Current Genomics

Dr. Olivier Civelli is Chair of the Pharmacology Department of University of California, Irvine. He received his PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich. He was a founding member of the Vollum Institute in Portland, OR. He was also Vice President at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. He spearheaded the field of G protein-coupled receptors by cloning the dopamine receptors and the field of reverse pharmacology by discovering the first natural ligand of an orphan GPCR. His interests center on the discovery of novel neurotransmitters and of their uses in pharmaceutical research. His present studies of TCMs stem from his interest in finding multi-targeted drugs.

Dr. Cohen is currently an independent researcher at the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada; and at the Faculty of Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel). He received his PhD from the School of Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He then joined the Dillin Laboratory (The Salk Institute for Biological studies, La Jolla, CA, (USA)). In 2009, he returned to the Hebrew University as an independent researcher. The main scientific questions that are studied in the Cohen laboratory are: How cells respond to the accumulation of toxic, disease-causing protein aggregates?, what are the links between the ageing process and neurodegeneration?, and whether ageing manipulations can be exploited to combat these devastating maladies?

Dr. Delannoy studied biology at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris (1996-2000) and obtained his Ph.D. in plant physiology from the Montpellier University in 2003. After post-doctoral positions in France and at the Plant Energy Biology Center (Perth, Australia), he currently holds a position of INRA researcher at the IPS2 (Orsay, France). He is also scientific advisor of the IPS2 transcriptomic platform. His publications include works on plant physiology, transcriptomics, genomics and statistical analysis of RNA-seq.

Tony Durston was born in Coventry, UK in 1944. He has worked in the United States, East Africa and The Netherlands as well as the UK. He strives to understand the mysteries of embryogenesis. His discoveries include: that retinoids are morphogens for the vertebrate anterior-posterior (A-P) axis and that the vertebrate A-P axial pattern is generated by a timer in gastrula non organiser mesoderm (NOM) that interacts with the gastrula’s Spemann organiser to freeze timed information at sequential positional values (under investigation). He is emeritus professor of developmental biology at the University of Leiden.

Dr. Luo graduated in Molecular Genetics in 1993 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He became a postdoctoral fellow at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 1993, and then a Research Associate in Dr. Allan Bradley at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Baylor College of Medicine in 1996. Dr. Luo joined the Department of Genetics and the Ireland Cancer Center at CWRU and University Hospitals of Cleveland in May, 2000. His research interests include using mouse to model human diseases and to conduct other aspect of genetic studies, including gene identification.

Mark Schena trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at the Beckman Center at Stanford University, and earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Biochemistry at UCSF. Dr. Schena performed his undergraduate thesis work in the Biochemistry Department at UC Berkeley, earning a baccalaureate degree in 1984. His research interests focus on microarray technology, genomics, proteomics, genotyping, molecular diagnostics, and gene expression. He has authored more than 30 scientific papers and books on subjects ranging from bacteria and yeast to plants and humans. In 1997, Dr. Schena founded Mark Schena Inc. to provide educational consulting services to leading organizations. He has also been serving as the President of Arrayit Corporation since 2008.

Dr. Fabio Stella is an Associated Professor in the Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication at the University of Milan-Bicocca. He is graduated in Computer Science and has received a PhD in Computational Mathematics and Operations Research in 1995 from the University of Milan. His main research topics are artificial intelligence and machine learning, while application domains include; medicine, biology, and finance.. He is the author of three MOOCs on data and text mining hosted by the EduOpen platform.

Dr. Alcalde studied Biology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain (1988-1993) and in 1994, he obtained an M.Sc in Plant Physiology. In 1999, he completed his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Institute of Catalysis (ICP-CSIC, Madrid). From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Alcalde took up a postdoctoral position at CALTECH. After his return to ICP-Madrid, he was appointed as Staff Scientist of the CSIC and promoted to CSIC Researcher in 2014. Dr. Alcalde has participated in several consecutive European Projects and research contracts with industries. Dr. Alcalde is co-author of several patents and over 70-SCI papers.

