Keynote Speakers | ASGCT Annual Meeting

We hope you'll enjoy learning from these experts!

All times are in CT

Presidential Symposium
Wednesday, May 14 | 10:15 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Drew Weissman, MD, PhD

Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, is a world-renowned physician and researcher at Penn Medicine, best known for his contributions to RNA biology and the COVID-19 vaccines. Weissman and Katalin Karikó, PhD, were jointly awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries that enabled the modified mRNA technology being used in Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's vaccines to prevent COVID-19.

Mike McCune, MD, PhD

Mike McCune, MD, PhD, is head of the HIV Frontiers Program in the Global Health Accelerator at the Gates Foundation, where he focuses on the development of affordable and accessible in vivo curative interventions for HIV and sickle cell disease. Prior to joining the foundation in 2018, Dr. McCune was chief of the division of experimental medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he led efforts to study the pathogenesis, treatment, and cure of multiple chronic infectious diseases including HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. Previously, he co- founded the companies, SyStemix (1988) and Progenesys (1991), leading research efforts using humanized mice (that he invented) to develop antiviral medications and hematopoietic stem cell-based gene therapy for the treatment of HIV disease. Since 1982, he has cared for patients with HIV disease at the San Francisco General Hospital AIDS Clinic/Ward 86 and has actively mentored graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, many of whom have assumed successful careers in academia or biotech/pharma.

George Stamatoyannopoulos Memorial Symposium
Thursday, May 15 | 10:15 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD

Kiran Musunuru, MD, PhD, MPH, ML, is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Genetics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the genetics of heart disease and seeks to identify genetic factors that protect against disease and use them to develop new therapies.

Tippi C. MacKenzie, MD

Tippi MacKenzie is a pediatric and fetal surgeon who is focused on developing better ways to diagnose and treat genetic diseases before birth. She leads a translational research lab examining the unique biology between the mother and her fetus, with the idea that pregnancy complications such as preterm labor arise from a breakdown in maternal-fetal tolerance. At present, the MacKenzie group is focused on preterm labor and fetal therapies including stem cell transplantation, enzyme replacement therapy, and gene therapy.