Award Recipients

Excellence in Research Awards

The 2018 ASGCT Excellence in Research Awards were presented on Thursday, May 17
during the George Stamatoyannopoulos Lecture to the following researchers:

Cheyne Kurokawa Mayo Clinic	Victoria Madigan University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	Annicka Evans Rice University
Jane Rasaiyaah, PhD UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health	Megan Keiser, PhD Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia	Keisuke Watanabe, PhD University of Pennsylvania
Bence Gyorgy, MD, PhD Harvard Medical School	Michela Milani, MSc San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy	Mario Mietzsch, PhD University of Florida
Jessika Ceiler German Cancer Research Center	Claire Domenger, PhD University Hospital	Simon Pacouret Schepens Eye Research Institute
Paul Maciocia, MBChB, BSc University College London	Richard O’Neil, PhD Vanderbilt University	Adele Ricciardi Yale University

The Excellence in Research Awards are made possible by the generous sponsorship of:

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Travel Awards

The 2018 ASGCT Meritorious and Underrepresented Minority Travel Awards were presented during the respective presentations of the awardees at the 21st Annual Meeting:

Mania Ackermann	Julia Fakhiri	Cheyne Kurokawa		Marco Peviani	Yu-Lin Su
Maroof Adil	Rosella Fama	Jennifer Kwon		Rachael Potter	Sujita Sukumaran
Blake Albright	Elizabeth Ferrick-Kiddie	Claire Latroche		Francesco Puzzo	Da Sun
Anais Amaya	Logan Fisher	Yann Le Guen		Sarwish Rafiq	Sabrina Sun
Stephanie Anguiano-Zarate	Nicholas Flytzanis	Shibi Likhite		Jane Rasaiyaah	Silveli Suzuki Hatano
Gagan Bajwa	Kristen Fousek	Bin Liu		Afrooz Rashnonejad	Farhatullah Syed
Elena Barbon	Christos Georgiadis	Paul Maciocia		Roslyn Ray	Matthew Tiffany
Sai Batra	Carlee Giesige	Victoria Madigan		Chris Reid	Jessica Tong
Riccardo Biavasco	Jennifer Gifford	Bhuvna Mahajan		Adele Ricciardi	Gabriela Toro Cabrera
Manas Biswal	Danielle Griffin	Anna Majowicz		Daelyn Richards	Dominic Tran
Maggie Bobbin	Sonia Guedan	Sara Marcó		Tawana Robinson	Brian Truong
Alexander Brown	Bence Gyorgy	Mario Mietzsch		Alba Rodriguez-Garcia	Longping Tse
Mitchell Brun	Miriam Hetzel	Michela Milani		Alejandra Rozenberg	Ofonime Udofot
Jessika Ceiler	Kevin Hollevoet	Rita Milazzo		Dimah Saade	Kevin Urak
Ying Kai Chan	L Hong	Kathryn Morelli		Madoka Sakai	Cedric Uytingco
Nicole Coggins	Ariana Jose	Ana Moreno		Amanda Salzwedel	Monica Volpin
Gustavo de Alencastro	Hye ri Kang	Ana Moyano		Giulia Schiroli	Dan Wang
Peter Deng	Geoffrey Keeler	Adele Mucci		Carolin Schmelas	Li-Jie Wang
Claire Domenger	Megan Keiser	Murtaza Nagree		Andrea Schmidts	Zekun Wang
Hongwei Du	Eric Kelsic	Jerusha Naidoo		Rhyomi Sellnow	Nalinda Wasala
Lauren Duncanson	Suhail Khoja	Christopher Nelson		Lucia Sereni	Keisuke Watanabe
Jean-Baptiste Dupont	Benjamin Kleinstiver	Clara Nicolas		Reza Shahbazi	Meiyu Xu
Eric Ehrke-Schulz	Yvonne Knopp	Laurence Occelli		Jamie Shirley	Detu Zhu
Diego Espinoza	D Dewran Kocak	Richard O’Neil		Liujiang Song
Annicka Evans	Kasun Kodippili	Stosh Ozog		Meredith Sosulski
Justin Eyquem	Lisa Koodie	Simon Pacouret		Waracharee Srifa

The 2018 ASGCT Travel Awards are made possible by the generous support of the following sponsors:

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 2018 Outstanding Poster Award Winners

