Current Signal Transduction Therapy

Dr. Min Li is Professor of Medicine, Surgery, and Cell Biology, and holds the Virginia Kerley Cade Endowed Chair in Cancer Treatment. He is the Director of GI Cancer Research, Department of Medicine, and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Surgery, at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He is a leading expert on pancreatic cancer. His research mainly focuses on studying pancreatic cancer (PC) pathogenesis and developing new therapies. Dr. Li’s group has published more than 140 papers, and obtained both federal (3 active NIH R01 grants) and private foundation grants to support his research. He is also a member of many NIH study sections.

Dr. Jiang is the Vice Director of Beijing Neurosurgical Institute and Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, which is one of the world’s largest neurosurgical centers. Dr. Jiang has more than 20 years’ working experience on both clinical practice and scientific research of neurosurgery, and performs more than 500 cases of neurosurgical operations per year. Dr. Jiang has published more than 100 manuscripts and won more than ten national and provincial awards. Dr. Jiang also serves as Chairman of GBM AGILE Executive Committee China Liaison; Chairman of Society for Neuro-oncology of China, Chinese Medical Doctor Association; Vice Dean of Department of Clinical Oncology, Capital Medical University.

Dr. Mayra Paolillo is an assistant professor at the Department of Drug Sciences, University of Pavia, Italy (where she coordinates a research group and teaches Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology). She graduated in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 1990. During her Ph.D. she acquired skills in primary cultures of rat neurons, cell biology and molecular biology techniques. Her research fields deal with cancer infiltration mechanisms, integrins, cancer stem cells and metastasis. Dr. Paolillo has also acquired experience in dynamic, 3D cell culture systems to mimic metabolic pathways and other complex cellular processes.

Dr. Almasan is a Professor of Molecular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and co-leader of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. For over 20 years, his lab has had a long-standing interest in cell death and proliferation mechanisms. The focus of his research has been on the molecular basis of the DNA damage signals incurred by mammalian cells following ionizing radiation (as a prototypical DNA-damaging agent) and more recently fludarabine (in clinical use for CLL) and cell death ligands (Apo2L/TRAIL) leading to cell death and proliferation control checkpoints, autophagy, and DNA repair. Notably, Dr. Almasan has authored more than 90 pubmed-indexed manuscripts.

Ahmad Awada is head of Medical Oncology Clinic at Jules Bordet Cancer Institute Brussels, Belgium Since 2005, he is Head of the Medical Oncology Clinic. From 2011, Dr Awada was held Associate Head of Medicine Department. He has an important clinical activity in the treatment of solid tumors and particularly breast cancer. Dr. Awada took an active part in the development of new drugs (cytotoxics, molecular-targeted therapies, immunotherapy). He is membership of several international scientific societies (ASCO, EORTC, ESMO) and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He published 26 book chapters and 236 articles in international publications.

I have been involved with training individuals both in the lab as well through two Masters Programs that I direct in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. I also teach in the Ph.D and Masters courses in the GSBS. Research interests include understanding the role of carcinoma associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in tumor growth and metastasis. I also serve on the editorial board of several journals and regularly review papers for many journals.

Jeffrey Bernard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University, Stanislaus. In 2011 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin where he focused on the actions of amino acids on glucose metabolism. His current research interests include the cellular interactions between diet, exercise, and chronic diseases.

Dr. Sung-Gook Cho research objective is to understand the cancer disease. He has experienced working in the areas of (a) molecular and cell biology (b) genetics and cancer biology. During BS and MS courses at the Department of Biology, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea, his research focused on mitotic checkpoint mechanism in cell cycle event. During his PhD training at Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, he studied roles of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in cancer development and metastasis in terms of biochemistry, cell biology and mouse genetics. Currently, he works in the Department of biotechnology, Korea National University of Transportation as an Assistant Professor.

Jolanta Dorszewska, Prof. - a head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology, Department of Neurology, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland. Lecturer in National High Medical School in Pila, Polandfrom 2012. She graduated in 1987 from the Poznan University of Medical Sciences; received Ph.D. in neurochemistry (1996) at the Poznan University of Medical Sciences, has got postdoctoral lecturing qualification, Associate Professor at Poznan University of Medical Sciences in 2004 and full Professor in 2016. She has published about 100 publications in journals and books, H-index = 11.

Roberta Ettariis Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Messina, working in the field of protease inhibitors. In 2007 received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Messina. She did various experiences as postdoctoral researcher:Galway University (2008), Messina University, Milan University. In 2011, she received the “Farmindustria Award for the Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry Research. She spent also some research periods as guest scientist at Merck Research Laboratories (Pomezia), InstitutoGrifols (Barcelona), Würzburg and Mainz Universities (Germany). From 2014 to 2017 she was an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Messina.

