Florent Ginhoux - "LCH at the single cell level"

Florent Ginhoux graduated in Biochemistry from the University Pierre et Marie CURIE, Paris VI and obtained a Masters degree in Advanced Studies in Immunology from the Pasteur Institute, Paris. He obtained his PhD in 2004 from the University Pierre et Marie CURIE, Paris VI.  As a postdoctoral fellow, he joined the Laboratory of Miriam Merad in the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM), New York where he studied the ontogeny and the homeostasis of cutaneous dendritic cell populations, with a strong focus on Langerhans cells and Microglia. In 2008, he became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Gene and Cell Medicine, MSSM and member of the Immunology Institute of MSSM. He joined the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), A*STAR in May 2009 as a Principal Investigator. He joined the EMBO Young Investigator (YIP) program in 2013 and the GSK “Elion and Black Immunology Catalyst Sabbatical programme” in 2016. He is a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher since 2016. He is also an Adjunct Visiting Associate Professor in the Shanghai Immunology Institute, Jiao Tong University, in Shanghai, China since 2015 as well as Adjunct Associate Professor in the Translational Immunology Institute, SingHealth and Duke NUS, Singapore since 2018. His laboratories are focusing on the ontogeny and differentiation of macrophages and dendritic cells, with a focus on microglia ontogeny using IPSC technology.

Jana Pachlopnik Schmid - "Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis"

Jana Pachlopnik Schmid graduated from medical school and obtained her PhD in basic immunology at the University of Berne, Switzerland. This was followed by an internship in General Pediatrics and a clinical training in Pediatric Immunology at the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich. As a postdoctoral fellow, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Alain Fischer and Dr. Geneviève de Saint Basile at the Necker Hospital in Paris, France, where she also completed her clinical specialization in Pediatric Immunology. Her postdoctoral fellowship was mainly dedicated to the study of a novel immune therapy for hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH). She performed preclinical studies on neutralizing anti-IFNgamma in active HLH – a therapeutic strategy which has recently become the first FDA-approved treatment for primary HLH in patients. In 2010, she returned to the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich, where she became assistant professor for pediatric immunology in 2013, head of the division of immunology in 2020 and full professor in February 2021. She is a clinician scientist. She contributed to the characterization of several novel monogenic immunodeficiencies such as CD48-, ZNFX1-, Polymerase ε1-, TTC7A- and MST1-deficiency. Her primary interests include immune regulatory mechanisms harnessing research on monogenic immune diseases and translating the use of targeted treatment from bench to bedside.

Dmitry Evseev

Dr. Dmitry Evseev graduated from Russian State Medical University in 2014. He completed his residency at the Dmitry Rogachev National Research Center of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology, where he now works as a hematologist.

Dr. Evseev is pursuing a Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Michael Maschan. His research focuses primarily on myeloid disorders, such as LCH, aplastic anemias, myeloid leukemias and dysplastic syndromes.

Dmitry Evseev will be presenting the abstract entitled THE INTERIM RESULTS OF A MULTICENTER STUDY OF SAFETY AND EFFICACY OF VEMURAFENIB AND CYTARBINE PLUS CLADRIBINE THERAPY IN HIGH-RISK PEDIATRIC LANGERHANS CELL HISTIOCYTOSIS WITH BRAF V600E MUTATION which has been nominated for the Nesbit Award in Clinical Science.

Ashley Geerlinks

Ashley Geerlinks is pediatric hematologist/oncologist with an interest in immune dysregulation and histiocytic disorders. Ashley completed her pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at SickKids Hospital in Toronto, Ontario and then pursued a clinical immunology fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Ashley recently joined the Children’s Hospital in London, Ontario, Canada where she will be caring for patients with hematologic and immune disorders with a focus on immune regulatory disorders including HLH.   

Ashley will be presenting the abstract entitled PERI-TRANSPLANT ALEMTUZUMAB LEVELS PREDICT RISK OF SECONDARY GRAFT FAILURE AND INVERSELY IMPACT CXCL9 LEVELS AFTER RIC-HCT (A CORRELATIVE BIOLOGY STUDY TO BMT-CTN 1204 RICHI), which has been nominated for the Nesbit Award in Clinical Science.

