Dr. Banks obtained his MD from the University of Missouri- Columbia and did clinical and research training at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center – New Orleans and Tulane University. He is currently Associate Chief of Staff –Research and Development at the Puget Sound VA and Professor of Medicine at University of Washington School of Medicine. His main interest is in blood-brain barrier function. He has published over 450 non-abstract articles, and over 20,000 citations according to Web of Science with an H-index fo 81.

Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman, Ph.D. in organic chemistry (Cambridge University, 1968), has over 1,055 international publications including 210 books. He won the UNESCO Science Prize (1999) and was elected Fellow of Royal Society (London, 2006). He was conferred honorary doctorate degrees by many universities including Cambridge University and many others. Furthermore, Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman was elected Honorary Life Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University, and the Austrian government honoured him with its high civil award “Grosse Goldene Ehrenzeischen am Bande" (2007). He is the only scientist from the Muslim world to be Foreign Fellow (“Academician”) of Chinese and Korean Academies of Sciences. The University of Technology Mara (UiTM), Malaysia, has established “Atta-ur-Rahman Institute of Natural Product Discovery” in his honour. Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman was the Federal Minister of Science and Technology of Pakistan, and he is Chairman of UN Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation for UNESCAP region covering 62 countries.