Keynote Speakers

Dr. Daniel Blázquez-Gamero completed his Pediatrics residency at Hospital Clínico San Carlos. Since 2008, he has worked as a consultant in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Unit at Hospital 12 de Octubre. He obtained his PhD in Medicine in 2016 with an Extraordinary Doctorate Award. He has been actively involved in teaching since 2007 and is currently an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Universidad Complutense. Dr. Blázquez- Gamero coordinates the Spanish Registry of Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection (REDICCMV) and is part of the Steering Committee of cCMVnet. His research focuses on congenital infections, especially CMV.

Judith Breuer is Professor of Virology at UCL and Clinical lead for Virology at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Her research interests include the development of high throughput pathogen sequencing directly from clinical material for the analysis of pathogen evolution and identification of pathogen genetic determinants of clinical disease including cytomegalovirus in congenital infection.  Professor Breuer has worked for many years on varicella zoster virus and its vaccine, elucidating many aspects of VZV natural history and pathogenesis.   Professor Breuer has developed diagnostic metagenomic methods for pathogen discovery in patients with undetected infections of the brain, widening this recently to other samples.  Her work on cytomegalovirus in both immunocompromised and congenitally infected subjects has uncovered aspects of viral genetic variation and evolution that could potentially affect clinical outcome.   Professor Breuer is  Chair of the Joint UK Metagenomics Working Party, a member of several scientific advisory boards and former chair of the Joint Committee of Vaccines and Immunisations (JCVI) HPV and VZV subcommittees. 

Mario Fernández-Ruiz obtained his Degree in Medicine (MD) at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2004 and received the Degree of Specialist in Internal Medicine in 2010. He then completed a two-year Fellowship Program in “Infectious Diseases in the Immunocompromised Host” under the direction of Prof. José María Aguado. He has been supported by different public-funded competitive research contracts (“Río Hortega” and “Juan Rodés”) from the Institute of Health Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. He has also completed clinical research fellowships at the Toronto General Hospital (under the direction of Atul Humar) and at the Centre de Transplantation d’Organnes of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2018 he obtained his PhD in Medicine at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid with the doctoral thesis entitled “Development and validation of a predictive model for the risk of infection among kidney transplant recipients based on immunological parameters”, which was evaluated as “excellent cum laude” and recognized with the Extraordinary Doctorate Award of the academic year 2017-2018. Mario Fernández-Ruiz performs his research and clinical responsibilities at the University Hospital “12 de Octubre” and the Research Institute Hospital “12 de Octubre” (i+12). His main research areas include infections in immunocompromised hosts, with particular focus on CMV and invasive fungal disease, and host-pathogen interactions. Mario Fernández-Ruiz has been awarded with the “Young Internist of the Year” prize bestowed by the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine (SEMI), the “Young Investigator Award 2017 for Research in Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases” given by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), and the 2021 ICHS Young Investigator Award given by the International Immunocompromised Host Society (ICHS).

Prof. Dr. Ina Foulon
ENT Specialist, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel & Revalidation Centre De Poolster

Prof. Dr. Ina Foulon is an ENT specialist working at both the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel and the Revalidation Centre De Poolster. She has a particular focus on hearing loss in both children and adults. Prof. Foulon obtained her PhD in Medical Sciences in 2015 with a thesis on “Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection: A Study on the Incidence and Characteristics of Hearing Loss.” Her research, clinical work, surgery, and rehabilitation practice have provided her with a broad foundation in the diagnostics and treatment of hearing impairments in children. Her continued interest in congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) remains a cornerstone of her research.

Affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, University Hospital UZ Brussel, Brussels Health Campus. De Poolster, Rehabilitation Centre, Brussels, Belgium

Dr. Rangmar Goelz, MD
Department of Neonatology, University Children`s Hospital Tuebingen, Calwerstr. 7, D-72076 Tuebingen, Germany
Study of Medicine at the Universities of Giessen and Heidelberg 1975 – 1982, MD at the University of Tuebingen 1984,
Examinations as Pediatrician and as Neonatologist in 1994.
Post Graduate Positions:
1982-87 Children`s Hospital Aalen, Teaching Hospital of University of Ulm,
1987-1992 Dep. of Neonatology, University Children`s Hospital Tuebingen,
1992-1993 Dep. of Neuropediatrics, University Children`s Hospital Tuebingen
Since 1993 again Dep. of Neonatology, University Children`s Hospital Tuebingen
Position until 2020: Vice Director and Senior Neonatologist of the Department of Neonatology, University Children`s Hospital Tuebingen.
Current Position: Member of the research staff of the Dep. of Neonatology and the Center for Rare Congenital Infections at the Tuebingen University Hospital.

