Professor Xiaosong Gu is the director of China National Ministry of Education and Jiangsu Key Lab of Neuroregeneration and is a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has led an active research team to make outstanding innovative achievements in the fields of tissue engineering and nerve regeneration. In brief, (1) tissue engineered nerve and nerve regeneration; (2) translation of tissue engineered nerve grafts to the clinic; (3) the regulatory roles and mechanisms of non-coding RNAs in peripheral nerve regeneration. Pro. Gu has published more than 100 academic articles in SCI-indexed journals, which includes Nature Communication, Brain, Progress in Neurobiology, Biomaterials, NAR and so on. And he also holds a number of Chinese and international invention patents.

Dr. Graça Almeida-Porada, is a Professor of Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Dr. Almeida-Porada holds a M.D., and Ph.D. in Pathology from ICBAS, University of Porto, and trained in Hematology/Transfusion Medicine at Centro Hospitalar do Porto. Her research focuses on the development of cellular and gene delivery platforms to treat genetic and immune-mediated diseases. She is particularly interested in improving the outcome of stem cell and gene therapy in fetal and neonatal patients with genetic diseases, and developing immunomodulatory therapies for patients with immune-mediated disorders. She is the Co-founder of the International Fetal Transplantation and Immunology Society. Dr. Almeida-Porada holds several patents and has authored more than 200 scientific works including papers, abstracts, and book chapters.

A/Professor Pritinder Kaur obtained a doctorate in Cell Biology from University of Manchester, UK. Currently Dr Kaur is an Associate Professor and Lab Head at the Curtin University/Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Perth, Australia. Previous appointments include Staff Scientist, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA; Florey Fellow/Senior Research Officer (Hanson Centre for Cancer Research, Adelaide); and Group Leader/NHMRC Senior Research Fellow (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne). Dr Kaur’s lab uses human skin as a model for tissue renewal, wound healing and carcinogenesis and has over75 publications. A/Prof Kaur is Associate Editor, Australia for Current Stem Cell Research and Therapy.

Dr. Oh is director for Center for Next Generation for Stem Cell Based Cell Therapeutics, nominated by Korean FDA and director for Catholic High Performance Cell Therapy Center, in Catholic University of Korea, College of Medicine, Seoul. He served as President of Korean Society of Stem Cell Research (KSSCR) and currently serving as CEO in the board meeting of KSSCR. He also serves as advisory member for Presidential Committee for National Bioethics, Korea. He graduated Catholic Medical School, Seoul, Korea, earned Ph.D in Temple University, USA, worked as National Research Fellow for Canadian Society for Cancer Research. His main focus of research is the regulation of hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stromal cells in the light of tissue regeneration. He also serves as an International Committee Member for International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).

Hossein Baharvand is a distinguished Professor and Director of Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology. He has focused his research interests on improving the translational research and regenerative medicine mainly through the understanding of Stem Cells and Developmental Biology and Biologically inspired Engineering. He is the editor of four international books. He has published 265 international peer-reviewed papers, as well as seven chapters in international books. As of Sep 2016, Google Scholar reports over 5600 citations and h-index 40 to his work. He has received 29 international and national awards including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-Equatorial Guinea international prize (2014) for research in life sciences aimed at improving the quality of human life with his stem cell research and its numerous applications in regenerative medicine.

Dr. Karen Ballen is the Cancer Center Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA and the Section Chief for Hematology, Stem Cell Transplant, and Hematologic Malignancy at the University of Virginia Health System. She was graduated from Harvard College and Dartmouth Medical School. Her career has been devoted to the care of patients with leukemia and patients needing stem cell transplantation. Her clinical research expertise is in umbilical cord blood transplantation and outcome results. She has published over 150 papers on this topic. She is the Chairman of the Cord Blood Advisory Committee of the National Marrow Donor Program, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. She is Associate Editor of the journal Bone Marrow Transplantation and Lead Editor for Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