Dr. Gjumrakch Aliev, MD, PhD, President “GALLY” International Biomedical Research Institute Inc., San Antonio, Texas, USA. He also hold appointment with the University of Atlanta, as a Professor and as a Leading Scientist , Institute of Physiologically Active Compounds. Russian Academy of Sciences. He received his MD in 1982, from the Baku Medical University (former USSR) with cum laude. Then he accomplished his PhD in Cardiovascular Diseases from the prestigious Russian Academy of the Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia in 1988 with cum laude. He authored and coauthored more than 500 publications in the fields of neurodegenerative diseases research (Alzheimer disease), as well as cardio- and cerebrovascular disease, cancer, and electron microscopy.

Prof. Antonelli is currently Director of the Immuno-Endocrine Section of Internal Medicine and Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Pisa, Azienda Ospedaliera-Universitaria Pisana, Pisa, Italy. He graduated in Medicine cum laude at the University of Pisa in 1982, where he received the post-graduate Specialization in Endocrinology in 1985 and in Occupational Health in 1987. He received also the postgraduate Specialization in Oncology (at the University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy) in 1992. His researches have been published in more than 260 articles on International journals (Impact Factor >970; H index 54).

Dr. Barberis received a Ph.D. in Industrial Biotechnology from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan. Dr. Barberis also holds a Master in Bioinformatics from the University of Turin, Italy. After postdocs at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and the Humboldt University in Berlin, currently Dr. Barberis is Assistant Professor at the Department of Synthetic Systems Biology, University of Amsterdam. Dr. Barberis research integrates experimental and computational approaches to identify design principles underlying cellular organization. Dr. Barberis is Executive Director of the International Society of Systems Biology, ISSB, and Editor-in-Chief of In Silico Biology (IOS Press), journal of biological systems modeling and multi-scale simulation. Dr. Barberis is also Associate Editor of Frontiers in Systems Biology, and Board Member of npj Systems Biology and Applications (NPG), Current Opinion in Systems Biology (Elsevier) and Current Genomics (Bentham Science). .

Dr. Blandino is currently the Head of the Oncogenomic and Epigenetic Laboratory at Department of Research, Advanced Diagnostic, and Technological Innovation at the Italian National Cancer Institute “Regina Elena” in Rome. He is the Head of the Clinical Trials Office at IFO. He received his Medical School Degree at the University of Catania (1990) and his Residency in Oncology at the University of Milan (1994). He performed his postdoctoral research activity at the Weizmann Institute of Science (1995 to 1999). He served as a Scientific Coordinator of the “Active p53 consortium” under FP6 EU program (2004 to 2009) and of the Rome Oncogenomic Center under the support of AIRC (2004 to 2009).

Dr. Blein obtained his Ph.D. in plant physiology from the Paris XI University in 2008. After post-doctoral positions in at the Botanic department of the University of Freiburg (Germany) and INRA of Versailles (France), he currently holds a position of CNRS researcher at the IPS2 (Orsay, France). His research is focused on the role of non-coding RNAs. He is interested in how they regulate gene expression and control quantitatively plant root growth. To answer this question he uses approaches spanning from classical molecular biology, to light imaging passing by genomic.

Dr. Sebastiano Cavallaro received a medical degree and specialized in Neurology at the University of Catania (Italy). He also obtained a Ph.D. in Anatomy and Cell Biology at Georgetown University. He then worked at the NINDS-NIH (USA) and at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute. Since 1997, Dr. Cavallaro works at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and today directs the Institute of Neurological Sciences, a research center where clinical services and research activities thrive together. His primary research interests include genomics and neurobiology. During his career he supervised and supported the activity of more than 60 students or post-docs, authoring more than 100 publications.

