Letters in Drug Design & Discovery

Dr. Khan obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Currently is a senior Scientist at FDA and an Adjunct Professor in the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. He has published more than 60 scientific publications and is a named inventor of 10 issued U.S/international patents.

Dr. Banik is a Professor of Natural Sciences at the Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He had worked as the Vice President of Research & Education Development of Community Health Systems of South Texas and as a Tenured Full Professor and First President’s Endowed Professor at the University of Texas-Pan American. Professor Banik is deeply engaged in multiple areas of higher education. The principal areas of Professor Banik’s research are synthesis and medicinal evaluation of β-Lactams and polyaromatic compounds. As the Principal Investigator, he has been awarded $7.25 million in grants from the NIH and NCI. Importantly, he has 370 publications along with 465 presentation abstracts. He is the editor-in-chief of 12 journals. Professor Banik has received many national and international awards.

Dr. Fang obtained a doctorate in China Pharmaceutical University in 2001. Currently he is professor of medicinal chemistry and vice director of Scientific Research and International Affairs of Shandong University Cheeloo College of Medicine. His research focused on structure-based drug design on the targets for cancer therapy, including histone deacetylase (HDAC), Bcl-2 and Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) etc. Notably, Dr. Fang has authored more than 70 scientific publications, and is a named inventor of 10 issued China patents.

György Keglevich graduated as a chemical engineer. He has been Professor of Chemistry since 1995, and the Head of the Department of Organic Chemistry and Technology, Budapest Univesity of Technology since 1999. He is engaged with P-heterocyclic and environmentally-friendly chemistry comprising MW chemistry, phase transfer catalysis and the development of new catalysts. He is the author or co-author of 460 papers He holds editorial positions at the journals Curr. Green Chem., Cur. Org. Chem., Lett. Org. Chem., Curr. Org. Synth.. Lett. Drug Des. Disc. and Curr. Catal. He is the member of the Editorial Board of Heteroatom Chem. and Phosphorus Sulfur Silicon.

Dr. Suresh Thareja is an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guru Ghasidas Central University, Bilaspur, India. He received his PhD degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from Panjab University, India (2011) and Postdoctoral training in Dr. Binghe Wang’s lab at Georgia State University (2016-2017). He also worked as Scientific writer-II in Novartis Pharmaceuticals. He is the recipient of many reputed fellowships including Raman Fellowship for research in USA. His research focused on computer-aided drug design as well as synthesis and biological evaluation of novel PTP-1B inhibitors, steroidal 5α-reductase inhibitors and agents for cancer therapy, Dr. Thareja has authored more than 45 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals along with an international Patent.

I have been working in Anadolu University Faculty of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry for 10 years. I have 70 articles published in international peer-reviewed journals indexed by Science Citation Index (SCI) and SCI-Expanded, 12 articles published in national peer-reviewed journals and 35 research projects. I got 3 rewards from Anadolu University, namely Science and Technology Encouragement Award in 2014, Gold Article Performance Award and Platinum Article Performance Award in 2016. I also received an Outstanding Reviewer Award from European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (Elsevier) in 2016 and Encouragement Award from Turkish Pharmacists’ Association Academy of Pharmacy in 2019. My research field is the design and synthesis of new carbonic anhydrase (hCA) inhibitors, cholinesterase (ChE) inhibitors, anticancer, antimicrobial, antinociceptive, anti-inflammatory and antidepressant agents.

Dr. Janina Baranowska-Kortylewicz earned her M.Sc. from the Wrocław University of Technology (Politechnika Wrocławska) and her doctorate from the University of Kentucky. She continued her postgraduate research at the Albert B. Chandler Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. She is currently a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Department of Radiation Oncology, J. Bruce Henriksen Cancer Research Laboratories. She also directs the UNMC Harry J. Bahr Radiolabeling Facility where under her supervision radioactive drugs and radioimmunoconjugates are prepared for clinical studies. The core of research activities of Dr. Baranowska-Kortylewicz's laboratories is centered on the design, synthesis and evaluation of radioactive drugs for the targeted molecular radiotherapy and non-invasive diagnosis of cancer. Dr. Baranowska-Kortylewicz holds several U.S. and international patents. Recently, the Investigational New Drug application for the use of a radioactive drug discovered and developed in her laboratories was approved. Dr. Baranowska-Kortylewicz is a member of the editorial boards of several international journals and a member of national and international scientific organizations. Her expertise in the development of new radioactive drugs earned her a place in several review panels.

