Professor George Coukos is Director of the Department of Oncology at the CHUV and Director of the service of Developmental Therapeutics. He is also the Director of the Ludwig Cancer Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was previously the Celso Ramon Garcia Professor and Associate Chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, and Director, Ovarian Cancer Research Center, at the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center. He is a recognized global leader in ovarian cancer immunotherapy and tumor microenvironment research. His research focuses on understanding the immune system's response to ovarian cancer and other tumor types, and on developing therapies, which enhance that response. He is also developing tools to target the tumor vasculature. Professor Coukos has received over 20 awards for his work on ovarian cancer immunology and immunotherapy. He has over 170 publications, and has maintained funding from the US National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health for over 10 years. Professor Coukos has made many scientific contributions in the field of tumor immunology and immunotherapy. Professor Coukos also has extensive experience in designing and conducting phase I clinical cell-based immunotherapy studies, and in the development of cell-based immunotherapy from the laboratory to the clinic. He has functioned as the principal investigator and regulatory sponsor of 7 pilot or phase-I clinical immunotherapy studies in ovarian cancer at the University of Pennsylvania, using cell-based vaccines or adoptive T cell transfer manufactured at the University of Pennsylvania Cell and Vaccine Production Facility. Dr Coukos and his team provided crucial help in the development of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for these trials. Furthermore, they have extensive experience with submitting Investigational New Drug (IND) applications to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Professor Coukos’ laboratory has also developed antibodies against the tumor vasculature, which are being prepared for clinical applications.

 Oncology