Dr. Zhaohui Gong has completed his Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China in 2006. He received many awards/honors and published more than 50 academic papers in peer-reviewed journals. Currently he is working as a Professor of Molecular Oncology and a Head of Basic Medical Sciences at Medical School of Ningbo University.

Doctor Germano Guerra was born in Naples (NA) il 28/10/1969. He gained M.D. Degree in 1997; Residency in Sport in 2002; PhD Program in Clinical and Pathological Morphology in 2005. He was Visiting Clinical Research Fellow at Molecular and Population Genetics Department of Cancer Research UK from 2003 to 2005. He was Assistant Professor of Human Anatomy from 2007 to 2016 and from 2017 to date Associate Professor of Human Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Molise. Prof. Guerra is Member of Italian Society of Anatomy and Histology, Histochemistry and Sport Medicine.

Tao Huang is an Associate Professor and Director of Bioinformatics Core Facility at Institute of Health Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2014. From 2012 to 2014, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow 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 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals. His works have been cited for over 3600 times with an h-index of 28 and an i10-index of 70.

Tony Hunter is the Renato Dulbecco Chair in Cancer Research and an American Cancer Society Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. In 1979, through his work on tumor viruses, he discovered a new class of protein kinase that phosphorylates tyrosine. He has spent most of the last 35 years studying protein kinases and phosphatases, and the role of protein phosphorylation in cell proliferation and the cell cycle, and how aberrant protein phosphorylation can cause cancer. His group also works on other types of posttranslational modifications (PTMs), including ubiquitylation and sumoylation, and crosstalk between PTMs. He has received many awards for his work on tyrosine phosphorylation, and is a member of several academic societies including the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London.

Prof Ishikawa has received his MD and PhD in Yokohama City University. Currently he is working as Chair of the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Yokohama City University School of Medicine. He successfully completed his Administrative responsibilities as Dean at Yokohama. He also served as Professor of Cell Biology & Molecular Medicine and Medicine (Cardiology) as well as attending physician in cardiology at Rutgers University. He is serving as an editorial member of several reputed journals. He has authored more than 200 research articles/books. He is a member of numerous international societies such as American Heart Association, American College of Physicians, American college of Cardiology, American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, or Japanese Society of Physiology. He has been honored as Established Investigator of American Heart Association, Fellow of American College of Physician, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association or European Society of Cardiology.

Dr. Jones is a medical oncologist specialising in the treatment of bone and soft tissue sarcomas and Head of the Sarcoma Unit at The Royal Marsden. He has experience in conducting Phase I, II and III trials, as well translational studies in sarcoma. Dr Jones trained in medical oncology at The Royal Marsden and between 2010 and 2014 he was Head of the Sarcoma Program at the University of Washington / Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. His main research interest focuses on clinical trials of novel agents and immunotherapy in sarcoma.

Dr. Kiani is a professor in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Bioengineering and Department of Radiation Oncology, at Temple University. He served as the chair of Department of Mechanical Engineering at Temple University (2004-2014) and Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (2003-2004). His expertise include microfluidics, targeted drug delivery and radiation biology. He has published more than 75 peer reviewed scientific articles and has made more than 200 presentations at scientific meetings. Dr. Kiani is a fellow of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Sunil Kumar received his Master degree in Biotechnology from the Devi Ahilya University, Indore, (India) in 2006 and his PhD in Biotechnology from Department of Gastroenterology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India in 2011. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Shri Ramswaroop Memorial University, Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, India. His research interests include genetic engineering, molecular biology, medical microbiology particularly focused on molecular characterization of bacterial biofilm and drug development and inflammatory bowel diseases. Dr. Kumar has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles, eight book chapters and edited one book for springer. Dr. Kumar serves as an editorial board member and reviewer of more than 6 international journals.

Matthias Ocker studied medicine at the University of Erlangen, Germany, where he obtained his medical doctorate degree in 2000. He got his academic training at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology and the Department of Gastroenterology of the University Hospital Erlangen. He became Assistant Professor for Experimental Medicine and head of research at the Department of Gastroenterology in Erlangen and was appointed full professor of Medicine and Director of the Institute for Surgical Research at the University of Marburg in 2009. He joined Bayer as Director of Experimental Medicine Oncology in Berlin in 2012 and was appointed as VP and Head of Oncology Biomarker Strategists in 2016. He is adjunct professor of Experimental Medicine at the Charité University Hospital Berlin and has authored more than 100 scientific publications.