Clive Gray is Professor of Immunology, Biomedical Research Institute at Stellenbosch University and heads the Reproductive Immunology Research Consortium in Africa. He is Chair of the Education Committee of the International Union of Immunology Societies and the Director of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Society Centre of Excellence at Stellenbosch University. He is the President of the Federation of African Immunology Societies and Director of the Immunopaedia Foundation. He obtained his PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand and did a post-doc at Stanford University. In 2011 he became Chair of Immunology at University of Cape Town and focused on immune ontogeny in children, especially those exposed but uninfected with HIV. He has published over 160 papers on various aspects of HIV immunology with a focus on CMV and reproductive immunology. He leads the NIH funded consortium: NexT generatIon traininG in HIV Research: Immunity in the First 1000 days in mother-infant dyadS (TIGRIS), consisting of investigators and educators in Africa, North America and Europe around training in reproductive immunology and HIV. He was the recipient of the 2023 Harry Oppenheimer Award and the South African MRC gold medal for research excellence and has numerous funding awards.

Affiliation: Division of Immunology, Biomedical Research Institute, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa.

Meaghan Hancock is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph. She obtained her PhD at the University of Alberta where she worked with Dr. Jim Smiley studying the role of VP16 and ICP0 in overcoming innate immunity to herpesvirus infections. During her post-doctoral work at Oregon Health and Science University with Dr. Jay Nelson, Meaghan devoted her expertise to two different areas of research: the first is the role of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) microRNAs (miRNAs) and proteins in the regulation of lytic replication and latent infection in CD34+ hematopoietic progenitor cells and the second is the use of CMV as a vaccine vector. Meaghan's work has identified viral miRNA functions in lytic infection, latency and reactivation as well as hematopoietic cell homeostasis. Meaghan's long-standing interest in understanding how herpesviruses regulate persistent infection has led to studies investigating the roles of HCMV proteins such as UL22A, US28, UL78, UL7, UL8 and UL138 during latent infection in collaboration with leaders in the herpesvirus field. Meaghan welcomes inquiries from fellow virologists who are interested in collaborations or joining the growing team at the University of Guelph!

Atul Humar, MD, MSc, FRCPC is a Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. Dr. Humar received his medical degree from the University of Ottawa. He completed his residency and did further training in Transplant Infectious Diseases in Toronto and Boston. Dr. Humar’s research interests are in Transplant Infections, with a focus on the prevention and treatment of Cytomegalovirus, along with other opportunistic viruses, as well as the immunologic and virologic determinants of infection. Dr. Humar has over 300 publications in these areas. His work was integral to the development of internationally used guidelines related to the management of CMV post-transplant.  Dr. Humar recently completed his terms as the Director of the Ajmera Transplant Centre at the University Health Network, and as the Director of the University of Toronto Transplant Institute. He is also the Past-President of the Canadian Society of Transplantation.  Dr. Humar is a counselor for the Transplantation Society (TTS) Board.   

Vanda Juranić Lisnić is an associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Rijeka, Croatia. Her research focuses on basic biology, immunology, and viral pathogenesis, particularly cytomegalovirus (CMV). Using a mouse CMV infection model, she integrates high-throughput sequencing with traditional molecular biology and immunology methods. Her discoveries include novel CMV transcripts, genes, proteins, and immunoevasion strategies. She and her team also conducted one of the earliest systematic studies on CMV's effects on ovaries and fertility.

With over 30 publications in top journals, several book chapters, and presentations at international congresses, she has earned several awards, including two Croatia's State Award for Science.

Jeremy P. Kamil, Ph.D., is Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He received his B.A. in Biology from Cornell University (1997) and his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California, Davis (2003). He completed postdoctoral training at Cornell University with Klaus Osterrieder, followed by a fellowship at Harvard Medical School with Don Coen, where he began working on cytomegalovirus (CMV).

Dr. Kamil's research focuses on the molecular genetics of CMV replication, cell tropism, and immune evasion. His laboratory identified UL148 as a key ER-resident regulator of virion envelope composition and demonstrated its roles in ER remodeling and modulation of ER-associated degradation. Most recently, together with collaborators from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, he discovered the GATE complex (gH/UL116/UL141), a new CMV virion envelope glycoprotein complex that enhances endothelial cell entry via a pentamer-independent mechanism, published in Nature Microbiology (2025). A growing focus of his research explores how CMV exploits host glycan biosynthesis and glycoimmune checkpoints to restrain immune responses.

