Steve Sugino

President and Representative Director

As General Manager of Bristol Myers Squibb K.K. since January 2023, Steve Sugino has spearheaded the company’s growth in Japan.

Sugino began his career in banking. He joined Eli Lilly & Co. in 1998 and held various leadership positions during more than 15 years at the company, including head of its endocrinology/bone business in Japan, head of global neuroscience clinical research, and head of its diabetes business in the United States. Sugino also worked at Sanofi from 2013 to 2015, where he ran the company’s diabetes business in Japan. Sugino was with Biogen from 2015 to 2017, performing the dual roles of Head of Asia-Pacific and President & Representative Director Japan.

Prior to joining Bristol Myers Squibb, Sugino was with Amgen from 2017, where he was most recently the company's President & Representative Director in Japan.

A fourth generation Japanese-American, Sugino holds a degree in Asian Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
While at Santa Barbara, he also studied for one year at Japan's International Christian University.

Tadao Ando

Architect
安藤　忠雄（あんどう　ただお）
建築家

Architect. Born in Osaka in 1941. Self-taught in architecture, he founded Tadao Ando Architect & Associates in 1969.
Notable works include Church of the Light (Osaka, 1989), Rokko Housing (Hyogo, 1983(I), 1993 (II), 1999(III)), Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Fort Worth, 2002), Chichu Art Museum (Naoshima, 2004), Nakanoshima Children’s Book Forest (Osaka, 2020), and Bourse de Commerce / Pinault Collection (Paris, 2021), Kyoto University Shimogamo Kyueisou – Dr. Hideki Yukawa’s Residence Renovation Project (Kyoto, 2024).
He has received numerous awards, including Annual Prize, Architectural Institute of Japan "Row House, Sumiyoshi" (1979), The Pritzker Architecture Prize (1995), Union Internationale des Architectes Gold Medal (2005), Japanese Order of Culture (2010) and Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur, France (2021).
He has served as a visiting professor at Yale, Columbia, and Harvard Universities. Since 1997, he has been a professor at the University of Tokyo and is now a professor emeritus.

建築家。1941年大阪生まれ。独学で建築を学び、69年安藤忠雄建築研究所設立。
代表作に「光の教会」、「六甲の集合住宅」、「フォートワース現代美術館」、「地中美術館」、「こども本の森 中之島」、「ブルス・ドゥ・コメルス」「京都大学 下鴨休影荘（湯川秀樹博士旧宅）」など。
79年「住吉の長屋」で日本建築学会賞、95年プリツカー賞、05年国際建築家連合ゴールドメダル、10年文化勲章、21年フランス レジオン・ドヌール勲章コマンドゥールなど受賞多数。
イエール、コロンビア、ハーバード大学の客員教授歴任。97年から東京大学教授、現在、名誉教授。

Hiroyuki Mano

Director, National Cancer Center Japan
間野　博行（まの　ひろゆき）
国立研究開発法人 国立がん研究センター 研究所所長

Personal history：
1984　 Graduation from the School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
1986　 Medical Staff, The Third Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine,The University of Tokyo
1989　 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Biochemistry, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, USA
1991　 Assistant Professor, The Third Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
1993　Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Biology, Jichi Medical School
2001　Professor, Division of Functional Genomics, Jichi Medical University
2013　Professor, Division of Cellular Signaling, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
2016　Director, Research Institute, National Cancer Center (to present)
2018　Director, Center for Advanced Cancer Genomics and Advanced Therapeutics, National Cancer Center (to 2013)
2021　Member, The Japan Academy (to present)

略歴・昭和59年：東京大学医学部医学科　卒業
・昭和61年：東京大学医学部第三内科　入局
・平成元年：米国セントジュード小児研究病院生化学部門　留学
・平成3年：東京大学医学部第三内科　助手
・平成5年：自治医科大学分子生物学講座　講師
・平成13年：自治医科大学ゲノム機能研究部　教授
・平成25年： 東京大学大学院医学系研究科細胞情報学分野　教授
・平成28年：国立がん研究センター　研究所長、現在に至る
・平成30年： 国立がん研究センター　がんゲノム情報管理センター長（令和4年度末まで）
・令和3年：日本学士院会員、現在に至る

