy at Stanford University, CA on strategies to overcome the resistance to immune checkpoint targeted therapies. Dr Marabelle is an active member of ESMO, ASCO, AACR, SITC, EATI and is the current vice-president of the French Society for Cancer Immunotherapies (FITC). He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and has a H-index of 60.

David Gandara, M.D.，Professor Emeritus and Senior Advisor of the Thoracic Oncology Program at University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCDCCC), brings deep knowledge and understanding to the immuno-oncology field, and he is recognized for his translational research and clinical work in cancer drug and biomarker development.

Dr. Gandara has received numerous awards, authored over 450 publications, and presented his work at meetings nationally and internationally. He is a co-leader at Lung MAP, a precision medicine umbrella clinical trial for the development of biomarker-driven strategies for new therapies in lung cancer. His current research includes the development of preclinical modeling and clinical research in lung cancer. Recently, he was appointed Chief Medical Officer of the International Society for Liquid Biopsy. Prior to his present roles, he was president of the International Association for Study of Lung Cancer, as well as treasurer and BOD member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He has previously served as chair of the Lung Committee for the Southwest oncology group (SWOG) and is founding co-chair of the NCI Investigational Drug Steering Committee (IDSC).

Dr. Gandara obtained his M.D. from University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and he completed his clinical training as a resident at Madigan Army Medical Center, and as a Fellow in hematology and oncology at Letterman Army Medical Center. He received his B.A. at the University of Texas, Austin.

A 20-year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Frankel is a hematologist-oncologist with broad academic and industry experience in the research, clinical development, and commercialization of immuno-oncology and cellular therapies. He has internationally recognized clinical expertise and led clinical development programs for multiple US FDA-approved drugs to treat hematologic malignancies including acute lymphoblastic leukemia, multiple myeloma, and lymphoma.

Since 2000, Dr. Frankel has held multiple executive and leadership positions at Merck, Roche, Micromet, Amgen and Genta Therapeutics. He oversaw bispecific antibody development as Vice President, Clinical Development, at Micromet, and, following the Amgen acquisition of Micromet and the bispecific T-cell engager platform, contributed to the approval of blinatumomab (Blincyto®) at Amgen.

Dr. Frankel was Senior Vice President and the head of Cellular Therapy Development at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). Prior to the BMS acquisition of Celgene, he was Corporate Vice President and the head of Immuno-Oncology & Cellular Therapy and Clinical Research and Development at Celgene. Dr. Frankel oversaw the durvalumab alliance with Medimmune/AstraZeneca, the tislelizumab alliance with BeiGene, and the initial Celgene clinical development alliance with Juno Therapeutics. He co-chaired the Hematology-Oncology Development Committee and served on the Hematology-Oncology Franchise Leadership Team. Dr. Frankel is Chief Medical Officer of Cytovia Therapeutics and an Independent member of the Board of Directors of Precision Biosciences. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Sutro Biopharma and Immunai.

Dr. Frankel received his B.A. from Harvard College and his M.D. from Northwestern University. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and his fellowship in hematology-oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where he was Chief Fellow. He has prior academic and clinical appointments at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Georgetown University, and the University of Maryland prior to joining Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons as Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology.

In addition to his contributions to the approval of Blincyto® and vorinostat  (Zolinza®), and the 2021 US FDA and Japan PMDA approvals of liso-cel (Breyanzi®) and US FDA approval of ide-cel (Abecma®), Dr. Frankel worked as an academic investigator on the development of eleven other approved oncology drugs including Vesanoid® and Trisenox® for acute promyelocytic leukemia, Rituxan®, Zevalin®, and Bexxar® for CD20 expressing malignancies, as well as Neulasta®, Kepivance®, Mylotarg®, and Gleevec®.

Huan-Xiang Zhou, Ph.D., is a Professor of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where his group conducts theoretical, computational, and experimental studies on the structure, dynamics, and function of proteins. He holds an LAS Endowed Chair in the Natural Sciences.

Prior to joining UIC, he held faculty appointments at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Drexel University, and Florida State University, where he was a recipient of the PAI Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Physical Society and has served on many grant review panels and journal editorial boards.

Prof. Zhou received his Ph.D. from Drexel University, did postdoctoral work at the National Institutes of Health, and received his B.S. from Wuhan University.

Feng Shao, Ph.D., is an investigator and deputy director at the National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), Beijing. Dr. Shao’s work has been recognized by numerous awards including the 2022 William B. Coley Award, Future Science Prize, Qiu Shi Outstanding Scientist Award, HHMI International Early Career Award and the Protein Society Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award.

Prior to becoming a faculty member at NIBS, Dr. Shao was a Damon Runyon Postdoc Fellow at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, an associate member of EMBO, and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Dr. Shao’s research lies at the interface between bacterial pathogen and host immunity. He identified most of the known cytosolic pattern recognition receptors for bacterial molecules, including caspase-11/4/5 for LPS and ALPK1 for ADP-heptose (a precursor for LPS biosynthesis). He also identified gasdermin-D (GSDMD) whose cleavage by caspase-1/4/5/11 determines pyroptosis, which is critical for septic shock and other inflammatory diseases. His research further establishes the gasdermin family of pore-forming proteins, therefor re-defining pyroptosis as gasdermin-mediated programmed necrosis. Among the family, GSDME is activated by caspase-3, which occurs mostly in noncancer cells and contributes to the toxicity of chemotherapy drugs. His most recent work demonstrates that pyroptosis is a critical mechanism underlying lymphocyte cytotoxicity and gasdermin activation in cancer cells can stimulate potent antitumor immunity.

Dr. Shao received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and B.S. in chemistry from Peking University.

Yiqin Gao, Ph.D., is a Professor at the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, an investigator at the Beijing Innovation Center of Genomics and the Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center at Peking University and a senior investigator at the Shenzhen Bay Lab.

He is a recipient of the Distinguished Lectureship Award from the Japanese Chemical Society, Promising Scientist Prize from Quantum Systems in Chemistry and Physics (QSCP), Pople Medal from Asia-Pacific Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, CMOA Prize, Searle Scholar, Dreyfus New Faculty Award and the Clauser Prize. Prof. Gao has published over 120 papers.

Prof. Gao and his lab focus on systematic basic theory research. Previously, he was an assistant professor in the chemistry department of Texas A&M University and a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

He is a member of the finance committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the deputy secretary general of the Chinese Chemical Society, the director of the professional committee of Biophysical Chemistry of the Chinese Chemical Society, and a member of the professional committee of Theoretical Chemistry of the Chinese Chemical Society.

Prof. Gao received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology, M.S. from Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and B.S. from Sichuan University.