Current Genomics

Professor Hikmet Budak received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, in 2002. His work included a wide range of disciplines, accumulating a 25 years of experience across academia and industry worldwide. He is currently working as a Chief Science Officer at Montana BioAg. Inc., USA and also serves as Adjunct Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA.

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 issues that are studied in the Cohen laboratory are: How the 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.

Prof. Giovanni Di Bernardo is a Professor of Molecular Biology at the School of Medicine, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Naples, Italy. He is an affiliated Professor at the Sbarro Health Research Organization at Temple University Philadelphia, USA. He is member of National Association of Italian Biologists and Founder of National Society for Stem Cells. In 1994, he did Masters in Biological Sciences, summa cum laude, University of Naples, Naples, Italy. In 2003, he did PhD in Medicine from the Second University of Naples, Naples, Italy. In 2000, he was the Visiting Researcher at “The Kuvin Centre for the study of infectious and tropical disease” at Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem-Israel. He is on the editorial boards of Cell Biology, American Journal of Aging Science and Research, Journal of Environmental & Life Sciences (Genomics), and International Journal of Molecular Science. His main research interests are basic and applied research on normal and cancer stem cells, analysis of senescence processes that affect stem cell properties, and effect of low dose radiations on the biology of normal and cancer stem cells.

Tony Durston 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 retinoids that are morphogens for the vertebrate anterior-posterior (A-P) axis and that the vertebrate A-P axial pattern which 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. Weimin Gao is an Associate Research Scientist in the Biodesign Institute at the Arizona State University. He received his PhD from the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology at the Pennsylvania State University in 2001. His main research interests are in the fields of microbe-environment and microbe-host interactions. He has authored more than 30 scientific papers and book chapters on subjects ranging from microbe-mineral interactions, marine and underground microbial ecology, technical development for single cell analysis, to immunoproteomics of human diseases.

Wenchun Qu, MD, PhD, MS is board certified in PM&R and Pain Medicine, and is an Associate Professor of PM&R and Anesthesiology at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine. He is the Director of Regenerative Pain Medicine Practice, Chair of Spine Research Committee, co-Chair of China Regional Development Group, and a member of Artificial Intelligence Advisory Group at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Qu has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, 3 books, and 9 book chapters. He regularly presents at national and international conferences, and has been a board member of several medical societies. Dr. Qu’s clinical interests include regenerative medicine therapy for spine and musculoskeletal conditions and interventional pain management. His research focuses on regenerative medicine therapy for degenerative spine and musculoskeletal conditions.

Biochemist, Ph.D., is a Professor and Deputy Director of the Department of Basic and Clinical Oncology, University of Chile. He is Head of the Laboratory of Chemical Carcinogenesis and Pharmacogenetics and Past-President of the Latin American Society of Pharmacogenomics and personalized Medicine. His research is focused on molecular pharmacology and toxicology where he has authored more than 100 peer–reviewed papers, 2 books and 14 book chapters. Currently, Dr. Quiñones is the co-chair of the PGRN’s Developing Countries Committee and is a member of 4 international research consortia and coordinator of the Latin American Network for the Implementation of Clinical Pharmacogenomic Guidelines.

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.

Prof. Francesco Albano received a degree in Medicine in 1996 and a specialization in Hematology in 2002. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Hematology at the University of Bari (Italy), Chief of the residency school in Hematology of the University of Bari (Italy) and Head of the “Innovative Therapies Integrated with Biomolecular Technologies” Unit, University of Bari (Italy). Prof. Albano has authored/co-authored over 120 articles published in peer-reviewed and indexed in medical and scientific journals and he has given more than 100 presentations at different medical and scientific conferences. His research mainly focuses on genomic alterations in hematological malignancies.

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.

Prof. Antonelli is currently the 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 from the University of Pisa in 1982, where he received the post-graduate Specialization in Endocrinology in 1985 and in Occupational Health in 1987. He also received the postgraduate Specialization in Oncology from the University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy in 1992. His researches have been published in more than 260 articles in the International journals (Impact Factor >970; H index 54).

PD. Dr.rer.nat. Obul R Bandapalli is a functional genomics researcher with special focus on transnational research. He is currently working at DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany. He finished his habilitation in Molecular Medicine from the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit of EMBL-University of Heidelberg and continues to teach at the University of Heidelberg. He has PhD in Molecular Biology from Humboldt University. Before moving to Germany he has worked at the Central Food Technological Research Institute Mysore, Dabur Research Foundation and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He obtained his Master´s in Biotechnology from Guru Ghasidas University and Bachelor’s in Sericulture from Sri Venkateswara University. Apart from research, he enjoys watching birds and nature trails. Obul cares and volunteers for issues related to farmers, rural development and environment.

