Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Michael Curran is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Scientific Director of the Oncology Research for Biologics and Immunotherapy Translation (ORBIT) platform, which coordinates development and production of clinical immunotherapeutic antibodies based on novel targets and preclinical reagents originating at MD Anderson. He also has established an independent lab at MD Anderson, where his group studies the origins of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and strategies for its disruption to facilitate immune-mediated tumor rejection.

Dr. Taha Merghoub co-directs the Ludwig Collaborative Laboratory and the Swim Across America Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). He is a member researcher of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at MSK and also leads the biorepository for the melanoma and immunotherapeutics service at MSK. 

Dr. Ulf Petrausch is head of onco-immunology services at OnkoZentrum Zurich Hirslanden and President of the Swiss Tumor Immunology Institute, with more than 13 years of expertise in immunology, experimental clinical immunotherapy and oncology. Previous roles include head of the clinical onco-immunology program and head of the laboratory for experimental onco-immunology at the University of Zurich. 

Paul Bowness is a Consultant Rheumatologist at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre (since 1999) and Professor of Experimental Rheumatology, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal science (NDORMS), Oxford University (since 2011). He trained at Cambridge University and then undertook postgraduate training in London. He studied under Andrew McMichael and received a DPhil (PhD) in Immunology from Oxford University in 1993. 

His principle research interests are in the immunology of Spondyloarthritis. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles in major scientific journals and has written reviews and chapters in textbooks including in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine. He was elected to ASAS in 2009 and was co-president of the International Congress of the Spondyloarthropathies for 2012.