Scientific Advisory Board

Chair - Marcel R M van den Brink

Head, Division of Hematologic Malignancies, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York

Dr. van den Brink is internationally renowned for his work in the field of bone marrow transplantation, the gut microbiome, and immunotherapy at New York’s MSK, where he is Head of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies. He is also a professor of Medicine and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College and holds a joint appointment in the Immunology and Transplantation Program of the Sloan Kettering Institute. At MSK, the van den Brink lab studies novel strategies to improve immune therapies for cancer patients with a special emphasis on the role of the intestinal microbiome in (patho)physiology and therapy, Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy, and regeneration of thymic function to improve T-cell immunity. Dr. van den Brink is Co-Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at MSK and Medical Council Chairman for DKMS, an international nonprofit organization devoted to bone marrow donor registration. He has received prestigious prizes and honors including the 2022 E. Donnall Thomas Award from the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT).

Dario Campana

Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Senior Principal Investigator, Cancer Science Institute, and Mrs. Lee Kong Chian Chair in Advanced Cellular Therapy, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore

Dario Campana, MD, PhD, is an internationally renowned specialist of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children, as well as a pioneer in the development of CAR T-cells and CAR NK cells. At Singapore’s National University of Singapore, he is a translational researcher known for improving cure rates in children with AML and ALL. He is also the inventor of cell therapies and the founder of three biotechnology companies. Dr. Campana is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Eliane Gluckman

Eliane Gluckman, MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus Founder and current President of EUROCORD University Paris-City and Hospital Saint Louis Paris, director of the research group on sickle cell disease at Monaco Scientific Center, Monaco.

Eliane Gluckman, MD, PhD, is known for being the author of the first successful human cord blood transplantation and the co-author of the demonstration that cord blood from an unrelated donor could be a valid source of hematopoietic stem cells. Prof. Gluckman created the European Group for Bone Marrow Transplantation, of which she is the former president. She is also the founder and president of Eurocord and the director of the Monacord research group at Monaco Scientific Center. She has been an early supporter of Smart Immune as one of its first scientific advisors in 2020. She will keep nurturing Smart Immune’s strategy for the development of HLA requirements for off-the-shelf ProTcellTM products.

Georg Holländer

MA (Oxon), MD, FMedSci, FRCPCH, FMH Paediatrics (CH), Head of the Department of Paediatrics and Action

Georg Holländer, MA (Oxon), MD, FMedSci, FRCPCH, FMH Paediatrics (CH), is an internationally recognized expert in developmental immunology with a specific interest in thymic biology. His research group at Oxford University has developed unique mouse models to understand the development and function of the thymus and explore ways to control it. A pediatrician and an immunologist by training, Georg Holländer is a professor in several prestigious universities: the University of Basel and the ETH Zurich in Switzerland, and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Prof. Holländer is also the director of the Botnar Research Center for Child Health in Basel.

Jerome Ritz

Executive Director, Connell and O’Reilly Families Cell Manipulation Core Facility, Professor of Medicine, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Jerome Ritz, MD, is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a leading specialist in graft versus leukemia (GVL), graft versus host disease (GVHD), bone marrow transplantation, immuno-oncology and cell manufacturing. Dr. Ritz’s research lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has revealed mechanisms of GVL and demonstrated the key role of Treg in chronic GVHD after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Dr. Ritz is also the Executive Director of the Cell Manipulation Core Facility at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. This academic GMP cell manufacturing facility provides a variety of cellular products including CAR T-cells, NK cells, genetically modified hematopoietic stem cells and regulatory T-cells for adult and pediatric patients enrolled on early phase clinical trials.