Dr. Orlikowsky obtained a doctorate (M.D.) in Medicine from the University of Tuebingen, Germany. Professor Thorsten Orlikowsky was appointed Head of the Dept. of Neonatology at the University Childrens’ Hospital in Aachen in 2008. He spent two years of his expert training in New York with Professor Michael Hoffmann within a fellowship of the German Cancer Aid. From this work developed his new research areas “Infection Immunology” and “Neonatal Immunology”. He deals with the question of how the immunological system develops, why premature babies easily contract infections and which consequence infections have on the immune system.

Dr. Carolina Panis, MD, PhD (in biochemistry), post-graduated in Pathology from the Londrina State University (UEL), Brazil, and Instituto Nacional do Câncer (INCA), Brazil. Dr. Panis currently works as a professor and researcher at the State University of West Paraná (UNIOESTE), Brazil, in projects related to genomics, proteomics and inflammatory aspects of human breast cancer and chronic diseases. Dr. Panis, as an author/co-author, has published more than 70 articles in various journals, having over 935 total citations.

Dr. Rituraj Purohit is a Senior Scientist at CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, India. He has nearly 11 years of experience in the academic and research in area of computational structural and in-silico cancer biology. Previously, Dr. Purohit served as a Associate Professor at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), University and post-doctoral researcher at Human Genetics Foundation-Torino, Italy. During his career Dr. Purohit holds a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from VIT University and a Master of Technology from the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad. Notably, Dr. Purohit has authored more than 50 manuscripts.

Tadeusz Robak, MD, PhD, is Professor of Hematology at the Medical University of Lodz, and Head of the Department of Hematology at Copernicus Memorial Hospital in Lodz, Poland. He is Chair of the chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) subgroup of the Polish Adult Leukemia Study Group and President of the Polish Society of Hematology. His special interests are in CLL and lymphoma, with particular emphasis on the use of purine analogues and targeted drugs. Professor Robak has been selected by the World Scientists Forum of the International Research Promotion Council for the “Eminent Scientist of the Year 2010” award in haematology-oncology.

Dr. Pradeep Kumar Sharma is a Scientist at Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research. He obtained his PhD Degree in Biotechnology from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, India. His research interests focus on the environmental carcinogenesis and cancer therapeutics. Dr. Sharma has served and still serving as a reviewer for various journal of national and international repute in the field of cancer, oxidative stress and toxicology. Dr. Sharma has published several papers in cancer biology and toxicology in various international journals of high impact.

Dr. Yusuf Tutar is the Head of Biochemistry Division and the Head of Basic Sciences Department at Faculty of Pharmacy, Cumhuriyet University, Sivas Turkey. Dr. Tutar is also the Head of Biomedical Engineering Program at the same university. He obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. at Oregon State University and Texas Tech University respectively. He pursued his postdoctoral study at National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIDDK), USA. His research focuses on Biochemistry, Biophysics, Genetics, and Molecular Biology with specialization in the fields of protein structure-function, protein folding, prion, microrna, pseudogenes, molecular cancer, proteomics, genomics, protein expression and characterization by spectroscopic and calorimetric methods.

Prof. Paul xis CEO and President of The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London. From 1997 - 2016 he was Director of the CRUK Cancer Therapeutics Unit at ICR – the world’s largest non-profit cancer drug discovery group. Paul has been responsible for more than 20 molecularly targeted cancer drugs entering clinical trial, including protein kinase, PI3 kinase and HSP90 inhibitors. He founded Chroma Therapeutics and Piramed Pharma and has won numerous awards, including being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016.

Prof. Yosef Yarden currently serves as Head of the Department of Biological Regulation of the Weizmann Institute (Rehovot, Israel) and Director of the Dwek Institute for Cancer Therapy Research. He received a PhD in molecular biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science (1985). His postdoctoral training was undertaken at Genentech, Inc., in San Francisco and at the MIT. Yarden’s research focuses on growth factors and receptor tyrosine kinases, primarily their roles in cancer progression.

Dr. Jinwei Zhang is a Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences in the University of Exeter Medical School. His laboratory studies signalling pathways that associated with human diseases, for examples, neuropsychiatric disorders (WNK-SPAK-KCC2) and hypertension (CUL3/KLHL3-WNK-SPAK-NCC) and concern with elucidating and targeting ion transporters, kinases, protein-protein interactions using genetic mouse models, small molecules and CRISPR/Cas9 knock-in and knock-out technologies to aid discovery and validation of new potential drug targets. He has published more than 40 articles in journals including Nature Medicine, Nature Communications and Cell Metabolism etc.

