Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry

Dr. Ballatore is Professor at University of California San Diego (UCSD) Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and a medicinal chemist with experience in drug discovery in both the biotechnology and academic drug discovery settings. Over the past several years the primary focus of Dr. Ballatore’s research has been in the area of Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative tauopathies with specific collaborative programs directed towards the discovery and development of tau aggregation inhibitors, microtubule- stabilizing agents, and multi-targeted inhibitors of eicosanoid biosynthesis. In addition, the Ballatore laboratory is also actively involved in the investigation of basic, fundamental principles in medicinal chemistry, such as in the area of isosteric replacements.

Dr. Adegboyega Oyelere is Associate Professor in chemistry and biochemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. He obtained PhD in Chemistry at Brown University and did his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Professor Scott Strobel at Yale University. He worked for about 4 years in pharmaceutical industry before starting his independent lab. He has over 20 years’ experience in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. Dr. Oyelere’s research focus is on design of targeted epigenetic modifiers and RNA binding molecules as potential drug candidates for treating cancer, bacterial and protozoan infections, and metabolic diseases. He has published 75 manuscripts and book chapters, and a co-inventor on over 100 patents applications 16 of which are issued patents.

Prof. Eduardo Sobarzo-Sánchez is a full professor and researcher at the Instituto de Investigación y Postgrado, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Central de Chile. He was also a professor and researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Spain. He continues as an associate researcher at the Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy (USC), in the field of Natural Products-Medicinal Chemistry and Phytochemistry. His current research focuses on the synthesis of compounds from natural sources or synthetic ways with pharmacological activity (neuro-degenerative dysfunctions and mood disorders as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and depression-anxiety, respectively) and synthesis of supramolecular devices derived from natural/synthetic polymers for the transport and controlled release of drugs.

Dr. Reitz obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. He also holds an Executive Masters in Technology Management from the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton, Penn Engineering). Currently, he is also an Adjunct Professor in the Drexel University College of Medicine. He has published more than 150 scientific publications and is a named inventor of 60 issued U.S patents. He was also the founding Editor (2000) and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of this journal (Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, CTMC), published by Bentham Science Publishers.

Ms. Ambreen Irshad Sheikh obtained her education with 1st class distinctions from the NED University of Engineering and Technology and the Sindh Board of Technical Education, both in Karachi, Pakistan. She has worked in the publishing industry for the past 15 years, and is currently Director (Publications) at Bentham Science Publishers. Due to her extensive experience in scientific publishing, she is currently also an Associate Editor for Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry of Bentham Science Publishers.

Dr. Maria Laura Bolognesi completed MS in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology at the University of Bologna in 1990 before undertaking PhD studies with Prof. Carlo Melchiorre. In 1994, she moved to a post-doctoral position at the University of Minnesota with Prof. Philip Portoghese. In 1998, Maria Laura was appointed as an Assistant Professor in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Bologna. In 2005, she was promoted to Associate Professor. From June to August 2009, she was a visiting professor at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid and “Special Visiting Researcher” of the University of Brasilia for the 2014-2016 period.

Dr. E. Cichero obtained her degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies in 2005 from the University of Genoa and received her Ph.D in 2009. in Pharmaceutical Sciences. From 2014, she was Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Genoa. For more than ten years she has expertise in molecular modeling and computational chemistry strategies applied to medicinal chemistry. Her research topics include the development of compounds targeting GPCRs, such as cannabinoid receptors and trace-amine associated receptors as well as of drug-like molecules for the treatment of cystic fibrosis. She has authored 70 papers and numerous poster communications.

José Marco-Contelles obtained his Ph.D. in 1984 (UCM, Spain). Postdoctoral Fellow: Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (Gif-sur-Yvette; France, 1984-1986); Département de Chimie Organique, University of Geneva, 1986; Department of Organic Chemistry, Duke University, Durham (USA, 1988-1989). Invited Professor: University Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris), University of Picardie-Jules Verne (Amiens, France), University of Okayama (Japan), and University Franche-Comté (Besançon; France). Award: 2002 French-Spanish Chemistry Chemical Societies. Currently, he is Senior Research Scientist, at the Institute of Organic Chemistry (CSIC). His research interests are focused on the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of new compounds for Alzheimer’s disease and stroke.

Dr. Fraga obtained his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, under supervision of Prof. Eliezer J. Barreiro. He occupied a position as Associate Professor of Faculty of Pharmacy at UFRJ from 1996 to 2012, when he became Full Professor of Institute of Biomedical Sciences. His research focused the synthesis and evaluation of innovative multitarget drug candidates designed from privileged structures, such as the N-acylhydrazone framework. Dr. Fraga has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in the medicinal chemistry field (H = 32). He is research fellow of National Council for Research and Development (Brazil).

PhD degree at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. After a stay at University College London, she took up a lectureship in organic chemistry and in 1997 she was promoted to Full Professor at the UPV/EHU. She has a wide experience in synthetic organic chemistry. Her research interests include organometallic chemistry and asymmetric catalysis. Especially she is concerned with synthetic methodologies based on transition metal-catalyzed C-H activation for the synthesis of potentially active heterocycles. She is also involved in multidisciplinary projects in medicinal chemistry and machine learning. >100 articles in JCR journals, 20 invited conferences, 20 PhD thesis supervised.

