Current Gene Therapy

Dr. Ignacio Anegon did his postdoctoral work in the Immunology Department of the University Hospital of Barcelona between 1982 and 1985. His research was on the generation and characterization of monoclonal antibodies against human leukocytes as well as application of cytofluorimetry and monoclonal antibodies for typing human leukemias and lymphomas. He is now Director of Research at the INSERM, Director of the INSERM unit 1064 and scientific director of the Nantes Rat Transgenesis ImmunoPhenomic platform. He has published more than 222 papers, edited 3 books and is Editor-in-chief of the journal Current Gene Therapy.

Dr. He is currently an Associate Professor in the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. He obtained his B.S. in veterinary medical science, two M.S. degrees (one in infectious diseases and preventive medicine, and another in computer science), and Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology. His laboratory currently focuses on computational medicine and bioinformatics research, with primary research interests in the areas of microbiology, vaccinology, nephrology, ontology, literature mining, and machine learning.

Dr. Qinghua Jiang is a professor at the School of Life Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He received his doctorate (Ph.D.) in Bioinformatics from Harbin Institute of Technology, China. His research interests mainly focus on tumor immunotherapy and cancer vaccines.

Dr. Quan Zou received the BSc, MSc and the PhD degrees in computer science from Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He is currently a professor in the Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. His research is in the areas of bioinformatics, machine learning and parallel computing. Several related works have been published by Science, Briefings in Bioinformatics, Bioinformatics, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, etc. He is the editor-in-chief of Current Bioinformatics and associate editor of several reputed journals. He was selected as one of the Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers in 2018 and 2019.

Dr. Dong Peixin is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Hokkaido University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Hokkaido University in 2008. Dr. Dong is currently working on the roles of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms (especially non-coding RNA networks) underlying cancer stem cells, EMT, chemo resistance and cancer metastasis. Dr. Dong has published more than 58 papers in international journals. Dr. Dong has been serving as Associate Editors and Editorial Board members of several international journals.

Cristina Fillat obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain and did a postdoctoral stage at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in N.Y. USA. Currently, Dr. Fillat leads a research group in Gene Therapy and Cancer at IDIBAPS, Barcelona. She has contributed more than 90 scientific publications. She was among the team members that promote the constitution of the Spanish Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and served as Scientific Secretary.

Antonia Follenzi is an associate professor of Histology at the University of Piemonte Orientale “A. Avogadro”, Novara (Italy). She has extensive expertise in lentiviral vector technology, liver research, bone marrow (BM) cell transplantation and gene transfer. She has applied her expertise on the functional characterization and the role of liver sinusoidal endothelial cells and BM cells to correct the bleeding phenotype in a mouse model of hemophilia A. She is an expert on transcriptional regulation of transgenes in lentiviral vectors using cell specific promoters.

Carine Giovannangeli graduated in Physics from Ecole Normale Supérieure (Lyon) and got her PhD in Biophysics (University Paris VI, Paris) in 1992 on biophysical and biological characterization of unusual nucleic acid structures under the supervision of Claude Hélène. Afterwards she was hired by CNRS in 1992 and spent some years at the Institut Pasteur working on HIV and inhibitory strategies based on nucleic acids targeting the viral genome. During the last few years at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris) she focused on optimizing genome editing methods using TALE proteins and CRISPR/Cas9 system by characterizing the DNA repair mechanisms associated with nuclease driven genome modifications and providing resources in the field (TACGENE Facility).

Prof. Haisma earned his Ph.D. in 1987 from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. He worked as scientist for the biotech company Centocor Inc. Malvern PA, USA (1985-1986), Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Boston MA, USA (1986-1987), and as instructor at Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, USA (1986-1987). From 1987-1997. He is a professor at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Dr. Haisma is a member of the board of the Dutch Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and a former member of the board of the European Society for Gene- and Cell Therapy. In addition, he is member of the Gene and Cell Doping Expert Group of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Dr. Yu-Chen Hu received his BS degree in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University (1992) and earned his PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Maryland (USA) in 1999. Dr. Hu’s main research interests include vaccine development, gene therapy, tissue engineering, cancer therapy and synthetic biology. Dr. Hu has won the Asia Research Award, Outstanding Research Award, BEST Biochemical Engineering Achievement Award, Wu Ta-You Memorial Award (NSC), Outstanding Academia-Industry Research Award and Outstanding Young Investigator Award in Taiwan. He is inducted as a fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and is elected the Member of the Tissue Engineering International & Regenerative Medicine Society-Asia Pacific (TERMIS-AP) Council and the Vice President of Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering Society of Taiwan.

Dr. Pitard received his Ph.D from Paris University for his work on membrane protein reconstitution into liposomes in CEA Saclay and Institut Curie. He started his career in 1995 at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer (now Sanofi) on the Gene Therapy program. Then, he worked at Sanofi-Pasteur on the DNA vaccine program. He is Scientific Director at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)/University of Nantes (France). He has invented new concepts for the intracellular delivery of complex drugs including nucleic acids and proteins. He has contributed more than 80 publications and 17 patents on nucleic acids and protein formulations and is Associate Editor of the journal “Current Gene Therapy” published by Bentham science Publishers. He has been a member of the scientific advisory board of the French cystic fibrosis foundation “Vaincre La Mucoviscidose” (Paris, France). He created and launched the Biopharmaceutical company InCellArt.

Dr. Liang Qiao is currently a principal research fellow and an Associate Professor in the Storr Liver Centre at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, the University of Sydney. Dr. Qiao also serves as an editor for other international journals (Cancer Letters, World J Gastroenterol, Abdomen, Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry, Anal Cell Pathol, etc.). He regularly reviews manuscripts for several international journals (Oncotarget, Int J Nanomed, J Hepatol, Stem Cell Dev, J Gastroenterol Hepatol, Liver International, etc). He is a member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), a member of the Australian Society for Stem Cell Research (ASSCR).

Dr. Rols obtained a Ph.D. in Cellular Biophysics in 1989 from the University of Toulouse, France. Her research interests lie in the fields of molecules electrotransfer in cells and tissues. She is involved in different aspects including the mechanisms of membrane electropermeabilization, DNA electrotransfer, as well as biomedical applications for cancer treatment and gene therapy. She has published more than 120 scientific publications. She is currently Director of Research at the CNRS and Group leader at the Institute for Biophysics and Structural Biology, Toulouse, France. Dr. Rols is the secretary of the French Society for Nanomedicine and Board Member of the International Society for Electroporation-Based Technologies and Treatments (ISEBTT).

Mark is a Principal Investigator at the Cork Cancer Research Centre at University College Cork, Ireland His interests include the development of tumour-specific delivery technology utilising bacteria and the study of the relationships between bacteria and cancer. He is a council member of several gene therapy and cancer-related international and national societies, and a member of the editorial board of several international journals. Mark is an associate editor of Current Gene Therapy.

Dr. Tian owns a Ph.D. from Harbin Medical University, Heilongjiang, China and currently works as a Professor and PI in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University. Dr. Tian mainly focuses on the pathophysiological process of atherosclerosis and the treatment strategies for coronary heart disease. He has published 67 scientific papers

Dr. Yao is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. He did his post.doc training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. He is the sole inventor of 6 issued Patent Applications, including the tetracycline gene switch technology, trademarked as T-REx by Invitrogen/Life Technologies, which has been used and cited in more than 4,000 publications and hundreds of patent applications. Using this gene switch technology, Dr. Yao has established several unique approaches for genetic engineering novel recombinant viruses for clinical applications in the fields of infectious diseases, cancers, and neural regeneration.