Dr. Francesca Luisa Conforti is a Professor of Medical Genetics at the Department of Pharmacy, Health and Nutritional Sciences, University of Calabria (Italy). She earned her Biological Sciences degree and Clinical Pathology residency at the University “La Sapienza” of Rome (Italy). From 1998 to 2018, she carried out her scientific activity as researcher at the Institute of Neurological Sciences, CNR, Mangone (CS). The main fields of interest are the molecular basis of neurodegenerative diseases, in particular the genetic and genomic study of familial and sporadic forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis through mutational screening and genome-wide analysis studies. The scientific activity is well documented by more than 90 published papers and over 270 abstracts presented at national and international conferences.

Prof. Coppedè holds a degree in Biological Sciences and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Genetics, both from the University of Pisa. He worked as visiting or postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Berkeley, King’s College London, and the Karolinska Institutet. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Medical Genetics at the Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa. His research is focused on genetic and epigenetic factors in Down syndrome, cancer and neurodegeneration. Author of almost 80 peer reviewed articles, Prof. Coppedè serves in the editorial board of several scientific journals, including Current Genomics.

Josée Dostie received her Ph.D. (2000) from McGill University, Montréal, Canada, for work conducted on mRNA translation and nucleo-cytoplasmic transport under the supervision of Dr. Nahum Sonenberg. She then completed her first postdoctoral training (2000 to 2004) with Dr. Gideon Dreyfuss at the University of Pennsylvania where she studied the function of ribonucleoprotein complexes. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow (2004 to 2007) in the laboratory of Dr. Job Dekker at the University of Massachusetts when she trained in genome organization. She is now Associate Professor in the Biochemistry department at McGill, and an Associate member of the Goodman Cancer Center in Montréal. Her research interests include how non-coding RNAs and chromatin structure regulate gene expression in cancer and during development.

Edward R. Dougherty is the Robert M. Kennedy ‘26 Chair and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, and is Scientific Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Genomic Systems Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Rutgers University and the Doctor Honoris Causa from the Tampere University of Technology.

Professor Dr. Fumin Lei is at the Institute of Zoology (IOZ), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing, China. After M.Sc. Zoology at Shaanxi Normal University, Fumin Lei received his Ph.D. in ornithology at IOZ, CAS. He was a Post-doc at the University of Michigan, USA, and a visiting professor in the California Academy of Sciences and the University of Washington, USA. Since 2000, Dr. Fumin Lei is Professor at IOZ, CAS. His research interests include taxonomy and evolution; molecular phylogeny and phylogeography; geographical distribution, endemism and biodiversity conservation; adaptive evolution by comparative genomics; and molecular epidemiology of wildlife diseases (e.g. avian influenza).

Dr. Gridelli is currently Chief of Division of Medical Oncology at the “S.G. Moscati” Hospital, Avellino (Italy). He was Director of the Department of Oncology/Haematology at the same institution from 2003 to 2017. He earned his medical degree and residencies in Internal Medicine and later in Medical Oncology at the “Federico II” University of Naples (Italy). Since 1993, he has been Vice-Chief of Division of Medical Oncology B, and since 2001, Chief of the Day Hospital Chemotherapy Unit at the National Cancer Institute of Naples. His areas of expertise are lung cancer and cancer in the elderly. He is author or co-author of over 750 papers and has an h-index of 63.

Jörg Hoheisel heads the Division of Functional Genome Analysis at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. His research objectives are the assessment and description of the realisation and regulation of cellular functions, with a particular focus on the analysis of protein variations and interactions by means of affinity proteomics. Another line of work is Synthetic Biology for the establishment of artificial molecular systems. Prior to joining DKFZ, Jörg worked for five years at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, UK. Previously, he had studied molecular biology and completed his PhD at the University of Constance, Germany.

Dr. Professor Hongbo Shao is working at Salt-soil Agricultural Center, Jiangsu Academy of Agriculture Sciences (JAAS), Nanjing, China as the Director. His research is focused on plant (mainly soybean, rice) stress molecular biology under salt and drought and also soil-affected soil improvement by phytoremediation. Prof. Hongbo Shao is also the Editorial Member for the journals: Nature, Scientific Reports, Plant Soil Environment, and Land Degradation Development and has published more than 360 SCI-indexed articles with edited 4 books.

