International Advisory Board (2023)
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Andrew Pardoll (Chair)
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Andrew Pardoll, MD, Ph.D., is an Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology, and Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Director of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Pardoll earned his M.D. & Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in 1982 and completed his Medical Residency and Oncology Fellowship in 1985. He then worked for three years at the National Institutes of Health and joined the departments of oncology and medicine in 1988.
Dr. Pardoll has made a number of basic advances in Cellular Immunology, including the discovery of gamma - delta T cells, NKT cells, and interferon-producing killer dendritic cells. Over the past two decades, Dr. Pardoll has studied molecular aspects of dendritic cell biology and immune regulation, particularly related to mechanisms by which cancer cells evade elimination by the immune system.
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Yasmine Belkaid
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Yasmine Belkaid, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health (Bethesda). She obtained her Master in Biochemistry at the University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene in Algiers, Algeria, and her Ph.D. from Pasteur Institute in France.
Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda) on immune regulation during infection, she started her research program at the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation in Cincinnati. In 2005, she joined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and was appointed senior scientist in 2008.
Her laboratory explores fundamental mechanisms that regulate tissue homeostasis and host immune responses and uncovered key roles for the microbiota and dietary factors in the control of immunity and protection to pathogens. Prof. Belkaid is the Chief of the Laboratory of Host Immunity and Microbiome, the Director of the trans-NIH Center for Human immunology and is the founder and Director of the NIAID Microbiome program.
As of January 2024, Prof. Belkaid will serve as the Director General of Pasteur Institute (Paris). Prof. Belkaid is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the recipient of numerous awards including the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the Emil von Behring Prize, the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award, the Robert Koch Award, and the AAI Excellence in Mentoring Award.
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Salmaan Keshavjee
Salmaan Keshavjee, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Global Health Delivery. He is also a physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he is Associate Professor of Medicine.
Dr. Keshavjee is a leading expert in tuberculosis treatment and the anthropology of health policy. He is the author of "Blind Spot: How neoliberalism infiltrated global health". He has worked extensively with the Boston-based non-profit Partners In Health (PIH) on the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB). Over the last 20 years, Dr. Keshavjee has conducted clinical and implementation research on MDR-TB in Russia, both in the prison and civilian sectors.
From 2006 to 2008, Dr. Keshavjee was Deputy-Director for PIH’s health programs in Lesotho, launching one of the first community-based treatment programs for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis/HIV co-infection in sub-Saharan Africa. From 2007 to 2010, he was the Chair of the World Health Organization/Stop TB Partnership’s Green Light Committee for Multidrug-resistant TB.
More recently, Dr. Keshavjee has been working with Advance Access & Delivery, a non-governmental organization for which he is a cofounder and clinical advisor for projects in India and South Africa. His research has resulted in several clinical and policy manuscripts on TB and MDR-TB, which have had significant clinical and policy impact.
Iain McInnes
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Iain McInnes, CBE, FRSE, FMedSci, Ph.D., is Head of College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences, and Vice Principal, University of Glasgow, and serves as the Muirhead Professor of Medicine and Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology in the University. He is Director of the Versus Arthritis Centre of Excellence for Inflammatory Arthritis and leads from the University of Glasgow that includes Universities of Oxford, Newcastle, and Birmingham. He serves as a member of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board. He is a Trustee on the Board of Versus Arthritis. He is past chairman of the Foundation for European Rheumatology Research (Foreum) Scientific Committee, led the European Roadmap programme that is defining the research agenda for European rheumatology for the next decade, and is Past-President of the European Alliance of Rheumatology Asssociations (EULAR). Under these auspices, he led the creation of the first pan-European Rheumatology Research Centre launched in 2021.
Prof. McInnes’ work is mainly focused upon the understanding of the pathogenesis of immune mediated inflammatory diseases and encompasses basic discovery immunology from phase 1 and proof of concept experimental medicine clinical trials to leadership of pivotal phase 3 trials around immune biology. His laboratory group performed original discovery work supporting the therapeutic targeting of several inflammatory cytokines. More recently, Prof. Mcinnes has focused on the biology of myeloid cells in the pathogenesis of a number of immune diseases. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019 by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
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Galit Alter
Galit Alter, PhD, is the Vice President of Immunology Research at Moderna.
Prof. Alter performed her undergraduate and graduate work at Â鶹ԼÅÄ, developing new tools to study the cellular immune response to HIV. Inspired by the growing world of Systems Immunology, she moved to Harvard University where she systematically built new tools to study innate immune responses to viral infections, and to define the unexplored role of the humoral immune response in directing the innate immune system to fight viruses, bacteria, and parasites.
These efforts gave birth to a new field of Systems Serology that, coupled with Systems based antibody Fc-engineering, has begun to define the immune correlates and mechanisms of protection against a range of pathogens and diseases, providing new insights for the design of next-generation vaccines and monoclonal therapeutics.
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Sharon Walmsley
Sharon Walmsley, M.D., is the Director of the Immunodeficiency Clinic, Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, and a Professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Medicine. She is a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute and the Co- Chair of the CIHR- Canadian HIV Trials Network.
Dr. Walmsley is actively involved in the design, conduct, and analysis of many clinical trials, including trials in HIV therapy, prophylaxis and treatment of opportunistic infections, and management of the complications of treatment. She has had a longstanding and strong interest in gender differences, HIV in women, and has been an advocate of gender specific analysis of clinical trials of antiretroviral therapy.
Dr. Walmsley holds numerous peer-reviewed publications and research awards related to clinical trials in HIV. In June 2017, she was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada for contributions in HIV Research especially related to advancing therapy for women and mentoring young female investigators. In 2021 she was elected to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences for her research related to HIV. In 2022, she received the YWCA women of distinction award for her work with women living with HIV and the Speck Family Chair in Emerging Infectious Diseases, University Health Network.