Ryuichi Morishita, M.D., Ph.D., graduated from Osaka University Medical School in 1987, and received Ph. D. from Osaka University in 1991. After postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford University School of Medicine, he served as an Assistant Professor, in the Department of Geriatric Medicine, Osaka University Medical School from 1994 to 1998. Then, from 1998 to 2003, he was the Associate Professor, Division of Gene Therapy Science, Osaka University Medical School. He became the Professor and Chairman of Division of Clinical Gene Therapy, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University Medical School in 2003.

Dr. Ballini is an Investigator, Adjunct professor in “Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology” and in “Technical Applied Sciences” and invited Professor for International post-Graduate courses in the School of Medicine, University of Bari ALDO MORO, Italy. He serves as a Visiting Professor at "City Unity College - Greece" (and affiliated Institutions) and at University of Medicine, Tirana, Faculty of Dentistry (Fakulteti i Mjekësisë Dentare-FMD), Tirana, Albania. He also served as an invited speaker for national and international courses and conferences. He has been a winner of "Research Award" from Medical and Dental Council of Bari (Italy) in 2016. He is the author of a number of scientific papers and book chapters of many national and international journals and books with Impact factor. His research interests are in Biomedical and Translational Research.

Dongsheng Duan, Ph.D. is the Margaret Proctor Mulligan Professor in Medical Research at the University of Missouri, School of Medicine, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Duan is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has made many seminal contributions in the field of gene therapy. He is the recipient of American Society of Gene Therapy Outstanding New Investigator Award in 2006. He also received Spurgeon Distinguished Medical Research Award in 2004, Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity at the University of Missouri in 2009. He has published more than 180 research articles and edited/co-edited three muscle gene therapy books. According to Google scholar, his papers have been cited more than 11,814 times (H index: 57; i10 index: 144). He serves as an associate editor for Human Gene Therapy, Frontiers in Physiology, and Frontiers in Genome Editing. He is also on the editorial board of Molecular Therapy, Gene Therapy, and Current Biotechnology.

Dr. Fei Guo is the principal investigator at the Institute of Pathogen Biology, and Center for AIDS Research, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences; Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China. His main discoveries include host innate immune recognition of viral PAMP, and the antiviral activities of interferon stimulated genes. He has also reported the utility of viral vector and CRISPR/Cas genome editing system in eradicating and curing viral diseases including AIDS. We believe in and strive to harness the power of host innate immune response and CRISPR/Cas genome editing technology toward the control of severe infectious diseases.

Dr. Karras graduated from the Medical School of Aristotle, University of Thessaloniki. He did his specialization in Endocrinology in 2010 and his PhD was completed in 2015. He has published more than 120 full papers in peer-reviewed international journals, with the vast majority relating to extraskeletal vitamin D actions in reproductive physiology. He is a regular reviewer in more than 90 international journals and a lecturer in national and international meetings on the field. He is also a member of the Editorial board of scientific peer- reviewed journals. He is a Senior Researcher and Postdoctoral collaborator in the Unit of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, First Department of Internal Medicine, AHEPA University Hospital, Thessaloniki, with teaching , educational and clinical activities.

Dr. Lee’s core research focuses on the study of “bad” microbes (e.g. Salmonella, Vibrios) and how they make people sick, while suggesting better detection and management options. For example, he is focusing on food safety by studying foodborne pathogens such as Vibrionaceae diversity, multidrug resistant and its management.He is interested in the identification of novel bacteria from various sources using polyphasic approach. Through the discovery of new taxa, he intends to expand the diversity of resources available for drug discovery purpose, such as anticancer, neuroprotection, antioxidant and antimicrobial screening programs. Recently, he focused his interest into the mechanism of how a microbiome affect human health, such as cancer, mental health and autoimmune diseases.

He received his B.Eng, M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science from Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China in 2009, 2012 and 2015, respectively. Now he is a professor in the School of Artificial Intelligence, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin. He has published more than 90 research papers. His research interests include evolutionary computation, constrained optimization, bioinformatics, computational biology, and interdisciplinary research.

Dr. Procino obtained Ph.D. in 2014 in Clinical and Experimental Medicine from the Department of Neuroscience, Medical School “Federico II” of Naples. Currently, he is serving as a research fellow at the Medical School “Federico II” Naples, Dep. of Neurosciences, Reproductive and Odontostomatologic Sciences. His scientific interest concerns the molecular mechanisms involved in the control of the cell memory program, with a special focus on cancer cells, where he devoted a large part of his research activity studying the role of HOX genes in the control of human solid tumors.

Dr. Dong Ren mainly works in the field of cancer metastasis, especially prostate cancer (PCa) bone metastasis. He has 35 published articles in top-tier journals, including Journal of Experimental Medicine, Molecular Cancer, Clinical and Translational Medicine, which has been cited more than 1900 times by individuals who work in similar disciplines. H-index is 26. Furthermore, he has received six national or province-level grants with total funding more than $400,000 and three national patents. In addition, he has conducted more than 500 reviews as peer-reviewer in more than 90 highly-regarded journals in the same or allied fields.

Dr. Alexis "Stocko" Stamatikos is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Food, Nutrition, and Packaging Sciences at Clemson University. Dr. Stamatikos completed his doctorate at Texas Tech University, his dietetic internship at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, and his postdoctoral training at the University of Washington. Dr. Stamatikos' research interests include identifying mechanisms that drive atherosclerosis and developing novel therapeutics for this disease. Research areas of Dr. Stamatikos include vascular inflammation, cholesterol efflux regulation within vascular wall cells, and atheroprotective nanotherapy.

Dr. Qiang Wu is an associate professor at the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology. He obtained his Ph.D degree from National University of Singapore in 2003. He then received his postdoc training in Genome Institute of Singapore and University of Cambridge. Dr. Wu’s research interest is to study how genetic and epigenetic factors determine stem cell fates and regulate cancer progression. Dr Wu has published 30 research papers with more than 4000 citations.

Jialiang Yang, Ph.D., is the Vice President of Geneis Beijing Co., Ltd., and an adjunct professor in the College of Computer Science, Hunan University of Technology. Dr. Yang is an expert in both mathematics and biomedical science. His main research interests include cancer early diagnosis, gene testing and gene therapy, as well as methodology development for analyzing single cell RNA sequencing data and integrating diverse data (e.g. genetic, genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic data). Dr. Yang has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

Xin Zhang, Ph.D., is the Director of the Department and Principal Investigator of the Clinical Experimental Center of the affiliated Jiangmen Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University (China). He received Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine from Sun Yat-sen University in 2016. His current research interests mainly focus on the molecular mechanism of tumor recurrence and metastasis, clinical application of molecular diagnosis, and molecular pharmacological mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine in potential therapeutic application of cancer. Dr. Zhang has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

Professor Massimo Zollo is an expert in Functional Genomics applied to Human Genetics. He is also an expert in Molecular Neuro-oncology and Neurodevelopmental biology. He graduated from the University Federico II in Naples in Genetics/Biology in February 1989. Then from 1990-1994 at the Human Genome Center St. Louis School of Medicine (USA) he worked on developing technologies for the establishment of the "Human Genome draft" (Biotechniques 1994, Human Molecular Genetics, 1996, and Nature 2004), with a postdoctoral fellow position. He became a Visiting Scientist at Genentech Inc., San Francisco (CA, USA), and an Associate Scientist at the Applied Biosystems Division of Perkin Elmer, directed by Prof. E.Y Chen, Foster City (CA, USA). Since 1994, Dr. Zollo has been working on the identification of disease genes by sequencing analyses and bioinformatics. He further identified new genes involved in the development of the telencephalon "TESS" leading to development of the central and peripheral nervous system. Since January 2005 at CEINGE (Center of Excellence) Prof. Zollo has been appointed as Project leader, then become Associate Professor of Genetics at University Federico II (2006) of Naples, then Full Professor of Genetics (2018), as a teacher of Genetics, Human Molecular Genetics and Functional Genomics in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Medical Biotechnologies. He has supervised 10 PhD students. Since 2006, he has been a member of the American Association of Cancer Research AACR, American Association of Human Genetics, American Association of Cellular Biology. Dr. Zollo was responsible for several projects funded by the European Community such as FP6 -BRECOSM, EET-PIPELINE EUFP6, TuMIC EU-FP7, and PRIME X EU-FP7. Prof. Zollo is the author of more than 140 scientific papers published on international journals with H-index =37, and is also the inventor and holder of n.17 IPs in the field of Oncology, Diagnostics and Therapeutics of which 5 IPs within virus Sars-Cov-2 applications.