Professor Barreiro obtained a doctorate (Docteur d´Étát) in Chemistry from the University of Grenoble, France (1978). Dr. Barreiro is Full-Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil from 1984. He is author/co-author of more than 300 scientific papers, published in peer-reviewed journals is founder and the Scientific Director of Laboratory of Synthesis and Bioassays of Bioactive Substances at UFRJ, Brazil.

Catherine Brenner is expert in Biochemistry and Cell Biology of Cell Death. She discovered the cooperation of Bax and ANT in mitochondrial apoptosis and investigated the role of the permeability transition pore, a mitochondrial polyprotein complex, as a target for anti-cancer chemotherapy. Since 2010, her research interests focus on the role of mitochondria in signalisation and cardiac pathophysiology and the search for novel strategies in cardioprotection via an inhibition of cell death.She coordinated several international and national research programs in the field of drug discovery with academic as well as biotech partners (ANR PCV, ANR France-Portugal, Labex LERMIT). As a scientist, she published more than 140 articles, reviews and books. She is currently editor for five journals and reviewer for more than 30 journals.

Jean Michel Brunel was graduated from the School of Chemistry of Marseille (France) in 1991. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1994 from Université Aix Marseille in the field of asymmetric organophosphorus chemistry. In 1994, he joined the group of Pr. H. B. Kagan (Université Paris Sud) as a postdoctoral fellow working on the enantioselective catalytic oxidation of sulfides. In 1997, he joined the CNRS as Chargé de Recherche and is now working at the Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Marseille. His research program is focused on the development of novel classes of antimicrobial and anticancer agents.

Youngjoo Byun received B.S and M.S degrees from Seoul National University and Ph.D from Ohio State University. He is now full Professor at College of Pharmacy, Korea University, South Korea. Before joining Korea University, Dr Byun worked at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 2006 to 2011. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers. His research focuses on discovery of bioactive molecules and structural optimization of hit compounds.

Joaquín Campos Rosa received B. Sc. and Ph. D. degrees from the University of Granada. He is now full Professor of Medicinal and Organic Chemistry at the Pharmaceutical and Organic Chemistry Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Granada, Spain. He authored 125 publications in international journals. He has written about twenty books or chapter books. He serves as an official reviewer for more than 20 international journals and other different national and international research agencies. He was supervisor of 13 Doctoral Thesis. He has received regional and national funds to support his work in the organic and medicinal chemistry fields.

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.

Luís A.E. Batista de Carvalho obtained his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from the University of Coimbra, and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (1993) from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Currently he is an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Coimbra and coordinator of the “Molecular Physical Chemistry” R&D Unit. He has authored more than 100 scientific publications in ISI-indexed journals. His main current research interests are focused on the application of vibrational spectroscopy techniques to the study of biological samples (e.g. cells, biofluids and tissues), in order to probe changes (chemical as well as structural and dynamical) induced by chemotherapeutic agents, environmental conditions (e.g. burning events) or pathological disorders.

Dr. Sebastiano Cavallaro received a medical degree and specialized in Neurology at the University of Catania (Italy). He also obtained a Ph.D. in Anatomy and Cell Biology at Georgetown University. He then worked at the NINDS-NIH (USA) and at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute. Since 1997, Dr. Cavallaro works at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and today directs the Institute of Neurological Sciences, a research center where clinical services and research activities thrive together. His primary research interests include genomics and neurobiology. During his career he supervised and supported the activity of more than 60 students or post-docs, authoring more than 100 publications.

Dr. Cheng obtained a doctorate (PhD) in Structural Biology from the University of Science and Technology of China. Currently Dr. Cheng is a Professor in the School of Life Sciences, East China Normal Universty. He has published more than 100 papers in journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Communications, J. Am. Chem. Soc. and Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Dr. Cheng is currently the regional editor of Current Drug Discovery Technologies, and the guest editor of Topics in Current Chemistry. His research focused on drug and gene delivery systems.

Wei-Min Dai is currently Professor of Chemistry at HKUST. He received a PhD degree from Kyoto University, Japan in 1990, pursued post-doctoral research with Prof. K. C. Nicolaou at Scripps Research Institute at La Jolla during 1990–1992, and then joined HKUST in 1992. Since then, he has focused his research on development of DNA cleavage agents, diversity-oriented synthesis of privileged heterocyclic scaffolds, microwave-assisted organic synthesis, combinatorial synthesis, asymmetric catalysis and enantioselective reactions, diverted total synthesis of complex macrolides, and applications in chemical biology and chemical genetics.

Diego Dal Ben got PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Padova (Italy) then moved to the University of Camerino (Italy). Dr. Dal Ben is currently Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and leader of the Drug Design Team molecular modelling group. His research work is to design and optimize bioactive compounds with molecular modelling tools. His studies are focused mainly to membrane proteins belonging to the GPCR (Purinergic P1 Receptors) and ion channel (Purinergic P2X Receptors) protein families. Further studies are related to compounds able to modulate the activity of enzymes (i.e. Topoisomerases and Kinases).

