Current Drug Targets

Dr. Azevedo is professor of Biophysics, Bioinformatics, Computational Systems Biology, Machine Learning and Drug Design at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul-Brazil (azevedolab.net). He is Regional Editor for Current Drug Target, member of the Editorial Board for Current Bioinformatics and PeerJ, and Guest Editor for Current Medicinal Chemistry. His research is focused on protein-ligand interactions. He works on the development of computational models to study protein-ligand interactions and their applications to drug design. He has over 170 publications with h-index of 35.

Dr. Urano obtained doctorates (M.D., Ph.D.) from the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan. Dr. Urano finished post doctoral fellow in the University of Notre Dame, USA. Currently Dr. Urano is a vice president and the professor of the department of medical physiology in the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine. He has studied in the field of coagulation and fibrinolysis as well as vascular biology, and published more than 180 scientific publications. Dr. Urano is currently the regional editor of this journal (Current Drug Targets), published by Bentham Science Publishers.

Dr. Antonio Ciccone is a urologist at Sant’Andrea Hospital - “La Sapienza'' University in Rome where he received his training. His postdoctoral research was carried out at “Magna Graecia”University of Catanzaro and focused on minimal invasive urological surgery. Furthermore, He was clinical as well as a research fellow at Universidade do Minho in Braga-Portugal. His research area is focused on Lower Urinary Tract Symptom mainly to improve the treatment and management.

Dr. Dong Peixin is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hokkaido University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Hokkaido University in 2008. He is currently working on the roles of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms (especially non-coding RNA networks) underlying cancer stem cells, EMT, chemoresistance and cancer metastasis. He has published more than 60 papers in international journals, and his research works have been cited for over 2974 times, and his current h-index is 32. He has been serving as Associate Editor and Editorial Board member of several international journals.

Prof Franco Cavaliere is Associate professor of Anesthesia and Intensive Care at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome (Italy) and serves as the Head of Cardiac Anaesthesia and Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care at Policlinico Agostino Gemelli in Rome. He has published more than 200 scientific publications and is a member of the Editorial Board of Current Drug Targets from 2002.

Dr. Cowden Dahl earned her BS in cell and molecular biology at Texas Tech University. Following undergraduate work. Dr. Cowden Dahl completed a PhD in cell and molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation work was conducted with Dr. Celeste Simon on hypoxia signaling in development and cancer. Dr. Cowden Dahl then conducted a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Laurie Hudson at the University of New Mexico. Her studies focused on ovarian cancer metastasis. In 2010 Dr. Cowden Dahl joined the Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend where she continues to investigate mechanisms of ovarian cancer progression.

Dr. Feldman is a world renowned researcher, the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School, and director of the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2014, and was honored as National Physician of the Year for Clinical Excellence in 2016. In addition to her practice, she runs a 30-person research lab which focuses on understanding and treating neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases, with an emphasis on ALS and neuropathy, and she is the principle investigator of numerous NIH and foundation grants.

Dr. Flores-Mireles is an Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame. She is leading a translation research lab, focusing in understanding host-pathogen interaction during nosocomial infections with the purpose to develop efficient antibiotic-sparring treatments. She did her PhD in Microbiology and Biochemistry at Cornell University and her postdoctoral research at Washington University School of Medicine. Her postdoctoral research focused in understanding catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

Professor Huber obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Purdue University and carried out postdoctoral research at The University of Chicago. He was a Visiting Fellow at Yale University in 1997 and has been on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame since 1985. His laboratory studies various aspects of RNA biochemistry including RNA-protein interactions and localization of mRNA in Xenopus oocytes. A new area of investigation is the proteomics of early Xenopus development using modern mass spectrometry.

Dr Takayuki Iwaki is currently an Associate Professor at the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, Hamamatsu, Japan. He received a PhD in Physiology from the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in 2001 and also did his M.D. in Obstetrics and Gynecology from the same university in 1996. He has published several articles in distinguished journals and has presented in various conferences as well.

Prof Mandeep Kaur is a Full Professor at the School of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The core of her research is to understand the ‘biology underlying the complex diseases’ like cancer using bioinformatics and cell biology based approaches. Her research interests include delineating the role of cholesterol in cancer, devising new cancer therapeutics, advancing understanding of cancer drug resistance mechanisms and biomarker identification. Prof Kaur is an Associate Editor for Frontier in Genetics, and an editorial board member of BMC Cancer and IUBMB Life.