Dr. Banna, MD since 1998 and Oncologist since 2002, is currently working in Catania, Italy, as Clinical Lead of a Division of Medical Oncology and take a particular clinical and research interest in thoracic and genitourinary cancers, anticancer oral therapy, gynecological hereditary tumors and cancer stem cell. He promoted local multidisciplinary clinical activities and research in these fields. He contributed to the publication of several papers in scientific journal, as well as presentations at and organization of local and national conference. He spent observerships at the Lung Cancer Unit of the Guy’s Hospital and at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Suparno Chakrabarti is the Program Director for Blood and Marrow Transplantation at Dharamshila Hospital and Research Centre, New Delhi, India. He initiated the first Haploidentical BMT program in India and along with Dr Sarita Jaiswal has developed this as a sustained alternate donor program with over 50 Haploidentical transplants in the past 4 years. They have explored modifications of PTCY based protocols with PBSC graft to improve the outcome of Haploidentical transplantation in Refractory leukemia, Aplastic Anemia and Hemoglobinopathies.Dr Chakrabarti trained in Internal Medicine at PGIMER,Chandigarh in India. Subsequently, he spent 12 years in the UK, initially as a research fellow and subsequently as a consultant. During this period, he played a substantial role in developing Campath-1H based T cell depletion and reduced intensity conditioning. The bulk of his research also focussed on post-transplant virus infections. He has over 80 publications to his credit.

Kun-Che Chang was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He received his B.S. in Life Science from National Dong Hwa University (Taiwan) in 2006 and his M.S. in Biotechnology from National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan) in 2008. After worked at National Taiwan University for 1 year, he transited to University of Minnesota, Dept. of Pharmacology as a research assistant from 2010 to 2011. He joined the Toxicology PhD program at University of Colorado and worked at Dr. J. Mark Petrash’s lab for his doctoral training at Dept. of Ophthalmology. He obtained his PhD degree focusing on prevention of ocular inflammation in 2015.

Prof. Massimo Conese received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Pathology from the University of Naples, Italy. During the Ph.D., he spent one year and a half at the Institute of Microbiology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Currently, Prof. Conese is Associate Professor in Pathology at the University of Foggia, Italy. Previously, he was Research Assistant at the Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy and Group Leader of the Institute for Experimental Treatment of Cystic Fibrosis, H. S. Raffaele, Milan, Italy. He has published more than 100 scientific publications and is co-authors in 10 chapter books.

Professor Marc H. Dahlke is a lecturer for experimental surgery at Regensburg University, Germany. He is also an attending surgeon at Regensburg University Medical Center. Dr Dahlke has received his MD degree from Hannover Medical School in 2002 and his PhD degree from the same institution in 2004 after graduating from the MD/PhD program for molecular medicine. He has received specialty training in surgery as a fellow at the University of Sydney (Australia) and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, USA.

Dr. Datta is as Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Kent State University. He obtained his doctorate (Ph.D.) in Chemistry from University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Post-doctoral experience from Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Datta works on tumor suppressor protein, p67 and has published more than 50 research articles. Dr. Datta teaches two semester Biochemistry courses for senior undergraduate and graduate students.

Medical Doctor, Neurologist and Paediatrician title obtained in University of São Paulo, Brazil; Specialisation in biology, pathology and neuromuscular development, Université Paris VII and Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital, France, PhD (1988 to 1990); Master of Science (MsC) in Neurology, USP (1994) and second PhD in Bioprocess and biotechnology in Health Science, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil (2006). From 2001 to 2008, head of the Experimental Preclinical Laboratory Research on stem cell therapy and translation at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná. Since 2006, head of the “Cell Therapy and Biotechnology in Regenerative Medicine” Research Group, particularly in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Pelé Pequeno Príncipe Institute, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. Researcher from Bench-to-bedside. Professor of Pequeno Príncipe College, Supervisor of Bachelor, Master and Doctoral Theses. Editor and patent’s author.

Jerome Guicheux, PhD-D.Sc., INSERM research director/professor JG is the co-director of the INSERM lab U791 (Nantes, France). JG is the elected president of the French Society for mineralized tissue biology and the national coordinator of the french osteoarthritis network. He is author or coauthor of 140 international publications (h-index 42), 8 patents and 71 invited lectures. His research activities focus on the development, pathophysiology and regenerative medicine of the skeleton with particular attention to stem cells and biomaterials for the repair of cartilage and intervertebral disc.

Dr. Harris is a graduate of Wake Forest University where he obtained BS in Biology, Mathematics and Psychology. He earned his Doctorate in Microbiology and Immunology in 1982. In 1989 Dr. Harris joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in the Department of Immunology. Dr. Harris established the first cord blood bank in 1992. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the University of Arizona Biorepository, as well as Director of Quality at the GMP Laboratory. His research interests include stem cells and regenerative medicine.