Dr. Amalfitano has expertise in translational research, as well as basic science development of gene transfer technologies. He has critically evaluated the gene transfer technologies and their potential use in multiple genetic diseases, as well infectious diseases and cancers. He has served as PI on multiple projects funded by NIH, private foundations, and corporate entities ranging from basic investigations, preclinical studies. He has co-led human clinical trials that eventuated in FDA approved biological therapies. The viral vector based gene transfer technologies developed in his laboratories are currently in multiple clinical trials. He has expertise both as a scientist and as a fully licensed physician. He serves as the reviewer for CGT.

Dr. Marco Ceccanti graduated from the medical school of Sapienza University of Rome and specialized in Neurology in 2017. He received his PhD degree in morphogenesis and tissue engineering. He also obtained a high formation course degree in clinical electromyography. He is currently a Professor of Neurology in the faculties of physiotherapy, nursing, dentistry, high formation course in clinical electromyography and master for rare diseases in the Sapienza University of Rome. He is also a member of the Italian study group for motor neuron diseases. His main interests are in neurodegenerative and rare neuromuscular diseases.

Dr. Chieh Chang received Ph.D. in Biology from California Institute of Technology. Chang was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow and performed his postdoctoral work at Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco & Rockefeller University. During 2006 to 2014, he held faculty positions at McGill University, and at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Research Foundation. Dr. Chang is the recipient of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Leaders Opportunity Award, the Whitehall Foundation Research Award, and the March of Dimes Foundation Research Program Award. His lab is currently supported by a NIH RO1 grant and a NSF grant, and a Whitehall Foundation grant.

Dr. Xing Chen is a Professor of China University of Mining and Technology and Founding Director of the Institute of Bioinformatics, China University of Mining and Technology. He is named as Highly Cited Researcher for 2019. He serves as an Associate Editor and editorial board member for academic journals, such as briefings in Functional Genomics, International Journal of Biological Sciences, Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Systems Biology, and International Journal of Biological Sciences. In the recent years, he has published 116 SCI journal papers in well-reputed journals.

Prof. Wei Chen received his PhD degree in Theoretical Biophysics from Inner Mongolia University in 2010. Currently, he is a full-time Professor at Center for Genomics and Computational Biology in North China University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on Computational Genomics and Computational Epigenetics. So far, he has published more than 110 academic peer review papers. Prof. Chen was awarded the “Highly Cited Researcher” in the field of Biology & Biochemistry by Clarivate Analytics in 2018. At present, he serves as the Deputy Editor of Molecular Therapy-Nucleic Acids, an Editorial Board Member of Current Bioinformatics, the Guest Editor of Current Genomics, and Reviewer for Nature Communications, Nucleic Acids Research, Bioinformatics, Briefings in Bioinformatics, etc.

Dr. Lei Chen is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Shanghai Maritime University. He obtained his PhD from East China Normal University, China, in 2010. His research interest includes bioinformatics, computational biology, proteomics, and genomics. Up till now, he has published over 150 refereed papers. Currently, he serves as anEditorial Board Member for Current Gene Therapy journal and Current Bioinformatics whereas he is the Section Editor for Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening and Current Proteomics.

Dr. Cui obtained an M.D. degree from Harbin Medical University in China and a Ph.D. degree from Kindai University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. Dr. Cui is currently a Research Scientist at the National Institute on Aging. Dr. Cui received training in both clinical medicine and basic research, and has intensely studied skin and skeletal muscle for many years.

Lei Deng received the BS degree and the MS degree in Computer Science from School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China, in 2005 and 2008, respectively, and the PhD degree from Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, in 2012. From 2013 to 2014, he was a Postdoctoral Research Scientist with the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Columbia University, New York, USA. He is currently a professor in School of Computer Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China. His research interests include bioinformatics, systems biology and computational drug discovery.

Dr. Deng earned his B.S. degree in 2003 and M.S. degree in 2006 from Peking University and then became a member of Shanghai University. In 2010, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from Shanghai University. After completing a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Houston Methodist Research Institute, Texas, USA. He returned to Shanghai University in 2012. Dr. Deng is currently a Professor at Institute of Nanochemistry and Nanobiology, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University. Deng’s lab research is interdisciplinary and covers a variety of topics, from nanochemistry, nanomedicine to nanotoxicology. The main research interests from our lab include: 1) Synthesis of functional nanomaterials based on carbon nanomaterials; 2) Toxicololgy study of carbon nanomaterials or other inorganic nanomaterials on cellular and animal levels; 3) Biomedical applications of nanomaterials. In particular, the team places great emphasis on nanotechnology for use in building general platforms for the treatment of different cancers. Dr. Deng have published more than 50 SCI papers in the journals such as Nature Biotechnology, PNAS, Advanced Science and so on, and the total citations are more than 2000.

Dr. Hui Ding is an Associate Professor of Center for Informational Biology at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. She received her PhD from Inner Mongolia University, P.R. China in 2009. Her research is in the areas of Systems Biology and theoretical biology. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers in SCI-indexed journals.

Dr. Dong obtained M.D. and Ph.D. from Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China. Currently Dr. Dong is the dean of college of biomedical engineering, and the director of department of biomedical materials science, Third Military Medical University. He has published more than 50 articles in the field of bone biology and tissue engineering bone. His research interests included the pathogenesis and gene regulation mechanism of osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and bone metastasis of tumors.

Dr. Qiongzhu Dong is a Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University. She obtained her PhD from Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University in 2009. After that, she joined Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University as a faculty member. She got further training for targeted therapy of liver cancer in MD Anderson Cancer Center from 2015 to 2016 as a visiting scientist. Over the past ten years, she has focused on basic studying of cancer, especially the mechanism of cancer progression and its clinical implications.

Dr. Pu-Feng Du is an associate professor of College of Intelligence and Computing, Tianjin University. He received his Ph. D. from Bioinformatics Division of Tsinghua National Laboratory of Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University. He began to work as an assistant professor at Tianjin University since 2010. He was promoted to associate professor in 2014. In 2013, he worked as a visiting postdoc fellow in the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, under the Hong Kong Scholar Programs. His research interest includes computational analysis of biological sequences, computational prediction of functional attributes genes, analysis of heterogeneous biological networks and developing efficient algorithms and software implementations for computational biology. He has published over 40 academic papers in the area of bioinformatics, computational biology and pattern recognition.