Stephanie Anguiano-Zarate—Mayo Clinic
(517) Replicating Single-Cycle Adenovirus Vaccine against Ebola Virus

Catherine Argyriou—McGill University
(286) Raav-Mediated PEX1 Retinal Gene Augmentation Reduces Vision Loss in a Mouse Model for Mild Zellweger Spectrum Disorder

Muath Bishawi, MD, MPH—Duke University
(146) Wide Spread Adenoviral Vector Delivery to a Cardiac Allograft Utilizing an Ex Vivo Perfusion Storage Strategy

Matthias Bozza—DKFZ Heidelberg
(415) A Novel Non-Viral, Non-Integrative DNA Vector System for T-Cells Engineering

Luke Cassereau, PhD—SQZ Biotech
(227) Mitigating T Cell Response to AAV Vectors for Gene Therapy through Engineered Red Blood Cells

Eleonora Cavalca, PhD—San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy
(557) A Metallothionein-Based Neuroprotective Gene Therapy Approach for Lysosomal Storage Disorders

Taylor Dolberg—Northwestern University
(159) Engineering Red Blood Cell-Based Biosensors for Physiological Monitoring

Amanda Dudek—Harvard Medical School
(401) Delayed Onset and Altered Biodistribution of a Non-Canonical AAV Entry Pathway

Elizabeth Duperret, PhD—The Wistar Institute
(740) Development of a Novel Synthetic Consensus DNA Vaccine That Targets Multiple MAGE-A Family Members for Anti-Cancer Immune Therapy

Eric Ehrke-Schulz, PhD—Witten/Herdecke University
(717) Delivery of a Multiplex CRISPR/Cas9 Machinery for the Treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy with One Single Gene Deleted Adenoviral Vector

Joseph Giacalone—University of Iowa
(888) Design and Testing of a Codon Optimized RPGR

Samantha Ginn, PhD—Children's Medical Research Institute
(238) Evaluation of Recombinant Adeno-Associated Virus-Based Genome Editing Reagents for Homology-Directed Repair to Target a Human Liver Locus In Vivo

Chady Hakim—NCATS/University of Missouri
(626) In Vivo Comparison of the Biological Potency of rAAV9-Microdystrophin Made by Transient Transfection and a Scalable Herpesvirus System

Michael Hughes, PhD—University College London
(845) AAV9 Intracerebroventricular Gene Therapy Improves Lifespan and Normalises Long-Term Locomotor Behaviour in a Mouse Model of Niemann-Pick Type C1 Disease

Hannah Lahey—University of Massachusetts Medical School
(287) Second Generation AAV Vectors Ameliorate GM2 Gangliosidosis after Systemic Delivery

Chang Li, PhD—University of Washington
(485) HDAd5/35++ Vector Expressing Anti-CRISPR Peptides Controls the Duration of CRISPR/Cas9 Activity and Decreases CRISPR/Cas9-Associated Toxicity in Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Heng-wen Liu—Johns Hopkins University
(449) Development of a Reproducible and Scalable Method for Manufacturing pDNA/lPEI Nanoparticles as a Plasmid Delivery Agent

Anastasia Lomova—University of California, Los Angeles
(184) Improving Gene Editing in Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells by Temporal Control of DNA Repair

Anna Maurer—Harvard Medical School
(88) The Assembly-Activating Protein is Pleiotropic in AAV Assembly

Devin McDougald—University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
(283) AKT3 Gene Transfer Promotes Photoreceptor Neuroprotection in a Pre-Clinical Model of Retinitis Pigmentosa

Vasco Meneghini, PhD—Imagine Institute
(828) Induction of Fetal Hemoglobin Synthesis by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated Editing of the Human β-globin Locus

Sara Miller—bluebird bio
(732) Flipping the Script on the Tumor Microenvironment: A Novel Signal Conversion Platform That Exploits Tumor-Derived TGF-β to Enhance CAR T Cell Effector Function

Ana Moyano, PhD—Instituto Universitario Ciencias Biomédicas de Córdoba (IUCBC)
(309) MicroRNA-219 Reduces Viral Load and Pathologic Changes in Theiler's Virus-Induced Demyelinating Disease

Murtaza Nagree—University of Toronto
(543) An In Vivo Enrichment Platform to Enhance Hematopoietic Cell-Directed Gene Therapy