Marcus Vinícius Nora de Souza is a senior technologist at Oswaldo Cruz public health foudation – RJ, and leads a research group in organic chemistry, with emphasis in organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry, acting on neglected diseases (tuberculosis and malaria), cancer and synthetic methodologies. He has authored more than 250 manuscripts, 5 patents and 3 books, and their formation includes a PhD in organic and bioorganic chemistry (Universite de Paris XI (Paris-Sud) – France) with stage at the University of Barcelona – Spain, and three postdocs in organic synthesis and medicinal chemistry (University of Florida – USA, Federal University of Juiz de Fora – MG, Pharmaceutical industry Genzyme - Boston – USA).

Dr. Q. Ping Dou is a Professor of Oncology, Pharmacology and Pathology, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI. He obtained his B.S. degree in chemistry from Shandong University in 1981, Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Rutgers University in 1988, and postdoctoral training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School from 1988 to 1993. Dr. Dou has extensive experience in the fields of molecular targeting, drug discovery, chemoprevention, natural products, proteasome inhibitors, cell cycle and apoptosis, and has published ~222 peer-reviewed research and review articles, many of those in journals of the highest quality.

Dr. Enrico Garattini is a medical doctor and the Head of The Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the IRCCS-Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri” in Milano, Italy, a not-for-profit Institute devoted to experimental and clinical research in the fields of pharmacology and biomedicine. He has over 35 years experience in the area of experimental research and has authored more than 130 articles in “peer-review” journals indexed in PUBMED and a series of book chapters. He has served as expert consultant of the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicines and the French Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM). He is also member of the Editorial Board of 4 other scientific journals.

Dr. Abhinav Grover is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Biotechnology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He obtained his PhD (Majoring in Metabolic Engineering, Computational Biology and Plant Cell Technology) from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 2011. He has around 83 research Publications, 1 Book and 5 book chapters to his credit.

Professor Dimitra Hadjipavlou-Litina received her undergraduate training in Pharmacy at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (1975-1979) and her PhD in Pharmacy at the same University. She conducted postdoctoral studies at California (supervisor Professor Corwin Hansch). Currently she is a full professor and a head at the School of Pharmacy. Her research interests involve synthesis and biological studies and the use of Computational Chemistry in Drug Design and resulted in the publication of over 220 peer-reviewed articles over 5000 citations and h factor = 38. Currently is the Editor of Current Enzyme Inbibition, CEI and a member of Editorial Advisory Board of “Anti-Inflammatory & Anti-allergy Agents In Medicinal Chemistry” as well as “Cardiovascular & Hematological Agents in Medicinal Chemistry”, “Letters In Drug Design & Discovery”, published by Bentham Science Publishers.

After his PhD (1995), Dr Heymann successively was appointed: technician, engineer at the Nantes Hospital (FR), Associate-Professor (2001) and Professor of Histology and Embryology at the University of Nantes (2009). He heads an Inserm research laboratory studying the pathogenesis of bone sarcomas. He has authored more than 220 peer-reviewed publications. Since September 2015, He was awarded a personal Chair of Bone Oncology at the University of Sheffield (UK) where He serves as a head of a European Associated Laboratory (Sarcoma Research Unit) Inserm/Univ. Sheffield/Univ. Nantes.

Dr. Huixiao Hong is a senior Scientist at National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Arkansas, USA, working on the scientific bases for regulatory application and development of genomics biomarkers. Before joining the FDA, he was the Manager of Bioinformatics Division at Z-Tech, an ICFI company, at NCTR. He held a Research Scientist position at Sumitomo Chemical Company in Japan. He was a visiting scientist at National Cancer Institute (NCI) at National Institutes of Health (NIH). He was also an Associated Professor and the Director of Laboratory of Computational Chemistry at Nanjing University in China. He published more than 160 scientific papers and served as Editor-in-Chief, Executive Editor and Editorial Board member for more than 10 peer-reviewed journals and as reviewer for more than 50 peer-reviewed journals. He received his Ph.D. from Nanjing University in China and did post-doctoral research at Maxwell Institute in Leeds University in England.

Dr. Hiseh is an Associate Director, Institute of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Research, National Health Research Institutes and Adjunct Professor at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He has published more 110 papers in peer reviewed international journals in the area of anti-cancer, anti-diabetics and anti-virus drug discovery and obtained 55 patents granted. Most importantly, DBPR104, I invented licensed to SynCore Biotech in 2008, obtained IND approved by US FDA and TFDA in 2010, and currently is undergoing phase II clinical trial in Taiwan. Recently, EGFR inhibitor (DBPR112) was also obtained US IND approval April, 2016 and multiple kinase inhibitor (DBPR114) will be filed US IND in first quarter of 2017.