Dr. Lee obtained a B.A. from the University of California Berkeley, and a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from Oregon Health Sciences University. Dr. Lee completed postdoctoral training at University of California San Diego, and is currently the Monahan Family Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Lee’s lab focuses on host-pathogen dynamics of bacterial infections.

Dr. Magnani is a co-founder of two start-up companies Diatheva SrL (www.diatheva.com) and EryDel SpA (www.erydel.com). He is a member of different academies and scientific boards. He served as evaluator for different Programmes of the E.U.; included, The International Science Foundation (U.S.A.); Czech Academy of Sciences; The Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding of Romania; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation), Dutch Cancer Society; Swiss National Science Foundation; Innovation and Technology Commission, The Government of Hong Kong, and EU Eureka projects. He is a reviewer for more than 50 journals and editorial board member in four journals. He has more than 500 papers published in international refereed scientific journals (for a complete list see PubMed) and an H index of 54. He has interests in drug delivery systems and biologics with 14 patent families in the field.

Professor Marie Ranson (PhD, University of Sydney, 1990) is a tenured Teaching and Research Academic at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She has made major contributions to the field of the urokinase plasminogen activation system in cancer invasion and metastasis and leads several cancer drug projects related, but not limited, to this field. Prof Ranson has published over 78 peer-reviewed journal articles, attracted several competitive grants totalling over $10,000,000, and has been granted patents in her drug development portfolio. She led the preclinical development of chemotherapy Deflexifol, licenced to FivePhusion Pty Ltd, which is completing Phase 1 clinical trials. Prof Ranson is also a PI of the Cancer Institute NSW-funded Translational Cancer Research Centre to build research capacity in targeted therapies and is a member of a number of professional societies.

Dr. Asish Saha is presently serving as a Director of Research and Development at Zone Labs, Inc and working in the dietary supplements, health wellness, and fitness industry. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Calcutta University, India. His research interests include how disorders of fuel metabolism cause disease. He has extensive experience with preclinical testing of metabolic pathways targets using in vitro and in vivo models. He was an investigator in a multi-investigator project which provided the first evidence that AMP-activated protein kinase activity is abnormally low in the majority of patients and it improves after bariatric surgery. He demonstrated success as a leading investigator and collaborator of multiple projects with different Biotech companies (Nimbus Therapeutics, L’Oréal, and Pfizer) and with Nimbus the discovery and development of a new class of Acetyl Co-A carboxylase inhibitors for the treatment of NASH and other disorders. He has co-authored 95 publications in international journals.

Susan S. Smyth, is the Jeff Gill Professor of Cardiology, Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Director of the Linda and Jack Gill Heart Institute, and Director of the MD/PhD Program at the University of Kentucky. She also has a part-time appointment as a cardiologist and funded investigator at the Lexington VA Medical Center. Smyth received her A.B. in Biology, summa cum laude, from Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, Massachusetts), and graduated from the MD/PhD Program at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). After completing training in Internal Medicine, she performed cardiology subspecialty fellowship training at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (New York, New York) and at the University of North Carolina. She is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of University Cardiologists, a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, and a fellow of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Sun obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Biomedical Science from University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Missouri School of Medicine. She is a geneticist who is interested in host/pathogen interaction and development of novel antimicrobials. She has a wide range of interest in cardiovascular and infectious disease research. Her main research focus is to understand and explore the roles of hemostatic system in host/pathogen interaction for development of novel antimicrobials.

Dr. Zhang obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He currently is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine. Dr. Zhang has more than 25 years of experience in blood coagulation, immunology, and stem cell biology. Projects in Dr. Zhang’s laboratory range from structure-function analysis, leukocyte trafficking, signal transduction to animal models of cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases, such as atherosclerosis, sepsis, rheumatoid arthritis, and ischemic stroke. Dr. Zhang has authored more than 60 manuscripts, 2 patents, and served on various Study Sections at NIH, DOD and AHA.

Dr. Chandi C. Mandal is a Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Central University of Rajasthan, India [2013-to present]. He completed his postdoctoral training from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas, USA [2006-2012]. He has obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, India [2000-2005], and M.Sc. (Biochemistry) from Calcutta University, India. Dr. Mandal’s academic endeavor is not only reflected in the publication, but his research work has also been highlighted multiple times in Newspapers and reported in Television channels. His research interest is aimed at understanding the cellular signal transduction mechanisms involved in cancer, metastasis and bone remodeling. Prof. Mandal is an Editorial Board Member of various journals such as Frontiers in Endocrinology, BMC cancer, PLOS ONE and Journal of Biochemical and Molecular Toxicology. Prof. Mandal has edited the thematic issue on “cancer and bone metastasis”.

