Protein & Peptide Letters

Professor Abell graduated from the University of Adelaide with BSc(Hon) and PhD and then undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge. He held a professorship at the University of Canterbury before returning to the University of Adelaide in 2007, where he is currently Professor of Chemistry and node director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale Biophotonics.. In Adelaide he co-founded an Adelaide-based company (Calpain Therapeutics) to develop macrocyclic protease inhibitors as a potential treatment for cataract and other conditions. Past Head of School of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Adelaide and recent recipient of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Adrien Albert Prize and the Alexander R. Matzuk Prize and Lecture in Drug Discovery (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston).

Yusuf Akhter has received his PhD from University of Hyderabad, India in 2010. He worked as DAAD and EMBO long term fellow at European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany. Currently he works as Assistant Professor at Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Central University of Himachal Pradesh, India. His research group is mainly using structural bioinformatics approaches for drug discovery against microbial pathogens, understanding functions from protein structures and immunoinformatics. He serves as Associate Editor in several other reputed journals also like BMC Microbiology, Archives of Microbiology and Cogent Biology.

Dr. Raghuvir K. Arni is a Full Professor at the Department of Physics and Director of the Multiuser Center for Biomolecular Innovation, São Paulo State University, Brazil (www.cmib-unesp.com). He obtained his PhD in protein crystallography from the Free University/Technical University Berlin was a research associate at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg and a visiting professor at Michigan State University. His research focus is centered on the three-dimensional structures of proteins, primarily plant, animal and bacterial toxins and enzymes involved in blood coagulation. He is the author of over 130 scientific publications.

Dr. Azar is a board-certified ophthalmologist, Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and Professor of Ophthalmology, Bioengineering and Pharmacology. His prior positions include tenured professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, director of the cornea service at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, senior scientist at Schepens Eye Research Institute, and faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He earned an executive MBA from the University of Chicago. His basic science and clinically related vision research has contributed significantly to advances in the treatment of corneal diseases and in refractive surgery. He has authored >400 scientific articles and book chapters, is an editor of 16 books in ophthalmology, and holds 32 patents.

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Computer Science from the Indian Statistical Institute. She holds an M. Tech in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. She is currently the Director of Indian Statistical Institute when she also holds the position of a full Professor. She has published more than 250 scientific publications and is an Associate Editor of Biosciences and IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems. She has received several awards and honors, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the most coveted scientific prize in India.

Dr. Attila Borics received his Ph. D. degree in 2005 from Creighton University (USA) for his contribution to the field of chiroptical spectroscopy and conformational studies of peptides. Then he joined the ranks of the Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged (Hungary) as a research associate where he holds his current position. His research focuses on biomolecular structure, more specifically the atomic level structural investigation of the activation mechanism of G protein-coupled receptors. Dr. Borics is also an adjunct lecturer of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Dr. Breydo obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Currently Dr. Breydo is a Research Associate (non-tenure track faculty) at the University of South Florida (Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, Morsani College of Medicine). He has published more than 70 scientific publications. Dr. Reitz is currently an Associate Editor of Biochemical and Biophysical Reports and an Editorial Board member of several journals including Protein and Peptide Letters.

Yudong Cai is a full time professor and principle investigator at the School of Life Sciences, Shanghai University, China. His main interests cover various areas of systems biology and bioinformatics such as protein-protein interaction, disease biomarkers prediction, drug-target interaction and protein functional sites prediction. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, including invited reviews. He is the Editorial Board member of Biochimica et Biophisica Acta (BBA) - Proteins and Proteomics, Biochemistry Research International and Protein & Peptide letters.

Dr. Cilli obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Molecular Biology (Biophysics) from the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Cilli is Adjunct Professor and Vice-Director of Institute of Chemistry (Unesp – Univ. Estadual Paulista, Brazil). Currently Dr. Cilli is a researcher at CEPID (Center for Innovation in Biodiversity and Drug Discovery), Nanobionics and the Synthesis, Structure and Applications of Peptides and Proteins research groups. During his career, Dr. Cilli has authored more than 80 manuscripts and patents. The studies by Dr. Cilli’s group are highly multidisciplinary, involving organic synthesis, biophysical evaluation, bioanalytical approach and cell biology.