Ivan Y. Iourov heads the laboratory of molecular brain genetics at Mental Health Research Center, Moscow, Russia. His research is focused on biological basis of neuropsychiatric diseases, molecular genetics and bioinformatics. He is author/co-author of 4 books and 220 articles/book chapters. Prof Iourov is a founder of Molecular Cytogenetics, editor-in-chief of Journal of Neurology and Epidemiology, and editor of Current Genomics and Current Bioinformatics (regional editor). The results of his research were distinguished by a number of awards, among which SciVal/Scopus Award Russia 2012 (Elsevier prize), VM Bekhterev’s Prize for the highest scientific achievements in neurology and psychiatry, the Grant of the President of the Russian Federation and Blue Bird Award (Russian National Award for the achievements in helping people with rare diseases, improvement of the legislation, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of patients with rare diseases, and scientific research in the field of rare diseases and orphan drugs).

Dr. Kone is a tenured professor and graduate faculty member at the University of Texas-Houston. He received his A.B. degree from Princeton University, his M.D. degree from University of Florida, and clinical training at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He joined the University of Texas-Houston in 1995 and served as the chairman of internal medicine, then became Dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine, before returning to University of Texas-Houston. He has held multiple leadership, editorial board, and peer review. He investigates transcriptional control of epithelial transport, and has been NIH funded for 30 years.

Dr. Koochekpour graduated from Shiraz University of Health Sciences Center (Iran). He obtained his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Oncology from Kings College School of Medicine (UK). He continued his postdoctoral training at the NCI-FCRDC (Frederick, MD) and LSU-Health Sciences Center (New Orleans, LA). He joined the staff of RPCI in 2011 and currently serves as a Professor of Cancer Genetics and Genomics, Urology, and Oncology. His expertise are cellular and molecular biology of cancer, cancer health disparity, and translational cancer research, etc. Since 2004, he has been serving as Editor, Guest Editor, Editorial Board Member, and ad-hoc reviewer in over 35 basic and clinical oncology journals.

Dr. Korenberg received her PhD in Genetics followed by post-doctoral fellowship in electron microscopy of human chromosomes from University of Wisconsin and then her MD from the University of Miami. She is currently USTAR Professor of Pediatrics, Director of the USTAR Cluster, Circuits of the Brain, Director of the Center for Integrated Neuroscience and Human Behavior and a Faculty member in the Neuroscience Interdepartmental Graduate Program at the University of Utah. Her specialties include lifespan work on Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, chromosomal abnormalities and more recently disorders of social behavior including autism and other psychiatric genetic conditions.

Dr. Jinyan Li is a Professor of Data Science at the Advanced Analytics Institute and a core member at the Centre for Health Technologies, Faculty of Engineering and IT, UTS. He is also the Bioinformatics Program leader. Jinyan has a Bachelor degree of Science (Applied Mathematics) from National University of Defense Technology (China), a Masters degree of Engineering (Computer Engineering) from Hebei University of Technology (China), and a Ph.D. degree (Computer Science) from the University of Melbourne (Australia). He joined UTS in March of 2011 after ten years of research and teaching work in Singapore (Institute for Infocomm Research, Nanyang Technological University, and National University of Singapore).

Dr. Anna Maria Mastrangelo completed a three-years post-degree at the School of Applied Genetics, University of Milano, Italy, and obtained a Ph.D. degree in Applied Chemistry and Biochemistry from University of Molise, Italy. She was previously a scientist at the CREA-Cereal Research Center of Foggia, Italy. Now, from 3rd April 2017, she is first scientist at the CREA-Research Center for Cereal and Industrial Crops of Bergamo (Italy). She is author, comprehensively, of over 95 publications, and 53 are on international journals with Impact Factor. She is also Associate Editor of the journal "Frontiers in plant science/Plant Breeding”.