Dr. Claudio Campa has been affiliated with the University of Ferrara, Italy, where he received his PhD in Pharmacology and Molecular Oncology, in 2008. He has authored many scientific papers in various journals including peer-reviewed journals that are indexed in PubMed, journals cited in current contents or index medicus and book chapters. Being an editorial board member, he is actively involved in Case Reports of Ophthalmological Medicine (Hindawi Publishing Corporation) (since 2014) and World Journal of Ophthalmology (Baishideng Publishing) (since 2012). As a co-investigator and sub-investigator, he has served many years in research specifically in clinical investigations.

Dr. Andrea Del Fattore is currently serving as a head of the Bone Physiopathology Group, Multifactorial Disease and Complex Phenotype Research Area, in Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy. He received a PhD degree in Biotechnology from the Department of Experimental Medicine, University of L’Aquila, Italy, in 2009. Later, in 2017 he completed his post-graduation with Specialization in Clinical Pathology and Clinical Biochemistry Tor Vergata, University of Rome, Italy. He has been actively involved in the editorial board of several international journals, various international committees and acted as reviewer in many highly reputed journals. Dr. Fattore has published over 40 articles, 3 book chapters and more than 30 abstracts till date.

Dr. Xu is the Associate Professor at Faculty of Chinese Medicine, State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology. He specializes in researches on pharmacology, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and discovery and evaluation of effective components from Chinese Medicines. His research interests mainly include: (1) study of Chinese Medicines on diabetes; (2) effects and mechanism of natural products on cardio-cerebrovascular disease; (3) development and application of alive cell immobilized chromatography on the R&D of Chinese Medicines. He has been awarded prizes including the Second Prize of Science and Technology Invention Award Category of the 2016 Macau Science and Technology Award (the second awardee), and Third Prize of 2011 Science and Technology Award of Jiangsu Province (the seventh awardee), etc. for academic performance.

Dr. Jeremy J. Johnson received his Ph.D. degree in Comparative and Biomedical Sciences in 2010 and Pharm.D. degree in 2007 from the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy. Dr. Johnson is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Currently, he is actively engaged in UI-Centre (University of Illinois Collaborative Engagement in Novel Therapeutics Research Enterprise) as a Pre-Clinical Core Leader and Associate Professor. He has an H-index of 18 with nearly 45 publications including 26 peer reviewed, 18 abstracts and 1 book chapter, respectively.

Dr. Shahper Nazeer Khan did M.Sc. in Biotechnology from Awadhesh Pratap Singh University, Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, India, in 2003. He further obtained M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Biotechnology from Interdisciplinary Biotechnology Unit, Aligarh Muslim University, India, in 2006 and 2009. Nowadays, he is serving as an Assistant Professor at Interdisciplinary Nanotechnology Centre and Int. Biotechnology Unit, AMU, India. Dr. Khan has won several awards and received many honors as a consequence of his research and contributions in science, both nationally and internationally. He has published more than 40 papers. In addition to this, he’s also involved as an editorial board member in 6 scientific journals.

Dr. Bijo Mathew is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Amrita School of Pharmacy, Kochi, India. Dr. Bijo Mathew obtained his M.Pharm in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from The Tamilnadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, Tamilnadu, India in 2008 and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India, in 2016. Mathew's primary areas of focus are drug discovery of neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, and molecular modelling. Besides, he is also interested in designing enzyme inhibitors, especially monoamine oxidase and acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. He has published 142 papers, (h-index = 29, the number of citations: 2222 in Google scholar; h-index = 27, the number of citations: 1887 in Scopus, as of March 2021). He has 13 years of teaching and research experience, as well as he has authored 1 book, and edited 1 book, and 5 book chapters. Moreover, he has been invited as a speaker in 25 national and international events. Dr. B. Mathew is serving as a chief executive guest editor for many journals and Section Editor of the journal of Coronaviruses by Bentham Science. He has received one patent from the Korean Intellectual Property of Office on protective or therapeutic compositions of neurological disorders containing Furano chalcones as effective agents.