Yukiko Gotoh

Professor, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
後藤　由季子（ごとう　ゆきこ）
東京大学薬学系研究科　教授

Yukiko Gotoh studies neural stem/progenitor cells (NPCs) and their progeny in order to understand the mechanisms and logics of mammalian brain development and homeostasis.
She received her PhD in 1992 from The University of Tokyo, where she contributed to identification of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase signaling pathway in vertebrates with Eisuke Nishida. She performed her postdoctoral work with Jonathan A.
Cooper at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and with Michael E. Greenberg at Harvard Medical School before starting her own laboratory back at The University of Tokyo. Her group revealed time-dependent regulation of the neurogenic properties of NPCs during brain development, including that mediated by Polycomb group proteins, as well as identified the embryonic origin of adult subventricular neural stem cells. Shehas been awarded the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize, Japan Academy Medal, Tsukahara Prize, Inoue Prize for Science, Yasuda Memorial Foundation Prize for Medicine, Kihara Memorial Foundation Academic Award, Takeda Prize for Medical Science, and Medal with Purple Ribbon from Government of Japan.

学歴・職歴
1987年3 月 東京大学理学部生物化学科卒業
1989年3 月 東京大学大学院理学系研究科生物化学専攻修士課程修了（酒井彦一研究室）
1991年4月 日本学術振興会特別研究員（東京大学理学部生物化学教室）
1992年3 月 東京大学大学院理学系研究科生物化学専攻博士課程修了（酒井彦一研究室）
1992年3 月 理学博士（東京大学）
1993年7月 京都大学ウイルス研究所　助手（西田栄介研究室）
1996年10月 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center研究員（Jonathan Cooper研究室）
1997年5 月 Harvard Medical School/Children's Hospital研究員（Michael Greenberg研究室）
1998年4月 東京大学分子細胞生物学研究所　助教授
2002年9月 岡崎国立共同研究機構生理学研究所客員助教授併任（2003年3月31日まで）
2003年4 月 国立遺伝学研究所客員助教授併任（2006年3月31日まで）
2005年4 月 東京大学分子細胞生物学研究所　教授
2013年10月 東京大学大学院薬学系研究科　教授（現在に至る）
2017年10月 東京大学国際高等研究所　ニューロインテリジェンス国際研究機構　主任研究員併任（現在に至る）

Ashok Venkitaraman

Distinguished Professor of Medicine, National University of Singapore

Ashok Venkitaraman is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, the Director of the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, and a Research Director at the Institute of Molecular & Cell Biology, A*STAR. After his medical training, Ashok undertook his Ph.D. in immunology with Sir Marc Feldmann and his postdoctoral work with Prof. Michael Neuberger. Ashok established his research group at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, prior to his election as the inaugural holder of the Ursula Zoellner Professorship of Cancer Research at the University of Cambridge from 1998-2020. He was the Director of the MRC Cancer Unit in Cambridge from 2006-2019.

Viktoria Li

Deputy Director General, Head of Communications Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm

Experience
2020 - Deputy Director General, Head of Communications Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm
2016 - 2020 Ambassador Embassy of Sweden, Prague, Czech Republic
2012-2016 Consul General Consulate General of Sweden, Shanghai, China
2010-2012 Counsellor, Head of Political Section Embassy of Sweden, Beijing, China
2007-2010 Deputy Director, Head of Section West Africa and Horn of Africa Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm
2004-2007 Deputy Director, Department for International Law and Human Rights Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm
1999-2004 First Secretary Embassy of Sweden, Rome, Italy
1998-1999 Second Secretary The Swedish Representation to the European Union, Brussels, Belgium
1996-1998 Second Secretary Embassy of Sweden, Zagreb, Croatia
1995-1996 Foreign Service Training Programme Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm
1994-1995 Legal clerk Stockholm City Court, Stockholm
Education
2004-2005 Masters of the Rights of the Child Fribourg University, Switzerland
1993-1994 Post-graduate Degree in International Relations (ASIR) Amsterdam School of International Relations, Netherlands
1988-1993 Masters of Laws (LL.M) Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Mien-Cie Hung

President, China Medical University

Mien-Chie Hung, Ph.D. is the President for China Medical University in Taiwan. He was the vice president for basic research, the founding chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, and a Distinguished Endowed Chair at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is a basic scientist with a translational vision and has significantly contributed to understand the biology of receptor tyrosine kinases on cancer and to develop combinational cancer therapies to overcome drugs resistance. His lifetime h-index reaches to 172 (Google). He served as a member of Tang Prize Selection Committee. He was inducted as an Academician of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan in 2002, a Fellow of AAAS in 2010, and a TWAS member in 2023.