Professor of Nephrology, Transplantation and Dialysis at Bordeaux University Hospital (France), Hannah Kaminski is a clinician–scientist specializing in infectious diseases in solid organ transplantation, with a particular focus on cytomegalovirus (CMV) and immune monitoring in kidney transplant recipients. She is affiliated with the ImmunoConcEpT research unit (UMR 5164, University of Bordeaux).

Prof. Kaminski obtained her medical degree in 2014 and completed her residency and complementary training in infectious diseases at Bordeaux University Hospital. She has developed a translational research program investigating antiviral immunity, particularly the role of γδ T cells in controlling CMV infection after transplantation.

Her work combines immunology, virology, and clinical transplantation, aiming to develop personalized approaches to infection management in immunocompromised patients.

Pr. Kaminski is actively involved in international collaborations and clinical research networks in transplantation infectious diseases. She is currently coordinating the ANR-funded ISIS-treat project (2025–2030), which develops a first-in-human γδ T-cell therapy for refractory CMV infections in solid organ transplant recipients, and HORUS project (2022-2027), aiming a better understanding of CMV-host interaction after solid organ transplantation aiming to develop signature to prevent CMV disease.

Prof. Rajiv Khanna is currently appointed as Co-Director of Queensland Immunology Research Centre and Distinguished Scientist at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. Prof. Khanna is also Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cyteph Pty Ltd, and holds Honorary Professor appointments at the University of Queensland and Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Prof. Khanna is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and was awarded Order of Australia in 2017. He has extensive expertise in cellular immunotherapy clinical trials, viral immunology and vaccine development. Over the last two decades, his group has successfully translated his research towards the development of novel T cell-based immunotherapeutic strategies for the treatment of cancers, post-transplant infectious complications and autoimmune diseases. Prof. Khanna has been appointed as a consultant to Merck, Sanofi, Atara Biotherapeutics, Dynavax Technologies and Cellevolve Bio for the development of novel immunotherapeutics, diagnostic technologies and vaccines. Prof. Khanna has been invited by various national and International organizations for expert advice on developing clinical guidelines and scientific review.

Dr. Marianne Leruez-Ville is a consultant in clinical virology and heads the Microbiology laboratory at Necker-Hospital for Sick Children in Paris, France. She is also the director of the congenital CMV laboratory within the French National Reference Center for Herpes Viruses.  Dr. Leruez-Ville holds an MD specialised in Clinical Virology and a PhD in Virology. Her main research interest is clinical virology, particularly in relation to congenital CMV infection.

She has significantly contributed to the study of pre- and postnatal diagnosis, management, and treatment of this infection. She also belongs to a research group focusing on foetal abnormalities and their treatment (EA 7328, Imagine Institute, University Paris Cité). Dr. Leruez-Ville is a founding member and the current treasurer of the "European Congenital CMV Initiative (ECCI)," an association dedicated to promoting excellence in the management of congenital CMV infection.

Per Ljungman received his MD from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1975 and a PhD in virology from the same university in 1985. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Hematology and served as director of the Department of Hematology at Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, from 1998 to 2013 and as acting director for the Department of Cellular Therapy and Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation from 2014 to 2017. He is currently an emeritus professor of hematology at Karolinska Institutet.

Per Ljungman’s research interests have been concentrated on infections in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients, in particular viral infections with an emphasis on CMV, and vaccinations of the severely immunocompromised host. He has published extensively, with more than 500 peer-reviewed publications to date, including the recently updated European Conference of Infections in Leukemia guidelines on CMV management and definitions of CMV infection and disease in transplant recipients. He is an honorary member of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation and the Swedish Hematology Association. He has furthermore received a lifetime achievement award from the International Immunocompromised Host Society. He is a fellow of IDSA and ESCMID.

Arnaud Marchant, MD PhD, is Director of the European Plotkin Institute for Vaccinology at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), a joint initiative with the University of Antwerp to accelerate the evaluation of vaccines for pandemic and endemic pathogens. He has more than 20 year’s experience in infectious disease and vaccine immunology and worked at the Medical Research Council Laboratories, The Gambia, and at the Weatherall Institute for Molecular Medicine, Oxford. His main research interest is prevention of infectious diseases in vulnerable populations. His activities are integrated in research networks in Europe and the US, with support from the European Commission, HERA, the CEPI, and the US NIH.

