Transgene Expands Its Scientific Committee with Two Immunotherapy Specialists
Biotechnology company Transgene announced on Thursday the addition of two new members to its scientific committee, Professor Antoine Italiano and Professor Ignacio Melero, both renowned in the field of cancer immunotherapy.
Expert Profiles
According to the press release, Antoine Italiano is a medical oncologist, head of the department of medicine at the Institut Bergonié in Bordeaux, and director of the precision medicine program at Gustave Roussy. He has served as the principal investigator in over 50 Phase I trials and more than 40 Phase II and III trials in the past five years. Ignacio Melero, on the other hand, is a professor of immunology at the University of Navarre in Spain and co-director of the department of immunology and immunotherapy at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra. The group notes that he is recognized for his work on immunostimulating monoclonal antibodies and has been the principal investigator in more than 40 clinical trials on immunotherapy. He also received an ERC Advanced Grant in 2024 for his research on mRNA-based immunotherapies.
Strategic Appointments
According to Alessandro Riva, CEO of Transgene, these appointments are aimed at accelerating the development of myvac, a platform for individualized therapeutic vaccines based on neoantigens. The company indicates that the expertise of both professors will also contribute to the next stages of clinical development of its other anticancer vaccine candidates based on viral vectors. The group emphasizes that these additions strengthen its scientific positioning in the fields of immuno-oncology and precision medicine.
Academic and Professional Milestones
According to the press release, Antoine Italiano earned his PhD in molecular cell biology in 2008 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He is an author or co-author of over 500 peer-reviewed publications. Ignacio Melero spent three years at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Seattle before returning to Spain in 1998. He sits on several international scientific advisory committees, including those of the Institut Curie and Gustave Roussy in Paris, and was appointed in 2023 as the inaugural holder of the Kidani Chair of Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Oxford. He has published more than 350 scientific articles, the company notes.
