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.

Dr. Arulselvan Palanisamy is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Muthayammal Centre for Advanced Research (MCAR), Muthayammal College of Arts and Science, Tamil Nadu, India. He did PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Madras, India in 2009. His research interests are Diabetes and diabetic wound healing, Inflammation and Cancer Biology, Nanomedicine for cancer therapy (Drug delivery system), Natural Products Research for inflammation, diabetes and cancer.

Dr. Banerjee has been involved in training individuals both in the lab as well through two Masters Programs that he directs in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He also teaches the Ph.D and Masters courses in the GSBS. His research interests include understanding the role of carcinoma associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in tumor growth and metastasis. He also serves on the editorial board of several journals and regularly review papers for many journals.

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.

David Della-Morte received his MD degree and his PhD from the University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy. Since 2006, Dr. Della Morte has been working in the Department of Neurology, University of Miami, FL, USA where currently he is Associate Professor. Since 2013, he is also Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy. Dr. Della Morte is involved in both basic and clinical science and has authored more than 150 research articles, 10 book chapters and 1 patent. He received several awards from the AHA, and the NIH.

Prof. Jolanta Dorszewska– is head of the Laboratory of Neurobiology, Department of Neurology, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland. She is a lecturer in the 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) from the Poznan University of Medical Sciences, and got postdoctoral lecturing qualification and became the Associate Professor at Poznan University of Medical Sciences in 2004. She became full Professor in 2016. She has published about 100 publications in journals and books with an H-index = 11.

Leandro Fernández-Pérez obtained his M.D. at Medical Faculty (University of La Laguna, Spain) in 1985 and his Ph.D in Pharmacology in 1989 from the same university. He currently is Professor of Pharmacology in Medicine and a Senior Scientist (Molecular and Translational Pharmacology-BioPharm group) at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine and Health Sciences (IUIBS) University of Las Palmas of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). He is also a reviewer for International Journals with impact factor in the fields of Molecular Pharmacology and Molecular Endocrinology.

Dr. M. S. Attia is the head of the scientific research group of the diagnosis of diseases by nano optical sensors in Ain Shams University. He received the professor position in analytical chemistry in 2017. M. S. Attia has About 85 research publications and 6 books have been published in international journals and conferences in the last ten years.

Doctor Germano Guerra gained M.D. Degree in 1997; Residency in Sport in 2002 and PhD Program in Clinical and Pathological Morphology in 2005. He was a 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 in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Molise. Prof. Guerra is a Member of Italian Society of Anatomy and Histology, Histochemistry and Sport Medicine.

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 has been appointed as 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 under a fellowship program of the German Cancer Aid. From this work he developed his new research areas “Infection Immunology” and “Neonatal Immunology”. He studied on the development of the immunological system of premature babies, their infections and the consequences of those infections on the immune system.

Dr. Ashok Kumar Pandurangan (Associate Professor), works in the school of Life Sciences, B.S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science and Technology, Vandalur, Chennai, India. He completed his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Madras, Chennai, India during 2006-2011. Later, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Centre for Cancer Research, Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (California, USA) in the field of S1PLyase deficiency on colitis associated cancer. Then he worked as postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Universiti of Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia. He also worked as a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has published over forty-five research and review articles in peer reviewed journals and 7 book chapters. He also received several grants in Malaysia and India.

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 area of computational structural and in-silico cancer biology. Previously, Dr. Purohit has served as 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 journals 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.

The objective of Dr. Talib research is to design new combination therapies that work in concert to target different steps in cancer development, since cancer development is a multi-step process including the induction of instability in genes, abnormal gene expression, angiogenesis, metastasis, and immune evasion. Thus, using a single agent to target all of these pathways may fail to provide an efficient treatment for cancer. The objective of my research is. Therefore, due to their low toxicity and multiple mechanisms of action, natural products are promising sources to develop new anticancer combination therapies.

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. 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. 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.

Dr. Mohamad Hafizi Abu Bakar is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Bioprocess Technology Division, School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). He successfully completed his PhD study in Bioprocess Engineering at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in December 2015. His research interests are devoted, but are not limited to, cellular signalling towards elucidation of pathophysiological mechanisms of metabolic diseases and their correlations with inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction in insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. Recently, he has published more than 20 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and 10 papers in various international conferences.

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.

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

Huong Le-Thi-Thu received the PhD degree in pharmaceutical sciences from the Central University of Las Villas, Cuba, in 2012. That same year, she joined School of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU), working as assistant professor at the department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology of Traditional Materials. Her research interest is on the development and application of novel approaches that integrate cheminformatics, computational biology, and bioinformatics methods with medicinal chemistry for improving personalized drug screening and reposition. She has authored more than 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 2 international book chapters, and various proceedings.

Dr. Manash Kumar Paul, is 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 is focused on various signaling processes 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 a 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 he is editorial member of many international journals.

Abeer Rababa’h, an associate professor of pharmacology at Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) department of clinical pharmacy. Dr. Rababa’h joined the faculty as an assistant professor on September 2013. She was appointed as Assistant Dean of Experiential Education in 2017. She received the Association of Arab Universities (AARU- 2017), she also received the Best Researcher Award in the field of Medical Sciences. Her research work focuses on the potential role of oxidative stress in development of cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Rababa’h has been a member of ASPET since 2012. She is a member of the Divisions of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Molecular Pharmacology.

Dr. Durairaj sekar Ph.D earned degrees from Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Madurai Kamaraj University, India and doctorate from University of Camerino, Italy. He worked as a post-doctoral Researcher from International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Cape Town, South Africa since 2011. Currently, he is working as an Associate professor at Research Cell, Saveetha University, Chennai, India.

Dr. Shukla is an Associate Research Scientist of Internal Medicine, Molecular Medicine Section at Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston Salem, USA. He has published more than 21 research articles in reputed peer-reviewed journals. He is involved in an NCI-NIH Clinical trial with the Department of Cancer Biology on “Cetuximab, an EGFR on anti-PD-1 immunotherapy non-responder Head and neck patients” and in a clinical study to determine the role of Redox biomarkers in the Sepsis patient. Dr. Shukla has developed Head and neck cancer patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models, which can be used for chemotherapy drug titration and selection as potential precision medicine with reduced turnaround time. He serves as a reviewer in several scientific journals including Bentham Science- Reviews on Recent Clinical Trials, BDPI- Diagnostics, Cancer etc.

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.

Dr. Cardoso is a Professor of Biochemistry and Immunology of the Medicine Course at Federal University of Fronteira Sul (Brazil). For over 10 years, her research group has a long-standing interest in the mechanisms related to the involvement of purinergic signaling and oxidative injury in various diseases, especially on many types of cancer, sepsis, as well as others non communicable diseases such as hypertension. The focus of her research has been the physiopathology mechanisms and the role of ectonucleotidases and ATP on disease development. Dr. Cardoso has authored more than 30 pubmed-indexed manuscripts.