Transgene Appoints John C. Bell and Pedro Romero as Key Scientific Advisors

Transgene, a biotech company that designs and develops virus-based immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, announces the appointment of Dr John Bell and Pedro Romero as key scientific advisors.

“John and Pedro are world leaders in cancer immunotherapy, and will bring considerable expertise to Transgene,” said Hedi Ben Brahim, Transgene’s CEO. “We’re privileged to have them on board and look forward to working with them as we take the next important steps in the clinical development of our oncolytic virus and therapeutic cancer vaccine candidates.”

John C. Bell is an internationally renowned expert in using oncolytic viruses (OVs) to treat cancer. He formed, and continues to lead, the Canadian Oncolytic Virus Consortium, a trans-Canadian, multidisciplinary group developing virus-based cancer therapeutics. He is the Scientific Director of BioCanRx, a Network of Centers of Excellence developing and clinically testing novel immunotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer. He is a co-founder of OV biotechs Jennerex and Turnstone Biologics. John is a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI), a research institution affiliated with the University of Ottawa and the research arm of The Ottawa Hospital. John launched his independent research career in the Department of Biochemistry at McGill University. His research program has been continuously funded by peer-reviewed grants for over 30 years and he has authored over 400 publications.

He completed his post-doctoral studies at the Medical Research Council in London, England and received his PhD in virology and immunology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

Pedro Romero is Professor at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, where he has worked since 2003, focusing on tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy, particularly on the biology and dynamics of cytolytic CD8 T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.

Previously, Pedro researched at the Department of Medical and Molecular Parasitology at New York University School of Medicine before joining the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR), Epalinges, Switzerland, in 1989. In 2001, he became division Head of Clinical Onco-Immunology at the LICR in Lausanne.

Pedro holds a number of patents and has coauthored more than 320 original research articles describing his scientific works in peptide-based immunotherapy and T cell responses, several of them in Science or Nature. In 2001, Pedro won the Robert Wenner prize from the Swiss Cancer League on Applied Cancer Research, to complement other honors he received. Pedro obtained his MD at the School of Medicine of the National University of Colombia in Bogota.