Dr Papanicolaou received her MD and PhD degrees from the National and Kapodistrian University Medical School in Athens. She pursued postdoctoral research in microbiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, followed by residency and fellowship in Infectious Diseases in the United States. She is an attending physician in the Infectious Disease Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cancer Center (MSK) and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University in New York, NY. She established and is currently leading the Program of infections in Hematologic Malignancies at MSK. Her clinical practice focuses in the prevention and management of infections in recipients of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapies. Her areas of interest are novel therapeutics, biomarkers, and personalized infection management. She is the Director of Clinical Trials in the Infectious Disease and Allergy Service at MSK. She is a past chair of the Transplant Infectious Disease Special Interest Group (TID-SIG) of the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASCT).    

I am a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology - practising clinically as a consultant at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. My research focuses upon congenital and neonatal infection, co-infections and neonatal immune ontogeny. My research studies aim to enhance understanding mechanisms of severe cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in infants and immune-suppressed young children, to identify novel treatment approaches and stratify treatment according to risk.

Dr Emma Poole is Associate Professor of Virology at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on defining the molecular and immunological mechanisms that control human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) latency and reactivation, integrating primary myeloid systems, iPSC‑derived models, and clinical studies. This has included research into prevention of transplant‑associated disease. Emma has more than 20 years of experience working in HCMV starting with John Sinclair in the Department of Medicine before starting an independent group in the Department of Pathology and continues basic research into HCMV latency (funded by an MRC Programme Grant with Mark Wills and Matthew Reeves) and translational therapeutics (funded by a Kidney Research UK grant with Michael Nevels and funding from the company Synklino). Ongoing work exploits normothermic kidney perfusion to deliver anti‑HCMV biologics and evaluate small‑molecule “lock‑and‑block” inhibitors pre‑transplant.

John Purdy, PhD is an Associate Professor in Immunobiology, Cancer Biology, and Chemical Biology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He is a Faculty Fellow in the multidisciplinary BIO5 Institute. He has studied viruses for the past 20 years; currently, his research focuses on human cytomegalovirus interactions with host metabolism. Dr. Purdy’s research is at the interface of biochemistry and virus-host metabolism interactions. His lab’s primary focus is to understand how HCMV infection alters nutrient flow through the human metabolic network. His research places emphasis on studying virus-host metabolic interactions that either support or hinder virus replication. Dr. Purdy’s CMV studies have been published in PNAS, Cell Reports, mBio, eLife, PLoS Pathogens, and Journal of Virology. Dr. Purdy completed a PhD from Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA, and a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Thomas Shenk and Dr. Joshua Rabinowitz at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University.

Prof William Rawlinson AM FAHMS BSc (Med) MBBS PhD (Cantab) GCM FRACP FRCPA FASM FFSc FAVS

Director of Serology and Virology Division (SAViD), Director Organ and Tissue Donor screening laboratory, Director NSW State Reference Laboratory for HIV, Chair Biosecurity Quality Assurance Program (QAP) RCPAQAP, Deputy Chair Serology Quality Assurance Program (QAP) RCPAQAP, Chair WHO National Verification Committee for Measles and Rubella

Bill is an infectious diseases clinician and virology scientist researching how viruses cause disease, also known as viral pathogenesis. He has undertaken research and clinical work on Cytomegalovirus (CMV) since 1993 when he completed his PhD at Cambridge University. He also undertakes research into other herpesviruses, respiratory viral infections, congenital infections, and viruses in type 1 diabetes mellitus. He established, and oversees, serology and virology clinical research programs, statewide transplant donor screening, and national quality programs for serology and biosecurity. He is conjoint professor at UNSW with over 700 publications and 30,000 citations, many of which are on CMV basic research, diagnostic and clinical virology.

His initial studies were of models for congenital CMV, and analysis of the DNA sequence of mouse CMV (as a model) and human CMV. He has brought together international researchers and NGOs to produce highly influential guidelines on congenital CMV diagnosis, prevention and treatment. His research group studies all these areas, and has graduated many PhD and honours students studying congenital CMV. He is privileged to be associated with the Congenital CMV Association of Australia and Cerebral Palsy Alliance as an advisor and colleague in reducing the impact of congenital CMV on families.