Anja Ehrhardt studied biology at the Universities Göttingen and Hamburg in Germany and received her Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of Hannover in Germany. From 1999 to 2005 she was a postdoctoral fellow and research associate at the Stanford University where she started to work on gene therapeutic approaches for genetic diseases. She established her own research group at the LMU Munich in Germany in 2005 and became a full professor in 2011 at the Witten/Herdecke University in Germany. Her current research focus is on adenovirus based gene therapeutic approaches to combat genetic and infectious diseases.

Abeer F. El Nahas is currently a professor of Genetics and Genetic Engineering. She received her Ph.D. degree in 2001 from Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Alexandria University, Egypt after a fellowship at Hokkaido University, Japan. Her research has mainly focused on the animal genetics, gene expression, immunogenetics, and genotoxicity. She has published many peer-reviewed articles and has contributed to several national and international reputed journals. She is the Editor in Chief of Alexandria Journal of Veterinary Sciences. A reviewer at Fish & Shellfish Immunology, Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity, Journal of Thermal biology, Poultry Science, Andrologia, Journal of Fish physiology and biochemistry, Environmental toxicology and pharmacology, Environmental Pollution, Indian Journal of pharmaceutical Sciences and others.

Dr. Pengmian Feng is an Associate Professor at Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Her current research studies focus on Computational Genomics, Computational Epigenetics, and Network Pharmacology. So far, she has published more than 50 academic peer reviewed papers, and 15 of them have been selected as ESI Highly Cited Papers. She also served as reviewer in different international journals.

Dr. Zhaohui Gong has completed his Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China in 2006. His research interest focuses on developing the DNA/RNA vaccine for cancer gene therapy and the RNA therapeutics in lung cancer. He has received many awards/honors and has published more than 50 academic papers in peer-reviewed journals. Currently, he is working as a professor of Molecular Oncology and Vice Dean of Medical School of Ningbo University.

CB Gurumurthy is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). He is also the Director of the UNMC’s Mouse Genome Engineering Core Facility. He is a co- developer of popular mouse genome engineering technologies such as Easi (Efficient additions with ssDNA-inserts)-CRISPR, CRISPR-first: PITT-next and GONAD (Genome Editing via Oviductal Nucleic Acids Delivery). Some of these technologies have been adapted in hundreds of laboratories worldwide. He is one of the six outstanding investigators of the National Human Genome Research Institute’s and received the inaugural Genomic Innovator award.

Roland W. Herzog, PhD, is a Professor of Pediatrics, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Florida (UF). He received a PhD in Microbiology from Auburn University in 1996, followed by postdoctoral training at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Herzog joined the UF gene therapy program in 2005. He has been appointed treasurer of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, editor-in-chief of Molecular Therapy Methods & Clinical Development, and UF Research Foundation Professor. Dr. Herzog’s research focuses on gene therapy for hemophilia, AAV vectors, and immune tolerance.

Jinming Hu obtained his BS degree from Hefei University of Technology in 2007. He earned his PhD degree from University of Science and Technology of China under the supervision of Prof. Shiyong Liu in 2012. Since 2013, he has conducted postdoctoral training with Prof. Thomas P Davis in the University of New South Wales and Monash University, respectively. He was appointed as a research staff at University of Science and Technology of China in 2016 and was promoted to professor in 2017. He has published over 90 SCI papers and has an H-index of 38. His research focuses on the synthesis, self-assembly, and biomedical applications of gasotransmitter-responsive materials.

Dr. Tao Huang is an Associate Professor at Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He completed his Post-doctoral research at Department of Genetics and Genomics Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, USA. His research interests include bioinformatics, computational biology, systems genetics and big data research. He has published over 150 articles in well-reputed journals.

Yue-Wern Huang studied biology at National Taiwan Normal University and received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Michigan State University for two years. He established his own research at Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2000 and became a full professor in 2012. His current research focuses on investigation of toxicity of pharmaceuticals and environmental chemicals and development of nanocarrier platforms to deliver biologically active molecules in vitro and in vivo.

Zoltán Ivics received his PhD in molecular biology from University of Minnesota in the USA and the Netherlands Cancer Institute.He was appointed as Head of Division at the Paul Ehrlich Institute in Langen, Germany, in 2011. He received recognition of the “Molecule of the Year” in 2009 for developing a hyperactive Sleeping Beauty transposase that opened the door for clinical applications. He has been serving as Member of the Board of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT) and as a faculty member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy of the LOEWE (Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz) program in Hessen, Germany.

Dr. Jia obtained his Ph.D. from School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, China in 2004. After Ph. D. study, he went to Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, NIH, USA, as a visiting scientist from 2005 to 2010. He was promoted to Full Professor in 2012 at Wuhan University. Dr. Jia’s research interests mainly focus on the development of anti-cancer therapy and the regulation of pre-mRNA alternative splicing.

Professor Jiang is a professor at the Tongji University, China. In 2004, he did Ph.D.,in genetics from Iowa State University, USA, M.S., in genetics, in 1998 from Nankai University, China. He has significant research contributions to the epigenetic regulatory roles of chromatin remodeling, histone modifications, DNA methylation and key factors in the early embryonic development, the differentiation of stem cells, somatic cell reprogramming, and the initiation, progress and metastasis of cancer. Dr. Jiang’s expertise includes conventional and (ultra)-low-input ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, DNase I-seq, RNA-seq, etc., and high-throughput data analysis.

Guangfu Jin, PhD, a professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University. The main research interests of Dr. Jin are focused on molecular and genetic epidemiology, especially identifying biomarkers for cancer risk prediction and prevention, clarifying biological roles of cancer risk related genetic variants in carcinogenesis, understanding inherited and somatic genetic changes in cancer with an integrated approach, assessing utility and effectiveness of biomarkers in guiding cancer personalized prevention or therapy. To date, he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, including those on Nature Genetics, Gastroenterology, Gut and Am J Hum Genet, which have been cited by more than 4000 papers.

Dr. Alexis M. Kalergisis a Professor at the Schools of Biological Sciences and Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He obtained the Julius Marmur Award for his MSc and PhD work on Microbiology and Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He performed post-doctoral training at the Albert Einstein and The Rockefeller University, supported by the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. He is the Director of the Millennium Institute on Immunology and Immunotherapy. His research focuses on the molecular interactions regulating the T cell-DC synapse and their contribution to pathogen immunity and self-tolerance during autoimmunity.

Dr. Kovesdi is an accomplished scientist as well as biotechnology entrepreneur and serves as CSO of DNAtrix and President of KILA Consultants. Prior to DNAtrix, Imre served as the CEO of Vectorlogics, a biotechnology company developing virus based cancer therapies. Previously, he served as CSO with GenVec where he directed research and development. Before joining GenVec, he led projects in the development of gene expression systems at the New York-based American Cyanamid Company. Imre was a postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University, holds a PhD in molecular biology from SFU and a degree in electrical engineering from UBC. He is the holder of over 100 US and foreign patents and has authored over 130 scientific articles in the areas of virology, gene delivery and molecular biology.

Dr. Dan Li, is an associate professor from Changchun the Institute of Applied Chemistry, CAS, China. She has published one book chapter and 56 articles with an h-index of 25. Her research interests are mainly in the fields of applications of nanomaterials in gene delivery, multiple testing of cytokines or bacteria, and diagnosis and therapy of cancer. She has obtained four authorized patents and hosted or participated in eight projects.

Professor Shinn-Zong (John) Lin, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor of Neurosurgery, Superintendent of China Medical University Beigang Hospital and Tainan Municipal An-Nan Hospital-China Medical University, and Vice Superintendent of the Center for Neuropsychiatry at China Medical University Hospital in Taiwan. Now, he is also the president of Taiwan Neurosurgical Society and Coeditor-in-chief of Cell Transplantation - The Regenerative Medicine Journal.

