Eric Valeur obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Ed­inburgh, UK, in the group of Prof. Mark Bradley, where he developed a new approach to fragment microarrays. As a postdoctoral fellow, he then joined the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, in Newcastle, UK, working on inhibitors of the MDM2-p53. Subsequently, he led medicinal chemistry teams in major therapeutics areas first at Merck-Serono in Paris and then at Novartis in Basel. In particular, he was involved in the development of challenging non-peptidic proteases inhibitors within the Expertise Protease Platform. In 2014, he joined AstraZeneca in Sweden as associate director for new modalities to drive research within the chemical space at the interface of small and large molecules. His present research interests include small molecules, peptides, oligonucleotides and conjugates of these.

Floris van Delft is the co-founder and CSO of SynAffix. Before that, he was associate professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen (2000- 2012), with a focus on the development of click chemistry and protein conjugation technologies. Earlier appointments involved an assistant professorship at the University of Amsterdam (1998-1999) and a postdoctoral research position at the Scripps Research Institute (San Diego, USA, 1996-1997). Floris received his MSc and PhD (cum laude) from Leiden University (the Netherlands, 1996) in carbohydrate chemistry and stereoselective synthesis. He has authored over 140 peer-reviewed publications, 14 patents, and in 2015 he was appointed special professor of bioconjugate chemistry at Wageningen University (the Netherlands).

Dr. Carolin Sellmann is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the department of protein engineering and Antibody technologies at Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Germany. She obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry form the Technical Univer­sity Darmstadt, Germany and her masters degree in molecular biotechnology from Universität Heidelberg, Germany. Her main research interests are related to protein engineering and functional characterisation of bispecific Antibodies and Antibody Drug Conjugates.

After completing a PhD in immunogenetics at the University of Cambridge in 2000 (Babraham Institute), Andrea obtained a postdoctoral fellow position, focusing on the identification and characterisation of genes that contributes to diabetes type I susceptibility at the JDRF/WT Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory, CIMR (Cambridge Institute of Medical Research), Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK. In 2007, Andrea joined the technology department at Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) that later became MedImmune. For 10 years, Andrea has been working in phenotypic screening, covering novel target discovery, protein engineering, and novel therapeutic platforms in the Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering Department at MedImmune.

Pernille Hemmingsen has more than a decade of experience within develop­ment of pharmaceutical products within both solid and liquid dosage forms. With a background in biophysical chemistry and chemical engineering, devel­opment of stable products and robust manufacturing methods has had her particular interest. This interest had led to development of products within cancer targeting liposomes, tamper resistant tablets and enhanced diabetes formulations. Currently, Pernille Hemmingsen holds responsibility for the chem­istry, manufacturing and control of Genmab’s Antibody-Drug Conjugate pro­gram. Particularly, this work includes establishing an efficient supply chain that encompasses elements from both small molecules and biologics. Pernille holds a Ph.D. from department of chemistry at the Technical University of Denmark and a Master of Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School.

Dr. Ling Xu obtained her Ph.D. from University of Colorado at Boulder, where she was trained as an enzymologist. She has over 15 years experience with mass spectrometry application in the areas of characterisation and quantifi­cation of both small and large molecules. She worked as a senior research associate at a proteomic mass spectrometry central lab at University of To­ronto for five years. She has been working at Millennium Pharmaceutical for over nine years with focus on bioanalysis of small molecules and Antibody Drug Conjugates. Before that, she did research at Brigham Woman Hospital /Harvard School of Medicine for around a year as a Research Associate on structural elucidation of bioactive small molecules that activate the resolution of acute inflammation. Dr. Ling Xu joined Mersana Therapeutics, Inc. in 2017.

Dr. Charlotte Hagman earned her Ph.D with a thesis on biological mass spec­trometry at Uppsala University in 2005. She joined Novartis as a postdoctoral fellow focusing on protein and peptide mass spectrometry, her responsibilities were to develop quantitative assays for therapeutic proteins, Antibodies and biomarkers. Thereafter she held several positions in industry, leading the ana­lytical efforts in early drug discovery, as well as for pre-clinical and clinical pro­grams. In 2012, she joined the biomarker group at Novartis. Currently she is holding a position as laboratory head in DMPK, Basel Novartis, where she has defined the bioanalytical strategy for various pre-clinical and clinical programs.

