Current Cell Science

Prof. Masayoshi Yamaguchi, Ph.D., IOM, FAOE, is a full professor at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, Manoa since 2020, he worked as an adjunct professor at the same university from 2019-2020; a visiting professor at the David Gefen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles from 2017-2019. Dr. Yamaguchi was engaged in the fields of calcium and bone metabolism, cell calcium signaling, cancer biology, and the use of nutraceuticals in food from medicinal perspectives. He discovered two novel genes named regucalcin (gene symbol, rgn) and RGPR-p117 (SEC16B, rgpr- p117). He has published a number of articles in the peer-reviewed journals in English language, along with books and book chapters. Dr. Yamaguchi has been on the advisory board of the Universal Scientific Education and Research Network since 2021, and a full member of Sigma Xi (The Scientific Research Honor Society) since 2022. He also received "The 2017 Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award"

Evangelia Papakostanti completed Ph.D. from the Medical School, University of Crete followed by postdoctoral research at mechanisms that mediate signals from G-protein coupled, cytokines and androgen receptors to actin cytoskeleton in normal and cancer cells. In January 2004, he joined Bart Vanhaesebroeck’s group at Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research, London where he investigated the signalling pathways that are controlled by individual PI3K isoforms and their role in cell migration and cell polarity in macrophages. Since 2007, he has been working at the Division of Basic Medical Sciences Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete. He was initially elected as Lecturer in Biochemistry and in December 2010 he was promoted to Assistant Professor. He started his tenure-track appointment as an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine in 2015, and was promoted to the Associate Professor in 2019. His research group focused on studying the triggered signaling pathways or regulate oncoproteins and on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying tumor growth and metastasis using animal models. We additionally focus our efforts on investigating approaches for combination therapy targeting both cancer cells and cells of the tumour microenvironment, aiming to discover promising targets in anti-cancer drug development.

Prof. Rossella Cannarella, M.D., Ph.D. is a research fellow of andrology/urology at the Glickman Urological & Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, OH, USA. She is a specialist of endocrinology from the European Academy of Andrology (EAA) Training Center of Catania (Catania, Italy), committed to provide science and research to general public and specialized education. She did Ph.D. in translational biomedicine from the University of Catania, and became a research fellow at the Glickman Urology and Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH, USA). Her field of research is male infertility.

Prof. Anirban Chakraborty is a biochemist and specialist in molecular mechanisms of mammalian DNA repair. He discovered a new pathway of error-free DNA double strand break repair in mammalian cells, where nascent RNA serves as a template for the missing sequence at the break sites. Besides, he also demonstrated transcription-coupled DNA base excision repair in mammalian cells in vivo using animal models. He further elucidated the molecular link of deficient DNA repair to the etiology of neurodegenerative diseases, like polyglutamine diseases and cancer, and also studied non-canonical role of DNA repair proteins in inflammation and related diseases.

Dr. Jijiwa's research focuses on identifying biomarkers of breast cancer and the mechanism of neural crest cell-derived pediatric cancer. After gaining a career as a neurologist and assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at Nagoya University in Japan, she started her postdoctoral fellowship in the US in 2009. She studied glioblastoma stem cells at UCLA and The Ohio State University, and began researching pediatric cancer at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center in 2012. Since 2019, she has been engaged in current research at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine.

Sílvia Socorro is a Full Professor of Biomedicine at the Faculty of Health Sciences of University of Beira Interior (UBI) and the Vice-Rector for Research, Innovation and Development. She was the Director of the PhD program in Biomedicine at UBI (2017-2021) and the Scientific Coordinator of CICS-UBI, Health Sciences Research Centre (2019-2021). Her research interests cover the action of sex steroid hormones, endocrine disruptors, and metabolic regulators in the control of cell fate and energy metabolism in prostate cancer and male reproduction.

Dr. Tominaga is an Assistant Professor of Laboratory Science in Medicine and currently affiliate at Yamaguchi University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. Degree in Medicine from the University of Tokyo, Japan. He started working at National Cancer Center Research Institute, Japan, where he studied cancer malignancy through cell-cell communication by extracellular vesicles. He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied muscular dystrophy and muscle aging.

Dr. Zhe Wang, professor and chairman of Department of Pathology, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China. He graduated from Fourth Military Medical University and got M.D. in 2000. He finished the resident training in Xijing Hospital and attained the position of professor in 2011. Dr. Zhe Wang worked as post-doctor in Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, USA from 2005-2007. His research interest is the pathogenesis of lymphoma and esophageal carcinoma.He is also an expert pathologist in soft tissue, lymphoma and genitourinary pathology. He has published more than 100 peer reviewed articles.

Dr. Hettie is an NCI/NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Fellow (PI/PD) in the Departments of Radiology and Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery within the School of Medicine at Stanford University that specializes in the design, development, and implementation of near-infrared-I/II peptidyl-, nucleic acid-,and immuno-based activatable bio-/molecular probes, biosensors, theranostics, and nanoparticles targeting biomarkers of brain cancers and their tumor microenvironment for their early detection, direct visualization, and surgical removal via utilizing image-guided surgery. He focuses on their rational design, bio-/chemical synthesis, and bio-/analytical evaluation of novel diagnostics and therapeutics in a basic science research, preclinical, and clinical setting.

Krystyna Oracz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Physiology,Institute of Biology at Warsaw University of Life Sciences-SGGW (Poland). He is the leader of the SeedExplorerGroup (www.seedexplorer.eu). He received PhD’s in Life Sciences from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris (France) and WULS-SGGW (Poland), He did postdoctoral training in the field of plant molecular biology at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau.(Germany) and University of Cape Town (SA).His recent projects involved to elucidate: 1) the role of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in light- dependent germination of dormant A. thaliana seeds;2) the protein turnover in seed-related processes (including regulation oftranslation and degradation of proteins), 3) the role of light and elements of light signaling pathway in seed dormancy release and germination.

Kuanhui Xiang began his career in the field of viral hepatitis and completed his PhD in Peking University. Among his graduated study, he was trained in The Rockefeller University from 2014 to 2016. After his PhD, he worked in the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Disease Center, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China. His team is investigating the establishment of in vitro and in vivo viral infection models such as HBV, HCV and SARS-CoV-2, the interaction between virus and host and the antiviral drug screening, which ultimately aims to develop novel therapeutic strategies for treating viral infection disease.