Sidonia Fagarasan

Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University

Biography: Team Leader of Laboratory for Mucosal Immunity, Center for Integrative Medical Sciences RIKEN, and a Professor, Division of Integrated High-Order Regulatory Systems, Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology, Kyoto University.
Graduated from “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy in ClujNapoca, Romania and had residency in gastroenterology and specialty in Clinical Laboratory, Microbiology, Biochemistry and Hematology at the same university.
She worked as Assistant Professor at Department of Microbiology at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca before obtaining a Mombusho Visiting Researcher scholarship at Kyoto University. She received Ph.D. at Kyoto University, she was appointed Team leader at the Laboratory for Mucosal Immunity in RIKEN-Yokohama.
Her research activity includes impact of immune system on diversity, structure and resilience of gut microbiota, and the symbiotic relationships between the microbiota and the immune system. Recent works uncovered the role of immune activation in regulation of blood, brain biochemistry and behavior, and novel regulatory pathways involving secreted immune metabolites and anti-tumor responses. Received 2005 Young Scientist Award from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan, 2012 The 15th Japanese Society for Immunology Award, 2013 NISTEP Award from MEXT, Japan, and The Kobayashi Award 2020 from the Kobayashi Foundation, Japan. She has co-authored more than 50 research papers in international peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Immunity, Nature, Cell, and PNAS, many of which are ground breaking and highly cited.

Thiago Carvalho

Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University

Biography: Thiago Carvalho studied biology at the University of São Paulo, Campinas. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and post-doctoral training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, both in immunology.
Thiago was Head of Graduate Programs at the IGC, Graduate Studies Coordinator at the Champalimaud Foundation, Associate Curator of the Gulbenkian Foundation’s “Darwin’s Evolution” exhibition, senior scientific editor at the Journal of Experimental Medicine, and senior writer for the Director of the European Molecular Biology Organization. Thiago wrote the “Covid-19 Research in Brief” and “Clinical Pipeline” columns for Nature Medicine and created the EMBO podcast. In 2023, Thiago and David del Alamo founded Fellowsherpa, a scientific training and editorial services company.

Hilde Cheroutre

Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology

Biography: Dr. Hilde Cheroutre received her Ph.D. with “the highest distinction” from the Ghent State University, Belgium, in 1986. After postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), she joined UCLA. In 1997, she moved to the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, where she became a Full Professor and Division Head. Her work has covered T cell differentiation, lineage commitment, self-based selection, TCR signaling, T cell memory, and mucosal immunology. Dr. Cheroutre has especially focused on co-receptorindependent T cells, their specificities and specialized functions in anticancer-and auto-immunity. She received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists.

Ananda W. Goldrath

Director, Allen Institute for Immunology

Biography: Ananda Goldrath recently joined the Allen Institute in Seattle as the Executive Vice President and Director of the Allen Institute for Immunology after 19 years at UC San Diego where she was a Tata Chancellor’s Professor in the School of Biological Sciences in the Molecular Biology Department.
Her work as an Immunologist has contributed to the understanding transcriptional networks that govern the formation and maintenance of longlived protective immunity. Dr. Goldrath’s research explores the mechanistic basis underlying memory T cell differentiation by driving or suppressing target genes essential for differentiation of protective T cell subsets, by regulating metabolic pathway usage, or by controlling access to and survival in tissues. Using this information, it has proved possible to beneficially manipulate the immune system to eliminate infection and malignancies. Dr. Goldrath is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Pew Scholar, a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Fellow, and a member of the Immunological Genome Project.