Dr. Lídia Moreira Lima graduated from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1995 as Pharmacist. She received her MSc degree in 1997 from Chemistry Institute of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). In 2001, she obtained the “Doctor of Chemical Science” degree in the subject of Medicinal Chemistry from Chemistry Institute of UFRJ. During 2002 to 2013, she was Associate Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Her main scientific interests involve the molecular design, synthesis, metabolism study and lead-optimization of new drug candidates for cancer, diabetes and neglected diseases.

Giuseppina Luciani is Associate Professor of Chemical Foundations of Technologies, at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering of University of Naples Federico II. She received her Master Science in Chemical Engineering with full marks and honors in 1996 from University of Naples Federico II and her PhD in Materials Engineering in 2001 from the same University. Her research activities are mainly concerned with materials chemistry, with a focus on the green and bioinspired design of multi-functional hybrid materials featuring relevant biological properties, including antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, selective cell interaction and signaling, as well as ionic- and electronic-based charge transport.

Dr. Rathi obtained Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from University of Delhi and works as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Hansraj College University Enclave, University of Delhi, India. He is recipient of young scientist fellowship and early career research award from Ministry of Science of Technology, Govt. of India. Currently, Dr. Rathi is visiting Assistant Professor at Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Cambridge, USA. He has published more than 28 papers in various journals of National and International repute. He holds the editorial membership of Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, Chemical Biology Letters and executive editorial membership for Bentham Science eBooks.

Ph.D. Degree at the University of the Basque Country (Spain). After post-doctoral research at the University of Waterloo (Canada, Prof. V. Snieckus), she returned to the UPV/EHU in Bilbao where she was promoted to Full Professor. Her current research interests are focused on the development of methodology based on organometallic chemistry and asymmetric catalysis applied to the synthesis of heterocyclic systems, potentially active compounds, natural products or drugs. She also participates in interdisciplinary projects that involve computational chemistry and machine learning tools for reactivity prediction, and for the design of biologically active molecules. She has authored over 80 publications in indexed journals, together with book chapters and reviews, and has supervised 16 PhD thesis.

Dr. Alejandro Speck-Planche obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Porto, Portugal (2015). He currently works as a Visiting Researcher at the Federal University of Paraíba (Brazil). He has published more than 75 international peer-reviewed articles, 7 book chapters, also being a book editor. His research interests focus on computer-aided drug design, chemoinformatics, QSAR approaches, nanoinformatics, and multi-scale modeling. Dr. Alejandro Speck-Planche is the creator of the multi-scale de novo drug design paradigm, which allows the fragment-based design of new molecular entities with desired drug-like properties by simultaneously integrating experimental data from activity, toxicity, and pharmacokinetic assays.

Dr. CLAUDIU T. SUPURAN is a professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Neurofarba Department, Section of Pharmaceutical and Nutriceutical Sciences, University of Florence, Italy. He has published more than 1250 papers, his Hirsch factor is h = 110; the number of citations since 1995 > 49800. His main research interest is on enzyme inhibitors, and especially carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, of which he discovered several new classes in the last years. For the last 25 years the main interest of his research was focused on metallo-enzymes and their modulators of activity. In 2013 he was rated as the most cited scientists in Pharmacology & Toxicology by LabTimes.

Dr. Yoon completed both bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Genetic Engineering department in Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. He completed Ph.D at Wayne State University, Detroit. The objective of his thesis research was to elucidate the role of ECM degrading enzymes at atherosclerosis through genetic association studies. Moving forward, he pursued postdoc at NIH, Bethesda, during which he studied transcriptional regulation in the yeast system. After completing his post-doctoral, he returned to South Korea. Since then,he has primarily been investigating strategies to overcome drug-resistant cancer.

Fernando de Carvalho da Silva is currently Associate Professor at the Universidade Federal Fluminense at the Institute of Chemistry at the Department of Organic Chemistry. He is editor-in-chef of the Revista Virtual de Química, editorial Board member of Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry and Current organic Chemistry and member of the board of directors of the Brazilian Chemical Society. He is a Young Scientist of our State (FAPERJ) since 2014 and an Affiliate Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences 2016-2020 edition.

Prof. Khaled R. A. Abdellatif (PhD, pharmaceutical Sciences) is a professor in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Ex-Dean at Beni-Suef University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Egypt. He had received the PhD degree from Cairo University (2004). He worked as a Research Associate at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta, Canada from Oct. 2006 to Sep. 2010 and within these four years, he finished many projects about the design and evaluation of non-ulcer genic COX-2 and/or 5-Lox ant arthritic agents and NO donor pro drug derivatives thereof in addition to Design, radio synthesis, and biological evaluation of acyclic triaryl (Z)-olefins to detect tumors. Also, he published around 70 publications in the good impact journals in addition to supervising around 20 master and PhD theses. Moreover, he has been awarded the Incentive National Prize in medical sciences (the highest prize in Egypt, May 2015).