Paul Kemps

Paul Kemps is a medical doctor with a Medical Doctorate (Cum Laude) from Leiden University, The Netherlands. Currently, he is performing his PhD research on histiocytic neoplasms at the Dept. of Pathology of Leiden University Medical Center (Leiden, The Netherlands) and Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology (Utrecht, The Netherlands).

Paul will be presenting the abstract entitled ALK+ HISTIOCYTOSIS: A NEW CLINICOPATHOLOGIC SPECTRUM HIGHLIGHTING NEUROLOGIC INVOLVEMENT AND RESPONSES TO ALK INHIBITION which has been nominated for the Nesbit Award in Clinical Science 

Emily Landy

Emily Landy is a 4^th year graduate student in the Program in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh, working in the laboratory of Dr. Scott Canna (currently at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia). Her work seeks to understand the cellular mechanisms of lymphocyte hyperactivation relevant to systemic hyperinflammatory disorders. She received her BS degree in Biochemistry from the University of Missouri in 2016. She then trained under Dr. Paul Liu’s in the NHGRI intramural program before beginning graduate studies in Pittsburgh.

Emily will be presenting the abstract entitled CYTOTOXIC IMPAIRMENT AND EXCESS IL-18 DRIVE SPONTANEOUS, OLIGOCLONAL CD8 T-CELL HYPERACTIVATION AND HYPERINFLAMMATORY DISEASE which has been nominated for the Nezelof Award in Basic Science.

Paul Milne

Paul Milne graduated from Northumbria University, UK with a degree in Biomedical Sciences in 2008 and gained a PhD in Immunology in 2015.  He is currently working as a senior research associate in the Haematopoiesis and Immunogenetics laboratory, Newcastle University, UK. His research interests include the origin of human dendritic cells and macrophages and their functional diversification in inflammation and neoplasia. He is the lead scientist for the UK LCHIV biomarker project funded by CRUK and was recently a co-applicant on a successful application to Histio UK aiming to achieve standardisation of BRAFV600E testing across multiple European centres. Paul has performed more basic studies on lineage tracing of myeloid cells with BRAF mutation and has also contributed to studies on the normal development of DC and Langerhans cells in humans.  His work has been published in Blood, Immunity, Journal of Clinical Oncology and Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Paul has attended the Histiocyte Society Meeting several times and received three grants from the Histiocytosis Association.  He has been invited to the Nikolas Symposium twice and was a Visiting Research Scholar with Dr Carl Allen in Houston in 2019.   In 2020 he was elected to the scientific committee of the Histiocyte Society. He very much enjoys interacting with the Histio community both in Europe and further afield and look forward to many future collaborations.

Paul will be presenting the abstract entitled LINEAGE-SWITCH OF CELLS HARBORING BRAF V600E ALLELES IN PATIENTS WITH HIGH RISK LCH TREATED WITH INHIBITORS which has been nominated for the Nezelof Award in Basic Science.

Danielle Minichino

Danielle Minichino is finishing her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Pennsylvania under the mentorship of Dr. Edward Behrens.  She initiated an LCH project in the lab which combines her passion for better understanding human diseases with the labs expertise in immune signaling.  Outside of the lab, Danielle enjoys traveling , live music, and dancing.

Danielle will be presenting the abstract entitled BRAF-V600E EXPRESSION IN DENDRITIC CELLS REPROGRAMS TRANSLATIONAL DYNAMICS TO INCREASE LPS-INDUCED TNFA PRODUCTION which has been nominated for the Nezelof Award for Basic Science.

Fabrizio de Benedetti

Fabrizio De Benedetti received his MD, PhD from the University of Pavia where he trained as a Pediatric Rheumatologist. Since the end of 2003 he is at the Bambino Gesù Children Hospital in Rome where he serves as Head of the Division of Pediatric Rheumatology and the Head of the Laboratory of ImmunoRheumatology. His research is focused on the pathogenesis of pediatric rheumatic disease with a focus on inflammatory cytokines. His research has been translated into numerous clinical applications, particularly into the development of novel targeted therapies and in their clinical trials, with international leadership of more than 10 phase I, II and phase III trials.

Fabrizio will be presenting the abstract entitled MACROPHAGE ACTIVATION SYNDROME (MAS) IN SYSTEMIC JUVENILE IDIOPATHIC ARTHRITIS (SJIA): TREATMENT WITH EMAPALUMAB, AN ANTI-INTERFERON GAMMA (IFNγ) MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY