Elizabeth E Evans
Elizabeth Evans earned an M.S. in Microbiology and Immunology and a PhD in Pathology from the University of Rochester. With over 25 years of experience in clinical and translational research, she is currently serving as Senior Vice President, Discovery and Translational Medicine, and Chief Operating Officer at Vaccinex, Inc, Rochester, NY, USA. She is a recognized leader with expertise in oncology, immunology, neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases, and drug development. Through industry partnerships, institutional, and academic collaborations, her team efforts directly led to initiation and successful completion of nine Phase 1/2 clinical trials, with three ongoing investigator sponsored trials (IST), discovery and methods of use patents, and multiple publications and public presentations. Trained as an immunologist, she leads basic research and discovery efforts in cancer immunotherapy and initiated studies in the immunology of neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases, pioneering research that led to clinical application and development of first in class therapeutic candidate, pepinemab. Clinical studies of pepinemab demonstrate favorable safety and tolerability as single agent and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors in melanoma, lung, pancreatic, and head and neck cancer. Extensive spatial immunohistochemistry and transcriptomic biomarker analysis suggest improved tumor immunity in tumor biopsies that is associated with clinical benefit.
Abstracts this author is presenting: