Current Protein & Peptide Science

Dr. Predrag Cudic earned his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, in 1996. He then joined group of Nobel Laureate Dr. Jean-Marie Lehn at the Collège de France in Paris as a Postdoctoral Fellow. He had further postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Dr. Cudic began his independent academic career at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, in 2003. In 2010, Dr. Cudic joined Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies and in 2016 he came back to FAU as a tenured Full Professor. His research interests are in the field of peptide drug discovery.

Dr. Hoffmann obtained a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat) at Universität des Saarlandes (Germany) and habilitated at Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf (Germany). Currently, he is professor at the Institute of Bioanalytical Chemistry (Universität Leipzig) and holds an appointment to the Center for Biotechnology and Biomedicine (BBZ). His research focuses on protein analytics (non-enzymatic modifications, biomarker discovery) and peptide therapeutics (antimicrobial peptides). Dr. Hoffmann has supervised 38 PhD theses and eleven postdoctoral fellows, coauthored ~200 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and filed several patent applications. He is Associate Editor for Current Protein and Peptide Science and Regional Editor for Protein and Peptide Letters.

A/Prof M. Akhter Hossain completed his Ph.D. in 2001 at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan) and undertook postdoctoral studies at Joseph Fourier University (France) and the Howard Florey Institute (Australia). He has been the Head of the Insulin Peptides Laboratory since 2012 at the now-Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne. He has published > 115 papers (from 2000 to mid-2018) in key international journals including the Journal of American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, and Chemical Science. Five of his discoveries have been patented. His research group is interested in designing peptidomimetics and developing novel chemical methods for preparing therapeutic insulin and insulin-like peptides.

Anna Maria Papini is a bioorganic chemist expert in peptide and protein chemistry and biology. She completed an International PhD in bioorganic chemistry in 1990, under the supervision of Prof. Luis Moroder of the Max Planck Institut fuer Biochemie. In 1991 she founded the first Laboratory of peptide chemistry at the University of Florence starting peptide-based translational research. Since 2001 she is Associate Professor of bioorganic chemistry at the University of Florence and since 2013. She is author of 246 peer-reviewed articles: 138 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals and 108 articles in peer reviewed books.

Dr. Uversky obtained Ph.D. from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (1991) and D.Sc. from Institute of Experimental and Theoretical Biophysics (1998). Dr. Uversky is an Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of South Florida. He has authored over 600 scientific publications and edited several books and book series on intrinsically disordered proteins, protein structure, function, folding and misfolding. Dr. Uversky is an Editor-in-Chief of the Intrinsically Disordered Proteins journal and an editor of several other scientific journals, including Current Protein & Peptide Science, Protein & Peptide Letters, PeerJ, and Biochemistry & Biophysics Reports

Dr. Golam Jalal Ahammed received his Ph.D. in Olericulture with major focus on Plant Stress Physiology and Hormonal Regulation from the Zhejiang University, China in 2012 and did postdoctoral work at the Institute of Pesticide and Environmental Toxicology and Institute of Crop Science of Zhejiang University from 2013-2017. He joined the Department of Horticulture, College of Forestry, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang, China in 2018 as an Associate Professor. Dr. Ahammed authored over 60 research papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is an editorial board member of some reputed journals, including Current Peptide and Peptide Science, and Scientific Reports.

Xing Chen Professor of China University of Mining and Technology and founding director of Institute of Bioinformatics, China University of Mining and Technology. He serves as associate editor or editorial board member for academic journals such as Frontiers in Genetics, Frontiers in Plant Science, BMC Systems Biology, Scientific Reports, Current Protein & Peptide Science, Current Proteomics. In recent years, he published 93 SCI papers in the journals such as Bioinformatics, PLOS Computational Biology, Nucleic Acids Research, Briefings in Bioinformatics, Cell Death & Disease. His H-index is 28 and his publication has been cited more than 2800 times by the journals.

Kwang-Hyun Baek is a full professor of Department of Biomedical Science and a director of Cell & Gene Therapy Research Institute at CHA University in Korea. He received his Ph.D. from the department of Zoology and Genetics at Iowa State University in US in 1995 and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the division of Genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in the department of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. Current research and clinical interests are in the molecular genetics of ubiquitination and deubiquitination systems relevant to various cancers.

Valeri Barsegov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1969. He graduated from high school in 1986 with Silver Medal and entered Moscow State University same year. He was drafted to perform mandatory military service during 1987-1989. He joined Chemistry Department at UML as an Assistant Professor in 2006, and he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2012 and Full Professor in 2017. Dr. Barsegov is also an Adjunct Professor at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Computational group of Dr. Barsegov works on diverse problems including biomechanics of thrombosis and haemostasis, nanomanipulations with biological particles (viruses, microtubules), and cell mitosis.

Prof. Rolf Boelens (1951) studied physical chemistry at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). He completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Amsterdam with a study on ligand binding and electron transfer in cytochrome c oxidase using EPR. For a postdoc he went to the NMR group of Robert Kaptein. Currently he is professor of biomolecular NMR spectroscopy at Utrecht University, head of the Department of Chemistry and board member of the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research. His research resulted in over 340 publications (> 13500 citations, h-index 61).

Dr. Breydo obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Currently Dr. Breydo is a Research Associate (non-tenure track faculty) at the University of South Florida (Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, Morsani College of Medicine). He has published more than 70 scientific publications. Dr. Reitz is currently an Associate Editor of Biochemical and Biophysical Reports and an Editorial Board member of several journals including Protein and Peptide Letters.

Dr Bernadette Byrne undertook a PhD on endocrine physiology at the University of Aberdeen. This was followed by post-docs in both Sweden and London. She was appointed Lecturer at Imperial College in 2001 and currently holds a Readership in Molecular Membrane Biology. Her laboratory continues to develop novel methodologies for membrane study as well as undertaking structural and functional studies of integral membrane transporters and receptors. She has had a long standing interest in Graduate training and mentoring having acted as both Postgraduate Tutor and Director of Postgraduate Studies for the Division of Molecular Biosciences before taking up her current position of Deputy Director of the Graduate School.

Claudio Cabello-Verrugio is a Biochemist and received his Ph.D. degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from Catholic University of Chile. He is Associate Professor and researcher at Universidad Andres Bello in Chile and his research is focused in studying the mechanism involved in skeletal muscle diseases. In the last 10 years, he has published more than 40 manuscripts in the field of skeletal muscle biology. Actually, the emphasis in his research is elucidate the effect of managing the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) on skeletal muscle atrophy produced by diverse causes such as aging, disuse, sepsis and chronic diseases.

Stefano Caffarri is Associate Professor in Plant Biochemistry and Physiology at the Aix Marseille University, France, since 2004. He earned a PhD in Plant Biotechnology at the University of Verona, Italy. He is interested in the light phase of the photosynthesis in plants and green algae, and his research is focused in particular on the investigation of the structure and function of light harvesting complexes, of entire photosystems, their regulations and the mechanisms of protection against light stress. His research uses a combination of biochemical, molecular, spectroscopic and structural approaches and made important contribution to understand the organisation, regulation and plasticity of the photosynthetic machinery.

Born in Italy, Oliviero Carugo studied Chemistry at the University of Pavia. Initially interested in structural chemistry and structure correlation studies, he extended progressively his scientific interests towards structural bioinformatics and structural biology. After research experiences at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Heidelberg, Germany) and at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Trieste, Italy), he presently teaches Structural Bioinformatics and Chemistry at the University of Pavia, Italy and at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Agronomic Engineering, 1976, MSc in Biochemistry,1980 and PhD in Sciences Pharmaceutiques from the Paul Sabatier University, France, 1985. Senior Investigator of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development since 1986 (currently level 1A) and Full Professor of UFC since 2011. Experience in Biochemistry, emphasis on Protein Chemistry, Working with lectins. He has published more than 310 full papers and has directed 50 PhDs and 50 Masters students. On 2006 he was admitted to the National Order of Scientific Merit, with the title of commander and on 2010 he was elected as a titular member of Brazilian Academy of Sciences

Fabrizio Ceciliani, DVM, PhD, is an Associated Professor of Veterinary Pathology at the University of Milano. He graduated in Veterinary Medicine at the University of Milano. In 1994 gained a PhD in Biochemistry and in 1995 gained a post doc position in Molecular Biology at the University of Milano. Current interests include the immune response in white blood cells and the involvement of adipose tissue in innate immune response. He teaches Molecular Pathology at the School of Veterinary Biotechnology of the University of Milano.

Debprasad Chattopadhyay, Scientist G & Director of ICMR-National Institute of Traditional Medicine, unveiled the health care wisdom of ethnic medicines of India by establishing personal relationship with diverse tribal communities. His work on scientific validation of purity, safety and potency of useful ethnomedicines with molecular mechanism of action is globally acclaimed. Dr Chattopadhyay published 127 Research papers in peer-reviewed Journals of repute with Reviews and Chapters, Books (4), patents (7), popular articles (54). He is in the Editorial Board and Reviewer of several prestigious Journals; Examiner, PhD Guide, visiting Faculty and recipient of several awards. Dr Chattopadhyay (h-Index: 29; i10-Index: 59; Citations: 2715) is the Fellow of British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, and Member Review & Approval Committee of DST.

Joseph J. Dalluge is currently Director of the Mass Spectrometry Laboratory (A Waters Center of Innovation for Mass Spectrometry) in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Dalluge received his B.A. in 1991 from Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, MN, and his Ph.D. in 1996 in Biochemistry at the University of Utah with Professor James A. McCloskey. He joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 1996 to 1998 as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Associate, and continued work at NIST as a Research Scientist from 1998 to 2001. From 2001 to 2008, he worked at Cargill Incorporated Central Research, until his move to the University of Minnesota in 2009. He has 37 publications and one patent, and is past President (2003/04) of the Minnesota Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group.

Dr. Alekha K. Dash received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Pharmacy from Jadavpur University, India, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, USA. Dr. Dash is the professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacy Sciences, Creighton University and the holder of the Gilbert F. Taffe Jr. Endowed Chair of Pharmacy. He serves as the Associate Dean for Research for the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. He has made important research contributions in the fields of analytical method development for complex dosage forms, phase identification and phase quantification in solid matrices, and development and evaluation of novel drug delivery systems.

Bart De Spiegeleer was born in 1959 in Aalst, Belgium. He studied pharmacy at Ghent University, where he also completed in 1989 his Ph.D. on radiosynthesis, characterization and functionality of anticancer platinum complexes. He started in 1994 his own pharmaceutical consulting company, heading a group specialized in chemical-pharmaceutical development encompassing also GMP/GLP and regulatory affairs. He was also a board member of several start-up companies in the pharmaceutical and related health-products field. Since 2008, becoming full-time professor, he is head of Drug Quality and Registration (DruQuaR) laboratory at the Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis in Ghent University. He is author or coauthor of over 100 publications.

Dr. Luca Ferraro obtained the degree in Pharmacy at the University of Ferrara, Italy. He is actually Professor of Pharmacology at the Dept. of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara. He is currently affiliated with the Laboratory for Technologies of Advanced Therapies (LTTA – Tecnopolo), University of Ferrara, as Head of Service of "Animal models in drug testing." Since 2012 he is a member of the research team of the IRET Foundation (Ozzano Emilia, Bologna) for the study of neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Ferraro is author of about 150 publications in international journals in the field of Neuropharmacology and Neuroscience.

Dr. Alfred N. Fonteh obtained his Ph.D. degree (in 1989) in Biochemistry from University of London (England), UK. Dr. Fonteh is currently Senior Principal Analytical Biochemist as well as Director of Lipidomics & Proteomics at Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI – Neurosciences), Pasadena, California, USA. His skills and expertise mainly lie in the subject areas/fields of Cancer Biology, Cell Culture, PCR, Flow Cytometry, Immunohistochemistry, Biotechnology, Gene Expression, Chromatography, Cell Signaling, and Western Blot Analysis. Dr. Fonteh, as an author/co-author, has published more than 70 articles in various journals, having a noteworthy number of total citations, i.e. over 2,590.

Prof. Dr Octavio Luiz Franco is graduated in Ciencias Biologicas from the Universidade Federal do Ceara´ (1998) and obtained his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Universidade de Brasılia (2001). He is the head professor at the Universidade Catolica Dom Bosco and the Universidade Catolica de Brasilia, a visiting professor at the Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, a researcher at the Post- Graduation program of Physics Education from UCB, a researcher at the Universidade de Brasilia in the program of Molecular Pathology and researcher from CNPq. He has experience in biochemistry, proteomics and molecular modeling. He currently works on the following subjects: antimicrobial peptides, immunomodulators, antifreezing and proteome of animals, plants and microorganisms. His work has also focused on the development of bioproducts and bioprocesses. At the moment he has more than 250 manuscripts already published.

ERNESTO FREIRE is the Henry Walters Professor at the Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the Department of Biology and Biophysics. He also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins Medical School. Dr. Freire obtained his doctorate in Biophysics from the University of Virginia. Dr. Freire is a world recognized expert in biological thermodynamics. He performs research in the thermodynamics of protein stability, protein-protein interactions, and protein-ligand binding. Dr. Freire has pioneered the development of drug design and optimization strategies using thermodynamic techniques. Dr. Freire is the author or co-author of over 250 publications and several patents. Dr. Freire is an Honor Member of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and a member of the Academy of Sciences of Latin America.

Oxana V. Galzitskaya is head of the Bioinformatics group at the Institute of Protein Research Russian Academy of Sciences (since 2008). She graduated from the Moscow Physical-Technical Institute (1990, Honorary Diploma). Ph.D. in Biophysics (Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Pushchino, 1996). Author of more 150 peer-reviewed publications. Awarded for Outstanding Russian Young Scientists, 1997 and for Doctor of Science of Russian Science Support Foundation. Member of the Editorial Boards of "Current Protein and Peptide Science", “Open Biochemistry”, “Open Bioinformatics”, and “Open Journal of Biochemistry”, the Editorial Board of World Journal of Biological Chemistry, Austin Biometrics and Biostatistics, Associate Editor for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Dr. Elena Maria GANEA, PhD. in Biochemistry, is a Senior Researcher and head of ‘Protein Folding Department at the Institute of Biochemistry, Romanian Academy, Romania. Dr.Ganea has a research experience of more than 40 years, which covers a large scientific area. Protein folding studies in collaboration with Oxford University have elucidated the role of molecular chaperone α-crystallin in proteins protection against changes induced by posttranslational modifications. This work has led to more than 150 publications in prestigious journals. She is also PhD adviser, lecturer in Biochemistry and a member of the Biochemical Society, UK. and Heidelberg Alumni International Society, Germany.

Mathias Hallberg is a Professor in Molecular Research on Drug Dependence at Uppsala University, Sweden. His research covers the involvement of peptidergic mechanisms in cognitive behavior, chronic pain and drug dependence. His current activities besides molecular research on drug dependence, e.g. anabolic steroids and opiates, include the development of drug-like peptidemimetics of bioactive degradation products in the Renin Angiotensin and the Tachykinin Systems. He is the Director of a program within the Swedish Science for Life Laboratory aimed at developing peptides and drug-like ligands to the AT2 receptor as potential pharmaceutical agents.

Dr. Hartmann-Petersen holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and is a professor of molecular biology at the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. In his research Dr. Hartmann-Petersen utilizes both yeast and mammalian cell models in studies focused on protein degradation via the ubiquitin-proteasome system, and in particular on the protein quality control mechanisms involved in targeting misfolded proteins for degradation.

De-Shuang Huang is the professor of computer science of Tongji University. He received the Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from Xidian University, Xian, China, in 1993. He is currently the Fellow of the International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPR Fellow). He has published over 420 papers in international journals, international conferences proceedings, and book chapters, and three monographs (in Chinese). His research interests include protein-protein interaction analysis, motif mining in DNA sequence, and deep neural networks.

Doctor Paola Irato graduated in Biological Sciences from the University of Milan in 1984. In 1988, she obtained the research doctorate in Evolutionary Biology from University of Padua. Since 1991, she has been a researcher of general physiology. Dr. Irato has always been interested in heavy metal detoxification systems. She has been in-charge of the project “The determination of biological stress indices in mugilidae from high and low anthropic stress brackish environments”.

Dr. Rizwan Hasan Khan has received his Ph.D in Biotechnology from Aligarh Muslim University, India during the period of 1992-1996. Currently he is working in the area of protein structure, function, protein misfolding / aggregation and amyloid induction and inhibition at Aligarh Muslim University. He has published paper in journals like Scientific reports, Biomacromolecules, Langmuir, PLoS ONE, Biochemistry, BBA, BBRC etc. He has worked with Prof. I.J. Goldstein at University of Michigan USA as BOYSCAST Fellow and with Prof. Steve Perkins at University of London as Commonwealth Fellow. He has guided 16 PhD thesis and completed 12 research projects. He had published around 250 papers in the journals of international repute with H index of 35 and total citation around 4650.

Dr. Reza Khodarahmi (Professor in Biochemistry) was born in Nahavand-Iran, 1974. He received his Bsc degree in general Biology from the Razi University-Kermanshah and then graduated in Biochemistry (Msc) from the Tarbiat Modarres University-Tehran. He received his PhD degree in 2005 from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran for his studies on the effects of artificial chaperones on protein misfolding and aggregation. Since 2007, he has held a position in the school of Pharmaceutical Sciences (and Medical Biology Research Center), Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. His research interests focus on the in vitro characterization of oxidative events accompanying amyloid aggregation, drug-protein interaction and enzyme inhibition, using both experimental and computational tools.

Lukasz Kurgan has Ph.D. in Computer Science (2003) from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since 2015 he is with the Department of Computer Science at the Virginia Commonwealth University as the Qimonda Endowed Professor. Before that he was a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta. Dr. Kurgan is an Area Editor for structural bioinformatics of BMC Bioinformatics and Associate Editor of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins, PLoS ONE, Neurocomputing, Current Protein and Peptide Science, and Protein and Peptide Letters. More details are on the web site of his lab at http://biomine.ece.ualberta.ca/.

Prof. Hang Fai (Henry) Kwok currently holds the Associate Professor and the Consultant of Histopathology Core position in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Macau. Henry completed a period of postdoctoral training at the Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and then moved to industry as Senior Scientist in the Fusion Antibodies Limited, which was recently listed on the FTSE All-Share AIM index on the London Stock Exchange as Fusion Antibodies Plc. (FAB). His interests include protease biochemistry research with biologics development to pursue novel therapeutic, prognostic and diagnostic approaches in the treatment of cancer and other diseases.

Dr. Po Sing LEUNG is the Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His major research interest is to focus on pancreatic islet cell biology in health and disease. He has published more than 180 scientific publications. Currently, he serves as associate editors and editorial boards for over 10 international journals in the field of endocrinology and metabolism.

Dr. Min Li is currently a Professor and the vice dean at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Central South University, P. R. China. Her research interests include Algorithms for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, mainly focus on algorithms and tools in De novo genome assembly, biological network analysis and protein bioinformatics, etc. She has published more than 100 technical papers in refereed journals such as Bioinformatics, Methods, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics, and conference proceedings such as BIBM, GIW and ISBRA. According to Google scholar, her paper citations are more than 3200 and her H-index is 29.

Dr. Liu is a Professor of pharmacology and the dean of School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University. Dr. Liu is also the director of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Drug Screening. Dr. Liu is the chair-elect of Division of Anti-inflammatory and Immunopharmacology of Chinese Pharmacological Society (CPS). From 2002, Dr. Liu has already published more than 120 SCI papers in academic journals which were cited more than 2,500 times with an h-index of 28. Moreover, Dr. Liu got 9 Chinese patents and 1 United States patent, as well as 9 Chinese and 2 PCT patent applications.

In 1983 he graduated cum laude in Medicine (“MD”) at the University of Florence with a thesis entitled “Polymorphonuclear neutral proteases in experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE): an experimental study”. DEGREES, DIPLOMAS AND HONORS: In 1991 he specialized in Neurology cum laude with a thesis entitled “Central Nervous system HIV infection and B and T cells alterations”. In 1992 he obtained a phD Degree at the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), with a thesis entitled “Intrathecal Synthesis of Immunoglobulins and Immune Alterations in Multiple Sclerosis and HIV infection”. PUBBLICATIONS - He authored 100 full papers on international peer-reviewed journals. PRICES. In 2008, the Frost & Sullivan “2008 European Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Excellence in Research Award,” presented to Toscana Biomarkers.

Dr. SONIA LONGHI obtained a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Milan in 1993. She got a HDR in structural virology from the University of Aix-Marseille I in 2003. Presently she is Director of Research (DR1) at the Center for the National Scientific Research (CNRS), and head of the "Structural Disorder and Molecular Recognition" group within the laboratory Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biolgiques (AFMB). Her scientific focus is on intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and the mechanistic and functional aspects of the interactions they establish with partners. She has authored more than 100 scientific publications.

Dr. Xi Ma is originally from China and received his initial public health training at the Peking University Health Science Center in Beijing. Drawn by the opportunity for the harmonious integration of oncology, cell biology and molecular biology, he completed his medical immunology fellowship at the Peking University Health Science Center. He has been a faculty with the China Agricultural University and an Associate Professor since 2012 focusing on the research of animal nutrition requirements and metabolic modulation. He currently specializes in intestinal microbiota mature and immune system development, as well as regulation of glycose and lipid metabolism in mammals. Dr. Ma is also an adjunct faculty member at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, focused on autophagy and nutritional modulation.

PAOLO MAGNI received a degree in Medicine and a post-doctoral degree in Endocrinology at the Universita' degli Studi di Pavia (Italy) and a PhD degree in endocrinology and metabolism at the Universita' degli Studi di Milano (Italy). He is professor of pathology at the Universita' degli Studi di Milano (Italy). His research domains include the molecular pathophysiology of metabolic diseases (obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, dyslipidemia, atherosclerosis) and the nutritional/nutraceutical modulation of cardiometabolic risk, aging and health-related issues. He is conducting both experimental and clinical research. He is the author or co-author of over 85 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals.

Maria Luisa Mangoni graduated in Biology with honours at Sapienza University of Rome. In 1998, she worked at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in the lab of Prof. Emeritus Hans G. Boman where she studied the role of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in innate immunity. In 2002, she received her PhD in Biochemistry from Sapienza University. In 2002 she was appointed as Assistant Professor and in 2012 as Associate Professor, same University. In 2014 she gained the abilitation to Full Professor in Biochemistry. Her current research interests include the structural functional characterization of amphibian skin AMPs and their derivatives for the development of new anti-infective agents. She was an invited speaker at several international conferences.

Mauro Manno (ORCID 0000-0001-9843-0428) received is PhD at the University of Palermo and it is now researcher at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) Institute of Biophysics (IBF) Palermo, Italy. Current research focuses on the thermodynamic and conformational stability of protein in solutions and on the common pathways of self-assembly leading to different biologically relevant structures. The main research lines are the following. (i) Mechanical and structural properties of gels formed by amyloid fibrillar structures. (ii) Intermolecular interactions and solution stability in fibril forming protein solutions, including model and prion proteins. (iii) Structures and mechanisms of inactivation of proteins involved in serpinopathies, a class of genetic conformational diseases. (iv) Structural and mechanical properties of extracellular nanovescicles, involved in physiological and oncogenic processes.

Associate Professor Martin gained her PhD in Chemistry from The Australian National University. She obtained the Alexander von Humboldt and Fulbright awards to undertake post-doctoral stays in Germany and USA, respectively, before her first academic position at The Flinders University of South Australia. She currently holds a position at Monash University (since 2003) where she has a research focus on the electrochemistry of cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in steroid biosynthesis, membrane action of antimicrobial and amyloidogenic peptides and incorporation of biomolecules into novel materials especially those with semiconducting properties.

Dr. Ghulam Md Ashraf is currently working as Associate Professor at King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Ashraf received his PhD in Biochemistry from Aligarh Muslim University (India) in 2010. He has to his credit 165 publications ranging from peer-reviewed journal articles, books and book chapters published with the scholarly publishers (total citations: 1681, h-index: 19, i10-index: 45). Dr. Ashraf is involved in the editorial capacity in many internationally reputed journals, and has been involved in 7 research projects funded by various agencies of Saudi Arabia. He is a member of several renowned professional associations and organizations. Dr. Ghulam Md Ashraf currently focuses on investigating the expression of proteins involved in causation, progression and potential therapy of neurological disorders. Dr. Ashraf is also interested in exploring the inherent connection of neurological disorders with other chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes, using proteomics and nanotechnological tools. Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ghulam_Ashraf2 Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=-fOCOTQAAAAJ&hl=en

Sylviane Muller is a Distinguished class research director in the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Strasbourg University (USIAS), in charge of the chair Therapeutic immunology. She is the Director of the CNRS Molecular and cellular biology Institute (IBMC) in Strasbourg, Chair and Director of the CNRS Unit entitled Immunopathology and therapeutic chemistry, and Head and coordinator of the Drug discovery Center for cancer and inflammation Medalis awarded 'Laboratory of Excellence’ (2011-2020).

Tzi Bun Ng received his PhD degree in endocrinology and protein biochemistry . He pursued postdoctoral research in hormones and sabbatical research in biotechnology. He is a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has published over 700 papers in international journals and nearly 100 book chapters. He has served as as an assessor of candidates for the degree of PhD and for promotion to various professorial ranks in various universities and research grant applications submitted to various national funding agencies. His research interests encompass milk proteins, antipathogenic proteins, mushroom polysaccharoproteins and polysaccharopeptides, and protease inhibiors. His email address is tzibunng2011@gmail.com

Jinyong Peng was born in Hubei Provence, China. He received his Master of Medical Science from Zhejiang University, and then received PhD from Second Military Medical University, and last received his post-doctoral degree Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. Currently, he is working as the Dean of College of Pharmacy, Dalian Medical University. He is serving as an Editorial Member of British Journal of Pharmacology, Archives of Toxicology, Pharmacological Research, et al. As corresp- ondding author, he has published many papers in Theranostics, Redox Biology, Archives of Toxicology. He is a member of Chinese Pharmacological Society, and Chinese Chemical Society.

BOTOND PENKE got his master’s degree in biology and chemistry at Eotvos Lorand University Budapest, then PhD degree at Jozsef Attila University in Szeged, Hungary. He is professor of medicinal chemistry at Szeged University. His research domains include peptide synthesis, protein chemistry and biochemistry, protein structure, neurodegenerative diseases, drug design. He has been the PI of several experimental EU research projects. He is the author or co-author of 280 peer-reviewed scientific papers in international journals.

Dr. Permyakov obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in physics and mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and defended a doctor dissertation (Doctor of Sciences) in biology in Moscow State University. Previously he worked in the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics (Russia) and the Ohio State University (USA). Currently Dr. Permyakov is a director of the Institute for Biological Instrumentation (Russia). He has published 10 monographs and more than 160 articles.

George Perry is Dean of the College of Sciences and the Semmes Foundation Distinguished University Chair in Neurobiology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He obtained his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and received a postdoctoral fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Perry is distinguished as one of the top Alzheimer’s disease researchers with over 1,000 publications, one of the top 100 most-cited scientists in neuroscience and behavior, and one of the top 25 scientists in free radical research. He is editor-in-chief for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. Dr. Perry’s research is primarily focused on how Alzheimer’s disease develops and the physiological consequences of the disease at a cellular level.

Alessandro Pini is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the Department of Medical Biotechnology, University of Siena, Italy. He is founder and president of the biotech company SetLance srl (www.setlance.com). Author of publications on international journals of biochemistry, biotechnology, oncology and microbiology, of several book chapters and one book for italian students of Biotechnology. Inventor in 10 international patents regarding antibodies or peptides as therapeutic agents. Teacher of biochemistry and biotechnology at the University of Siena, University of Insubria Varese, University of Perugia, Consorzio Siena Ricerche, National Institute for Cancer Research, Genoa, in Italy, and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, in Switzerland.

Mauro Salvi received his B.S. degree in Biology (1998) and Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics (2002) from the University of Padova, Italy. Mauro Salvi joined the faculty at the University of Padova in 1996 as Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. His current research projects are all addressed to work out phosphorylation-based regulatory mechanisms in different signal transduction pathways studying the kinase (function, regulation, partners etc.) and the target protein substrate/s (physiological role of phosphorylation) with a combination of in silico, in vitro and in cell experimental approaches.

A faculty member of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prof. Shoseyov’s research is in plant molecular biology protein engineering and nano-biotechnology. His group focus on Bio-Inspired Nanocomposite materials. He has authored or co-authored more than 160 scientific publications and is the inventor or co-inventor of 46 patents. Prof. Shoseyov received the Outstanding Scientist Polak Award for 2002, the 1999 and 2010 Kay Award for Innovative and Applied Research and The 2012 Israel Prime Minister Citation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is the scientific founder of 10 companies.

Dr. Laishram R. Singh is presently working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Delhi. Dr. Singh is a well-known enzymologist and protein biochemist with 15 years of research experience. He has published more than 40 publications in many esteemed journals in the field of proteostatic regulation and protein covalent modification by homocysteine. He has also edited books and authored several chapters in many books published by Springer, InTech and Elsevier etc. Currently Dr. Singh’s research group is interested in developing strategies to remove toxic protein deposits in neuronal cells and cardiomyocytes using proteostatic modulators and small molecule compounds.

Dr. Sloane is Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at Wayne State University School of Medicine and headed Protease and the Breast Cancer Biology Programs at the Karmanos Cancer Institute. She co-founded the International Proteolysis Society, was a Special Assistant to the Cancer Imaging Program of the National Cancer Institute and Director of a multi-institutional DoD Breast Cancer Center of Excellence. Dr. Sloane has authored more than 250 papers and has an H index of 70. The primary research emphasis of her laboratory is proteolytic pathways in the progression of premalignant breast disease to invasive carcinomas.

Jiangning Song is a Senior Research Fellow and group leader in the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is also affiliated with the Monash Centre for Data Science, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University. He received his D.Eng degree in bioengineering from Jiangnan University, China and his Ph.D degree in Computer Science from Monash University, Australia. His research interests include bioinformatics, computational biology, machine learning, data mining, and pattern recognition.

Dr. Kyoungho Suk is a member of editorial board for the journal. He is currently a professor of Department of Pharmacology, Kyungpook National University (KNU) School of Medicine (Daegu, Korea), and the director of Brain Science & Engineering Institute of KNU. He obtained his Ph.D. in Immunology at University of California at Davis in 1994, and M.S. degree in Immunology at Cornell University in 1991. He graduated from KNU with the genetic engineering major in 1989. Dr. Suk received his postdoctoral training in the division of Rheumatology, Yale University School of Medicine, and he has been a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School between 2008 and 2009, during which he participated in large-scale experiments and systems biology approaches toward understanding of disease networks and pathways. Dr. Suk is the author of more than 200 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and holds patents on various therapeutic targets and lead compounds that could be used for the diagnosis or therapy of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases.