Dr. D’Auria is the Director of the Institute of Food Science, CNR, Avellino, and an Associated Professor at INRS, Laval, Canada. He also heads the Laboratory of Protein Biophysics and Biosensor Development at ISA-CNR, Avellino, Italy. The main interests of Dr. D’Auria Lab are focused on the design and realization of advanced bio/sensors for safety and security. Dr. D’Auria has authotred more than 200 publications on international journals and several national and international patetnts.

Dr. Norelle Daly obtained a Doctorate in Biochemistry from The University of Queensland, Brisbane. Her research involves the use of NMR spectroscopy to study peptides with therapeutic potential, and she has been centrally involved in determining the structures of more than 50 cystine-rich peptides including peptides isolated from plants, cone-snails, bacteria, spiders and frogs. She has authored more than 150 manuscripts and is an inventor on three patents. Currently she is a Professor at James Cook University, Cairns where her research focuses on peptides involved in anti-inflammatory diseases and wound healing.

Dr. Swagata Dasgupta is a Professor of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India. She completed her Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA. Her research interests in protein chemistry involve protein–protein and protein-small molecule interactions and protein structure analyses. She has contributed to teaching and research at IIT Kharagpur for the past 20 years and has over 100 publications. Her pioneering work has been on polyphenols and their interactions with biomacromolecules. Recent work on fibrillation of proteins has been initiated to study amyloid fibrils, the hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases. The unique feature of her work is the blend of experimental protein chemistry with in-depth structural analysis.

Bart De Spiegeleer studied pharmaceutical sciences at Ghent University, where he completed in 1989 his Ph.D. on anticancer platinum complexes. He continued to work in the pharmaceutical industry and was a board member of several start-up companies. Returning to Ghent University, he became in 2008 full-time professor, heading the EU-GMP approved Drug Quality and Registration (DruQuaR) laboratory at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. His current main scientific interests include regulatory and functional quality aspects of medicinal products with emphasis on bioactive peptides and proteins, biologics/ATMP and NTD-medicines, using LC-MS/IR/CD/biosensors, biological activity using receptor/cell/tissue/animal models and pharmacokinetics with emphasis on the BBB and dermal/mucosal local permeation using in-vitro and in-vivo models.

Dr. Dubey obtained Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. After his postdoctoral training at Florida State University, USA, he joined Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India as Assistant Professor. Currently Dr. Dubey is full Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India. He has published more than 100 scientific publications and is a named inventor of 07 issued U.S patents. Dr. Dubey has done extensive studies on Biochemistry of Leishmania parasite. Dr. Dubey has likewise made cutting edge contributions to understanding protein folding.

Professor Salvatore Foti graduated from the University of Catania followed by postdoctoral research at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Mainz, Germany, and at the Chemistry Laboratory of the University of Cambridge UK. He is currently Professor of Chemistry and head of the Proteomic Platform of the Bio-nanotech Research and Innovation Tower at the University of Catania. His research interest involves the use of mass spectrometry-based proteomic techniques for protein characterization. Recent applications include proteins from wheat kernel, milk and mitochondrial membrane. He is the author of over 120 scientific publications and book chapters.

Prof. Dr Octavio Luiz Franco is graduated in Ciencias Biologicas from the Universidade Federal do Ceara´ (1998) and obtained his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Universidade de Brasılia (2001). He is the head professor at the Universidade Catolica Dom Bosco and the Universidade Catolica de Brasilia, a visiting professor at the Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, a researcher at the Post- Graduation program of Physics Education from UCB, a researcher at the Universidade de Brasilia in the program of Molecular Pathology and researcher from CNPq. He has experience in biochemistry, proteomics and molecular modeling. He currently works on the following subjects: antimicrobial peptides, immunomodulators, antifreezing and proteome of animals, plants and microorganisms. His work has also focused on the development of bioproducts and bioprocesses. At the moment he has more than 250 manuscripts already published.

He is now a professor in Zhengzhou University of School of Life Sciences. He obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) of biochemistry and molecular biology in Lanzhou University, and also had been as a visiting scholar in The University of Chicago of School of Medicine. He works on cancer immunology and immunotherapy, and published more than 50 scientific publishes and named as inventor of 21 issued China patents. He also acquired several honors, such as Young Peptide Scientist Award from Chinese International Peptide Syposium, Outstanding Young Scientist Award from Chinese Society for Immunology, and Young Scientist Excellent Presentation Award from Chinese Society for Medicinal Chemistry.