Dr. Zhang is Assistant President & Chief Physician & Associate Professor & the Director of the Third Department of Reproductive Endocrinology of Women's Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University. She also serves as the Assistant Director of Key Laboratory of Reproductive Genetics (Ministry of Education), Zhejiang University. Dr. Zhang has 15 years of experience in reproductive clinical work and research. She has authored more than 30 manuscripts, 2 patents, and has co-edited 3 books including “Gamete and Embryo-Fetal Origins of Adult Diseases” published by Springer.

Dr. Hongtao Zhang is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 1999 with a Ph.D. degree in Pharmacology. Currently his research focus is receptor- targeted therapies using antibodies, antibody-like proteins, and small molecules. He is also devoted to the identification of serum biomarkers that can help the diagnosis and provide therapeutic guidance for breast cancer and melanoma. He has published more than 70 articles in journals including Nature Medicine and Nature Biotechnology. Dr. Zhang is listed as inventors in 12 approved patents and some other pending patents. He serves as an editorial board member for several journals.

Roberta d’Emmanuele di Villa Bianca is Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Naples Federico II since 2016. In 1996 Degree in Pharmaceutical and Technological Chemistry, in 2002 the Specialization in Pharmacology and the PhD in Pharmacology. she worked at the William Harvey Research Institute (London), headed by Prof. Sir John Vane (Nobel in Medicine). 2006-2016 she has been Researcher at the University of Naples “Federico II”. From 2006 she is Member of the “Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca Preclinica e Clinica di Medicina Sessuale”. From participated at the European group "Management Committee in European Cooperation in Science and Technology.

Asim Bikas Das, Ph.D., currently working as Assistant Professor at Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology Warangal, India. Dr. Das has received his Master of Engineering and Ph.D. from BITS-Pilani and IIT Guwahati, India respectively. After his Ph.D. he moved to USA for postdoctoral research at Department of Neuroscience & Regenerative Medicine, Medical College of Georgia. His research focused on wants to understand mechanism of progression of cancer by applying principle of network theory in cell signaling. He is majorly involved in analysis and building of large scale quantitative network in cancer

Dr. Shruti Jain received her PhD degree from Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan. She has an overall teaching experience of around 14 years. Prior to joining JUIT, she worked as Assistant Professor in Haryana Engineering College, Jagadhari, Ambala College of Engineering, Ambala. Dr. Jain has specialization in Biomedical Signal Processing, Computer- Aided design of FPGA and VLSI circuits, and combinatorial optimization. She has published more than 60 papers in reputed journals and 30 papers in International conferences. She is currently working as Associate Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, JUIT Waknaghat.

I received my Ph.D from Korea University Medical College in South Korea. During postdoctoral course, I investigated biochemical phenomena related to hepatocellular carcinoma-induced pulmonary metastasis in the department of radiation oncology. As a research professor, I focused on research that signal transduction related to EGFR, FAK, and Src in various solid tumors, including breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and colorectal cancer. Recently, I have been developed anti-cancer drugs with my colleagues while conducting many cancer researches and established Metimedi Pharmaceuticals, and I am conducting various translational researches that can be clinically applied from the study in research center. I published many articles to SCI and SCIE journals through the related researches and contribute to prominent international journal office as an editorial and reviewer board member.

Dr. Manash Kumar Paul, currently working as Project Scientist at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He has contributed significantly in the field of stem cell biology, regenerative medicine and lung cancer. His research focused on various signaling process involved in maintaining stem cell homeostasis during injury and repair. Recently his group published, first in vitro method for the development of lung organoids mimicking lung from iPSCs. Dr. Paul has published in more than 20 peer reviewed international journals and his work has been highly cited. Dr. Paul is recipient of many awards that include prestigious UCLA Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral award and was nominated for Paul Boyer’s award. Dr. Paul is a member of many scientific societies (ISSCR, AHA, ALA) and editorial member of many international journals.

Karan Veer has done his B.Tech and M.Tech in Instrumentation and Control Engineering from Kurukshetra University, Haryana, India in the year of 2005 and 2008 respectively. He received PhD in Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering from Thapar University, Patiala (India) in the year of 2015. Dr. Veer has published around 30 peer reviewed research papers (with SCI Journals) in different international journals of repute with good impact factors and 02 research books on “MG classification / prosthetic devices” also goes to his credit. At present he is working as Assistant Professor in Instrumentation and Control Engineering Department at National Institute of Technology (NIT), Jalandhar, India.