Dr. Kalász is a Senior Scientific Adviser in the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary. He has several decades of experience in the isolation of natural products, identification of drug binding sites and in studies on pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism. Dr. Kalász edited 12 books, authored about 250 papers in peer review journals and internationally published books. The topics of his original research papers cover isolation of new, biologically active endogenous compounds, theory and practice of displacement chromatography and HPLC, development of novel instrumentation for analytical and preparative scale separation and distribution of drugs in the body.

Professor Kamal, a Pro Vice Chancellor at Jamia Hamdard, is a distinguished scientist in the field of medicinal chemistry and has been associated with the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology as an Outstanding Scientist and with the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Hyderabad as a Project Director. He has won several honours and awards for his research like CSIR Young Scientist Award in Chemical Sciences (1991), Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India (1999), Ranbaxy Research Award in the field of Pharmaceutical Sciences (2005), OPPI Scientist Award from the Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (2009), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, London. His expertise has attracted international academic collaborations with Imperial College London, Kings College London, Greifswald University, University of Cape Town, King Saud University and University of Michigan.

Dr. Momin Khan currently working as an Associate Professor at Department of Chemistry Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan Pakistan. He got his doctoral degree in Organic Medicinal Synthetic Chemistry from HEJ Research Institute, University of Karachi Pakistan in 2011. Dr. Khan completed six month postdoc from University of Bristol UK, in 2014. Dr. Khan Working on synthesis of medicinally important heterocyclic compounds, having enzyme inhibition properties. Dr. Momin published fifty eight (58) research articles in impact factored international peer reviewed journals in addition to publication of a US Patent on medicinal chemistry. He has one (01) Ph.D, thirty-two (32) M.Phil and fourty four (44) undergraduate students. Currently five Ph.D. and eight M. Phil research scholars are working under his supervision.

Dr. Reza Khodarahmi (Professor in Biochemistry) was born in Nahavand-Iran, 1974. He received his Bsc degree in general Biology from the Razi University-Kermanshah and then graduated in Biochemistry (Msc) from the Tarbiat Modarres University-Tehran. He received his PhD degree in 2005 from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran for his studies on the effects of artificial chaperones on protein misfolding and aggregation. Since 2007, he has held a position in the school of Pharmaceutical Sciences (and Medical Biology Research Center), Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. His research interests focus on the in vitro characterization of oxidative events accompanying amyloid aggregation, drug-protein interaction and enzyme inhibition, using both experimental and computational tools.

Dr. Kim Lawson has worked in Drug Discovery Research & Development in multinational pharmaceutical industries (Rhone-Poulenc Sante, France; Recherche Syntex France; Sanofi-Labaz, Belgium; British Biotech, UK) with a focus on pharmacology to take concept to clinical trials. He is a senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, UK with academic interests in all aspects of pharmacology and therapeutics, and research interests focused to the identification of treatments of fibromyalgia and to the pharmacology of potassium channels. He is chair of the Medical Advisory Board of Fibromyalgia Action UK and Patron to Folly Pogs Fibromyalgia Research UK.

Dr. Lídia Moreira Lima was graduated as Pharmacist from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She got MSc and DSc degrees from Chemistry Institute of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She has conducted post-doctoral research at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Navarra, Spain. She is an Associate Professor in the Biomedical Institute of Sciences from 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.

Prof. Dr. Xinyong Liu received his B.S and M.S. degrees from School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong Medical University. He obtained his Ph.D. from Shandong University. From 1997 to 1999 he worked at Instituto de Quimica Medica (CSIC) in Spain as a senior visiting scholar. Presently, He is the director of Institute of Medicinal Chemistry, Dean of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University. He currently serves on editor of the “Journal of Chemistry” and on editorial board members of more than 20 academic journals. In his medicinal chemistry research of antiviral and cardiovascular drugs, he has published more than 300 paper and 6 monographs and granted 34 patents presently.