Dr. Berthold Boedeker is chief scientist at Biologics-Biotech Development of Bayer AG in Wuppertal, Germany, which is responsible for the technical devel­opment and clinical material production of microbial and mammalian proteins. During his more than 30 years within the Bayer group, he held several posi­tions in research, development and production of proteins from mammalian cell culture, the last head of cell culture and pilot plants. In addition, he has been member of several industry associations such as ACTIP, Biophorum De­velopment Group, VFA-Bio, BioRiver NRW, etc as well as head lecturer for biotechnology at the medical university of Essen, Germany.

Alex Lazar is the director of the analytical and pharmaceutical sciences de­partment at ImmunoGen, Inc. Alex is responsible for the development of assays for immunogonjugates and their components (Antibodies, linkers, and cytotoxic agents) and development of formulations for antibodies and immu­noconjugates. Alex received his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Brigham Young University in 1998, after which he completed his post-doctoral training at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He worked as a senior scientist at biophar­maceutical companies (Zycos, EMD Pharmaceuticals) until 2004, when he joined ImmunoGen. Since then, his work has been focused on the develop­ment of immunoconjugate biotherapeutic products. Alex attended national and international scientific conferences, where he gave several presentations related to his work with ADCs.

Since 2009 Dr. Markus Walles joined Novartis in Switzerland and currently he is leading a metabolism team. They cover pretty much all ADME assessments of small molecules and new modalities like Antibody Drug Conjugates from early development to registration including human ADME studies. He also acts as Global DMPK representative for ADCs on project teams and also represents Novartis at international consortia like the IQ consortium on ADME assess­ment of ADCs. From 2004-2009, he worked as a Senior Scientist in DMPK at AstraZeneca, Montreal, Canada. In 2003 he got his PhD at University of Wa­terloo, Canada and in 2002 his PhD in analytical chemistry at the Fraunhofer Institute of Experimental Medicine and the University of Hannover in Han­nover, Germany. In 1998 he got his master in organic chemistry at University of Goettingen, Germany.

Cecilia Simonelli graduated from the medical school at the University of Flor­ence, Italy. She specialised in allergy and immunology and she was involved in cellular and molecular immunology research. After a two year period at the Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto Canada, she moved to the field of oncology at the National cancer Institute of Aviano, Italy, she spent over 13 years. Her last position as co-director of medical oncology division and she was responsible for the clinical project in the immune-oncology field; in particular: cancer in immune depressed subjects, kidney cancer, immune-reconstitution in patients undergoing autologous stem cells transplantation, and cancer in patients with immune-impairment. Since eight years is in Menarini Ricerche (R&D of Menarini group) whereas the oncology & immunology corporate di­rector she leads the global development of the investigational drugs in oncol­ogy and provides critical contributions to the expansion of company pipeline in these therapeutic areas; expert guidance to regional/local clinical develop­ment oncology projects; and strategic input in the identification of innovative target/biomarkers for precision medicine approaches.

Laurent Ducry (born 1971) studied chemistry at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He obtained his Ph.D. from ETH Zürich (Switzerland) with Prof. F. Diederich in 1998. He then held a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia with Prof. A. B. Smith, III and Prof. R. Hirschmann. He began his industrial career in R&D at Lonza in Visp (Switzerland) in 2000. In 2008, he became group leader of the antibody-drug conjugates R&D team. He is the editor of ‘Antibody- Drug Conjugates: Methods and Protocols’ (Springer, Humana Press, 2013). Since 2016, he is head of bioconjugates business development at Lonza.

Andrew Kyle joined Abzena in 2012 and holds the position of team leader within Abzena’s chemistry group. He has been involved in the development of Abzena’s proprietary ThioBridge™ conjugation technology from an early stage. His role within Abzena is focused on the application of this technology through various ADC development programs. Prior to joining Abzena, Andrew obtained an MChem degree in chemistry from the University of St Andrews and a DPhil degree from the University of Oxford, where his research focused on the total synthesis of complex polycyclic marine alkaloids.

