Leadership Team

A/Prof Dominic Wall
Interim Chief Executive Officer, Chief Scientific Officer

Dominic oversees the quality and production nominees for the purposes of licensing by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
At the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Dominic has a joint appointment as the Executive Director for Business Ventures, leading its enterprises such as the external Pathology services. He also provides executive oversight to the national Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy which was established in 2019 with an $80 million contribution from the Commonwealth Government.

Dominic’s academic background and interests are primarily in cancer immunotherapy, in vivo cell tracking in human cell therapy (using nuclear medicine and MRI) and regulation of the developing cell and gene therapy field. He has published more than 80 manuscripts, abstracts and presentations in these areas, and has previously been the ANZ regional president of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT).

In 1999 Dominic developed the cell therapy program at Peter Mac and was one of the founders of Cell Therapies in 2003, leading it to becoming the first TGA licensed service in this field in Australia.

Dr Wendy Fleming
Director of Production

Wendy is responsible for the delivery of projects manufactured within the Cell Therapies cGMP facility.

Wendy graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Pathology with Honours, and worked at the Western Australian Institute of Medical Research prior to undertaking a PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Queensland in conjunction with the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. After completing her postgraduate degree Wendy went on to further her career working at cGMP facilities in academic research institutes before moving to Melbourne in 2010 to take up her position at Cell Therapies.

In addition to the many projects she has managed in Australia, Wendy has also successfully managed client projects in South East Asia, and in particular, was the Project Manager responsible for the design and specification of a cGMP PIC/S Clean room facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As part of this project, Wendy implemented a TGA compliant quality system, conducted training for manufacturing staff and facilitated the commencement of a Phase I clinical trial. The facility has since been accredited by the national regulatory agency.

Wendy’s main interests are process development, continuous improvement strategies and technology transfers. Her other interests include the design, specification and commissioning of cGMP facilities and was directly involved in the development of the cGMP clean room facilities for the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) in Parkville.

Nathan Smith
Business Development Manager
Nathan oversees business development, collaboration activities, and manages the client pipeline at Cell Therapies. He has over 20 years’ experience within the cell therapy and biopharma industries, with strong expertise in cGMP clinical and commercial manufacturing.

Before moving to Australia in 2015 and joining Cell Therapies, Nathan made several career stops at multinational companies in the US. He worked at GlaxoSmithKline’s U.S. Biopharmaceuticals facility, participating in multiple technical transfer projects, before joining BioReliance, where he led the expansion of their cell banking business. Subsequently, Nathan worked at Mesoblast, managing process development and manufacturing support of phase II and III clinical trials for an allogeneic cell therapy product. Finally, he worked at Genzyme as the Associate Director of Global Cell Banking Operations before joining Cell Therapies.

Nathan graduated from Pennsylvania State University in the US with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. He now calls Australia home.