Prof. Rosa Amoroso completed the degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology (CTF) at the University of Bologna, submitting a thesis in Pharmaceutical Analysis, in 1989. She received her PhD at the Department of Chemistry “G. Ciamician” in Bologna, carrying out a study on asymmetric synthesis of aminoacids. In 1994 she got a position as research associate and since 2001 she is Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Deparment of Pharmacy of the University “G. d’Annunzio”, Chieti, Italy. The scientific interests of prof. Rosa Amoroso are mainly directed towards synthetic medicinal chemistry and the main research topics are agonists and antagonists of PPAR receptors and Nitric Oxide Synthase inhibitors.

F. Ivy Carroll received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Auburn University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina. He joined RTI in 1961 as a Research Chemist and rose steadily to the position of Vice President of the Chemistry and Life Sciences Group, 1996–2001. Dr. Carroll also served as Director of the Center for Organic and Medicinal Chemistry from 1975–2007. He is presently a Distinguished Fellow for Medicinal Chemistry. Dr. Carroll has published 508 peer-reviewed publications, 34 book chapters, and 51 patents.

Dr. J.A. Castillo-Garit PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Las Villas (UCLV), Cuba, 2008. He is professor at the Medical University of Villa Clara has experience in Cheminformatics, medicinal chemistry and drug discovery; more recently he has focused in drug discovery for the neglected tropical diseases (Chagas and leishmaniasis). He has several Post-doctoral stays in Universitat de Valencia (Spain), University of Porto (Portugal) and Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). More than ten years of experience as professor and researcher. He has more than 40 JCR research papers and has achieved several scientific awards.

Dr. Sun Choi is a professor at the College of Pharmacy and Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea. After Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo, USA, she joined Prof. Richard B. Silverman’s laboratory in Department of Chemistry and Drug Discovery Program at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. From 2001 to 2005, she worked as a molecular modeler and computational chemist at the molecular design group in Tripos, Inc., St. Louis, MO, USA. Then, she joined Ewha Womans Univeristy as a faculty member, where she has been an associate professor since 2011. Her research focuses on the state-of-the-art technologies of computer-aided drug design, cheminformatics, computational medicinal chemistry, and biomolecular simulations. Based on these computational methods, she has been conducting multiple research projects targeting therapeutically important enzymes, GPCRs, and ion channels. Active interdisciplinary collaborations are on-going for drug discovery in various diseases such as cancer, virus, pain, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, etc. Since 2011, her lab has been designated as the National Leading Research Laboratory(NLRL) by the Korean government.

Nicola Antonio Colabufo received his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry in 1996 from University of Bari, Italy. After working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the synthesis of GPCRs ligands, he worked in biological evaluation of GPCRs andσ receptors ligands. Since 2005 he has been Associate Professor and was involved in the development of new compounds for reversal of MDR. He is author and coauthor of numerous papers in the MDR field, edited a text book on MDR in antitumor treatment (ResearchSignPost),and was Guest Editor of a special issue on the role of ABC pumps in drug transport (CTMC). Currently, he is developing potential PET radiotracers to visualize P-gp expression and function in tumor progression and in CNS. He is author of 140 papers and 12 patents following reported. He is full Professor starting from January 2014.

Dr. Riccardo Concu is a researcher at Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal. He received his European Ph.D. at the University of Cagliari, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Chemistry. His researches are in the broad area of computational chemistry and cheminformatics. On one hand, he has been developing new QSAR models in order to predict protein function, drug targets and Nanoparticle toxicity. In this sense, he has been involved in various European project aimed at assessing the nanoparticle toxicity. On the other hand, he has been working on the development of molecular dynamics simulation aimed at the study of molecular imprinted polymers and self-assembled monolayers.

Dr. Miles Congreve is Vice President of Chemistry at Heptares Therapeutics, having previously held positions at Astex Therapeutics and GSK. Miles has a background in structure and fragment-based drug design, participating in the discovery of a several agents currently in clinical trials including Ribociclib, Lanabecestat, Onalespib and Erdafitinib. Miles obtained a BSc in biological chemistry from Leicester University and a PhD in synthetic chemistry from Cambridge University. Miles is co-author of over 130 publications and patents. In 2015 Miles was co-recipient of the RSC Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize for the seminal contributions to GPCR drug discovery made by Heptares.

Dr. F. De Carvalho da Silva He holds a degree in Industrial Chemistry from Fluminense Federal University (2002) and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Universidade Federal Fluminense (2007). He attended postdoctoral studies at the University of Aveiro (2007-2008) and at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2008-2009). He is currently Associate Professor at the Fluminense Federal University at the Institute of Chemistry at the Department of Organic Chemistry. He is editor-in-chief of the Virtual Chemistry Journal and member of the board of directors of the Brazilian Chemical Society. He is a Young Scientist of our State (FAPERJ) since 2014 and an Affiliate Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences 2016-2020 edition. He has experience in Organic Chemistry, with emphasis on Organic Synthesis, working mainly on the following topics: carbohydrates, heterocycles, diazocompostos, triazoles, quinones.

Dr. Yanming Du, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Baruch S. Blumberg Institute (BSBI). Dr. Du has training in organic chemistry, and more than ten years of expertise in medicinal chemistry for infectious diseases. He received his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Iowa, and had post-doctoral training at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development. Dr. Du is also an Adjunct Professor in the Drexel University College of Medicine and The Commonwealth Medical College (TCMC). Dr. Du has published 25 scientific papers and is an inventor of 10 patents/patent applications.