Morteza Mahmoudi is an instructor in Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.He is a biomedical investigator with a multidisciplinary background in nanoscience, bioengineering, and regenerative medicine. His specific research interest is controlling nano-bio interfaces to develop new (nano)platforms for prevention of life-threatening conditions such as cardiomyopathy, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Maria Paula Marques (October 1960, Portugal) received her MSc in Physical-Chemistry (1987) her PhD (1995) from the Univ. Coimbra. M.P.M. Marques is currently a professor at the Dep. Life Sciences of the Univ. Coimbra, assistant-coordinator of the R&D Group “Molecular Physical-Chemistry” and head of the “Chemoprevention, -Therapy & -Toxicology” laboratory. M.P.M. Marques has authored 130 scientific papers, 8 book chapters and co-edited 3 books. She is an affilliated member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and of the Clinical Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy for Medical Diagnosis (CLIRSPEC), the portuguese delegate for the COST Action Raman4Clinics, an associate editor of RSC Advances and a member of the editorial board of Recent Patents on Anti-Cancer Drug Discovery. Her research is centred on the development of Pt and Pd-based anticancer agents, using vibrational spectroscopy, including neutron techniques and synchrotron-based methods.

Dr McGeary is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, and an Affiliate Associate Professor in the School of Pharmacy at The University of Queensland, Australia. Dr McGeary has authored over 75 publications, as well as 3 book chapters and 11 patents. His research interests encompass the development of new synthetic methodologies, and the design and synthesis of potent inhibitors of metalloenzymes.

Ryuichi Morishita, M.D., Ph.D., graduated Osaka University Medical School in 1987, and received Ph. D. from Osaka University in 1991. After postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine, he served as an Assistant Professor, Department of Geriatric Medicine, Osaka University Medical School from 1994 to 1998. Then, from 1998 to 2003, he was Associate Professor, Division of Gene Therapy Science, Osaka University Medical School. Then, he became Professor & Chairman of Division of Clinical Gene Therapy, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University Medical School from 2003.

Dr. Muñoz is M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Seville, Spain. He has published more than 90 scientific publications and 1 patent. He is a reviewer for more than 50 of peer review journals and is director of 42 PhD thesis. His research is focused on SP/NK-1 receptor and NK-1 receptor antagonists in cancer. Currently Dr. Muñoz is principal investigator of the “Research Laboratory in Neuropeptides” (IBIS) Virgen del Rocio University Hospital of Seville, Spain.

Kamil Musilek graduated as pharmacist and made his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at Charles University in Prague (Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Kralove), Czech Republic, working on antidotes (cholinesterase reactivators) for organophosphate intoxications in cooperation with University of Defence Brno. He switched to University of Hradec Kralove (Faculty of Science) where he has current position as the head of Department of Chemistry and full professor. His current research involves cholinesterase reactivators, mitochondrial modulators related to Alzheimer disease and anticancer agents. He has over 200 contributions within book chapters, reviews, original articles and patents.

Dr. Francesca Musumeci received her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Genoa (Italy) in 2012. Since then, she has a Postdoctoral position at the University of Genoa (Prof. Schenone’s group) working at the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds potentially active as anticancer or antiviral agents. Her professional experiences include two visiting research fellowships, at National University of Ireland in Galway and at the University of Nottingham. She is author of 40 publications on international journals and a patent. She recently obtained the National Scientific Habilitation as an Associate Professor in Medicinal Chemistry.

Amy Hauck Newman, Ph.D. is a Senior Investigator and Chief of the Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch and the Medicinal Chemistry Section at the National Institute on Drug Abuse – Intramural Research Program (NIDA-IRP), National Institutes of Health. She also serves the NIDA-IRP as Deputy Scientific Director and the Director of its Medication Development Program. She has coauthored more than 240 original articles and reviews on the design, synthesis, and pharmacological evaluation of CNS active agents, focusing on the dopamine and serotonin transporters and dopamine D2-like receptors, as leads toward potential treatment medications for substance use disorders.

Dr. Yoshihiro Oka is a physician scientist, and at present a Specially Appointed Professor of Department of Cancer Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Japan. He was formerly a Scientific Member of Basel Institute for Immunology, Switzerland, where he studied basic immunology. At Osaka University, Dr. Oka and his colleagues identified cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes of WT1 protein, which showed that WT1 is a novel cancer antigen. Subsequently, they demonstrated that WT1-targeting immunotherapy, such as WT1 peptide vaccine, has a therapeutic potential for various kinds of malignancies. Dr. Oka’s main interest and research field is cancer immunology and immunotherapy.

Prof. Orhan is a professor of Pharmacognosy and currently dean of Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University (Ankara, Turkey). She obtained her Ph.D. degree (2002) from the Department of Pharmacognosy at the same Faculty and holds two Master degrees from Pharmacognosy (1996, Gazi University, Turkey) and Marine Natural Product Chemistry (1998, University of Ryukyus, Japan). Dr. Orhan was a visiting scientist at University of Winnipeg (Canada) in 2003 and served as funding dean of Faculty of Pharmacy at the Eastern Mediterranean University. She has over 180 papers in Science Citation Indexed journals and 13 book chapters and received a number of science awards at national and international levels.