Gong-Ping Liu received his PhD in Labor and environmental health from Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. He then received postdoctoral training from the laboratory of Prof. Jian-Zhi Wang during which he focused on the molecular mechanisms and gene therapy for neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Liu joined the pathophysiology faculty at Huazhong University of Science and Technology as a lecturer in 2008. In 2013, he was hired as a professor in the faculty of pathophysiology faculty, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Dr. Liu is interested in bioinformatics, statistical genetics, and genomics of the complex human diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and multiplesclerosis), cancers, and autoimmune disease. We investigated the potential mechanisms of human complex diseases by integrating genome-wide association study with expression data, pathway analysis, and protein-protein interaction network. Until now, he has published 90 papers in the international academic journals, such as Lancet Neurology, PNAS, Annals of Neurology, JAMA Neurology, Acta Neuropathol, Brain, Neurobiology of Aging, Molecular Neurobiology, and Journal of Neurochemistory. His Google Citations are 1773; his H-index is 26; i10-index is 49.

Prof. Lixia Lu obtained MD degree from Phillipe-Marburg University. Her research interest focused on the mechanistic study on retinal neurodegeneration and its relevant gene therapy and cell therapy. As first, co-corresponding and corresponding authors, she has more than 20 publications in Neurol dis, Exp Neurol, Ann Transl Med, IOVS, Stem Cell Res Ther and EER journals.

Fredric Manfredsson received his undergraduate training in microbiology and virology at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ and his PhD in Biomedical Sciences-Neuroscience from the University of Florida. He then received postdoctoral training in the laboratories of Dr. Ronald Mandel and Dr. Alfred S. Lewin during which he focused on viral vector design and gene therapy for neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Manfredsson joined the neuroscience faculty at the University of Florida as a research Assistant Professor in 2010. In the end of 2010 he was hired as an Assistant Professor at the new Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.

Dr. Martino received his Medical Degree in 1987 from the University of Pavia where he completed his residency in Neurology in 1991. In 1990, he held the position of Research Associate in the Dept. of Neurology of the University of Chicago. From 1992 to 2008, he worked first as a Senior Scientist and then as Director of the Neuroimmunology Unit of the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, where, from 2008, he acts as Director in the Dept. of Neuroscience. He is a full professor of experimental biology at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele and honorary professor at Queen Mary University of London.

Dr. Shigeo Masuda received his MD from the University of Tokyo in 1996, and PhD in Hematology/Oncology from the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Japan. He was an Assistant Professor and an Associate Professor at Jichi Medical University, Japan, from 2007 to 2012, and joined RIKEN CDB in 2011. He studied at the Belmonte Lab in the Salk Institute from 2012 to 2014. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery in Osaka University, Japan. His interest is regenerative medicine using iPS-derived cells, including molecular targeted therapy for iPS-derived undifferenated cells to improve safety.

Guillermo D. Mazzolini obtained MD degree at the University of Rosario, Argentina. In 2000 obtained a PhD in gene therapy of cancer at the University of Navarra, Spain. Currently, he is the Director of Gene Therapy laboratory at Instituto de Investigaciones en Medicina Traslacional (IIMT), Universidad Austral-CONICET . In addition, he holds a position as Principal Investigator of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), Deputy Director of the IIMT Universidad Austral-CONICET, and Director of the PhD Programe. The major research interests of Prof. Mazzolini includes molecular and cellular therapies in liver diseases, with an special focus on liver cancer. In addition, he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in the field.

Dr. Muratori graduated in in 1994, as a specialist in Internal Medicine. He has always dealt with the autoimmune liver disease, both from a clinical and research point of view. He is the author of more than 100 publications with an average impact factor> 7.

Qinghua NIE is a Professor of Animal Genetics & Genomics at South China Agricultural University. Recently, he focuses on the genetic and genomic mechanisms of muscle atrophy & development by using animal models.

Dr. Lalit Singh Pukhrambam obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology and Department Ophthalmology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit. His research interest involves cellular and molecular mechanisms of diabetes and its complications including diabetic retinopathy, oxidative stress, inflammasomes and innate immune responses, autophagy/mitophagy, mitochondrial dysfunction and retrograde nuclear signaling, epigenetics and gene and tissue engineering and therapies. He teaches Cell Biology and Histology for first year medical students and the renal system for graduate Ph.D. program.

Dr. Frédéric Relaix, Ph.D., is currently employed as Professor of medicine at Université Paris Est Créteil (UPEC), Créteil, France. Additionally, he is the Director of the ESPRY research department as well as the IMRB research center, and Director of the team Biology of the neuromuscular system, at UPEC. His research interests is mainly focused on the fields of Skeletal Muscle, Muscle Damage, Muscle Function, Neuromuscular Disorders, Stem Cell Biology, Gene Expression, and Stem Cell Culture. Dr. Relaix, as an author/co-author, has published more than 90 articles in various journals, having considerable number of total citations, i.e. over 6,245.

Dr. Tizhong Shan received Ph.D. in Animal Molecular Nutrition from Zhejiang University. Dr. Shan performed his postdoctoral work at University of Cincinnati and Purdue University. Currently, he is a Professor at Zhejiang University. His research focuses on Molecular Nutrition, Adult Stem Cell and Regulation of Glucose/Lipid Metabolism. So far, he has published more than 80 academic peer review papers in different journals including Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, and Stem Cells. At present, he serves as editorial board member or reviewer for several journals including Molecular Therapy-Nucleic Acids, FASEB Journal, Obesity, Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, etc.

Watshara is an Assistant Professor in the Center of Data Mining and Biomedical Informatics, Faculty of Medical Technology, Mahidol University, Thailand. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Chiang Mai University. He has a very strong specialty in Machine Learning, Data Mining, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Structural Bioinformatics and Structural Biology, and Protein and Peptide Sequence Analysis. Watshara is motivated to develop an interpretable bioinformatics tools to provide a more in-depth understanding of the basis and important factor in enhancing a biological activity of protein and peptide.

Michele Simonato is Professor of Pharmacology at the Medical Schools of the University of Ferrara and of the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy. He is Chair of a joint task force of the International League against Epilepsy and of the American Epilepsy Society, aimed at optimizing the development of new anti-epilepsy therapies. He received his MD from the University of Ferrara, and carried out his training at the University of Florence, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Duke University Medical Center. His research focuses on the development of new therapeutic approaches in particular, gene therapy for epilepsy.

Dr. Sihong Song received his Ph. D. degree in molecular and cell biology. He was trained as a postdoctoral associate in Powell Gene Therapy Center, College of Medicine University of Florida. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics at the College of Pharmacy, University of Florida. His research work focuses on understanding rAAV vector biology and the development of gene therapy for genetic and autoimmune diseases. He has been a Principal Investigator of grants from NIH, DOD, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Alpha One Foundation.

Prof. Tao Song is a full professor in China University of Petroleum, China and Juan de la Cierva supported scholar in Polytechnical University de Madrid, Spain. His research interest includes molecular computing, DNA and membrane computing, drug design, artificial intelligence.

Dr. Song is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Chongqing University, China. He received PhD degree from Chongqing University, China, and was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship for Foreign Researchers by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and took the postdoctoral training at Tohoku University and Nagoya University, Japan. Dr. Song’s research interests focus on exploring the mechanisms of stem cell behaviors regulated by various physical or/and chemical factors. Dr. Song holds several patents and has published more than 100 international peer-reviewed papers, as well as two chapters in books.