Leonardo L. G. Ferreira was born in Sao Carlos – SP, Brazil and received his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences (2003) at the University of Araraquara. He holds a Master’s degree (2007) and a Ph.D. (2013) in Biomolecular Physics from the University of Sao Paulo. He is a postdoctoral fellow (2013-present) at the Physics Institute of Sao Carlos – University of Sao Paulo. He has taught medicinal chemistry and physics laboratory courses at the University of Sao Paulo. Dr. Ferreira has experience in medicinal chemistry, drug discovery for the neglected tropical diseases Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, pharmacokinetics and chemoinformatics. He has published more than 20 scientific articles and 2 book chapters and has edited 2 special issues on chemoinformatics and neglected diseases. Dr. Ferreira is a full member of the Brazilian Chemical Society (SBQ) and its Medicinal Chemistry Division.

Dr. A.L. Fuly was educated in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University Federal of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 2002, following a post-doctoral fellowship at the same University (2002-2004) working with purification of proteins of Brazilian venomous snakes, studying their physico-chemical properties as well as their mechanism of action upon coagulation, platelet aggregation, hemorrhage, myotoxicity, and so on. From 2005 until now, He is an Associate Professor at Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, Rio deJaneiro, receiving fellowships of two Brazilian funding agencies (FAPERJ and CNPq), and chief of laboratory, entitled LAVENOTOXI. The projects that are being developed under his supervision have mainly two objectives: 1) identify molecules with anti-venom properties on natural products (plants, seaweed, and sponges) and derived of organic synthesis, since in Brazil and many other countries, accidents with venomous snakes are a public health public; 2) identify molecules (be natural or synthetic molecules) able to inhibit platelet aggregation and plasma coagulation, since vascular diseases are also a health problem. In this way, LAVENOTOXI tests natural or synthetic molecules seeking alternative therapies to treat snakebites and thrombosis disturbs.

Dr. Gaonkar obtained PhD degree in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from University of Mysore, India (2007). He was the JSPS postdoctoral fellow at National Institute of Advanced Industrial science and Technology (AIST), Japan and worked on microwave assisted synthesis of drug seeds (2008-2010). Later, he worked as postdoctoral research scientist at Astra Zeneca India and worked on drug development (2011). He was also worked with pharmaceutical companies and got rich experience in pharmaceutical development. Currently, Dr. Gaonkar is working as a Senior Associate Professor at Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University (Institute of Eminence in India). He has published more than 75 papers in international journals of repute and got 6 patents into his credits.

Dr. Letizia Giampietro completed a Degree in Pharmacy in 2000 and received her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry in 2003 from “Università G. d’Annunzio”, Chieti, Italy. As of 2006, she is an Assistant Professor. She has been invited as a Speaker and an Organizing Committee Member at Medicinal Chemistry conferences. She has experience in Medicinal Chemistry, and her research above all, focuses on the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of small molecules active on Peroxisome Proliferator-Activate Receptors (PPARs). Lately, her research has also been directed towards the synthesis of anticancer, neuroprotective and antioxidant compounds.

Isabel Gonzalez-Alvarez is currently an Associate Professor at the University Miguel Hernández of Elche-Alicante, Spain. She earned her B. Pharm and PhD degrees at the University of Valencia. She got a position at Hospital as Pharmacist responsible of Clinical Trials Area in 2002, and at University of Valencia as a Researcher in 2005. In 2008, she was appointed at University Miguel Hernández to Pharmacokinetics and PharmaceuticalTechnology area in Engineering Department. Her research was centred on intestinal absorption, dissolution, bioavailability, bioequivalence to improve drug development. Besides, she performed two post-doctoral research stages at the University of Michigan, working with Prof. Gordon Amidon. She has been a co-author for more than 75 papers and 10 books chapters. Also, she has advised 8 PhD students and more than 20 master degree students.

Prof. Dr. Qingzhong Hu is a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology in Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine in China. He received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from Saarland University in Germany in 2010. After further postdoctoral training in Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland in Germany, he obtained a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in 2015 and moved to Cambridge University in UK to develop a novel approach for hit identification. Prof. Hu joined Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine in 2017 as a Xinglin Outstanding Fellow and was appointed Zhujiang Distinguished Professor of Guangdong Province in 2018. Prof. Hu authored many scientific publications with high impact in the field, and played a major role in out-licensing several classes of potential drug candidates. His research interests focus on drug discovery for metabolic, cardiac and renal diseases.

Dr. Domenico Iacopetta received his degree in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology and then his Doctoral degree in “Cellular Biochemistry and drug activity in Oncology,” University of Calabria (Italy). He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Biochemistry (Italy) and Postdoctoral Associate in Cancer research at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston (TX, USA). He was a post-Doctoral fellow in Medicinal Chemistry, (Italy and France, CERMN). He is a contract Professor at the University of Calabria. His scientific activity encompasses medicinal chemistry, oncology, biochemistry and molecular biology studies, particularly the synthesis and evaluation of human topoisomerases inhibitors. He is author of several papers and patents.

Dr. Jacobson Chief of the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and the Molecular Recognition Section at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Dr. Jacobson is a medicinal chemist with interests in the structure and pharmacology of G protein-coupled receptors, in particular receptors for adenosine and for purine and pyrimidine nucleotides. He obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. He has published more than 700 scientific publications and was inducted into the American Chemical Society’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame in 2009.