Michael Nance—University of Missouri Columbia
(861) AAV-9 CRISPR Mediated Satellite Cell Editing Restored Dystrophin Expression after Complete Degeneration in a Whole Muscle Graft Mode

Leslie Nash—Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
(924) Harnessing exosome-Based Approaches for Development of Biomarkers and Novel Therapeutics in Spinal Muscular Atrophy

Sowmya Pattabhi, PhD—Seattle Childrens Research Institute
(800) rAAV6 Outperform ssODN as Homology-Directed Repair Donor Template for Gene Editing at the B-Globin (HBB) Locus

Velia Penza—Mayo Clinic
(438) Impact of the Interferon Response on Intratumoral Adaptation of Oncolytic Picornaviruses

Sripriya Ravindra Kumar—California Institute of Technology
(695) Developing AAV Vectors for More Efficient and Selective Gene Expression in Specific Cell Types of the Nervous System Following Systemic Delivery

Maria Rosales Gerpe—University of Guelph
(607) Optimization of the Production and Concentration of Pre-Clinical Grade Jaagsiekte Sheep Retrovirus (Jsrv) Env-Pseudotyped Lentiviral Vectors for Lung Gene Delivery

Faye Rogers, PhD—Yale University School of Medicine
(594) Exploiting Gene Amplification in Cancer Using Triplex Formation as a Novel Therapeutic Strategy

Alicia Roig-Merino—DKFZ – German Cancer Research Center
(469) A Novel Non-Integrating Non-Viral DNA Vector for the Persistent Genetic Modification of Embryonic and Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Jeffrey Rubin—Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
(242) Enhanced Gene Delivery to the Kidney by Viral and Non-Viral Vectors

Christiana Salami—Weill Cornell Medical College
(761) Stress-Induced Cardiac Mouse Model of Friedreich's Ataxia Corrected by AAV-Mediated Gene Therapy

Amanda Salzwedel, DVM, PhD—University of Minnesota
(1004) Use of Oncolytic Adenovirus Expressing IFN Alpha as a Tool to Improve IFN-Based Chemoradiation Regimen to  Treat Pancreatic Cancer

Benjamin Samelson-Jones—The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
(199) Hemostatic Efficacy and Provocative Safety Studies of Factor IX Padua Gene Therapy in Hemophilia B Dogs

Todd Sanderson—Pall Biotech
(339) Serum Free and Chemically Defined Platform for the Growth and Propagation of HEK293 Cells and Adenovirus Viral Vector Amplification

Yaling Shi, PhD—Lonza
(934) Automated End-to-End Manufacturing Solutions for Car-T Immunotherapies

Paola Solanes, PhD—Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de lausanne
(293) Cas9/gRNAs Selective Targeting of the Beethoven Tmc-1 Mutant Allele for Treating Progressive Hearing Loss by AAV-Based Delivery

Nicolina Sorrentino, PhD—Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM)
(281) Enhanced Version of Human Sulfamidase Significantly Ameliorates CNS Pathology When Delivered to the MPS-IIIA Mice by AAV-Mediated Intra-CSF Injection

Lawrence Stern—City of Hope
(748) Yeast Surface Display Techniques Enhance Development of Chimeric Antigen Receptors

Devin Stranford—Northwestern University
(619) Display of Single-Chain Variable Fragments on Extracellular Vesicles for Enhancing Recipient Cell Targeting and Uptake

Nina Timberlake, PhD—Poseida Therapeutics
(505) Non-Viral Engineered CAR-T Cells for Safe and Specific Stem Cell Transplant Conditioning

G. Grant Welstead, PhD—Editas Medicine
(127) Improving Efficacy of CAR T Cells through CRISPR/Cas9 Mediated Knockout of TGFBR

Christopher Wilson, PhD—Editas Medicine
(906) Gene Editing Specificity Assessment for EDIT-101, an LCA10 Therapeutic Candidate

Rachael Witko—UF Health
(282) AAV-Mediated Gene Delivery to Treat Xeroderma Pigmentosum - Cockayne Syndrome (XP-CS) In Vivo

Jia Yang—The University of Tokyo
(759) Novel microRNA Engineered Oncolytic Virotherapy for Clinical Trial

Jaquelyn Zoine—Emory University
(115) The Antitumor Effectiveness of γδ T Cells is Enhanced When Combined with Stress-Inducing Chemotherapy