Sun Zhenqiang, graduated from Xiangya Medical College of Central South University. Doctor of Medicine, Postdoctor in Surgery. Dr. Sun has published about 30 papers in SCI journals such as Adv Sci, Mol Cancer, Oncogene, J Hematol Oncol, Cancer Lett, etc. Among them, there are 6 SCI articles with a score of more than 10 points and a maximum of 15.804 points (Adv Sci). He has to his credit 10 national patents including 2 national invention patents.

Dr. Jie Sun received her Ph.D. in biophysics from Harbin Medical University, China. She has been engaged in the study of bioinformatics since 2004. Currently, she is a full associated professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Wenzhou Medical University, China. Her research interests include cancer bioinformatics, non-coding RNA bioinformatics and clinical bioinformatics. She has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers which have been cited over 1800 times with the H-index of 24 and i10-index of 36 as indicated in Google Scholar updated on 2020). Dr. Sun has significantly contributed to the computational identification of novel biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment response based on multi-omics data. She also conceptualized, designed developed, and co-developed computational methods/tools to analyze and interpret human genes, diseases and gene-disease association from system biology perspective.

Dr. Hua Tang is a Professor in the Department of Pathophysiology at Southwest Medical University, China. She received her MD from Southwest Medical University, P.R. China in 2007. Her research studies are focused on Bioinformatics and Cancer Biology. She has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers in SCI-indexed journals. Dr. Tang's 3 papers were selected as highly cited papers from ESI. Her publications have been cited 1376 times with H-index of 20 in Clarivate Analytics.

Marcio J. Tiera received his MSc and PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil), working under the supervision of Miguel G. Neumann. From 1995 to 1997, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Institute of Biosciences, Humanities and Exact Sciences-UNESP (1995-1996). In 2005, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Montreal University in the Françoise Winnik`s research group. In 2010, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Hôpital du Sacré Coeur de Montreal at the Orthopedic Research Group, led by Prof. Julio Cesar Fernandes. M. Tiera holds an Associate Professor position in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences at UNESP, the São Paulo State University. His current scientific interests are related to polymers and colloids, focusing the synthesis and characterization of nanoparticles for non-viral gene therapy, antimicrobial activity of amphiphilics and self-assembly of nanosized aggregates.

D.r Ya-Yun Wang received a PhD degree in the mechanism of nociception and antinociception from the Department of Anatomy & K. K. Leung Brain Research Centre, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China. Currently, she is a Professor and Director of the National Demonstration Center for Experimental Preclinical Medicine Education the Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China. Besides, she is a principle investigator of Specific Lab for Mitochondrial Plasticity Underlying Nervous System Diseases. Besides, due to her outstanding contributions, she has won several awards in her research field. She has also published several articles, book chapters and abstracts in several distinguished journals.

Dr. Andy Wilber is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology and Director of the Public Health Laboratory Sciences program at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. He obtained a PhD in Molecular Genetics at the University of Minnesota in Dr. R. Scott McIvor's laboratory, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Experimental Hematology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Dr. Arthur Nienhuis's laboratory. He is a member of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy for which he serves on the Viral Gene Transfer Vectors Committee and Hematologic and Immunologic Gene and Cell Therapy Committee. His laboratory uses state-of-the-art techniques to study primary human red blood cell differentiation and globin gene regulation. This information is used to develop novel strategies to increase fetal hemoglobin production in children or adults with sickle cell disease or severe β-thalassemia following lentiviral vector-mediated gene transfer into the patient’s own hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells.

Florian M. Wurm received his academic training as a Biologist and Molecular Geneticist from the University of Giessen. In 1995, he was appointed as the Chair and Professor for Biotechnology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Wurm has published more than 200 scientific papers, many of them are highly referenced, and holds more than 20 patents/patent-applications. In 2008, Dr. Wurm was appointed as a Visiting Professor for Biotechnology at Jinan University in Guangzhou. He was among the 50 most influential people in the field of antibodies in 2012 (ranked 22 in an international survey). Dr. Wurm is a frequently invited lecturer on international conferences in this field. He is a recipient of the Honorary Member Medal of the European Society of Animal Cell Technology.

Dr. Chuan-Le Xiao obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Bioinformatics from Hunan Agricultural University, China. Currently, he is a principal investigator at State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology of Zhongshan Ophthalmology Center of Sun Yat-sen University. He studied the computational algorithms and application in the field of high-throughput sequencing and has developed a series of widely used software to solve the computational problems in the three-generation sequencing studies. He authored more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including several high impact journals, such as Nature Methods, Molecular Cell, and Nature Communications.

Dr. Xiong is an Associate professor and Associate chief physician in the Department of Neurology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China. He is also the President of Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, 392 Hongkong Road, Wuhan, Hubei, China. His research utilizes molecular and cell biology technologies to understand the etiology and pathogenesis of Parkinson's Disease and dystonia, and develop potential treatment alternatives for PD and dystonia in cellular, Caenorhabditis elegans, mice and rats models, and translate them in to clinical patients.

Shaohua Yao obtained a PhD in Biosciences from the Sichuan University. Dr. Yao is as Professor at the State Key Lab of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University. Currently, Dr. Yao mainly focused on expanding gene-editing tools based on CRISPR system and exploring novel none-viral gene delivery systems. With these tools and delivery systems, he aimed at modifying the genomes of targeted cells for therapeutic purpose.

Professor Seppo Ylä-Herttuala, MD, PhD, is a pioneer and leader in cardiovascular gene therapy. He was the first in the world to apply catheter-mediated adenoviral gene transfer to human arteries in 1995. Since then he has developed a highly successful research team focusing on angiogenesis, new members of the VEGF family and their clinical applications. He is also the originator of the concept of “epigenetherapy”. He has conducted nine phase I-III clinical trials with vectors produced in his laboratory and has served as President of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (2010-2012).

Dr. Ying Yuan obtained MD and Ph.D. in Oncology from Zhejiang University School of Medicine and performed her postdoctoral work at University of Luebeck. Currently, she is working as a Professor in the Department of Oncology as well as Chief Oncologist in the Second Affiliated Hospital at Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Her main research interests include individualized treatment of malignant tumors and genetic studies of hereditary colorectal cancer. She has contributed to more than 80 scientific papers so far and was awarded the Southern California Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons Award.

Dr. Hu Zhang obtained his PhD from Girton College & Department of Medicine, Cambridge University in 2012. Currently, he is working at the Department of Gastroenterology and Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, China. Dr. Hu has authored many scientific articles in internationally renowned international journals.

Dr. Zhang is a chief physician and director of general gynecology in Women’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Dr. Zhang has been involved in translational and clinical research to develop novel treatments for endometriosis and adenomyosis. His basic research mainly focused on the mechanisms of endometriosis-associated pain, and was supported by the grants of the National Key R&D Program of China, etc. He is a regular contributor to peer reviewed scientific journals including Human Reproduction, Fertility and Sterility, Obstetrics & Gynecology, etc. He has published over 100 scientific articles, and authored a book on adenomyosis.

Dr. Wen Zhang obtained the Bachelor’s degree and the Master’s degree in Computational Mathematics from Wuhan University in 2003 and 2006, respectively. Following these, he received the Doctoral degree in Computer Science from Wuhan University in 2009. He worked at Wuhan University from 2009 to 2018. Currently, he is working as a Professor in the College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, People’s Republic of China. His research interests include machine learning, data mining and bioinformatics. He has published more than 60 papers in well-reputed journals or conferences, such as Nucleic acids research, Bioinformatics, PLoS Computational Biology, IEEE/ACM transactions on computational biology and bioinformatics, Information Science, etc.