Prof. Dr. K.S.Jain holds a rich academic & industrial research experience of 34 years in the areas of organic synthesis, chemical process development of API . His areas of discovery research work are in the fields of anti-infective, anticancer, antihyperlipid drug research. He has numerous publications, few patents and 15 text books to his credit and has good citation index.e has guided above 50 post-grads and 6 Ph.D.’s for their research work.

Dr. V Badireenath Konkimalla, Reader-F, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar is a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR medical University, an M. Tech. in Biotechnology from the Center for Biotechnology (CBT), Anna University; and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and structural biology from University of Heidelberg. His research interests are in the interdisciplinary areas of pharmaceutical biology and drug development. He has been awarded the Mike Price fellowship award by the European association for cancer research (EACR) in the year 2009 and innovative young biotechnologist award (IYBA), DBT, India in the year 2012.

Dr Liu Xin-Hua received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from Nanjing University, China, in 2011. Currently, he is a Professor at the School of Pharmacy, Anhui Medical University (China). He has focused on Medicinal Chemical Biology-Drug design and synthesis, pharmaceutical chemical biology, and on design and synthesis of small molecules with antitumor activity. He served on academic and industry advisory panels and company boards. He has more than ten years of experience as a Professor and a Researcher. He has published several research papers in distinguished journals, supervised 8 PhD thesis, and has contributed 6 patents in Medicinal Chemistry.

Professor Des Richardson, Ph.D., D.Sc. (UWA), F.F.Sc., FRCPath (UK), holds the Chair of Cancer Cell Biology at the University of Sydney, Australia, and is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia Senior Principal Research Fellow. He has published over 400 articles, reviews, patents, chapters, etc. in his career as author/co-author (more than 23,307 citations; Google Scholar Accessed 2 Nov 2017). As a major translational research achievement, he has developed the anti-cancer and anti-metastatic drug, DpC, which overcomes P-glycoprotein mediated drug resistance. This has led to commercialisation of DpC and the development of the international company, Oncochel Therapeutics LLC, USA, and its Australian subsidiary, Oncochel Therapeutics Pty Ltd.

Prof. Stefano SABATINI completed the degree in Pharmacy in 1996 at the University of Perugia (Italy) and received his PhD in 2001, in the same university, carrying out a study on the synthesis of p38 MAP Kinase Inhibitors. In 2004, he got a position as research associate and since 2015 he is Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Perugia (Italy). The scientific interests of Prof. Stefano SABATINI are directed towards synthetic medicinal chemistry and the main research topics are Antivirals, Antibacterials and Efflux Pump Inhibitors as Antimicrobial Resistance Breakers. He has several international collaborations, which have led to more than 60 international peer-reviewed publications and many international meetings.

Webster Santos received his BS and PhD degrees in Chemistry at the University of Virginia. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University before he began his independent academic career at Virginia Tech in 2006. He is currently an associate professor of Chemistry and the Cliff and Agnes Lilly Faculty fellow of drug discovery. His research efforts include designing inhibitors of RNA involved in HIV-1, lipid kinase inhibitors, mitochondrial protonophores, and developing borylation methodology. He is a co-author on over 60 refereed papers and 9 patents.

Dr. Anil K. Saxena is actively involved in the domain of Medicinal Chemistry, including CADD, drug discovery and development research. He has 49 years of research experience with 206 research publications, 24 reviews/articles in books and/monographs, 72 patents and has delivered 180 invited lectures, chaired 48 sessions. He is a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, Editorial Board Member of different journals like, Medicinal Chemistry Research, SAR and QSAR in Environmental Research, online International journal ARKIVOC, and Patent Evaluator. He is also series editor for book series “Topics in Medicinal Chemistry” published by Springer Verlag.

Maria Stefania Sinicropi is Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Department of Pharmacy, Health and Nutritional Sciences (University of Calabria). The main focus of the research activity concerns: new synthetic methods for the preparation of compounds of pharmaceutic interest, the study of new small molecules as anticancer drugs. All these activities have resulted in the publication of 90 original papers in international journals indexed by Scopus, 2 books, 4 book chapters, 3 international patents and a lot of invited lectures and seminars.

Dr Drozdstoy Stoyanov holds currently the academic position of Full Professor and Head, Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging Group, Medical University, Plovdiv. He is Vice Chair of Philosophy SIG, Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK, Visiting Fellow in the University of Pittsburgh, USA (2009), International Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (2018), Guest Lecturer in the Universities of Copenhagen (2015), Vienna (2017) and Bergen (2018).He published more than 160 scholarly papers, including five monographs and three textbooks. Dr Stoyanov is Associate Editor of Frontiers in Psychiatry and the European Journal of Person Centered Health Care; Editorial Board member of Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neurosciences, International Journal for Person Centered Medicine, Folia Medica and others. Ad hoc reviewer in Current Medicinal Chemistry, Molecular Neurobiology, Human Brain Mapping, Journal of Affective Disorders, Biotechnology and Biotechnological Equipement.

Bryan W.I. Tou is the CEO of HAZALYST MEDICAL R&D Ltd, Co, Macau China. Dr. Tou received the doctor of medicine (MD) degree from China Medical University in Taiwan. In the past, he devoted his energy to modernized herbal medicine and natural products by applying the knowledge of computational and systems biology. Now, he is interested in using biobank and electronic medical record to study drug adverse effects, prescription and utilization patterns and potential novel indication of approval drug.

