Thank you to our Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC), who worked diligently to create the 2025 Tandem Meetings schedule and invited expert speakers to share their knowledge and research with our attendees.
Meet the SOC Co-Chairs
Steve Grupp, MD, PhD - Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Cellular Therapy and Transplant Section, Division of Oncology
Stephan Grupp, MD PhD, is Chief of the Cellular Therapy and Transplant Section, Director of the Susan and Steven Kelly Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, and Medical Director of the Cell and Gene Therapy Lab at CHOP, as well as Novotny Professor of Pediatrics (with tenure) at U Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. He has authored over 250 articles and book chapters during his research career across the translational spectrum. He leads the largest pediatric cell therapy program in the country, a group which celebrated treating their 500th CAR T patient in 2023.
Dr. Grupp came to CHOP in 1996 after receiving his MD/PhD in Cincinnati and doing his clinical training in Boston. His primary area of research is the use of CAR T and other engineered cell therapies in pediatric cancers and other life-threatening disorders such as sickle cell disease. He led all of the pediatric ALL trials of the CAR T product CTL019 (tisa-cel), including Novartis’ international registration trial, leading to the first FDA approval of a CAR product (Kymriah). As a result of this work, he presented the Clinical Perspective at the first FDA ODAC CAR meeting. He is currently the Study Steering Committee Lead for the Vertex international registration trial of their CRISPR-edited product for sickle cell disease (exa-cel). Exa-cel (Casgevy) was approved by the FDA in December 2023, the first CRISPR-edited product ever approved. Dr. Grupp was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.
Betty Hamilton, MD - Cleveland Clinic, Taussig Cancer Center
Betty Ky Hamilton MD is an Associate Professor of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and staff physician in the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Hamilton’s clinical and research interests focus on the treatment of hematologic malignancies with allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation;and improving outcomes post-transplant, specifically in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), survivorship and quality of life. Dr. Hamilton is an active member of the American Society of Transplant and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT), previously serving as the Director ofClinical/Community Practice (2021-2024); as well as the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR), previously serving as co-Chair of the Morbidity, Recovery and Survivorship Committee (2019-2024).
Members
Christopher Dandoy, MD, MSc
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center
Marco Davila, MD, PhD
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Arpita Gandhi, MD, MS
Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Hospital
Saar Gill, MD, PhD
Penn Medicine
Christopher Hourigan, MD
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Jose Leis, MD, PhD
Mayo Clinic
Kate Markey, MB, BS, MClin Res, PhD, FRACP
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Muna Qayed, MD, MsCR
Emory University School of Medicine
Alison Rager Sehgal, MD
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
Brian Shaffer, MD
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Nirali Shah, MD, MHSc
National Cancer Institute
Sarah Wall
Ohio State University (OSU)
CRTC Jean Khoury Award for Scholarly Excellence Recipient
Maria Pereda Ginocchio, MD
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Page Scholar
Mariam Nawas, MD
University of Chicago