Ehud Gazit is a Professor and Endowed Chair at Tel Aviv University. From 2008-2012 he served as Tel Aviv University Vice President for Research and Development. His B.Sc. (summa cum laude) at the Special Program for Outstanding Students, Tel Aviv University and his Ph.D. (with highest distinction) at the Weizmann Institute of Science (1997). A faculty member at Tel Aviv University since 2000, after completing his postdoc at MIT. Gazit had received numerous awards and honors including Hesterin Award and Kadar Family Award. He is fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and member of EMBO. In 2015, he was knighted by the Italian Republic.

Kai Hilpert is associate Professor (Reader) of Infection and Immunity at the Institute of Infection and Immunity at St. George’s University of London. He has 20 years of experience in the synthesis of peptide libraries, screening and optimization of peptides. Since 2003 he studies the design and optimization of short antimicrobial peptides. He works close with industry and for the last two years has been founder and director of a university spin-off company TiKa Diagnostics Ltd. that exploits synthetic peptides developed in his laboratory. He was the first researcher that applied peptide libraries synthesized on cellulose membranes to investigate antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). In addition, he showed that tethered AMPs can be used to protect implants from bacterial infections stimulating respective research and developments. He has co-organized the International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides (IMAP) in London (twice), Leipzig and Graz. In addition, he is co-author of the article "Alternatives to antibiotics--a pipeline portfolio review " published in Lancet Infectious Diseases that won the Elsevier Atlas award. In the last years he has intensively worked on optimizing peptide libraries against multidrug-resistant bacteria, mainly Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Dr. Holub is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Ohio University. He has nearly 20 years of experience in the development and discovery of peptide and protein-based therapeutics. Professor Holub received his Ph.D. in biomolecular chemistry from New York University in 2009 where he developed unique bioconjugation reactions to functionalize peptidomimetic scaffolds. Following completion of his Ph.D., Dr. Holub went on to perform post-doctoral research at Yale University. While at Yale, Dr. Holub developed high throughput screens to quantify the cytosolic delivery of peptides and miniature proteins to enhance their therapeutic potential. Upon completion of his post-doctoral appointment, Professor Holub joined the faculty of Ohio University where his current research involves the development of biomimetic miniature proteins to study the fundamental nature of therapeutically relevant protein-protein interactions. Dr. Holub has published over 20 research articles and holds two US patents from his work in the field.

Doctor Paola Irato graduated in Biological Sciences from the University of Milan in 1984. In 1988, she obtained the research doctorate in Evolutionary Biology from University of Padua. Since 1991, she has been a researcher of general physiology. Dr. Irato has always been interested in heavy metal detoxification systems. She has been in-charge of the project “The determination of biological stress indices in mugilidae from high and low anthropic stress brackish environments”.

Dr. Mohammad Amjad Kamal completed three years U2000 Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2003 from the University of Sydney, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences. Currently Dr. Kamal is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor in the King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has published more than 260 scientific publications. Dr. Kamal is serving as external examiner for PhD thesis evaluation of various universities and as an EiC/regional/editorial member/guest editor of several reputed scientific journals (mostly published by Bentham Science Publishers) on an honorable basis. Recently, he initiated efforts to establish a “Novel Global Community Educational Foundation” as well.

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.

Prof. Nand Kishore is Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. After completing PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, he received postdoctoral training at Yale University, and National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S.A. His research interests include understanding physical chemistry underlying biologically important systems which have contributed to thermodynamic characterization of protein folding intermediates, drug-protein interactions, drug partitioning in delivery vehicles, protein-solvent interactions, and prevention of aggregation/fibrillation of proteins by using a combination of calorimetric and spectroscopic techniques. He has published about 100 papers in the areas of Physical Chemistry, Biophysical Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Setsuko Komatsu is a Chief of Field Omics Research Unit at National Institute of Crop Science and a Professor at University of Tsukuba, Japan. She employed at Meiji Pharmaceutical University and then also Medicine at Keio University, school of Medicine. Since 1990, she started working on plant proteomics using protein sequencer and mass spectrometry by a present official position. Her main research interests are within the field of crop proteomics, biochemistry and molecular biology with a special focus on signal transduction in cell. She has authored more than 300 manuscripts on plant omics research.