Dr. Zhao obtained a Ph.D. in Shandong University, Jinan, China. Currently, Dr. Zhao is an Associate Professor in the Center for Reproductive Medicine, Shandong University. Since 2011, he has worked on the pathogenesis and stem cell therapy of disorders in reproductive endocrinology, especially premature ovarian insufficiency. He has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles, led three projects funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China and involved in two National Key Research & Development Programs of China.

Fang Zheng, is a PhD Professor in the Center for Gene Diagnosis, Department of Laboratory Medicine at Wuhan University Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan, China. She remained a Committeeman of Education Group of Chinese Society of Laboratory Medicine; Standing Committee of Laboratory Medicine Branch of Chinese society of Geriatrics; Vice Secretary-General for Chinese Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology - Lipid and Lipoprotein Branch; besides, was also the Committeeman of Prenatal Diagnosis Association in Hubei Province.

Dr. Fuling Zhou is currently working as a Professor and Chief Physician at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, China. She has completed her PhD in Hematology, Jiaotong University, Xi’an, P. R. China in 2006. Her research interests include the fields of haematology, oncology and biomedical sciences. She has published articles in many well-renowned journals, such as Microfluidics and Nanofluidics and European Journal of haematology etc.

Dr. Meng Zhou received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Jilin University in 2016, China. He has been engaged in the study of bioinformatics since 2004. Currently, he is a full associated professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Wenzhou Medical University, China. His research interests include computational system biology, bioinformatics and application for human complex disease. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers which have been cited over 2000 times with the H-index of 25 and i10-index of 36 as indicated in Google Scholar (update in 2020/5). There were 10 papers and 1 paper on the list of the ESI ‘Highly Cited Papers’ and ‘Hot Paper’, respectively. He is Associated Editor of the journal ”Frontiers in Oncology” and ”Frontiers in Genetics” and the editor of the journal ”Current Bioinformatics”. Dr. Zhou contributed significantly to the computational identification of novel biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment response based on multi-omics data. He also conceptualized, designed developed, and co-developed computational methods/tools to analyze and interpret human genes, diseases and gene-disease associations from system biology perspective.

Dr. Feng ZHU is a professor of the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Zhejiang University, China. He is the vice-president of the Youth Analytical Pharmacology Committee of Chinese Pharmacological Society, the committee member of the Computational Chemistry Committee of Chinese Chemical Society, and the committee member of the Bioinformatics Committee of China Computer Federation. He has published more than 100 papers in reputable journals such as Nucleic Acids Res, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, Brief Bioinform, Trends Pharmacol Sci, J Mol Biol, and Mol Cell Proteomics. His Google Scholar H-index is 31. Prof. ZHU received Ph.D. degree from the Department of Pharmacy in National University of Singapore, and his current research interests focused on (1) systematic analysis and discovery of druggability and system profile of therapeutic drug target, (2) construction of methods and tools facilitating novel drug & target discovery, (3) exploration of the mechanism underlying the interaction between drugs and targets.

Dr. Yongchun Zuo, is a Ph.D. Professor of Bioinformatics center in College of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University. Professor Zuo research studies focus on bioinformatics research of phenomics on mammalian early embryonic development, stem cell, and cell reprogramming, including identification of multi-scale key molecular markers, predictive webserver establishment, and information databases. He also interested in clinical significance and immunogenomic landscape analyses of the human immune cell, and computational biology of the DNA/protein function. He has published more than 70 academic peer review papers. As indicated by Google scholar, his papers have been cited more than 1200 times, with the H-index.

Dr. Marcelo Bispo de Jesus is a Group Leader of Nano-cell Interactions Lab. at University of Campinas, Brazil. He received his Ph.D. in cell biology from the University of Groningen. Dr. de Jesus was granted the Young Investigators Awards FAPESP, before taking up a position at the University of Campinas. Currently, Dr. de Jesus leads a multidisciplinary team working in the field of gene delivery and nanotoxicology.

Dr. Junwei Han is an Associate Professor of College of Bioinformatics and Technology, Harbin Medical University. He received the PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China, in 2015. He has been engaged in the study of Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology since 2005. Her research interests include biological software development, bionetwork analysis, identifying tumor markers. He has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in well-reputed journals, such as Bioinformatics, Nucleic acids research, Molecular Oncology, etc.

Dr Fuyi Li received his PhD in bioinformatics from Monash University, Australia. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Australia. He has published more than 30 papers in reputable journals, such as Nature Communications, Bioinformatics, Brief Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics and Molecular microbiology. His Google Scholar citation is >1000 and h-index is 15, and his current research interests focused on protein post-translational modifications prediction, DNA/RNA sequence analysis, protein structural analysis, DNA/RNA post-transcriptional modification prediction, and antimicrobial resistance phenotype prediction of human bacterial pathogens using whole-genome sequence data.

Prof. Rosalba Parenti is Associate Professor of Physiology at University of Catania, Italy. She is Head of Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Physiology of BIOMETEC, and Delegate of the Rector of the University of Catania as “Titolare dello Stabilimento Utilizzatore Unico and Preclinical Area of the Center for Advanced Preclinical in vivo Research (CAPiR). She received her Ph.D in “Neurosciences” from University of L’Aquila, Italy in 1995. The scientific career of Prof. Parenti is focused on understanding the cellular pathways and molecular modifications that can shift omeostatic cellular balance to pathological conditions.

Francesco Porta obtained MD degree, residency in Pediatrics, and PhD in experimental Pediatrics from the University of Torino. His clinical and research activity is mostly focused on the field of inborn errors of metabolism, including disorders of neurotransmission. Currently, he is licensed associate professor of Pediatrics and metabolic pediatrician in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Torino. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in the field of Pediatrics.

Dr. Saha is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dept. of Gynecology & Obstetrics, Johns Hopkins Medicine. He completed his PhD from Konkuk University, South Korea. His area of interest is Molecular Cancer Biology, Targeted Therapy, Drug delivery, Signal Transduction, Genomics, Proteomics, and Bioinformatics. He has published more than 35 research articles.

Dr. Prof. Tao Sun is currently an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy at Fudan University (China). His research mainly includes functional drug formulation, targeting drug delivery and theranostics prodrug design. He has published more than 50 papers on ACS Nano, Nano Lett., Biomaterials, et. al, with an H-index 21.

Dr. Rong Xu received his PhD in Biochemistry from La Trobe University in 2017 and works as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics at La Trobe University. His research interest has mainly focused on extracellular vesicle isolation and characterisation, profile protein and RNA of extracellular vesicle, and functional characterization, and diagnostic and therapeutic application of cancer-derived extracellular vesicles. He has published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles and 4 book chapters in the field of extracellular vesicle, proteomics, and cancer which has been cited over 1,800 times with the H-index of 15 and i10-index of 16. There were 3 papers on the list of the WOS as “highly cited papers”. He serves as an associated Editorial Member for Current Gene Therapy journal.

Dr. Xiao Yang received her Ph.D degree in biomedical engineering department, National University of Singapore. She is currently an associate professor in the National Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials, Sichuan University. Her research mainly includes cell- substrate interaction, bone disease treatment (osteoporosis/osteosarcoma), and biomaterials design. She has published more than 30 papers on Science Advances, Biomaterials, ACS appl mater & int, Nano Research.

