2019 Highlight Speakers
Robert Deans
Chief Innovation Officer in Bayer-BlueRock Therapeutics
Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Michigan.
B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Robert Deans, Ph.D. is the Chief Innovation Officer in Bayer-BlueRock Therapeutics. He joined BlueRock in 2017 and is responsible for building BlueRock’s novel CELL+GENE platform. He has more than 25 years of experience in cell therapeutics. His research has resulted in the successful clinical development of 4 therapeutic cell platforms and 8 INDs in late-stage development. Dr. Deans previously served as CSO of Rubius Therapeutics, where he was responsible for development of a gene-engineered red cell therapeutics platform.
Loïc Vincent
Vice President of Takeda Pharmaceutical
Ph.D in Pharmacology from the University of Rouen, France.
Postdoctoral fellowship in Oncology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Loïc Vincent, Ph.D. is the Vice President of Takeda Pharmaceutical, mainly focus on Immuno-Oncology & Cell Therapy Discovery. He is a member of Takeda’s Immuno-Oncology Drug Discovery Unit and Takeda’s Cell Therapy Leadership Teams based at Takeda’s Cambridge, MA, research campus. Prior to joining Takeda in 2016, Dr. Vincent spent 9 years at Sanofi, where he led Oncology Drug Discovery Pharmacology, Immunotherapy and Oncology External Innovation teams. Dr. Vincent carried out his postdoctoral fellowship in Oncology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Wei Zhao, Ph.D. (Panel moderator)
Postdoctoral fellow at Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary and Harvard Medical School
Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Northwestern University
B.S. from Tsinghua University.
Wei Zhao is the Executive Director of 6 Dimensions Capital. He joined WuXi Healthcare Ventures (now 6 Dimensions Capital) in 2016. He was a Senior Life Sciences Specialist at L.E.K. Consulting Boston office.
Zheng-Yi Chen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Otolaryngology in Harvard Medical School
PhD from the Oxford University.
Dr. Chen is an Associate Professor of Otolaryngology in Harvard Medical School. He has a long-standing interest in the regenerative medicine of genetic hearing loss. One of the most important goals is to renew proliferation and hair cell regeneration in adult and aged mammalian inner ear. Dr. Chen has recently identified a mechanism by which adult and aged mammalian inner ear cells can re-enter cell cycle. This exciting work sets a stage to restore hearing in deaf animals and animals with noise-induced and age-related hearing loss.