Dharmendra Kumar Yadav was born in Deoria (U.P.), India. He has completed his PhD in, Biological Science from CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow, India and postdoctoral studies from Hanyang University Korea and University of Delhi, India. Presently, he is working as Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator of NRF project (Korea) in College of Pharmacy in Gachon University, Korea. He has recipient of 2014 Young Scientist award from the SERB, Science and Engineering Research Board, New Delhi. He had worked as Young Scientist at All India Institute of Medical Science Jodhpur, India. He has published more than 55 papers in reputed journals, 03 Book Chapter and US Patent. He is continuing his research in atomic level molecular simulation of Plasma Medicine, Computer-Aided Drug Design, Molecular Modelling and Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Biological networks etc. He is one of the Editorial members and reviewer of in many prestigious journals. He also has received several awards and honors in research career.

Dr. Daniele Zampieri has obtained his Ph.D in Medicinal Chemistry from University of Trieste and his interests are focused on the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of new compounds gifted with antimicrobial activity, in particular antimycobacterials/antifungals and new compounds as sigma receptor ligands. He has several collaborations both locals and internationals, which have led to 28 international peer-reviewed publications, dozens international meetings and 1 book chapter.From December 2006, he is full-time researcher at University of Trieste

Dr. Amit K. Gupta is currently a Keck Computational Biology Fellow at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, USA. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, India in 2014. His experience prior to joining to his current role include Postdoctoral Research Scientist at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals and Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ewha Woman's University, South Korea. Dr. Gupta’s research interest involves ligand and structure-based drug design against undruggable or allosteric targets. He combines molecular dynamics simulations with different virtual screening techniques to discover novel lead compounds.

Dr. Lian-Shun Feng obtained his PhD degree from Tsinghua University in 2011, and then worked as postdoctoral researcher in Peking University. Currently, Dr. Lian-Shun Feng work in WuXi AppTec as principal investigator. In 2017 and 2018, around 20 peer-reviewed SCI papers were published and many of them were cited over 100 times in two years.

Dr. Athina Geronikaki graduated in the field of Organic Chemistry from Tashkent State University in 1971 and received her PhD in 1977. In 1984, she graduated from School of Pharmacy of Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. From 2006-2016, she was the Head of the Department of Pharm. Chemistry. Since 2010, she has been a Full Professor of Medicinal Chemistry of School of Pharmacy of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During 2009-2011, she was Vice President of School of Pharmacy of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In July 2013, Prof. Geronikaki was elected as a Full member of Mediterranean Academy of Science and Arts and in 2015 Member of European Academy of Science and Arts. Her scientific interests include chemistry of natural products isolation, determination of structure; Chemistry of biologically active compounds and evaluation of their activity, using different computational methods. She has organized five International conferences. She had several grants, among which are INTAS, Pythagoras and others. She has received several awards from the International Scientific Foundation. She was an invited speaker in 46 International conferences. She is a member of the Editorial Board in several journals.

Prof. Elena González Burgos (PhD, pharmacology) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy and Botany, Faculty of Pharmacy, University Complutense of Madrid (Spain). Member of the Research Group “Pharmacology of Natural Products”. She obtained her European PhD in Pharmacy in 2012 (Extraordinary Doctoral Prize). She worked for 3 years in the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS). Her expertise is in the study of natural products from medicinal plants and lichens as neuroprotective agents, based on their antioxidant properties, against different models of oxidative stress in cell lines of the nervous system (neurons and astrocytes). Author of many scientific publications as well as communications in national and international congresses. She has participated as researcher in four National funded projects and research stays at prestigious international centers (King’s College of London and Neuroscience Center in Coimbra).

Dr. Satya P. Gupta is presently an Emeritus Professor at Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology (MIET), Meerut, India, where he had earlier served as Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Prior to this, Dr. Gupta has served in various other prestigious Institutes in India. With a doctorate degree from University of Allahabad, Professor Gupta has a very long standing of teaching and research in various fields such as Quantum Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Science, Biophysics, Drug Design, etc. A Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc), and a winner of Ranbaxy Research Foundation Award, a coveted national award for the excellence of work in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dr. Gupta is a world-renowned scientist with a credit of around 250 research publications in highly reputed international journals and dozens of reviews and served as Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Board Member of several scientific journals. He has also edited many books, highly acclaimed world-wide, for many reputed publishers. He has delivered several plenary and invited lectures on Drug Design in many prestigious conferences organized in India and abroad.

Dr. Bingjin Li is a graduate of Yanbian University, China. She received her Ph.D. from Ehime University, Japan. She performed postdoc training at Washington State University and is a full professor at the second hospital of Jilin University, China. Her lab uses behavioral and electrophysiological analyses to explore the underlying relationship between neuronal function and behavior. This integrative approach involves the use of molecular biology, biochemistry, immunocytohistochemistry, neurophysiology, anatomy, and a wide range of behavioral methodology to understand the function of the nervous system.