Dr Jiajia Zhou received his MD degree in the field of Clinical Medicine (Surgery) from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. He is currently working in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. His research interest mainly focused on the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis in liver cancer and hepatology cancer metabolism and Role of non-coding RNA in cancer. His current research objective is to investigate the mechanisms underlying the long non-coding RNA dysregulation and glucose metabolism dysfunction in the development of hepatoma.

Prof. Liang Zong, as a Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho: MEXT) Scholarship winner, graduated from the University of Tokyo and got his Ph.D. Degree in 2017. In 2014, he won the Grand Prize of Research Award from the University of Tokyo. In 2015, he won the First Prize in the thesis defense of the University of Tokyo. In 2019, he won the third Prize of Future Scientist in 2019 Chinese Gastric Cancer Congress. Till now he published over 60 SCI papers, in different journals for e.g. Lancet, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oncogene, and Gastric Cancer. These papers have been cited over 450 times.

Dr. Betül Çelebi-Saltik is an Associate Professor at Hacettepe University, Department of Stem Cell Sciences. Dr. Çelebi-Saltik graduated from Hacettepe University, Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Ankara, Turkey. She received her master’s degree from Ankara University, Biotechnology Institute in 2007. She then earned her PhD degree in biochemistry from Laval University, Canada in 2012. She was awarded with Ministry of Education of Turkey and The Science Academy of Turkey. She joined Hacettepe University in 2013. Her group has focused on human bone marrow, umbilical cord/cord blood and cancer stem cells biology and biochemistry.

Dr. Zhi-Yao He is an associate professor and a clinical pharmacist at the West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China. His research focus is to develop and improve gene delivery strategies or gene therapy methods for diseases, especially for cancer. Dr. Zhi-Yao He is an associate editor of Biointerface Research in Applied Chemistry, the executive guest editor of Current Gene Therapy, and the editorial member of Current Gene Therapy, PLoS One, Annals of Translational Medicine and Chinese Chemical Letters. He was invited as the peer-reviewer in more than 40 international journals including J Am Chem Soc (JACS), Biomaterials, ACS Cent Sci, Signal Transduct Target Ther, etc. As a coauthor, he has published 50 peer-reviewed papers in about three dozen international journals, for e.g., Biotechnol Adv, J Control Release, Signal Transduct Target Ther, Cell Res, etc. In addition, Dr. Zhi-Yao He is the international member of ASGCT and ACS, and the senior member of some Chinese academic or technical organizations.

Dr. Samarendra Mohanty is the Co-Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer. He is an inventor and serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in Biomedical Sciences. He is a Co-Founder of several Biotechs and Biomedical device /diagnostic companies (developed and commercialized $100K+ biomedical instruments). Dr. Mohanty obtained M.Tech in Applied Optics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a Ph.D. in (Bio) Physics from the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore. His extensive Biomedical Technologies experience includes serving as Professor/Senior Scientist at the University of Texas; University of California, Irvine; Center for Adv. Tech (India); Int. Mol. Biotech (Germany); Univ. Pavia (Italy); NUS (Singapore); and University of St. Andrews (UK). He has authored over 200 international patents and publications in leading journals, including Nature and Nature Photonics. He received a number of awards.

Ryuichi Morishita, M.D., Ph.D., graduated from Osaka University Medical School in 1987, and received Ph. D. from Osaka University in 1991. After postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford University School of Medicine, he served as an Assistant Professor, at the Department of Geriatric Medicine, Osaka University Medical School from 1994 to 1998. Then, from 1998 to 2003, he was the Associate Professor, Division of Gene Therapy Science, Osaka University Medical School. Then, he became the Professor and Chairman of Division of Clinical Gene Therapy, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University Medical School from 2003.

Dr. Sujay Paul has 15 years of research experience in different areas of Genomics and Transcriptomics. He completed his doctoral studies in India from the University of Kalyani, 2010, and the main area of his doctoral work was molecular microbiology. He has more than five years of postdoctoral research experience in different national and international institutes/universities, such as Bose Institute (India), UNAM (Mexico), and UNALM (Peru) in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, and University of Michigan, USA. During his postdoctoral studies, he worked mostly on genome and microRNA biology. In 2018, Dr. Paul joined the Department of Bioengineering, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Campus Queretaro, as a research professor. Dr. Paul has published more than 50 research/review articles in different reputed international peer-reviewed journals, and his scientific publications have more than 800 citations. He is currently serving as an associate editor for the journal 3 Biotech (Springer) and guest editor of Frontiers in Genetics. He is a member of the National Researchers Council, Mexico.

Dr. Jawed A. Siddiqui, did MSc. in Biotechnology University of Calicut, Kerala, India, and Ph.D. in Life Sciences from Jawaharlal Nehru Vishvavidyalaya, and Division of Endocrinology, Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, India. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Dr. Jawed completed Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Department of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, USA. He is editorial board member of Frontiers in Oncology, Frontier in Endocrinology (Cancer Endocrinology), American Research Journal of Oncology, Journal of Biology and Life Science, Journal of Obesity and Bariatrics, Cancer Translational Medicine, Frontier in Endocrinology (Bone Research), International journal of Medical Science (IJMS). He has been an Ad hoc reviewer in NCBI Journals since 2010. He received several awards such as the Outstanding performance award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) Annual Research Symposium, UNMC, Omaha, NE, USA, Alice L. Jee Young Investigator Award, Orthopedic Research Society, USA etc. He is a member of a number of societies such as American Society of Bone and Mineral research since 2013 and American Association for Cancer Research since 2017 etc. His Google Scholar Citations are 1339, h-index is 22, and i10-index is 28. He has more than 38 publications and 3 patents to his credit.

Dr. Panagiotis J. Vlachostergios MD PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY, USA. Dr. Vlachostergios received his Ph.D. in Cancer Biology in 2013. He completed his internal medicine residency at the New York University School of Medicine, Langone Hospital and his Hematology and Medical Oncology Clinical Fellowship at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian Hospital. He has further completed post-doctoral training in Genomic Cancer Risk Assessment Genetics, Cancer Genomics and Precision Oncology Immunology and Immuno-Oncology and Clinical Research. Dr. Vlachostergios has published numerous international peer-reviewed articles, and authored several book chapters and abstracts. His research has been highly cited and he is a recipient of prestigious awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, European Society of Medical Oncology, Society for Translational Oncology, American Federation for Medical Research, Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, and others.

Jake J. Wen obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2001 from the Sichuan University in the Southwest of China and was immediately recruited as Associated Independent Investigator by Key Laboratory of Marine Biogenetic Resources, State Oceanic Administration (SOA), Xiamen, China. He then joined Dr. Nisha Garg’s Lab in 2003 to study the pathogenesis of Chagas disease as a postdoctoral fellow. After completing his postdoctoral fellowship, he was promoted to Research Scientist in 2006 and Instructor (faculty) in 2009. Then he worked as a Senior Research Scientist (faculty) at the University of Georgia for one and a half years to work on HIV-related vaccine study. In 2012, he accepted an offer as Assistant Professor at UTMB. He did scientific research for over 25 years and studied Chagasic disease for over 13 years. He has extensive experience in the fields of biochemistry, molecular biology, immunology, and multiple animal models, including mice, rats, and rabbits. He has more than 10 additional publications as a co-author. Currently, he studied the cross-talks among stress-ER-mitochondria-nuclear pathways to elucidate the mechanisms of stress-induced processes for 3 and half years in the burn injury host. His achievements result in 5 published manuscripts as 1st author and corresponding author in other journals. His long-term goal is to identify the factors which could serve as pharmacological targets for therapy of patients and as biomarkers for earlier diagnosis of diseases.