Dr. Jinesh completed his PhD in Biotechnology at Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Trivandrum, India, with deep interests in studying cancer cell biology. He had undergone post-doctoral trainings at Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel and at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA where he discovered blebbishield emergency program which helps the cancer stem cells to undergo cellular transformation after commitment of apoptosis to evade genomic instability and immune phagocytosis checkpoints and to exhibit enhanced glycolysis, tumorigenesis and metastasis. Dr. Jinesh has multiple first authored cell biology publications and has deep interests in drug discovery, cancer stem cell biology, genomics, and immunology. He is currently a research scientist at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, Tampa, FL, USA.

Dr. Zaal Kokaia obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in neuroscience from the University of Lund, Sweden. Dr. Kokaia also holds PhD in neurophysiology from I. Beritashvili Institute of Physiology, Tbilisi, Georgia. Currently Dr. Kokaia is the Professor of Experimental Medial Research at Lund University, Sweden. He is also Director of Lund Stem Cell Center and heads Laboratory of Stem Cells and Restorative Neurology. He coordinates Strategic Research Area in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine (StemTherapy) at Lund University supported by Swedish Government. His research interests are generation and characterization of neural stem cell lines from different sources and through reprogramming and development of stem cell-based treatments for stroke.

Dr. Li obtained his PhD at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, postdoctoral at Whitehead Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He is Principal Investigator at CHOC Children’s Hospital/University of California-Irvine School of Medicine and adjunct professor of California State University Fullerton and Sun Yat-sen University. He has 148+ publications including the peer-reviewed articles and 25 U.S.-issued patents, as remarked in Nature, Science, Cell, Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology, with citations of 7,000+. He serves on editorial board of American Journal of Pathology (2008-) and as member of ACTS, ISSCR, SfN, ASCB, ASN, ASIP.

Dr. Modo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh in 2011, he was a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, where he also obtained his PhD in neuroscience. His main interest lies in repairing the stroke-damaged brain, foremost by employing neural stem cells, but also more recently using biomaterials. To visualize the repair process, Dr Modo employs non-invasive imaging, such as magnetic resonance imaging. In 2013, Dr Modo received the Bernard Sanberg Memorial Award for Brain Repair by the American Society for Neural Transplantation and Repair.

Dr. Takehiko Mori is an Associate Professor of Division of Hematology at Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan.

Dr. Mori graduated from Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan, in 1993. He completed a Postgraduate course of Internal Medicine (Hematology) at Keio University School of Medicine in 1997. Prior to his current roles, he was an Assistant Professor of Division of Hematology at Keio University School of Medicine.

Dr Mori’s specialties are hematological disorders and malignancies, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, opportunistic infection and hospital infection control.

Dr. Morshead obtained her doctorate in Neurobiology from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. She is a tenured Professor and Chair of the Division of Anatomy, Department of Surgery, at the University of Toronto. Her lab takes an interdisciplinary approach to develop novel therapeutics for neural regeneration that are informed by studies of the fundamental biology of neural stem cells.

Dr. Muench received his doctorate (Ph.D.) in Cell Biology & Genetics from the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He also obtained a B.S. degree in Genetics from the University of California at Davis and an A.S. degree in Physical Sciences from the College of Marin. Currently, Dr. Muench is a Senior Scientist at Blood Systems Research Institute in San Francisco and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Muench has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, review articles and book chapters.

DS Nascimento got her PhD in Zoology by the University of Aberdeen, UK, in 2008. In the same year she became a PostDoc fellow at INEB, where she is an Assistant Investigator from 2015. She has accumulated extensive expertise in the study of the heart in physiological and pathological conditions. Development of efficient therapies to treat heart failure is her long-term goal. She has been appointed member staff of the Bioimaging Centre for Biomaterials and Regenerative Therapies of INEB and she is an Invited Assistant Professor at Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar (ICBAS) of the University of Porto.

Danièle Noël is currently research director in the Inserm Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Biotherapies in Montpellier. She received her Ph.D. in Health Biology from the Bordeaux University in 1992. She did a post-doc in the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Montpellier in the field of recombinant retrovirology and gene therapy (1992-1999). She then moved to the Inserm u475 in Montpellier to work in cell therapy and obtained a permanent position in 2007. She became professor in 2011. Her main interests are mesenchymal stem cells and their applications in the treatment of osteo-articular diseases.

Professor Helen C. O’Neill is currently Director of the Clem Jones Research Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Bond University on the Gold Coast in Australia, where she holds a Chair in Immunology and Stem Cell Biology. Previously Professor O’Neill was Head of the Stem Cell and Immunology Laboratory at the Australian National University where she held an academic position for over 30 years. Early in her career she was twice a Visiting Fellow in the Weissman Laboratory at Stanford University. The overall theme of her work is the development of strategies for stem cell-based immunotherapy and regenerative medicine.