Dr. Meyre completed a PhD in Quantitative Plant Genetics in France. Since 2001, he is working on the elucidation of the genetic bases of obesity and type 2 diabetes. He is currently Associate Professor at the University of McMaster (Canada) and Visiting Professor at the University of Lorraine (France). His current research interests include: 1) identification of novel susceptibility genes using high-throughput sequencing / genotyping approaches in populations representative of the worldwide ethnic background; 2) physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the development of metabolic diseases; 3) the interactions between genes and specific environmental exposures; and 4) usefulness of genetic information in clinical applications.

Dr. Salvador Mirete graduated in Biological Sciences (Major in Genetics) in 1998 from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Madrid, Spain. Later on, in 2004, he earned his Ph.D. degree from the same university. Dr. Mirete is currently working as a Research Scientist in the Department of Molecular Evolution at Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA, associated to the NASA Astrobiology Institute). His current research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that lead to adaptation of microorganisms to extreme environments through functional metagenomics and next-generation sequencing technologies. He co-edited the book, “Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Natural Environments and Long-Term Effects,” published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Jianbing Mu M.D., Ph.D., is staff scientist at Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, USA. Dr. Jianbing Mu received his PhD from Saitama Medical University in Japan. His research interest has been on the functional genomics of P. falciparum and its human host, including genetic mapping, genome-wide association (GWA) studies and epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation.

Prof. Musarò obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Biotechnological Sciences from Sapienza University of Rome and completed a 4-year post-doctoral term at Harvard University (USA). From 2003 to 2014 Prof. Musarò was Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Biomedical & Sports Science at the Edith Cowan University; Western Australia. Currently Prof. Musarò is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Biotechnology at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He has published more than 100 scientific publications.

John Noti received his PhD from the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN (USA) in 1979. He completed postdoctoral training at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY (USA). His research interests are in the regulation of gene expression. He has published on a range of studies in microbial, plant, and human cells. His studies included the role of transcription factors that regulate myeloid development, the regulation and role of eukocyte-specific integrins during an immune response, and the regulation and role of integrins in breast cancer metastasis.

Dr. Maurizio Onisto received his B.Sc and Ph.D. in Molecular and cellular biology and pathology from the University of Padova (Italy) followed by postdoctoral training as Visiting Fellow at National Cancer Institute (NIH) of Bethesda, MD, (USA). Since 1997, he coordinates a research group devoted to the study of extracellular matrix pathobiology. Currently Dr. Onisto is Associate Professor at School of Medicine of Padova University. His research is published in over 60 original papers and has been presented at leading international conferences. Nowadays he is Editorial Board Member of Current Genomics.

Raffaele Palmirotta received his M.D. degree in 1991 at the University of Chieti, Italy. Specialized in Clinical Pathology (summa cum laude) in 1996 and in Medical Genetic in 2006 at the University of Chieti, Italy. In 2001 Ph.D. in "Molecular diagnostic techniques for the study of hereditary cancer and gene therapy" at the University of Chieti, Italy. In 2012 he completed a Master in “Forensic Genetic”, University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and in 2016 a Master in “Cytogenetic” University of Rome “Roma 3”, Italy.

Prof. Pandey received Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India and pursed his post-doctoral research work at the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California at Berkeley. Currently, he is working as Professor in the Department of Plant Molecular Biology, Delhi University South Campus. His group’s research interest is to understand the detail mechanistic interplay of signal transduction networks in plants under mineral nutrient deficiency and abiotic stresses. He has published more than 60 scientific publications, edited 7 books/volumes and also has 2 US patents.

Dr Tomasz Powrózek is a research associate at Department of Human Physiology; Medical University of Lublin, Poland. During his doctoral training, he developed new potential markers for early lung cancer detection based on analysis of epigenetics markers using liquid biopsy. Nowadays, he is active in investigation of novel molecular markers in blood circulation of head and neck cancer patients (detection, prediction and prognosis). The main area of interest concerns understanding the molecular background of malnutrition and cachexia in cancer patients. Dr Powrózek is an author of over 100 scientific reports as well as he reviewed over 100 papers.

