Basel Cell Therapy Symposium

Welcome to the 3rdBasel Cell Therapy Symposium:

This one and a half-day symposium, organized by the University Center for Cell Therapies and Immunomodulation / Innovation Focus Cell Therapies of the University Hospital Basel, will be held on January 8-9, 2026, in the Pharmacenter (Klingelbergstrasse 50, Basel).

Our program will showcase cutting-edge research on non-engineered lymphocytes, engineered lymphocytes, providing latest advancements in cell therapies and insights into engineered stem cells. This meeting aims to foster interaction and exchange of scientific ideas among clinicians, scientists, and other stakeholders in the field.

We will also give the opportunity to young researchers to present their work through talks selected from abstracts and poster sessions.

We look forward to welcome you to the Basel Cell Therapy Symposium.

The Symposium organizing Team

All contributions will be in English.

Professor Britta Eiz-Vesper is a university professor and head of the research department at the Institute for Transfusion Medicine and Transplant Engineering at Hannover Medical School.

Her work focuses on cellular immunotherapy against infectious and tumor diseases by using natural and genetically modified antigen-specific T cells. She has developed and established extensive procedures for donor identification, generation of cellular products and immuno-monitoring of patients before and after stem cell and organ transplantation.

Professor Britta Eiz-Vesper is considered a pioneer in allogeneic immunotherapy with third-party donors. Together with Professor Britta Maecker-Kolhoff, she established the world's first register of healthy donors for virus-specific T cells(www.alloCELL.org) and has become the largest manufacturer of antigen-specific T cell preparations in Europe.

Professor Chiara Bonini's main research focus is the development, preclinical and clinical validation of cell and gene therapy approaches to treat cancer.

She pioneered the clinical use of genetically engineered lymphocytes in the context of stem cell transplantation, leading to the first cell-based gene therapy product approved by EMA for oncologic diseases. Her group has extensive experience on cancer immunotherapy, genetic manipulation of T cells, including TCR/CAR gene transfer. In particular, she developed the TCR gene editing approach to completely and permanently redirect T cell specificity

In recent developments, Professor Gattinoni has broken new ground by establishing a clinical-grade manufacturing platform for the production of CAR-modified Tscm cells and by initiating a first-in-human study to test the safety and efficacy of donor-derived CD19-CAR Tscm cells (NCT01087294).

Professor Gattinoni's current research endeavors are concentrated on reprogramming the fate and function of T cells. These strategic approaches encompass both pharmacologic and genetic interventions, targeting key transcription factors, epigenetic regulators, microRNAs, and metabolic pathways. These strategies collectively aim to promote a stem cell-like behavior in T cells, offering promising avenues for advancing immunotherapies in the fight against cancer.

Professor Magnani's research seek to develop new cancer treatments, specifically CAR T-cell immunotherapy. The idea is to unleash our immune system against cancer. To this end, blood cells are weaponized through the use of genetic engineering and become living drugs. These therapies are personalized for each patient. Specifically, white blood cells, also referred to as T cells, are collected from the patient's blood. In the lab, T cells are genetically engineered with recombinant DNA and infused back into our patient. Now T cells have a new receptor, called chimeric antigen receptor or CAR, which acts as a radar and allows T cells to precisely recognize a target on the cancer cells and kill them.

Professor Luigi Naldini is Professor of Cell and Tissue Biology and of Gene and Cell Therapy at the San Raffaele University School of Medicine and Scientific Director of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy, Milan, Italy.

For the past 25 years he has pioneered the development and the applications of lentiviral vectors for gene therapy, which have become one of the most widely used tools in biomedical research and, upon recently entering clinical testing, are providing a long-sought hope of cures for several currently untreatable and otherwise deadly human diseases. Throughout this time, he has continued to investigate new strategies to overcome the major hurdles to safe and effective gene transfer, bringing about innovative solutions that are not only being translated into new therapeutic strategies for genetic disease and cancer, but have also allowed novel insights into hematopoietic stem cell function, induction of immunological tolerance, and tumor angiogenesis. His work also contributed to advance the use of artificial nucleases for targeted genome editing in cell and gene therapy.

Dr. Dominik Schmiedel's team is using state-of-the-art genetic engineering techniques to enable natural killer (NK) cells to efficiently fight cancer cells. NK cells are part of the innate immune system, and NK cell-based advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) can be produced from healthy donor cells, creating an "off-the-shelf" product that can be delivered to many patients. Current therapeutic approaches using NK cells, while very safe for patients, are often not effective enough to permanently reduce tumor burden. Dominik Schmiedel's team focus on various approaches to increase the cytotoxicity of NK cells against tumor cells.

Dr. Dominik Schmiedel's team is using state-of-the-art genetic engineering techniques to enable natural killer (NK) cells to efficiently fight cancer cells. NK cells are part of the innate immune system, and NK cell-based advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) can be produced from healthy donor cells, creating an "off-the-shelf" product that can be delivered to many patients. Current therapeutic approaches using NK cells, while very safe for patients, are often not effective enough to permanently reduce tumor burden. Dominik Schmiedel's team focus on various approaches to increase the cytotoxicity of NK cells against tumor cells.