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

Dr. Blandino is currently the Head of the Oncogenomic and Epigenetic Laboratory in 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 from 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 from 2004 to 2009 and of the Rome Oncogenomic Center under the support of AIRC from 2004 to 2009.

Dr. Sebastiano Cavallaro received a medical degree and specialized in Neurology from the University of Catania (Italy). He also obtained a Ph.D. in Anatomy and Cell Biology from 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 presently 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, besides, he is the author of more than 100 publications.

Dr. Chen obtained his doctorate degree (Ph.D.) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. With postdoc experiences at the National University of Singapore and National Institutes of Health of USA, Dr. Chen is currently a professor and the head of Genetics Department of the College of Basic Medical Sciences, Jilin University, China. His research mainly focuses on genomics and epigenetics of human diseases and explores susceptible genes for diabetes and its complications. Dr. Chen has a series of publications in genome-wide association studies and meta-analysis, microRNA profiling of disease status using next-generation sequencing, and Mendelian randomization analysis.

Dr. Francesca Luisa Conforti is a Professor of Medical Genetics in the Department of Pharmacy, Health and Nutritional Sciences, University of Calabria (Italy). She earned her Biological Sciences degree and Clinical Pathology residency from 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 in 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 in 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. He is the 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 from 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 from 2004 to 2007 in the laboratory of Dr. Job Dekker at the University of Massachusetts when she got trained in genome organization. Currently, she is an 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 doing M.Sc. Zoology from the 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 for 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 studied molecular biology and completed his PhD from 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 4 books edited.

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 the 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 regional-editor of Current Genomics and Current Bioinformatics.. The results of his research were distinguished by a number of awards he received among which were 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 which is actually a 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 he became Dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine, before returning to University of Texas-Houston. He has held multiple leaderships, editorial board membershipd and and s peer reviewer. He investigates transcriptional control of epithelial transport, and has funded NIH 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.

Chaeyoung Lee is a professor in the Department of Bioinformatics and Life Science at Soongsil University in South Korea. He received the Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in 1995. He formerly served 12 years (1997-2008) as a professor at Hallym University. His research interests are in developing statistical and computational methods for genomics and applying the methods to complex traits. He is a primary author of more than 100 scientific papers. He has been on the editorial boards of 10 journals.

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 Bachelors 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 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. Since 2017, she is the first scientist at the CREA-Research Center for Cereal and Industrial Crops of Bergamo (Italy). She is the authorof over 95 publications, and 53 of them have been published in the international journals with Impact Factor. She is also an 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.

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.

Ali Masoudi-Nejad received his Ph.D. in genetics andgenomics with Prof. Takashi Endo from Kyoto University Japan. He then did his first Post-Doc with Prof. Robbie Waugh at James Hutton Institute in Dundee, Scotland and Prof. Paul H. Dear from MRC-LMB, Cambridge, UK. He returned to the Kyoto University and did two consecutive Post-Docs with Prof. Minoru Kanehisa, co-founder of The GenBank at NCBI and founder of the KEGG listed on Clarivate Citation Laureates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018 and Prof. Susumu Goto in bioinformatics and systems biology, respectively. He then returned to Iran in 2006 and founded the Laboratory of Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, LBB at the University of Tehran. He is now associate professor of systems biology and bioinformatics.

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 a 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 an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the Padova University. His research is published in over 60 original papers and has been presented at leading international conferences. He is editorial board member of Current Genomics.

Raffaele Palmirotta received his M.D. degree in 1991 from the University of Chieti, Italy. He specialized in Clinical Pathology (summa cum laude) in 1996 and in Medical Genetic in 2006 from the University of Chieti, Italy. In 2001, he did Ph.D. in "Molecular diagnostic techniques for the study of hereditary cancer and gene therapy" from the University of Chieti, Italy. In 2012, and 2016 he completed Masters in Forensic Genetic and in Cytogenetic from the University of Rome, 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. Edward Ratovitski obtained his Ph.D. Degree in Molecular Biology and Cancer Biology in 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 in 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.