Graduated in chemistry in Budapest. He had positions in the pharmaceutical industry, later he was appointed to professor of chemistry at the Eötvös Loránd University. Member (1990), then deputy secretary general (1996-9) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Member of the Académie des Arts, des Sciences et des Lettres (Paris), Doctor honoris causa at the Universitatea de Vest, Timisoara. He formulated the principle of electrostatic enzyme catalysis in collaboration with Arieh Warshel. Author of 250 scientific publications and 8 books in the field of theoretical chemistry, computer-aided molecular design, structural biology and sustainability.

Vladimir P. Torchilin, Ph.D., D.Sc. is a University Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine, Northeastern University, Boston. He has published more than 400 original papers, more than 150 reviews and book chapters, wrote and edited 12 books, and holds more than 40 patents. Google Scholar shows more than 44,000 citations of his papers with H-index of 96. He received more than $30 M from the governmental and industrial sources in research funding. He has multiple honors and awards and in 2011, Times Higher Education ranked him number 2 among top world scientists in pharmacology for the period of 2000-2010.

Dr. Lam-Son Phan Tran is Head of the Stress Adaptation Research Unit at RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, Japan. His current research interests are elucidation of the roles of phytohormones and their interactions in abiotic stress responses, as well as translational genomics of legume crops with the aim to enhance crop productivity under adverse environmental conditions.

Dr. Jianxin Wang is the Associate Dean and a full professor in School of Information Science and Engineering,Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China. He received his B.Sc. (Computer Science) and M.Sc. (Computer Science) from Central South University of Technology, China, in 1992 and 1996, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree in computer science from Central South University, China, in 2001. His research interests include genome analysis and assembly, biological network analysis, network medicine and big data analytics for healthcare, etc. He has published more than 100 papers, which have been published in various journals (Bioinformatics, Algorithmica, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Proteomics, Methods, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Genomics, etc), conferences (ISMB, BIBM, GIW, ISBRA, etc) and books. He is a co-inventor of more than twenty patents in China, and has received many awards from agencies such as NSFC and Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.

Dr. Williams received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Memphis State University in 1970 and 1973 respectively. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, Athens, in 1976. He continued his post-doctoral research studies at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo. His initial faculty position was in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, Missouri. Dr. Williams joined The Ohio State University in 1982 and is currently a professor in the Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics, College of Medicine, at The Ohio State University. He also holds appointments in the Department of Microbiology, College of Biological Sciences, as well as, the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at The Ohio State University.

Jianyi Yang is a Professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. He received his PhD degree from the Nanyang Technological University and had his postdoctoral training in the University of Michigan. His research interests include protein structure and function prediction, protein structure alignment and RNA structure prediction. He has made significant contributions to the development of many widely used tools, including I-TASSER, COACH, COACH-D, BioLiP, mTM-align and so on. More details can be found at his lab web site: http://yanglab.nankai.edu.cn/.

Dr. Zhong-Yin Zhang is Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, the Robert C. and Charlotte P. Anderson Chair in Pharmacology, and Head of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in the College of Pharmacy at Purdue University. Professor Zhang's research spans the disciplines of chemistry and biology with an emphasis on the structure and function of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), PTP-mediated signaling, mechanistic enzymology, and design and synthesis of PTP inhibitors as tool compounds to interrogate PTP function and as novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and obesity, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases. He has authored more than 240 publications, holds 17 patents, consults for several pharmaceutical companies, and he is an internationally recognized authority in the field of PTPs.

Dr. Chengji Zhou is a full professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Waseda University in 2001 and did postdoctoral research in the University of California, San Francisco, from 2001 to 2005. He has been a faculty member of UC Davis School of Medicine since 2005, and an editorial board member of the Current Protein & Peptide Science since 2004.

Ricardo Lagoa graduated in Biochemistry at University of Coimbra (Portugal) and completed the PhD in Biotechnology and Biomedical Research at University of Extremadura (Spain) in 2011. Currently, he is Assistant Professor at ESTG-Polytechnic Institute of Leiria and also integrates UCIBIO-Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit, University NOVA of Lisbon, Portugal. Research interests include oxidative stress in toxicology and disease, natural compounds, biocatalysts and biopolymers applications.

Mauro Salvi received his B.S. degree in Biology (1998) and Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics (2002) from the University of Padova, Italy. Mauro Salvi joined the faculty at the University of Padova in 1996 as Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. His current research projects are all addressed to work out phosphorylation-based regulatory mechanisms in different signal transduction pathways studying the kinase (function, regulation, partners etc.) and the target protein substrate/s (physiological role of phosphorylation) with a combination of in silico, in vitro and in cell experimental approaches.