Paul Beavis

Prof. Beavis completed his PhD at Imperial College London in 2010 and joined Peter Mac shortly thereafter to work in the Cancer Immunology Program, forming an independent research group in 2018.

His team has a significant interest in developing novel CAR T cell technology to enhance their effectiveness in solid cancers, guided by the philosophy that engagement of host immunity is key for effective responses. Their work has been published in leading journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, The Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature Communications. This work has led to >13,000 citations and one of the CAR T cell technologies developed by his team is set to enter a clinical trial in 2026.

Haydn Bechthold

2026 Summit4CI Patient Partner Keynote

Haydn is a 2025 graduate of the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he earned his J.D. with distinction. He is now a lawyer and serves as a judicial law clerk for the judges of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Before pursuing a legal career, Haydn played professional soccer for teams in England, Spain, and the United States. His athletic career was cut short at age 22 when he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

Since then, Haydn has remained deeply engaged in the Canadian cancer community. He has served on boards and committees for cancer organizations, contributed to scientific publications on adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer, and supported research and advocacy initiatives aimed at improving awareness and access to cancer care across Canada.

Rachael Nimmo

Dr. Rachael Nimmo completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2005 followed by postdoctoral work at Oxford and Yale. In 2015 she established her independent research group at the UCL Cancer Institute to study the genetic and molecular mechanisms of leukaemia with funding from the Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund, Bloodwise, Children with Cancer, and Cancer Research UK.

In 2018, seeking to have greater impact on improving outcomes for patients, she moved to Oxford Biomedica (OXB) to lead the Cell Technology Group. Here she began working on developing technology to enable the generation of CAR T cells in vivo, directly within the patient, motivated by the observation that despite the truly curative potential of CAR T cells, only a small fraction of eligible patients will receive this type of treatment due to the cost and complexity of these therapies. She reasoned that if a single infusion of a lentiviral vector could specifically generate sufficient CAR T cells in vivo, this would democratize access to these transformative therapies. As a result, her team have successfully developed an efficient, retargeted 4th generation lentiviral vector platform for in vivo CAR T cell therapy with the aim of delivering these treatments to more patients.