Integrated personalized cell technologies for improving health outcomes in children and adults

PACT ADVISORY BOARD

Ken DeSantesKen DeSantes, MD

Ken DeSantes, MD, is the Chair of the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant. He is a member of the American Pediatric Society, the American Society of the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, the Children’s Oncology Group, and the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium. Dr. DeSantes also serves as a consultant for Best Doctors®, and the Chartwell Medical Advisory Board. He has written six book chapters and published over 30 research articles. His research interests include the treatment of neuroblastoma, and the use of immunotherapy and stem cell transplantation to treat pediatric cancer.

 

Rock MackieThomas (Rock) Mackie

Thomas “Rock” Mackie is Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Medicine & Public Health. Highlights of Mackie’s career at UW–Madison include the mentoring of 42 Ph.D. students, generating more than 50 US patents, and founding two influential Wisconsin companies. The most well-known is TomoTherapy (sold to Accuray in 2011), which markets a technology that delivers radiation doses that are precisely sculpted around tumors.

He was the Medical Engineering Director of the Morgridge Institute for Research in Madison and developed its Fab Lab. Since retiring, he is an entrepreneur and investor specializing in commercializing UW technology. He was the President of ACE, the Association of Campus Entrepreneurs, a group working to reduce barriers for faculty, staff and students with commercial ideas.

He is also the former director of the Isthmus Project innovation hub and former chief innovation officer at UW Health. His foundational research in radiation therapy and treatment planning has improved cancer therapy for patients around the world. Startups that Mackie co-founded since retiring include Asto CT, Leo Cancer Care, OnLume and Linectra.

Doug McNeelDouglas McNeel, MD, PhD

Douglas McNeel, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He is a genitourinary medical oncologist with a laboratory and clinical research program that has focused on prostate cancer immunology for nearly 20 years.  The long-term goal of these efforts has been to develop effective anti-tumor vaccines as treatments for prostate cancer.  He has been principal investigator for dozens of clinical trials focused on cancer immunotherapy, of which six were using DNA vaccines developed in his laboratory.  This work has been continuously supported by multiple grants from the DOD Prostate Cancer Research Program, National Institutes of Health, and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.  In the context of this research, he has trained over 50 pre-doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows in laboratory research.  Dr. McNeel is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American Association of Immunologists, and the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer.  As a physician scientist with research experience in the laboratory and clinic, and focused on the development and evaluation of new cancer immune-based therapies, he currently serves as an at-large director for the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer, and has served several different roles within the UW Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC).

Teresa NeelyTeresa Neely, MBA, BSN, RN

Teresa Neely is Senior Vice President, Chief Ambulatory Officer, Chief Nursing Officer, Ambulatory at UW Health and has over 25 years executive management experience.  In this role, Teresa leads operational, financial, and human resource functions for UW Health Ambulatory Clinics with a focus on enhancing patient- and family-centered care, improving access, lowering cost through process improvement and variation reduction.

She has been instrumental in developing ambulatory practice standards across the enterprise, developing operational dashboards to improve access and drive performance, and to grow and develop Telehealth services to enhance the care delivery system at UW Health.  Teresa is also serving as the Executive Sponsor for Specialty Care Redesign for UW Health Specialty Clinics.

Paul SondelPaul Sondel, MD, PhD

Paul Sondel, MD, PhD, is the Reed and Carolee Walker Professor in Pediatric Oncology at the University of Wisconsin — Madison. Dr. Sondel has been a leader in scientific policy through multiple national committee roles, including the National Institutes on Health, The American Cancer Society, The Children’s Oncology Group (COG), The National Cancer Institute, where he was a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors, and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, where he was the Chair of their Scientific Advisory Committee and their cancer center’s external advisory board, where he remains a current member.

Clinically he has worked with COG in contributing to the progress of the past 30 years in the development of curative treatments for childhood cancers. He is devoted to his own patients, and committed to leading a multidisciplinary team that is providing comprehensive and compassionate, state-of-the art treatment for all childhood cancer and hematology patients at the University of Wisconsin. The Sondel Laboratory pursues basic, preclinical and clinical mechanisms to induce in vivo activated innate immune effector cells to provide anti-tumor benefit.