Christian Klein is a longtime and key member of the protein and antibody community. In this episode, he speaks with Executive Conference Producer, Christina Lingham, on how the field has changed since their first collaboration. Dr. Klein offers an overview of the latest applications of bispecific antibodies, including the latest progress of clinical trials by Roche and others. He also explains how PD-1 is unique and can increase specificity of therapeutics even more.

BIO 

Christian Klein, PhD, Department Head, Cancer Immunotherapy 3 & Site Head Roche Innovation Center Zurich 
Christian Klein, Distinguished Scientist, is Head of Oncology Programs and Department Head Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery 3 at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich (Roche Pharma Research & Early Development, pRED). Since 06/2019 he also acts as Site Head of RICZ. He specialized in the discovery, engineering, validation and preclinical development of therapeutic (bispecific) antibodies for cancer immunotherapy. During his 18-year tenure at Roche he has made major contributions to the preclinical development and approvals of GAZYVA(RO) (obinutuzumab, GA101), and to the preclinical development of 16 bispecific antibodies, immunocytokines and antibody fusion proteins entering clinical trials. He led research teams developing Roche’s novel bispecific antibody technologies, e.g., the CrossMAb technology and the immunocytokine and T cell bispecific antibody platforms. He obtained his diploma in biochemistry from University Tübingen and his doctorate in biochemistry from Technical University Munich. In 2017 he completed his habilitation in Biochemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich, and since then is an external lecturer there.

Christina Lingham, Executive Director, Conferences and Fellow, Cambridge Healthtech Institute
Graduating with a BA in biochemistry from Smith College, Christina originally worked at MIT and then a subsidiary of Baxter Healthcare and Genentech. In 1994, she made the switch to conference producer at CII and has spent the last 22 years building relationships, identifying innovative topics and trends, and fostering entrepreneurial enterprises coming out of the academic sector and moving into industry. In 1997, she launched and continues to be a part of CII’s more notable conferences, including Molecular Medicine and PEGs, and has helped create more than 220 events hosted by CII. Christina emphasizes the importance of emerging technology and is excited to create environments where that innovation can be explored and expanded upon.