Paul Beavis

Prof. Beavis completed his PhD at Imperial College London in 2010 and joined Peter Mac shortly thereafter to work in the Cancer Immunology Program, forming an independent research group in 2018.

His team has a significant interest in developing novel CAR T cell technology to enhance their effectiveness in solid cancers, guided by the philosophy that engagement of host immunity is key for effective responses. Their work has been published in leading journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, The Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Communications. This work has led to >13,000 citations and one of the CAR T cell technologies developed by his team is set to enter a clinical trial in 2026.

Theresa Hunter

Dr. Hunter is currently an Associate Director at AbbVie San Diego (formerly Capstan Therapeutics) where she leads in vivo studies characterizing their targeted lipid nanoparticle technology. She received her BS in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 2011 and earned her PhD in 2016 in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph Sun at the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, studying factors controlling the development of natural killer cells and other innate lymphoid cells. Before joining Capstan, Dr. Hunter was a postdoctoral fellow at Merck studying immunomodulatory receptors, and a scientist at TCR T cell therapy startup PACT Pharma, developing flow cytometry biomarker assays for their phase 1 clinical trial. Dr. Hunter is passionate about immunology and its applications to developing transformative therapies for patients.