Dr Rohlff has approximately 20 years’ commercial, business development and intellectual property experience gained from the international biotechnology industry. He became chief executive of Oxford BioTherapeutics in 2004, af­ter founding the company and acquiring targeting technology, bioinformat­ics data and intellectual property from Oxford GlycoSciences, following its acquisition by Celltech. Prior to this, as director of Oxford GlycoSciences’ proteomics collaborations, he led the company’s partnerships in oncology and other serious diseases with leading pharmaceutical companies and in­stitutions, including Pfizer, GSK, Bayer, Wyeth, Takeda, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Oxford University and the FDA. Previously, he held a number of positions at the US National Cancer Institute. Dr Rohlff holds a PhD from the department of pharmacology at Georgetown University.

Salvador Ventura is associate prof. at the dep. of biochemistry and molecular biology and leader of the protein folding and design group at the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). He has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed research and review papers on protein folding and proteomics, apart from several book chapters and patents. He got his Ph. D. in biology at the UAB in 1998 and worked as postdoctoral fellow (1999-2001) at EMBL-Heidelberg under the supervision of Dr.Luis Ser­rano. He has been researcher at Harvard Medical School (USA) andKarolinska Institutet (Sweden) among other centres. He rejoined UAB as a Ramon y Cajal researcher in 2003. Dr. Ventura received the UAB 2008 Excellence Re­search Award. In 2009 the ICREA-Academia Award for Excellence in Biological and Medical Sciences.

Ulf Grawunder is the CEO of NBE-Therapeutics, a Swiss Biotech company that he founded in 2012, which focuses on the development of “next-generation” antibody drug conjugates for cancer therapy. Prior to that, Ulf had co-founded 4-Antibody in 2004, a Swiss therapeutic antibody engineering company, where he initially served as CEO and later as CSO, until the company was sold to US-based Agenus. Ulf is a biochemist who did his PhD in the area of B cell immunology at the Basel Institute for Immunology. After this he did several years of post-doctoral research at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. After that he returned to Europe to continue research as principal investigator at the Basel Institute for Immunology, and the University of Basel, Switzerland, before he started his first biotech company, 4-Antibody. Ulf also holds a diploma in technology entrepreneurship from the University St. Gallen, School of Business, Switzerland (HSG, Hochschule St. Gallen), and he is part if the teaching faculty of the European Centre for Pharmaceutical Medicine (ECPM) at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Ulf is an advisor of a number of national and international organisations, including the scientific advisory board of the Bavarian Immunotherapies Network, BayImmuNet, Germany, the jury of Venturekick, Switzerland, and the Board of the Swiss Biotech Association.

Before recently joining Translational Clinical Oncology at the Novartis Insti­tutes for BioMedical Research as senior global program manager overseeing clinical ADC and Immuno-oncology programs, Dr Lohrmann had been techni­cal project leader at Novartis Biologics Technical Development and Manufac­turing Unit since 2010, leading several programs from candidate selection into Ph I trials. He was pivotal in developing and establishing Novartis’ ADC CMC strategy, leading the ADC portfolio successfully from research into pre-clinical and clinical phase. Prior to working as program manager, he was heading a bioanalytical lab responsible for developing cell based functional potency as well as effector function (ADCC) assays. Dr Lohrmann began his industrial career at Genovac/Aldevron, focusing on development of various customised Antibody services such as genetic immunisation and Antibody purification. He received his Ph.D in Molecular Signal Transduction from the Albert-Ludwig’s- University in Freiburg, Germany. Prior to his doctoral thesis, he enrolled at Universities in Germany and Australia.

Christof Seidl is currently a research associate at the department of nuclear medicine and the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the Technische Universität München (TUM). He studied biology in Berlin and Munich and he is involved in the development of new, targeted cancer therapies. His focus lies on application of conjugates composed of the alpha-emitter Bi-213 cou­pled to carriers (peptides or Antibodies) that specifically target tumor cells. Therapeutic efficacy of such alpha-emitter conjugates has been analysed in various tumor models including gastric, ovarian and bladder cancer. Because Bi-213-anti-EGFR conjugates have shown promising results in a mouse model of human bladder cancer, TUM together with the Institute of Transuranium Elements of the European Commission in Karlsruhe initiated a pilot study to assay tolerance and efficacy of intravesical instillation of Bi-213-anti-EGFR-MAb in BCG-refractory patients suffering from carcinoma in situ (CIS) of the bladder.