Dr. Maciej Przybyłek graduated from the Faculty of Technology and Chemical Engineering, University of Technology and Life Science , Bydgoszcz in 2010. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in 2016 from Nicolaus Copernicus University, where he works as an assistant professor. His main research interests comprises physicochemical properties modelling using quantum chemistry and QSPR/QSAR methods, pharmaceutical technology and solid state physicochemistry including solubility studies and pharmaceutical dispersions screening (cocrystals, eutectics).

Dr. Qvit completed his doctorate in Organic Chemistry from the Hebrew University in 2008. He further joined the Department of Chemical and System Biology in Stanford School of Medicine as a postdoctoral fellow. His research focuses on the development of novel tools to regulate protein-protein interactions. He is serving as a reviewer for several scientific journals. He joined Bar-Ilan University’s team of researchers in the Galilee in October 2017, and currently, he is the head of the Laboratory for Chemical Biology of Protein-Protein Interactions at the School of Medicine.

​Assoc. Prof. Dr Hande Sipahi has graduated from Gazi University, Faculty of Pharmacy in 2002. She has completed her Master’s and PhD degree at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Toxicology in 2006 and 2011, respectively. She started to work as a Full-time Assistant Professor at Yeditepe University in 2012 and got her Associate Professor degree in September 2015. She has participated in many scientific congresses and symposiums. She has over 35 articles published in international journals. Her main research areas are inflammation and oxidative stress markers, heavy metal toxicity, risk assessment, safety and biocompatibility tests for drugs and medical devices and in vitro alternative toxicity tests. She is a member of the Turkish Society of Toxicology and EUROTOX. She is also a European Registered Toxicologist (ERT) since 2017.

Dr Drozdstoy Stoyanov holds currently the academic position of Full Professor and Head, Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging Group, Medical University, Plovdiv. He is Vice Chair of Philosophy SIG, Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK, Visiting Fellow in the University of Pittsburgh, USA (2009), International Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (2018), Guest Lecturer in the Universities of Copenhagen (2015), Vienna (2017) and Bergen (2018).He published more than 160 scholarly papers, including five monographs and three textbooks. Dr Stoyanov is Associate Editor of Frontiers in Psychiatry and the European Journal of Person Centered Health Care; Editorial Board member of Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neurosciences, International Journal for Person Centered Medicine, Folia Medica and others. Ad hoc reviewer in Current Medicinal Chemistry, Molecular Neurobiology, Human Brain Mapping, Journal of Affective Disorders, Biotechnology and Biotechnological Equipement.

Dr. S.S. Thakur research interests involve application of Mass Spectrometry based proteomics in Health and Disease especially biomarker discovery and Drug Development. His group uses mass spectrometry based high throughput quantitative proteomics, natural product chemistry, cell biology, animal model, stem cell, and modern biology approach to find the target, to develop novel drugs and elucidate its mode of action against cancer and other metabolic disorders such as diabetes. We are investigating the efficacy of various natural and synthetic metabolites on melanoma, retinoblastoma, leukemia, and lung cancer using in vitro and in vivo method including animal model. Further, investigating the molecular basis for Cell adhesion, AKT signaling and tyrosine kinase associated cancer progression and response and resistance to targeted therapy in these cancers is in progress in my lab.

Dharmendra Kumar Yadav was born in Deoria (U.P.), India. He has completed his PhD in, Biological Science from CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow, India and postdoctoral studies from Hanyang University Korea and University of Delhi, India. Presently, he is working as Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator of NRF project (Korea) in College of Pharmacy in Gachon University, Korea. He has recipient of 2014 Young Scientist award from the SERB, Science and Engineering Research Board, New Delhi. He had worked as Young Scientist at All India Institute of Medical Science Jodhpur, India. He has published more than 55 papers in reputed journals, 03 Book Chapter and US Patent. He is continuing his research in atomic level molecular simulation of Plasma Medicine, Computer-Aided Drug Design, Molecular Modelling and Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Biological networks etc. He is one of the Editorial members and reviewer of in many prestigious journals. He also has received several awards and honors in research career.

Dr. Y. Yu started her career as an Associate Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2014, then continued it at Xinhua Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University since 2016. Her current research focuses on studying the molecular mechanism of cardiovascular disease or the genetic pathogenesis of congenital heart disease. She has published 59 articles in Chinese core journals and SCI Journals, such as J Clin Invest., Nat. Commun., Circ Res., EbioMedicine, J Bio Chem. and so on. Also, she had applied for 2 patents.

Dr. Bin Yu obtained his B. Sc. and M. Sc. degrees from the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University (ZZU), China in 2010 and 2012, respectively and then continued his doctoral work at the same university in 2012. As a visiting PhD student, he carried out his doctoral research work in the chemistry department, University of Cambridge (02/2014-02/2016), and obtained his PhD degree in July, 2016. His research interests mainly focus on chemistry driven drug discovery. Since 2016, he has been working at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ZZU and then promoted to a Professorship in 2020. He has contributed over 100 papers in international peer reviewed journals, two book chapters and 17 patents.