Mihail-Lucian Pascu, PhD., is born in 1946 in Bucharest and is physicist, Senior Scientist at National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics, Bucharest where he heads Laser Spectroscopy Group, he founded in 1975. He is Professor at Physics Faculty, University of Bucharest where he heads PhD. His interests are laser physics, tunable lasers, spectroscopy, optofluidics, biophotonics and biomedicine. He published over 200 papers, several book/or book chapters on lasers in biophotonics and biomedicine and presented over 300 communications at international conferences. He was Scientific Officer at European Commission-DG-RTD and European Science Foundation serving COST Office between 2001 and 2006.

Bernard Pirotte is a pharmacist by education (Université de Liège, Belgium, 1981). He received the Ph.D. degree in 1989 (Ph.D. thesis in medicinal chemistry) and the Agrégation de l’Enseignement Supérieur degree in 2001 from the same university. He worked as a F.N.R.S. researcher between 1990 and 2002 and became a Professor at the University of Liège in 2002 (currently Full Professor in Medicinal Chemistry). His main fields of interest are the design and synthesis of new ion channel modulators, positive allosteric modulators of ionotropic glutamate receptors, anticancer drugs, innovative approaches in the identification of new drug targets (metabolomics, GPCR deorphanization).

Dr. Margit Pissarek is currently an Assistant Professor and Physician in the Institute of Neurosciences and Medicine at Research Centre Jülich, Germany (since 1998). Dr. Pissarek received her M.D. in 1983 from the Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, and then performed her services in the Institute of Biochemistry (Humboldt University), the Clinic of Cardiovascular Surgery (University Leipzig, Germany), the Institute of Molecular Pharmacology (Berlin, Germany), the Laboratoire de Signalisation et Physiopathologie Cardiovasculaire (University Paris-Sud, France), and the Rudolf-Boehm-Institute of Pharmacology (Leipzig). She is specialized in biochemistry as well as in pharmacology and toxicology. Currently, she is concerned with development of tracers for positron-emission-tomography focused on cerebral neuropeptide receptors.

Dr. Polanski obtained his PhD from the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. Dr Polanski also holds a habilitation in organic and medicinal chemistry from the Lodz University of Technology, Lodz, Poland. Currently Dr. Polanski is a Full Professor in the University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. He has published more than 100 scientific publications and is a named inventor of 20 issued patents. He is a member of the editorial board of Combinatorial Chemistry and HTS (Bentham).

Dr. Yenamandra Subrahmanya Prabhakar is Chief Scientist and Professor at the Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR), Medicinal & Process Chemistry Division, CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India. Dr. Prabhakar has wide experience in 2D/3D QSAR, feature selection approaches, molecular modeling, MD simulations, and protein informatics in drug design and discovery research. His research is focused on development of rationales for the design of antiviral, antimalarials and anticancer agents, along with introduction of some state of the art QSAR analysis tools. Dr. Prabhakar, as an author/co-author, has published more than 80 articles in various journals, having over 1,205 total citations.

Dr.Rinaldi research activity is mainly focused on the study of phospholipid and non-phospholipid vesicles as drug delivery systems.Dr Rinaldi has been involved not only in preparation and characterization of vesicular systems for different application, but also in application studies by in vitro cellular evaluation and in vivo of drug delivery systems. Currently her research is focused on preparation and characterization of novel drug delivery systems (nanoemulsions) composed by essential oil and natural active compounds.

Tadeusz Robak MD., Ph.D. is Professor of Hematology at the Medical University of Lodz, Poland. He currently holds the posts of Professor of Hematology at the Medical University of Lodz and Chief of Department of Hematology at the Copernicus Memorial Hospital in Lodz, Poland. The particular research emphasis has been on the application of new drugs in the treatment of leukemia multiple myeloma and lymphoma and interactions of antineoplastic agents. Professor Robak published more than 550 journal articles, 480 abstracts and 25 books and chapters. He received award “Eminent Scientist of the Year 2010” from International Research Promotion Council (IRPC).

Romeo Romagnoli was graduated in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology at the University of Ferrara in 1990 and in 1995 he received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. From 1999 to 2014 he has held a position of Assistant Professor in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Ferrara. Actually he is an Associate Professor in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Ferrara. His scientific interests have focused on new synthetic methods for the preparation of natural substances or biologically active analogues, the medicinal chemistry of ligands for adenosine receptors subtypes and antitumor agents. He has published more than 230 research papers and 20 international patents.

