Antonella Vitiello, Pharm.D

Chief Executive Officer & Founder

Prior to founding PersImmune, Dr. Vitiello’s scientific activities have been mainly focused on the study of the T cell antigenic repertoire and the requirements for in vitro and in vivo induction of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). Highlights of her scientific career include the discovery of antigen selection by the MHC; the development of HLA-transgenic mice to study the human HLA-restricted CTL repertoire; the relationship between epitope immunodominance and peptide binding affinity to HLA; and the demonstration that adoptive transfer of memory and naïve T cells can prevent cancer in a transgenic mouse model of orthotopic prostate cancer. Working in the human system, Dr. Vitiello has been responsible for the development and testing (Phase I) of the first peptide vaccine to induce a CTL immune response and the development of a procedure to induce a primary CTL response in vitro against myeloid blasts. These T cells can then be adoptively transferred into patients. Dr. Vitiello obtained her doctorate in Pharmacy at the University of Pavia in Italy. Now Dr. Vitiello is currently overseeing the clinical trial (NCT03258359) of personalized adoptive T cell therapy targeting MDS stem cell neoantigens (PACTN).