Breaking through emergent Immunotherapy and Immune targets in Cancer 2019

Dr. Clotet received his MD (1976) and his PhD (1981), with a thesis on autoimmune diseases, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). That same year, his internship as an Internal Medicine specialist at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona coincided with the first AIDS case reported in Spain. This case was the catalyst for a career dedicated to this serious disease, first as head of the HIV Unit of the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Badalona (1987-2015) and then as founder and president of the Fight against AIDS Foundation (1992), which is now named as Fight Infections Foundation.

Dr. Clotet soon saw the need to go a step beyond patient care to conduct research aimed at eradicating AIDS. In 1995, with the support of “la Caixa” and the Department of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia, he founded the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, which he still heads.  In addition, Dr. Clotet is also the clinical director of Infectious Diseases at the Metropolitana Nord area of the Catalan Institute of Health, scientific advisor to two IrsiCaixa spin-offs: Aelix Therapeutics SL and AlbaJuna Therapeutics SL and director of the Chair of AIDS and Related Diseases at the Universitat de Vic (UVic).

He has published more than 1000 papers in high impact international journals and his contributions to research have been recognized with the Josep Trueta medal to Sanitary Merit and the ‘Premi Nacional de Recerca’, among other awards.

Dr Gonzalez Cao is a Medical Oncologist working at Dr Rosell Oncology Institute (IOR, Institut Universitari Dexeus, Barcelona). She graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Navarra (Spain) (1994) where she concluded her specialist training in 2000.

Dr Gonzalez Cao obtained her PhD degree from the University of Navarra in 2006, and a masters in pathogenesis and treatment of HIV infection by the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2016.

Dr. González Cao has been working at Dr Rosell Oncology Institute conducting cancer & HIV-related immunotherapy clinical trials and translational research projects. She has worked extensively in melanoma, and also in other solid tumors, including lung and breast cancer.

She has collaborated in multiple research projects presented at international congresses and scientific articles in recognized national and international medical journals. She is currently the scientific secretary of the Spanish Multidisciplinary Group of Melanoma (GEM), coordinating the translational studies of the GEM group.