Dr. Gunn is a Professor of Medicine and Immunology at Duke University Medical Center. He received his MD from Southwestern Medical School and completed his residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and his Clinical Cardiology training at UCSF. Dr. Gunn then joined the lab of Dr. Lewis T. (Rusty) Williams at UCSF, where he developed an interest in inflammatory aspects of atherosclerotic disease and began to investigate chemokines. He first studied the monocyte chemoattractant MCP-1 but soon became interested in novel chemokines. He identified the first two members of a new class of chemokines, the lymphoid chemokines, which mediate the migration of white blood cells to and within lymphoid organs. This discovery led him to the field of immunology, which has remained the focus of his research. After completing his postdoctoral training in 1999, Dr. Gunn moved to Duke University as an Assistant Professor of Medicine.

Since then, Dr. Gunn’s work has focused on determining how dendritic cells and other myeloid cells regulate immune responses and contribute to disease pathogenesis. His discoveries include the first two constitutive chemokines, CCL21 and CXCL13, murine plasmacytoid dendritic cells, the cells that mediate influenza-induced pulmonary immune pathology, the requirement of monocytes for the development of Th1 immune responses, and the lung macrophage population that stimulates the development of pulmonary hypertension. Dr. Gunn has a demonstrated record of performing high-impact science and developing disruptive technologies.

Dr. Montavani is an Emeritus Professor of Pathology at the Humanitas University in Milan and a Scientific Director of the Istituto Clinico Humanitas. His focus has primarily been on molecular mechanisms of innate immunity and inflammation. Dr. Montavani has contributed to the advancement of knowledge in the field of Immunology, formulating new paradigms and identifying new molecules and functions.

For his research activity, Dr. Montavani has received several national and international awards, including the Triennial OECI Award from the Organization of the European Cancer Institutes, the Robert Koch Award for his contribution to tumor immunology and immunotherapy, the American-Italian Cancer Foundation (AICF) Prize for Excellence in Medicine and, most recently, the American Association for Cancer Research International Pezcoller Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Cancer Research. The broad impact of his contributions is testified by citations. As of February 2020, Dr. Montavani has over 121,000 citations and an H-index of 167 (Scopus).

Miriam Merad, M.D., Ph.D. is the Dean of Translational Research and Therapeutic Innovation, Chair of the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy, Director of the Precision
Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the Director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC). She is an internationally acclaimed physician-scientist and a leader in the fields of dendritic cell and macrophage biology. Dr. Merad identified the tissue-resident macrophage lineage and revealed its distinct role in organ physiology and pathophysiology and is recognized for her work on dendritic cells, which control adaptive immunity. Dr. Merad leads the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine (PrIISM) and is the founding chair of the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy (DII).

Dr. Merad has authored more than 300 primary papers and reviews in high-profile journals. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the recipient of the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. She is the President of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of medicine and a fellow of the Academy of the American Association of Cancer Research Academy (AACR) and a fellow of the ImmunoOncology academy.

Dr. Gordon was born in South Africa, graduated in medicine at the University of Cape Town in 1961, and completed a doctorate in life sciences at Rockefeller University in 1971. Inspired by his research supervisor, Zanvil A Cohn, Dr. Gordon has studied macrophage immunobiology over the past 50 years, first at Rockefeller and later at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology from 1976-2008.

Dr. Gordon was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 2007. His interests include the history of immunology and promoting science in South Africa, where he initiated an HIV education program.

Dr. King is a Professor of Pathology at The University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia. He is internationally recognized for his research on viral pathogenesis and immune pathology and is a co-inventor of the Cour immune modifying particle technology platform. Dr. King received his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Cape Town in 1976 and his PhD in 1986 from the Australian National University. After completing his post-doctoral training in the Research School of Physical Sciences at the Australian National University, he joined the Department of Anatomy at the University in 1988 and the Department of Pathology in 1991.

Most recently, Dr. King was admitted as an honorary member to the Royal College of Pathologists (2009). Dr. King has served as President of the Federation of Immunological Societies Asia-Oceania (FIMSA), Treasurer of the International Union of Immunology Societies, and Head of Department and Director of Sydney Cytometry — a state-of-the-art Core Facility at the University and the most advanced and largest flow cytometry unit in the Southern Hemisphere.

Dr. King's work has provided ground-breaking insights into virus-host interactions. His early work discovered the ability of viruses, like West Nile Virus, to hijack cellular machinery to trick the immune system. He has also pioneered new understandings surrounding immune pathology observed in the brain after infection and during autoimmunity. Most recently, Dr. King has focused on translating the novel discovery that nanoparticles may be harnessed to prevent immune-mediated pathology, including the development of a phase 1/2 encephalitis clinical program.

Dr. Lin is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Bioengineering, and, by courtesy, Chemical and Systems Biology. His lab applies biochemical and engineering principles to the development of protein-based tools for imaging and control of biochemical processes. Topics of investigation include fluorescent protein structure and biophysics, fluorescent protein-based biosensors, neuronal activity sensors, spatiotemporal analysis of protein translation pathways, chemical control of protein translation, and light-responsive proteins.

Martin Guilliams, Ph.D. is a Professor at the Ghent University and Principal Investigator at the Inflammation Research Center of the VIB. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2008 at the Free University of Brussels, completed his first postdoc at the Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, and his second postdoc at the Ghent University. In 2015, he obtained a tenure-track professorship from the Ghent University, and was later promoted to Full Professor and Principal Investigator.

The Guilliams laboratory studies the functional specialization of macrophages, with a focus on the interactions between macrophages and their micro-environmental niche in liver regeneration and metastasis. Together with others, the Guilliams lab demonstrated that macrophages develop together with their organ of residence in the embryo, self-maintain throughout life and play an essential role in tissue homeostasis. The Lambrecht and Guilliams labs launched a clinical trial in which COVID patients were treated with inhaled GM-CSF to boost alveolar macrophage development.