Dr. Guo-Ping Zhou is currently a Distinguished Professor of Gordon Life Science Institute, USA. He is also an Adjunct Professor of several academics in the United States and China. Dr. Zhou received his Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of California at Davis, and completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University and Harvard University, respectively. Dr. Zhou has successfully introduced the elegant wenxiang diagrams to elucidate the mechanisms of the coiled-coil proteins, protein- lipids, protein-DNA interactions, and prion protein misfolding observed by NMR. Meanwhile, he has also published many papers in Bioinformatics. His current research interests focus on the investigation into the intrinsic relationship between the functions and structures of polysialyltransferases, the suggested targets in metastatic cancer. In addition, As an Editorial Board Member or the invited Guest Editor, Dr. Zhou has also edited some special issues on structural biology for several influential scientific journals such as Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, Current Medicinal Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Amino Acids, and as well as Protein & Peptide Letters.

Dr. Mrinmoy Saha presently working as a Senior Scientist at Abzena in Bristol, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Calcutta in 2005 and Master of Science degree from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in 2007. In the Fall of 2008, he moved to the United States for his doctoral studies at Corvallis, Oregon. In 2014, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Oregon State University under the guidance of Professor Rich G. Carter. His Ph.D. dissertation was focused on the total syntheses of several Lycopodium alkaloids. Then, he moved to National Institutes of Health (NIH) at Bethesda, Maryland as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Daniel H. Appella. At NIH, His research interests primarily focused on synthesis of small molecule enzyme inhibitors and peptide nucleic acids (PNAs). During his time at NIH, he had developed a series of mercaptobenzamide prodrugs to inactivate HIV-1 NCp7 (nucleocapsid protein 7), which plays a critical role in different stages of HIV life cycle. After completing his postdoctoral research, he joined Abzena as a Senior Scientist in February 2017. As a Senior Scientist, Dr. Saha is playing a major role in Abzena’s Chemistry R & D projects related to synthesis and development of novel ADCs (Antibody-Drug Conjugates). Dr. Saha is an active member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) since 2011 and serves as editorial board member for Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Sciences and American Journal of Phytomedicine and Clinical Therapeutics. He acted as a reviewer for numerous journals such as Tetrahedron, Natural Product Research, Molecules, Chemistry Central Journal etc. Dr Saha received several awards such as Milton Harris Graduate Fellowship in 2014, Teaching Assistant Award in 2012, MCM Scholarship in 2006, Merit Certificate and Somnath Banerjee Memorial Medal in 2005.

Graduate in Biological Sciences (1994), Master’s and Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry (1997 and 2000) at Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto of the University of São Paulo (FMRP-USP/RP). Pos-doctoral in Toxicology (2001) at Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Ribeirao Preto of the University of São Paulo (FCFRP-USP). He is a researcher specialist at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation - Rondonia (FIOCRUZ-RO). He started her career at Ribeirão Preto University (UNAERP, 2000) and FCFRP-USP (2005) and moved to FIOCRUZ-RO (2011). He is currently Director of the Department of Research Support and Human Resources Training in Science and Technology of the Rondônia State Research Support Foundation (Fundação Rondônia, FAPERO), Full Professor and Research Coordinator at the University Center Saint Luke (UniSL) and advisor professor in the Post-Graduate Program in Experimental Biology (UNIR) and Post-Graduate Program in Biodiversity and Biotechnology of the BIONORTE Network (Brazil). It has more than 200 published articles, index h 41 and graduated 60 more students among undergraduate students, masters, doctorate and postdoctoral. In Rondonia, coordinates the Center of the Studies of Biomolecules Applied to Health (CEBio) at FIOCRUZ-RO focusing his projects in the areas of Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Toxicology studying the Isolation and functional/structural characterization of animal toxins and natural/synthetic inhibitors. Identification and structural characterization of natural products of animal and/or plant origin with antimicrobial activity and against neglected tropical diseases from Amazonian and Brazilian biodiversity.

Hai-Liang Zhu was born in 1965 in China. He achieved his Master’s degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the Department of Chemistry, Lanzhou University in 1988. He worked at the Department of Chemistry of Ningxia University as a Lecturer in 1988-1994 and then earned his Ph.D. degree in 1998 at the School of Chemistry of Nanjing University in Bioinorganic Chemistry. From 1998 to 2002 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Chemistry, Zhongshan University, and Department of Chemistry, Philipps University in Marburg, Germany. Then he started his professorship at the School of Life Sciences in Nanjing University in 2004. His current research focuses on medicinal chemistry, and he has published more than 600 articles on core journals of SCI, such as Nat. Commun., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Chem. Eur. J., Chem. Comun., Chem. Lett., J. Med. Chem., Eur. J. Med. Chem. and so on. Also he had applied more than 120 patents. Published papers have been cited by SCI for more than 14200 times with H-index 48. As the researcher, he has received more than 105governmental funds with the total amount of 200M in the Chinese dollar.

Dr. J.P. Zuliani did graduation in Odontology (1997), Master's and Ph.D. degree in Immunology (2001 and 2005) from Biomedical Sciences Institute of the São Paulo University (ICB-USP/SP). She is a researcher at Oswaldo Cruz Foundation - Rondonia (FIOCRUZ-RO) and Ph.D. at Federal University of Rondonia (UNIR). She started her career at Butantan Institute (2005) and moved to FIOCRUZ- RO (2006). In Rondonia, started a Laboratory of Immunology Applied to Healthy at FIOCRUZ- RO focusing her projects on cellular immunology and mechanisms of action of venoms and toxins isolated form snake venoms on leukocytes and snakebites, a neglected tropical disease.