Adrian Hayday

Principal Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute & Kay Glendinning
Professor, King’s College, London

Biography: rofessor Hayday studied biochemistry at Cambridge and was awarded a PhD in virus genetics at Imperial College London. After moving to MIT, he codiscovered genes defining a novel and unanticipated lymphocyte compartment called gamma delta T cells. On the faculty at Yale, and following his move back to London, Professor Hayday showed a highly susceptibility to cancer of mice lacking gamma delta T cells, suggesting the cells’ potential as immunotherapeutics. Indeed, he spun-out two companies, “Gamma Delta Therapeutics” and “Adaptate” which initiated clinical trials in refractory leukaemia before acquisition by Takeda. Professor Hayday won Yale College's most prestigious prize for scholarship; was elected to lead the British Society of Immunology (2005-2009); was elected Fellow of the Royal Society; and received an honorary degree from Heidelberg University.

Michael Joseph Lenardo

Chief Scientific Officer, Calico Labs

Biography: Michael Lenardo received his B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1977 and M.D. from Washington University - St. Louis in 1981. He undertook clinical and research training at the University of Iowa and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT under David Baltimore and Philip Sharp. He became Section Chief in NIAID, NIH in 1989 investigating T-lymphocyte regulation, HIV-1, and genetic immune diseases and was named an NIH Distinguished Investigator in 2019. He has founded the NIHOxford Cambridge Biomedical Research Scholars, the NIH-University of Pennsylvania Advanced Scholars in Immunology, the NIH-Marshall Scholars, the NIH-Rhodes Scholars, and the National M.D./Ph.D. partnership, the FM-1 extramural M.D./Ph.D. grant, and the NIAID Clinical Genomics program. He has published over 300 scholarly works and medical patents. He discovered the propriocidal mechanism of immune regulation and defined several genetic immune diseases. He led efforts to have 2 drugs approved by the FDA in 2023: Joenja for APDS and Veopoz for CHAPLE disease. He is currently Chief Scientific Officer of Calico Labs. His honors and awards include Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Academy of Medical Sciences of Great Britain. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University. He was awarded the American Association of Immunologists Steinman award; the NIH Director’s Award, Distinguished Alumni Award, Washington University School of Medicine, Irish Society of Immunology Award, Thomas A. Waldmann Award, and the Federal Technology Transfer Award.

Hiroyoshi Nishikawa

Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University

Biography: Hiroyoshi Nishikawa received his MD degree from School of Medicine, Mie University (Mie, Japan) in 1995 and a PhD degree from the Graduate School of Medicine, Mie University (Mie, Japan) in 2002. He studied the role of immune suppressive mechanisms, particularly regulatory T cells in tumor immunity working in Dr. Lloyd J Old’s lab. at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY) and then in Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi’s lab. at Osaka University (Osaka Japan). He is now the chief of the Division of Cancer Immunology, Research Institute at the National Cancer Center Japan and crossappointed as the Professor of Division of Cancer Immune Multicellular System Regulation, Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine and the Professor of Department of Immunology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine.
The major focus of his research is clarifying the control mechanism(s) of immune tolerance and immune surveillance focusing on tumor immunity. He also develops novel cancer immunotherapies targeting regulatory Tcells.

Thiago Carvalho

Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University

Biography: Thiago Carvalho studied biology at the University of São Paulo, Campinas. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and post-doctoral training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, both in immunology.
Thiago was Head of Graduate Programs at the IGC, Graduate Studies Coordinator at the Champalimaud Foundation, Associate Curator of the Gulbenkian Foundation’s “Darwin’s Evolution” exhibition, senior scientific editor at the Journal of Experimental Medicine, and senior writer for the Director of the European Molecular Biology Organization. Thiago wrote the “Covid-19 Research in Brief” and “Clinical Pipeline” columns for Nature Medicine and created the EMBO podcast. In 2023, Thiago and David del Alamo founded Fellowsherpa, a scientific training and editorial services company.

Vassiliki A. Boussiotis

Professor, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

Biography: Vassiliki Boussiotis, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a Physician Scientist in the Department of HematologyOncology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She received her MD and PhD from the University of Athens, Greece and completed her postdoctoral training at DFCI, in Dr. Lee Nadler’s laboratory, which was generating ground breaking knowledge that changed the route of Immunology: the discovery of the B7 family of costimulatory molecules. Her first postdoctoral project revealed that additional B7 molecules exist forming the B7 family. She had an active role in the discovery that PD-1 ligands are expressed in immune privileged sites and cancer cells. Her ongoing work investigates the effects of checkpoint inhibitors on signaling and immunometabolism in innate and adaptive immune cells in the context of cancer. Dr. Boussiotis is a faculty member of the Immunology Graduate Program at Harvard Medical School and a boardcertified oncologist. She has published more than 200 research articles, book chapters and reviews.