I originally trained at Cambridge (Profs Sissons & Sinclair) with my doctoral thesis demonstrating that reactivation of naturally latent HCMV in dendritic cells was dictated by epigenetic regulation of the MIEP. For my post doctoral studies (Cambridge: Prof Sinclair) we defined a role for the non-coding beta 2.7 RNA as a regulator of cellular metabolism and cell death. I then moved to the US on a Presidential Fellowship to work with Prof Compton (Novartis, Cambridge, MA). It was here I furthered my interest in host cell signalling and its importance in controlling HCMV reactivation - becoming a major theme of a prestigious MRC Fellowship that allowed me to return to the UK (first Cambridge and, currently, UCL). In addition, working with Teresa sparked my interest in glycoprotein B - first in the context of latent infection and signalling but now re: HCMV vaccination. Moving to UCL (2013) was pivotal for our vaccine work as we linked up with Prof. Paul Griffiths to investigate mechanistic correlates of protection in gB/MF59 vaccine studies. In these studies we have identified a novel antigenic domain (AD-6) and continue to investigate the importance of targeting this region of gB from both an immunological and functional perspective.

Dr. Mark R. Schleiss is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School where he holds the American Legion and Auxiliary Heart Research Foundation Endowed Chair. He obtained his pediatric infectious diseases clinical training at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA and his postdoctoral research training was in the laboratory of Dr. Adam Geballe at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, also in Seattle. He has active NIH, CDC, and NSF support to investigate several areas of CMV biology, epidemiology, and pathogenesis. These included programs in newborn screening; neurodevelopmental follow-up of infants with cCMV infection identified by screening; studies of optimization of CMV diagnosis in newborns utilizing dried blood spot samples; clinical trial testing of candidate CMV vaccines; and preclinical evaluation of CMV vaccines in a Guinea pig model of congenital infection. He has also been active in cCMV advocacy and education. Working with parents of children with cCMV and with legislators, he proposed, promoted, and lobbied for legislation in his home state of Minnesota that, in a victory for both children and for democracy, was passed in 2021 and adopted in 2023. The legislation, known as the "Vivian Act", made Minnesota the first state in the USA to commence universal screening of all newborns for cCMV infection.

Richard Stanton, Professor of Virology (Cardiff University)

I studied Microbiology at the University of Wales College of Cardiff, then obtained my PhD in 2004 from the University of Wales College of Medicine working on HHV-6 cell biology. I spent 6 years working in Gavin Wilkinson’s laboratory in Cardiff University, where I developed novel Adenovirus vector systems for gene delivery, before moving into HCMV research. I established my own group in 2010, focussed on developing HCMV strains for laboratory research that better represented clinical virus. I continued working closely with Gavin Wilkinson and Eddie Wang, and over time my work evolved to synergise with their Viral Immunology program. Together we investigated how clinical HCMV strains modulate Natural Killer (NK) Cells to prevent immunological clearance, a programme that was enhanced by a long-standing collaboration with Michael Weekes to exploit quantitative proteomics in immunological research. I was promoted to Professor of Virology and the lead for Infection research at in 2021 and became Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Wales Applied Virology Unit in 2025. Currently we are interested in how antibodies against viral cell-surface antigens promote NK-mediated clearance of infection, with a major focus on the development of such antibodies as the basis for enhanced immunotherapies and vaccines against HCMV.

Dr. Noam Stern-Ginossar is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. She received her Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studied viral immune evasion and the functions of virally encoded miRNAs. She conducted her postdoctoral training with Jonathan Weissman at UCSF, where she pioneered the use of ribosome profiling to uncover the coding potential of viral genomes. Since 2014, she has been a faculty member at the Weizmann Institute of Science and is currently a Kimmel Investigator and an EMBO Member.

Her laboratory studies the molecular strategies viruses use to control gene expression and remodel infected cells. A major focus is human cytomegalovirus, including the mechanisms that shape viral gene expression, latency and reactivation. Her group also investigates fundamental principles of translational regulation during viral infection and in synthetic mRNAs.

As Head of the Pediatric ENT Department at Robert-Debré Hospital, I lead clinical and research activities focused on the neurosensory consequences of congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. My work primarily investigates the auditory, vestibular, and olfactory impairments associated with this infection and their underlying pathophysiological mechanisms.

Several clinical studies conducted within the department have contributed to a better characterization of these deficits and to the identification of predictive factors, based on audiovestibular evaluations, imaging findings, and longitudinal follow-up of affected children.