Dr. Kunal Roy is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He has been a recipient of Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship (University of Manchester, 2007) and Marie Curie International Fellowship (University of Manchester, 2013). The field of his research interest is QSAR and Molecular Modeling with application in Drug Design and Predictive Toxicology. Dr. Roy has published more than 250 research articles in peer reviewed journals and coauthored/edited several QSAR related books ( https://sites.google.com/site/kunalroyindia/home/krlistofpublications ). His current h-index is 33. Dr. Roy has been recently recognized as one of the Top Ten Authors in the list of Active Indian Researchers (2009-14) in the subjects of Chemistry, and Pharmacology, Toxicology & Pharmaceutics in the Bibliometric Analysis published by DST, Govt of India (available from http://www.dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/Elsevier.pdf).

Prof. Romano Silvestri obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Rome La Sapienza. Now he's full professor of medicinal chemistry at University La Sapienza and the director of the school of specialization in hospital pharmacy. He's member of the scientific council of Institute Pasteur Italy. His research projects focused on the drug design and synthesis and molecular models of new antitumor, antiviral and endocannabinoid ligands. He developed new procedures for the microwave-assisted synthesis and the highly automated purification of relevant pharmaceutical molecules. He has published more than 135 research articles and 10 patents. is co-inventor of 10 patents.

Marvin A Soriano-Ursúa has completed his PhD from Escuela Superior de Medicina del Instituto Politénico Nacional, México. He is a Member of the National System of Researchers, and he is Head of the Physiology Laboratory. He has focused on the rational drug design having boron-containing compounds as main moiety, as well as, the different effects of these compounds on human physiology, particularly on G-Protein coupled receptors. He has authored more than 50 publications, and he has been serving as an Editorial Board Member and Reviewer of repute scientific journals.

Dr. Ipek Suntar is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey. She got her bachelors, M.Sc. and PhD. Degrees from the same University. She conducted a part of her PhD. studies in University of Wolverhampton, UK, by obtaining scholarship from Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). Her research field mainly focuses on the investigation of the in vivo wound healing, anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive, anti-endometriotic and anti-urolithiatic activities of the natural sources used in traditional medicine through biological activity-guided fractionation and isolation assays. She has published 80 scientific articles (SCI and SCI-exp. indexed) and 10 book chapters. She is a member of Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research (GA), (PSE) and (AMAPSEEC)

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. One of the sulfonamides discovered in his group entered Phase I clinical trials in 2014 for the treatment of advanced, metastatic solid tumors. He is Editor-in-Chief of Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents, Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry, Current Enzyme Inhibition, etc. 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 (LabTimes 2013, 5, 38).

Lorena Tavano graduated from the University of Calabria in 2006 and received her Ph.D. in 2009. She moved to the IQAC-CSIC (Barcelona, Spain) as Contracted Researcher and in 2012 she came back to the University of Calabria where she is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher. She focused her interest in the synthesis of surfactants and the in design of macromolecular systems in the form of vesicles, hydrogels and liquid crystals for pharmaceutical and food applications. She has a strong background in the field of controlled drug delivery. She is author of 42 publications on international peer review journals and book chapters.

Saad Tayyab obtained B.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry (1979), M.Sc. Biochemistry (1981), M.Phil. Biochemistry (1983) and Ph.D. Biochemistry (1987) from Aligarh Muslim University, India. Currently he is working as a Professor of Biochemistry at the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, Malaysia since 2004. He has published more than 100 scientific publications in ISI-indexed journals. He has served as the Editorial Board Member of the Bioscience Education e Journal, UK (2008–2011), Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry (2002–2004) and Journal of the Assam Science Society, India (2003–2005). Currently, he is serving as the Editor-in-Chief, Malaysian Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (since 2015), Editorial Board Member of Biochemistry Research International (since 2013), Letters in Drug Design & Discovery (2015), International Journal of Biological Chemistry (since 2008) and Asian Journal of Biochemistry (since 2008).

Prof. Antonio Toninello obtained his degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Padova, Italy. He was Associate Professor at the Faculty of Natural, Physical, and Mathematical Sciences, University of Padova and Italian Member of Cost Actions on Biogenically Active Amines in Food andHealth Implications of Dietary Amines. At present is Senior Scientist of Patavinum Studio at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova. Prof. Toninello is author of more than 150 scientific publications in the most important international biochemical journals .

Tiziano Tuccinardi is an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Pisa. Since July 2016 he is also Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, Temple University’s College of Science and Technology, Philadelphia, PA, USA. He has published more than 150 papers, five patents and he is a scientific advisory board member of the Bio Future Medicine (BFM) start-up. His research interests include drug and lead discovery, with a focus on computer-assisted approaches and medicinal chemistry, including synthesis of small molecules, virtual and biomolecular screening.