Hiroyuki Mano

Director, Research Institute, National Cancer Center

Biography:
Personal history: 1984　 Graduation from the School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
1986　 Medical Staff, The Third Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
1989　 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Biochemistry, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, USA
1991　 Assistant Professor, The Third Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
1993　Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Biology, Jichi Medical School
2001　Professor, Division of Functional Genomics, Jichi Medical University
2013　Professor, Division of Cellular Signaling, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
2016　Director, Research Institute, National Cancer Center (to present)
2018　Director, Center for Advanced Cancer Genomics and Advanced Therapeutics, National Cancer Center (to 2013)
2021　Member, The Japan Academy (to present)

Drew M. Pardoll

Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Biography: Dr. Pardoll is an Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Director of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Pardoll has published over 400 papers as well as over 20 book chapters on the subject of T cell immunology and cancer vaccines. Over the past two decades, Dr. Pardoll has studied molecular aspects of dendritic cell biology and immune regulation, particularly related to mechanisms by which cancer cells evade elimination by the immune system. Dr. Pardoll discovered one of the two ligands for the PD-1 inhibitory receptor and leads the Hopkins cancer immunology program that developed PD-1 pathway-targeted antibodies, demonstrating their clinical activity in multiple cancer types.

Suzanne L. Topalian

Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Biography: Dr. Suzanne L. Topalian is the Bloomberg~Kimmel Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and associate director of the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. She is a physician-scientist whose studies have been foundational in developing cancer immunotherapy as a pillar of oncology.
She trained at Tufts University School of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and the National Cancer Institute, and joined Johns Hopkins in 2006 to lead its Melanoma/Skin Cancer Program. Her research on manipulating “immune checkpoints” such as PD-1 in cancer therapy has led to FDA-approved therapies and associated biomarker tests for patients with over 20 different types of cancer.
Dr. Topalian’s work has garnered numerous awards, and was recognized with election to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017.

Ashok Venkitaraman

Distinguished Professor of Medicine, National University of Singapore

Biography: Ashok Venkitaraman is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, the Director of the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, and a Research Director at the Institute of Molecular & Cell Biology, A*STAR. After his medical training, Ashok undertook his Ph.D. in immunology with Sir Marc Feldmann and his postdoctoral work with Prof. Michael Neuberger. Ashok established his research group at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, prior to his election as the inaugural holder of the Ursula Zoellner Professorship of Cancer Research at the University of Cambridge from 1998-2020. He was the Director of the MRC Cancer Unit in Cambridge from 2006-2019.

Hiroko Kuniya
国谷　裕子（くにや　ひろこ）

Independent Journalist, focusing on coverage of the Sustainable Development Goals Graduate of Brown University.
1989-1993　Anchor for Nightly International News, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) Satellite TV Channel.
1993-2016　Host of Close-Up Gendai, a daily current affairs program on NHK-TV General Service.

Member of the Board of Trustees to the Tokyo University of the Arts.
Special guest professor at Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance.
Board Member, Renewable Energy Institute.
FAO National Goodwill Ambassador for Japan.
Awarded　Broadcasting Women Award (1998), the 50th Kan Kikuchi Award (2002), The Japan National Press Club Award (2011), and the Galaxy Award Special Prize (2016)

大阪府生まれ。米ブラウン大学卒。1989年からNHK衛星放送「ワールドニュース」キャスター、1993年から2016年3月までNHK総合テレビ「クローズアップ現代」キャスター。2016年からＳＤＧｓ（持続可能な開発目標）の取材・啓発を中心に活動している。現在、東京藝術大学理事、慶応義塾大学特別招聘教授、自然エネルギー財団理事、国連・食糧農業機関（日本担当）親善大使。98年放送ウーマン賞、02年菊池寛賞、11年日本記者クラブ賞、16年ギャラクシー賞特別賞受賞。