G-Rex Grant Tour Icon

G-Rex® Grant Tour

Supporting the Emily Whitehead Foundation
PHILADELPHIA

Location

The Franklin Institute
222 North 20th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Date

Feb 19, 2026
11:00 AM - 09:00 PM

Event Agenda

Coming Soon

Register For Event

G-Rex Grant Tour Philadelphia

Hear from leaders bringing hope to patients through advanced cell & gene therapies

Meet Dr. Boro Dropulić

Boro received his PhD from the University of Western Australia and his MBA from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU). He has been in the gene therapy field since the late 1980s. After a Fogarty Fellowship at the NIH, he joined the faculty at JHU where he worked on developing Lentiviral vectors as delivery systems for gene therapy. After 4 years in academia, he founded his first company ViRxSys and led the team that first demonstrated the safety of Lentiviral vectors in humans with his UPenn colleagues. Later he founded Lentigen, which first developed the Lentiviral vector used to produce Kymriah™, the first FDA-approved gene therapy product. Later, Boro saw an opportunity to integrate Lentiviral vector technology with closed- system automated cell processing devices to enable distributive place-of-care manufacturing at hospitals, potentially improving the affordability and accessibility of gene therapy products like CAR-T cells. He therefore spearheaded the acquisition of Lentigen by Miltenyi Biotec in 2014 and led the development of a global place-of-care network of clinical centers that were able to successfully manufacture CAR-T cell products and demonstrate their therapeutic benefits in clinical trials. Seeing a need for improved business models to support the affordability and accessibility of gene therapy products, Boro co-founded Caring Cross and serves as the Executive Director.

Meet Dr. Saba Ghassemi

Dr. Saba Ghassemi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and a Principal Investigator at the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research integrates engineering and T cell immunology to develop next-generation CAR T cell therapies with enhanced potency, durability, and translational feasibility. Dr. Ghassemi pioneered abbreviated CAR T cell manufacturing strategies that produce less differentiated, highly functional T cells, contributing to a successful Penn clinical trial using a 3-day manufacturing process. More recently, her laboratory developed a platform for efficient gene delivery into quiescent, non-activated T cells, enabling the generation of potent CAR T cells within 24 hours. This ultra-rapid approach holds promise for expanding patient access to CAR T therapy and is being advanced toward first-in-human clinical testing at Penn. Her current research focuses on streamlining, standardizing, and automating CAR T cell manufacturing through simplified workflows, dedicated bioreactors, and high-resolution functional assays. These efforts aim to reduce manufacturing complexity, improve reproducibility, and broaden access to cellular immunotherapies. Dr. Ghassemi’s work has been recognized through numerous research awards, peer-reviewed publications, and patent filings.
Dr. Michael Lotze

Meet Dr. Michael Lotze

Michael T. Lotze, MD, FACS is Professor of Surgery, Immunology, and Bioengineering; Director of the DAMP Laboratories at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center; and Sr. Advisor for the Immune Transplant and Therapy Center within the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Enterprises. His research work includes modern immunotherapy and gene therapy, dendritic cell, T cell, and cytokine therapies, and investigation of the role of mitochondria, metabolism, and unscheduled cell death in cancer. Dr. Lotze has worked in the field of immunology and clinical medicine for over 30 years and has had the opportunity to personally review and advance the work of individuals developing translational research, particularly within cancer. Dr. Lotze is a clinician scientist who has spent the last decade assembling teams to work on the extraordinary problem of pancreatic cancer, renal cancer, and lung cancer. He is a long-time SITC enthusiast, attending his first meeting in Williamsburg, presiding in 1998, and launching both the Primer on Tumor Immunology as well as the SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Network to advance the most rigorous and robust clinical protocols in immunotherapy of cancer. Dr. Lotze is the co-inventor of 10 patents in dendritic cell vaccines and antigen discovery, 13 patents in tumor infiltrating lymphocyte therapy (while at Iovance), additional patents at Nurix Therapeutics where he served as Chief Cell Therapy Officer 2020-2023. He is an award-winning NCI-trained scientist (1978-1990), the inaugural Director of Surgical Oncology at Pitt (1990-2000), former Vice President of Research at GlaxoSmithKline (2001), founding director of the UPCI Academy, former Chief Scientific Officer at Lion/Iovance Biotherapeutics, former CCO at Nurix Therapeutics, and innovative educator as a prolific clinician-scientist/tumor immunologist with over 500 publications and several books.

Meet Dr. Patrick Hanley

Patrick Hanley, PhD, is the chief and director of the Cellular Therapy Program and an associate professor of Pediatrics at Children’s National Hospital and the George Washington University, respectively. He oversees processing for standard of care stem cell transplantation as well as the development, manufacture, quality and testing of novel cell and gene therapies. Over the past 19 years he has helped to translate more than 600 products on over 25 cell therapy protocols – ranging from mesenchymal stromal cells to cord blood virus-specific T cells and tumor-associated antigen specific T cells – into the clinic. In 2020 Dr. Hanley was elected VP-North America of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT) where he also served on the board of directors, co-founded and served as the inaugural co-chair of the Early-Stage Professionals committee which focuses on workforce development, and is the commissioning editor of the society’s journal, Cryotherapy. Representing ISCT, he serves on the Regenerative Medicine Forum of the National Academies where he co-leads the workforce working group. He also serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) and is a FACT representative at the Cell Therapy Liaison Meeting, serving as a thought leader in a forum with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr Hanley also serves as an advisor for a number of cell and gene therapy biotech companies.
Raymond Luke

Meet Mr. Raymond Luke

Raymond holds a B.A. in Genetics from Rutgers University and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a cell therapy leader with experience supporting both early- and late-phase programs, with strengths in process analytics, product characterization, process development, CMO management, and technical support. Raymond currently serves as Senior Director, MSAT and Head of CMC at Verismo Therapeutics. He previously held the role of Director, MSAT and Head of CMC at Verismo, supporting MSAT and CMC leadership across the organization. Prior to Verismo, Raymond spent several years at Adaptimmune, progressing through MS&T roles including Senior Scientist, Principal Scientist (Process Sciences, Manufacturing Science and Technology), and Associate Director (Process Sciences and Engineering – MS&T). Earlier in his career, he held research roles including Research Specialist at the University of Pennsylvania and Research Assistant at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where he supported research on the effects of dexamethasone on glioblastoma cells.

More Coming Soon...

Event Sponsors

AKADEUM-2.webp
Biolife-Solutions-1.webp
wilson-wolf-logo
StemCell-1.webp
MaxCyte-1.webp
biotechne-logo
rdSystems
Event Essentials

Prepare for a full day of innovation, networking, and impact.

February 19 Thursday

Mark your calendar

11:00 AM - 9:00 PM

Full
Agenda

Coming Soon

Register
for event

G-Rex Grant Tour Philadelphia

G-Rex Grant Tour

If you're building the future of cell therapy - this is your place

Interested in Sponsoring?

Are you a provider of tools, technology, or services used in research, development, or manufacturing of cell and gene therapies?
Does your innovation pair nicely with G-Rex?
If yes, please consider sponsoring one, some, or all of the G-Rex Grant Tour events.  Your sponsorship is a tax deductible donation to the Emily Whitehead Foundation.

SPONSORSHIP PROSPECTUS