Dr Dilipkumar Pal received his B.Pharm, M Pharm, and PhD from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He also obtained his Post Doctorate from “The University of Sydney”, Australia. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guru Ghasidas Viswavidyalaya (A Central University), India. He has won several awards due to his contributions in Science both nationally and internationally. He has published more than 100 research papers, 28 book chapters, 12 review articles, and 112 abstract proceedings in both national and international journals. Besides, he is a Reviewer of 27 scientific journals and an Editorial Board Member of 29 scientific journals respectively.

Luciana Scotti received her Ph.D. in Cosmetology and Molecular Modeling at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She made 3 years of Post-Doctorate in Pharmaceuticals at the Laboratory of Planning and Synthesis of Potentially Active Chemotherapies in Tropical Endemics, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, USP. She has experience in Pharmacology Biochemistry and Molecular acting mainly in the following areas: natural products, Molecular Modeling, QSAR, and Chemometrics. She is the professor of the Post-Graduate Program of Bioactive Natural and Synthetic Products of the Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil.

Dr. Chandrabose Selvaraj is currently working as a research specialist at CEITEC – Central European Institute of Technology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. He has completed his doctoral studies in Bioinformatics (2014) from Alagappa University, India. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher in multiple international esteemed institutes that include National Center for Toxicology Research, Food and Drug Administration (USA); Central European Institute of Technology (Czech Republic), Konkuk University (Republic of Korea) and Indian Institute of Technology- Mandi (India). He has been awarded with European OP VVV MSCA-IF call 2017, ORISE IF- 2015, BIRD Special Mention award - 2012, and Young Researcher award-2010. His expertise includes computer simulation of biomolecules, and recognition mechanisms for protein-protein, protein-nucleic acid, protein- carbohydrate, and protein-ligand interactions. As an author / co-author he has published over 50 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals, 6 book chapters. Overall the applicant has 674 citations and holds the h-index of 17. All the research works published in the journals that come under the Top 25% of journals ranked by Clarivate analytics.

Dr. Petros Sountoulidis has been affiliated with Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, from where he passed MBBS, in 1996. Currently, he is serving as an Assistant Professor of Urology, Department of Urology at the same university. He has been involved with great endeavor in FEBU (Fellow of the European Board of Urology) and was awarded in 2005. He has served 8 years as a Consultant Urological Surgeon, Urology Department, General Hospital of Veria, Greek National Health System. As an editorial board member, he was involved in various esteemed journals and he has served as a reviewer for different Journals and provided 112 reviews in total. So far, he has published 5 book chapters.

Dr. Andrés Trostchansky obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay in 2007. Since 2010 he has been an Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry at the Facultad de Medicina. He is Co-PI of the Laboratory of Oxidative Lipid Biochemistry and a member of the Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas (CEINBIO). Dr. Trostchanksy’s main research is focused in lipid metabolism, lipidomics studies in health and disease, nitro-fatty acids and their biological roles in arachidonic acid metabolism (COX and LOX) and reactive oxygen species (NOX and PDI). He served as a mentor for Ph.D. students in Uruguay and Brazil. He has authored/co-authored more than 50 manuscripts and book chapters on a variety of subject matters. He is among the editorial board of Frontiers of Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery, Current Drug Target, and also a Section Editor of Current Medicinal Chemistry.

Dr. Joana Valente is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Rapid and Sustainable Product Development. She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry in 2018 from the University of Beira Interior, with the thesis entitled: “Affinity purification and delivery of a p53-encoding plasmid DNA for gene-mediated cancer therapy”. Her scientific path began in 2009 when she started to work at the Centre for Rapid and Sustainable Product Development after concluding her degree in Biomechanics. During this period, she worked with 3D printing and surface modification to increase the suitability of the scaffolds for cell adhesion. In 2011, she obtained her Master’s degree in Engineering Design and Product Development, from Polytechnic Institute of Leiria with the thesis entitled: “Surface modification of alginate scaffolds”. Besides, in 2011, she pursued her career in the Health Sciences Research Centre in the bone regeneration field and, in 2013, she began to work with gene therapy and affinity chromatography. She is the author of several scientific papers and her main research interests include: Tissue Engineering, Biofabrication, Additive Manufacturing, Drug delivery systems development, Biomaterials, Gene therapy and Chromatography.

Dr. Hilal Zaid is presently serving as a Head of Al-Qasemi Educational Research Center, Al-Qasemi Academic College, Baka, Israel. He completed his M.Sc. from the department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israelin 1996. He further obtained PhD from the same university in 2005. He is also a Management Committee member of European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action N°CA15129, titled "Diagnosis, Monitoring and Prevention of Exposure-Related Noncommunicable Diseases (DiMoPEx)".