Patricia Faivre Rampant has been working as a research scientist at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) for 25 years. Her main research interest has been focused on using genetic and genomic data for polar breeding and conservation. In 2015, she joined the unit “Etude du Polymorphisme des Génomes Végétaux, EPGV” (study of plant genome polymorphism), Evry. Her interests are now focused in the development of genomic resources on tree and crop genomes to study plant genome structure, function, polymorphism and comparative genomics. The mission of her unit is to broadcast technologic and scientific monitoring and provide expertise and consulting for the construction to the realization of plant genomic projects.

Dr. Edward Ratovitski obtained his Ph.D. Degree in Molecular Biology and Cancer Biology (1979) from the N.N. Petrov Cancer Research Institute (Leningrad, Soviet Union). Currently Dr. Ratovitski is an Adjunct Professor in the Head and Neck Cancer Research Division of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD, USA) and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, George Washington University (DC, USA). He has published more than 136 scientific publications, and is a named inventor of five issued US patents. Dr. Ratovitski is an Editorial Board Member of the Current Genomics (CG) journal published by Bentham Science Publishers.

Dr. Sago is currently the Director of Center for Maternal-Fetal, Neonatal and Reproductive Medicine at the National Center for Child Health and Development, Tokyo (Japan). He started his medical training in Surgery, followed by Obstetrics and Gynecology training. He received his postdoctoral training in Medical Genetics at University of California at San Francisco, CA (USA). He established a new mouse model for Down syndrome (Ts1Cje). He has published more than 180 peer-review papers in scientific journals. His main interests include fetal medicine and prenatal genetics.

Paula Soares, BSc, MSc, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Biopathology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Porto and coordinates the Group of Cancer Biology at the Institute of Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto (Ipatimup) – Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Sáude (i3S), Portugal. She received her degrees in Biology, Master in Oncobiology, and PhD in Human Biology at the University of Porto. Her main interests include oncobiology of thyroid and neuroendocrine tumours mainly addressing thyroid cancer genetic alterations and signal transduction molecules involved in the MAPK and mTOR pathways.

Erich E. Wanker is the Head of the group Proteomics and Molecular Mechanisms of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin (Germany). He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Biotechnology, Technical University of Graz, Graz, (Austria) in 1992. His did his Postdoctoral fellowship from the Department of Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA (USA). Dr. Erich's research interests focus in protein misfolding and neurodegeneration in diseases like Alzheimer's and Huntington's. His laboratory uses biochemical, molecular biology, high-throughput interactomics and chemical biology approaches to advance knowledge on disease processes.

Momiao Xiong, graduated from Department of Statistics, University of Georgia in 1993, is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics, University of Texas School of Public Health, a regular member in the Genetics & Epigenetics (G&E) Graduate Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Science, U. S. A.

Dr. Cheng-Chia Yu is a professor of Institute of Oral Sciences, College of Oral Medicine at the Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan. Dr. Yu obtained his Ph.D. degree and completed the postdoctoral training at the Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan. He serves as visiting professor at Harvard Medical School & Brigham & Women's Hospital from 2018- 2019. Research in his laboratory mainly focuses on the significance of non-coding RNAs in oral submucous fibrosis and oral cancer stem cells. He also serves as an Academic Editor or Editorial Board member for other scientific journals, such as Frontiers in Oncology, J Clin Med., Nutrients, ‎Int J Mol Sci, Non-coding RNA, PeerJ, PLOS ONE, Medicine, and Int J Dent. His remarkable work has attained Ministry of Science and Technology Special Outstanding Talent Award since 2002 in Taiwan.

Dr. Zhongming Zhao is Dr. Doris L. Ross Professor and the founding director of Center for Precision Health, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Dr. Zhao received his master’s degrees in Genetics (1996), Biomathematics (1998), Computer Science (2002), Ph.D. degree in Human and Molecular Genetics (2000), and Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioinformatics (2001-2003). Dr. Zhao has more than 18 years of bioinformatics and systems biology research experience and published more than 260 papers in these areas. More details are available at https://www.uth.edu/bioinfo/.