Prof. Ondrej Slaby is a Professor of Medical Biochemistry at the the 1st Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. He works as Research Group Leader (Molecular Oncology) at the Department of Molecular Medicine, Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic) and as a Scientific Secretary at the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute in Brno. Prof. Slaby has published extensively in the field of non-coding RNAs and solid cancer with special focus on their translational potential in diagnostics and as the therapeutic targets.

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.

Momiao Xiong, graduated from the Department of Statistics, University of Georgia in 1993. He 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 in the 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 from the Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan. He serves as a 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 and Editorial Board member for some of the 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 in Taiwan.

Dr. Zhongming Zhao is 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 has published more than 260 papers in these areas.

Barcelos, Gustavo Rafael Mazzaron is currently an Assistant Professor of Genetics at the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil. He received a PhD in Toxicology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil/ Medical University of Vienna, Austria. His work focuses on the integration of omics and cytogenetic tools for evaluation of the impact of inorganic (toxic metals) and organic (emerging contaminants) compounds on DNA stability of humans exposed to these toxicants, which comprise the assessment of DNA damage by the use of micronucleus (MN) and comet (SCGE) assays as well the use of qPCR approaches (genotyping, gene expression and epigenetics (DNA methylation and miRNAs)) for evaluation of gene-toxicant interactions and their implications on human health.

Aurora Díaz graduated in Biochemistry with a Distinction with Honors in 1999. She obtained the European Ph.D. in Genetic Breeding and Engineering at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). She completed a postdoctoral stay at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (Cambridge, UK) working on genetics and molecular biology in cereals. Currently, she holds tenure as Agricultural Researcher in the Horticulture Department at Agrifood Research and Technology Centre of Aragon (CITA) and AgriFood Institute of Aragon (IA2), Spain. She is currently leading two projects aimed at the biofortification of lettuce as a way of improving its nutritional value, using analytical, genetic, genomic, and biotechnological tools. She has participated in more than 20 research projects, produced 46 publications, 28 contributions to congresses, and 5 to scientific workshops.

Dr Jagajjit Sahu is currently working as a Domain Expert in Manav - Human Atlas Initiative at National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, India. His primary area of expertise is Bioinformatics, especially in the field of genomics and data science. His research interests focus around the improvement and development of genomics approaches. He obtained his Ph.D. from Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics, Assam University, India and post-doctoral research experiences from University of Aberdeen, Banaras Hindu University, and Assam Agricultural University. Dr Sahu has a background in Mathematics, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. Having more than 9 years of experience, he has been able to publish 27 research articles and a few book chapters. He has presented his research at several international conferences and been acted as a resource person in many workshops.

Professor Harikesh Bahadur Singh has served as Professor & Head of the Department of Mycology and Plant Pathology at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University. His major research focus is on bioinnoculats, biological control of plant pathogens and nano-biotechnology. Professor Singh has received several prestigious national awards and honours for his scientific contributions in the field of organic farming and translational agriculture, notable being CSIR Technology Prize for Biological Sciences by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, M.S. Swaminathan award by Society for Plant Research, Vigyan Bharti Award, Prof. V.P. Bhide Memorial Award, Society for Plant Research, and many more. He has been able to add more than 300 publications and 20 U.S. patents to his credit which have been successfully transferred for commercialization.

Dr. Anukool Vaishnav is a Principal Investigator in SERB-National Postdoctoral Fellowship (NPDF) at Department of Mycology and Plant Pathology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He obtained his master degree in Biotechnology from University of Rajasthan and Ph.D. in Science (Agri. Microbiology) from Mody University of Science & Technology. He also qualified CSIR- NET (Life science) and ICAR- NET (Agriculture Biotechnology). He has 7 years of research experience in plant-microbe interaction field. His research is mainly focuses on microbial mediated plant protection against biotic and abiotic stress, characterization of signaling molecules and secondary metabolites (soluble and VOCs) in plant holobionts. As an active researcher, he has published more than 30 research and review articles along with several book chapters for reputed journals and edited books. He has filed 9 Indian patents in association with his research group. He has received several awards including best poster award and Young Scientist Award from reputed societies.

Cheng Yang obtained his PhD in 2013 from Fudan University, where he studied the kidney transplantation. During the PhD studying, he visited Prof. Michael Nicholson's lab in Leicester University in UK. After graduation, he focuses on the role of immune system in acute and chronic renal injury, as well as new prevention and treatment strategies. He published more than 40 peer- reviewed papers with over 490 times citations. Cheng Yang received seven awards from American Society of Transplantation and The Transplantation Society from 2012-2018. He is working in Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University.