I also coordinate translational research projects aimed at improving diagnosis and patient management. These include studies on CMV PCR detection in perilymphatic fluid during cochlear implantation procedures and investigations of endolymphatic hydrops using MRI in patients with congenital CMV infection.

In addition, I have contributed to the development of a murine model of congenital CMV infection to study the mechanisms of CMV-related hearing loss and to evaluate potential antiviral treatments.

These activities are carried out through national and international collaborations and aim to improve screening strategies, deepen the understanding of CMV-related pathophysiology, and develop more effective therapeutic approaches for children affected by congenital CMV infection.

Spyridoula Vasileiou, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy (CAGT) at Baylor College of Medicine. Her scientific training is in immunology and since 2010 she has focused on the development of adoptive T-cell therapies to treat immunocompromised patients. She has been actively involved in the implementation of T-cell therapy trials targeting hematological and solid cancers, including multiple myeloma, lymphoma, acute myeloid leukemia and pancreatic cancer, and has studied the in vivo effects of the infused T-cells seeking to identify immune determinants of efficacy. In the field of virus-directed T-cell immunity, she has worked on the development of a multi-pathogen targeted T-cell product against 4 community-acquired respiratory viruses (influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, human metapneumovirus and parainfluenza) that commonly afflict immunocompromised individuals. This work was developed into a company-sponsored “first-in-man” clinical trial evaluating the safety and activity of these cells as an off-the-shelf therapy in hematopoietic stem cell and solid organ transplant recipients (NCT04933968, https://clinicaltrials.gov). Following the outbreak of COVID-19, she studied the evolution of cellular immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and focused on the immunological profiling of the virus with a view to developing a clinical trial for the prevention of severe disease in high-risk patients. Based on the results of this preclinical work, the CAGT initiated a company-sponsored proof-of-concept clinical trial that enrolled patients in the Texas Medical Center (NCT04401410, https://clinicaltrials.gov). She is a former consultant with AlloVir and is the author of several high-impact scientific publications.

Ann Vossen is a clinical virologist and associate professor at the Department of Medical Microbiology at the Leiden University Medical Center.

Ann Vossen started her work on congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection 15 years ago and has contributed to the understanding of the epidemiology, clinical consequences, prevention and therapy of this congenital infection. She has initiated and led two major national research projects: the CROCUS study is a large retrospective study on the burden of disease from cCMV in the Netherlands and the CONCERT study is a study on the efficacy of six weeks of oral valganciclovir in children with cCMV and isolated hearing loss. As an enthusiastic teacher, she is involved in the training of both residents Clinical Microbiology and the medical students of Leiden University. Current and previous board positions include boards of the Dutch Society for Medical Microbiology, the Foundation for Quality Assessment of Medical Laboratory Diagnostics and the European Congenital CMV Initiative (ECCI).

Mark studied Microbiology at the University of Surrey, where he also completed his PhD on flaviviruses in 1991. Following a postdoctoral position at the University of Southampton investigating idiotypic T-cell responses to B-cell tumours, he moved in 1993 to the University of Cambridge, Department of Medicine, where he began his long-standing research programme on immune recognition and immune evasion by Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV).

Mark is a Research Professor in the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease and leads the Immunology and Infectious Diseases section within the Department of Medicine at Cambridge.

His research group focuses on understanding how long-term carriage of HCMV shapes antiviral immune responses, particularly in ageing populations and in immunosuppressed individuals. A major area of work examines why HCMV-specific effector T-cell function becomes impaired in solid-organ transplant recipients who develop viraemia requiring antiviral therapy. His group has a particular interest in the role of T-cell co-stimulation and immune checkpoint pathways in regulating antiviral immunity.

To address these questions, his laboratory has developed experimental systems that directly measure antiviral activity in autologous HCMV-infected cells. Current work also investigates immune recognition and viral immune-evasion mechanisms during latent infection and HCMV reactivation.

Dana Wolf, MD is a physician-scientist and the Director of Clinical Virology at Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. She is a Professor at the Hebrew University. She leads research projects focusing on ex vivo viral infection models - revealing correlates of immune protection in native human tissues, and on new diagnostic and antiviral strategies. She has discovered new prognostic prenatal biomarkers measured early during pregnancy, which predict the severity of congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) disease in the fetus and the newborn. Her lab has recently developed and implemented a new pooling setup for universal newborn screening of cCMV infection, which could revolutionize the screening of cCMV.

She is a member of several national and international advisory committees, including the national Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the European Society for Virology Executive Board, and has been an active partner in several EU research consortia.