Professor, Rei Ogawa has the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees. He is currently a faculty member at the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo. He is a fellow of American College of Surgeons. He is now directing the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan. He is also directing Mechanobiology and Mechanotherapy Laboratory at his medical school. He joined the Tissue Engineering and Wound Healing Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, where he worked between 2007 and 2009 as a Research Fellow. He has focused his recent studies on the mechanobiology and its application to tissue engineering, wound healing and anti-aging medicine.

Dr. Pelacho is Researcher at the Center for Applied Medicine Research (CIMA) and Assistant Professor at the University of Navarra (Spain). She has more than 10 years of experience in research and development of novel therapies aimed to treat cardiovascular diseases. Previously, Dr. Pelacho performed a post-doctoral stay at the University of Minnesota (Stem Cell Institute), developing studies focussed in the application of stem cell therapy for the treatment of myocardial infarction. During her career at the University of Navarra, she obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. Dr. Pelacho has authored more than 40 manuscripts and has obtained several national and international grants as principal investigator.

Dr. Marco Tatullo is the Scientific Director of “Tecnologica Research Institute”. Dr. Marco Tatullo is Medicine Doctor (MD) and Doctor in Dental Sciences (DDS) , PhD in “Medical Biochemistry, Medical Biology and Physics” . International collaborator of “Institut de Biologie Paris-Seine” (IBPS) France. Visiting Professor at the University “City Unity College” of Athens and at the “Bithai dental and medical college” in Pakistan. Author of over 70 publications in international journals. Editor in Chief of the book “Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Innovative Biomaterials in Dentistry" published with Springer-Nature. Committee Member for BIODEVICES international conference and past-Chair in T.E.R.M.I.S. symposium.

Dr Xian is a Research Professor and NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at University of South Australia. He has more than 25 years of experience in research on tissue growth and repair, growth plate biology and bone growth, bone repair and regeneration, cancer chemotherapy-induced bone defects, and osteoporosis. Dr Xian obtained his PhD in 1993 from Murdoch University; and his earlier research positions include those at Child Health Research Institute, University of Adelaide, Flinders University, and Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Dr Xian has over 140 peer-reviewed publications.

Chunhui Xu, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Xu has extensive research experience on stem cells and cardiogenesis. Her research is focusing on cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), which hold promise for cardiac cell therapy, disease modeling, drug discovery, and the study of developmental biology. Her group has made significant contribution to the field of pluripotent stem cells. Several of their publications have been identified as a hot paper or among the most highly cited publications in the field of hPSCs. She is an inventor or co-inventor of 16 issued US patents, and her work has been cited more than 7,000 times according to Google Scholar.

John S. Yu is the Medical Director of the Brain Tumor Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He is Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Neurosurgery. He is conducting research in immune and stem cell therapy for brain tumors. He is the founder and director of Immunocellular Therapeutics, a clinical stage public biotech company located in Calabasas, California. He earned his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris studying French literature. He completed his fellowship in immunology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and master's degree from the Harvard University Department of Genetics.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based in Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501(c)(3) biomedical research charity that performs and funds laboratory research dedicated to combating the aging process. He received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Cambridge. His research interests encompass the characterisation of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism (“damage”) that constitute mammalian aging and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage.

Isotta Chimenti is Researcher/Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, and Junior Fellow of the Superior School for Advanced Studies at “La Sapienza” University of Rome. She is MS in Medical Biotechnology and PhD in Experimental Medicine. She has been a postdoc fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Cedars Sinai Heart Institute, and at Pasteur Institute – Italy. Her research activity is focused on cardiac cell therapy and cardiac tissue engineering, adult stem cells, mechano-sensing, and oxidative stress in the cardiovascular system. She is funded as PI by several Italian National grants, and participant in a European Horizon 2020 project. She co-authored 50 Scopus indexed publications.

Dr. Neelesh Sharma graduated in Veterinary Science and post-graduated in Veterinary Medicine during the period of 2001 to 2003. Dr. Sharma focused on Stem cell based research in livestock during his Ph.D. from Jeju National University, South Korea; and is currently working as a Senior Assistant Professor in the Division of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Science & Animal Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Jammu, India. He has more than 13 years of experience in teaching, research and extension. He has been working on mastitis in dairy animals and authored a book on “Bovine Mastitis”. He has successfully isolated, characterized and established Korean Holstein cow mammary epithelial/stem cell lines.