Dr. Qinghua Wu obtained the doctor's degree from Huazhong Agricultural University, China in 2013. During 2010-2011, Dr. Wu has studied as a visiting scholar in Institute of Food Chemistry, University of Muenster, Germany. Since 2014, he is an invited professor in University of Hradec Kralove. Since 2015.07, he began to be an associate professor in Yangtze University. His research interest is metabolism, pharmacokinetics, toxicokinetics, immunotoxicity, and food safety. Dr Wu has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles in the field of metabolism and toxicology..

Sho-ichi Yamagishi, MD, PhD is a Professor and Chairman of Department of Pathophysiology and Therapeutics of Diabetic Vascular Complications, Kurume University School of Medicine, Japan. He has received a PhD from Kanazawa University, Japan in 1993. He received Angiogenesis Stem Cell Award from AHA in 2003, Distinguished Investigator Award from Japan Diabetes Society in 2005, and Research Award from Japanese Society of Anti-Aging Medicine in 2012. He is serving as an editorial board member of reputed journals and published more than 500 research papers, including Nature, JCI, JACC, JASN, Diabetes, Diabetes Care, and FASEB J. His research interest is Diabetes, Cardiology, Aging, Glycation and Oxidative Stress..

Guang-Fu Yang got his Doctor of Philosophy in Pesticide Science from Institute of Element-Organic Chemistry, Nankai University in 1997. After that, he joined in CCNU and became a full professor four years later. He served as the dean of the College of Chemistry of CCNU from 2002 to 2014, and then was promoted to be the Assistant President of Central China Normal University in February 2014. He has over 20 years of working on the area of rational design and syntheses of biologically active small molecules (drug and pesticide) and their chemical biology. He was awarded in 2009 the National foundation for distinguish young scientist from National Nature Science Foundation of China. He has published around 200 peer-reviewed papers, 25 patents and 8 book chapters.

Dr. Zhang has an extensive expertise and experiences in translational biomedical research, particularly translational medicine, cancer therapy and prevention, pharmacogenomics and therapeutics. He has published more than 200 papers, 2 books, more than 50 invited reviews/book chapters, and more than 180 meeting abstracts. Dr. Zhang has made more than 200 invited presentations. He is a certified toxicologist by the American Board of Toxicology (D.A.B.T.). He is also an editor-in-chief, associate-editor-in-chief, associate editor, or editorial board member of 25 scientific journals. Dr. Zhang has been elected as a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since 2009.

Dr. Peng Zhou is an Associate Professor of Bioinformatics at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC). He received his Ph.D. from Zhejiang University, P.R.China in 2011. From 2012 to 2013, he worked as a Post Doctor in U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), USA. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in SCI-indexed journals. His publications have been cited over 1,500 times with H-index of 25 in Google Scholar.

Dr. Maria Grazia Bonomo is a biologist and holds a class honours degree in Biological Sciences and has completed her PhD in Biology and Biotechnologies from University of Basilicata, Italy. She is a professor of teaching ‘Physiology and Genetics of Microorganisms’ for the Degree Course in Biotechnologies and she has a post-doc fellowship at University of Basilicata and performs supplementary teaching activities for the course of General and Applied Microbiology. She is author/co-author of many international papers and an editorial board member and/or reviewer of reputed journals..

Dr. Bruno Rizzuti is a research scientist at the National Research Council of Italy, presently working within the Institute of Nanotechnology. He is a theoretical biophysicist, and received his PhD in Physics from the University of Calabria. His research interests include the study of the folding, binding and aggregation properties of proteins, for applications in nanomedicine and 'in silico' biopharmaceutics. In particular, he is currently involved in several projects focused on computer-aided drug discovery, development, design and selection.

Prof. Orhan is a professor of Pharmacognosy and currently dean of Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University (Ankara, Turkey). She obtained her Ph.D. degree (2002) from the Department of Pharmacognosy at the same Faculty and holds two Master degrees from Pharmacognosy (1996, Gazi University, Turkey) and Marine Natural Product Chemistry (1998, University of Ryukyus, Japan). Dr. Orhan was a visiting scientist at University of Winnipeg (Canada) in 2003 and served as funding dean of Faculty of Pharmacy at the Eastern Mediterranean University. She has over 180 papers in Science Citation Indexed journals and 13 book chapters and received a number of science awards at national and international levels.

Dr. Martiniano Bello is a Full Professor at the National Polytechnic Institute, Superior School of Medicine (Laboratory of molecular modelling, drug design and bioinformatics), Mexico City, Mexico. Dr. Bello´s current research focuses on molecular modelling and drug discovery through rational drug design or drug repurposing method. Dr. Belloe has over 58 JCR publications.