Dr. Larisa V. Kordyukova has a position of leading scientist in the Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Moscow State University, Russia. During the last decade her research has been focused on elucidating site specificity of post-translational modification of viral spike proteins with fatty acids of different type (S-acylation) and its structural/ functional significance. She got her PhD in cytology (1991) and Doctor of Science degree in virology/ molecular biology (habilitation, 2014) from the Moscow State University, Russia. She is the author of more than 40 articles. Her main topics of interest are protein lipidation, the enzymes responsible for S-acylation of viral proteins, protein-protein interactions during viral pathogenesis.

Dr. Kukol obtained his PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, followed by postdoctoral research in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK. Then he became a Lecturer at the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick. Currently, he is a Principal Lecturer at the School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, UK. He has published more than 40 journal articles and book chapters, including a student textbook about enzyme kinetics. Dr. Kukol's research interests include antiviral drug discovery, cardiac transmembrane protein-protein interactions and protein-protein interactions in plant-pathogen systems, using molecular modelling, biophysical and bioinformatics techniques.

Lukasz Kurgan has Ph.D. in Computer Science (2003) from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since 2015 he is with the Department of Computer Science at the Virginia Commonwealth University as the Qimonda Endowed Professor. Before that he was a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alberta. His research interest are in (un)structural bioinformatics of biologically interesting macromolecules, from individual proteins and small RNAs to complete proteomes and transcriptomes. Dr. Kurgan is an Area Editor for structural bioinformatics of BMC Bioinformatics and Associate Editor of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins, PLoS ONE, Neurocomputing, and Current Protein and Peptide Science, and Protein and Peptide Letters. More details are on the web site of his lab at http://biomine.ece.ualberta.ca/

Dr. Nikolaos Labrou received his BSc degree in Chemistry from the University of Patras, Greece (1987-1991) and his PhD in Enzyme Biotechnology from the Agricultural University of Athens (1992-1996). He has conducted postdoctoral research, as Marie Curie fellow, in Leeds UK (1996-1998) and then at Agricultural University of Athens (1998-2001). Dr Labrou started his career as Assistant Professor (2002) and he is currently full Professor with tenure and Director of the Enzyme Technology Lab at the Department of Biotechnology, Agricultural University of Athens. He has authored more than 115 peer-reviewed articles in leading international journals, 26 book chapters and he has edited two books. His research covers many areas of biotechnology including enzyme and protein engineering, immobilised enzymes, biosensors, drug design, protein downstream processing, microalgae technology as well as the characterization of therapeutic enzymes, proteins and other biomolecules.

Dr. Shufang Liang obtained a Ph.D degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Sichuan University of China in 2003, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Fudan University of China from 2003 to 2005. She is a full professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Sichuan University since 2010. Her study focuses on (1) cancer biology,(2)exploring new biological functions and pharmaceutical roles of proteins / peptides, (3) identification of novel disease biomarkers and drug targets mainly using proteomics-based systems technology. She has published 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers by now.

Dr. Lin’s research interests include methodology development to investigate mammalian cell membrane structure; phosphorylation in cellular signal transduction; and molecular proteomic changes in cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases using mass spectrometry. Dr. Lin has established successful collaborations and conducted proteomics/mass spectrometry research projects for more than 400 clients around the world (including major research institutions, universities, government agencies, scientific organizations, and pharmaceutical companies. In this capacity, he was invited to join the panel of NIH proteomics initiative on several occasions. He has authored or co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed journal publications.

Dr. Lovas obtained his formal training in chemistry in Hungary at the József Attila University and the Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szeged. In 1990, he joined Creighton University where he is a Professor of Biomedical Sciences. His research deals with conformation-biological activity relationships of polypeptides and description of solution structure of polypeptides by molecular dynamics simulations, ab initio quantum chemical calculations and chiroptical spectroscopy. He has published over 140 scientific publications.

Dr. Macedo obtained her doctorate (Ph.D.) in Biological Sciences from the Escola Paulista de Medicina-UNIFESP. Currently, Dr. Macedo is full professor in the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul-UFMS, where purify insecticide and antibacterial compounds from diverse sources, among them peptidase inhibitors, lectins and antimicrobial peptides.

Dr. Di Maro obtained his PhD in Molecular Systematic at the University "Federico II", Naples, Italy. Currently Dr. Di Maro is Associate Professor in Biochemistry at the Second University of Naples, Caserta (Italy). He published more than 100 scientific papers covering several fields. The area of interest of Dr. Di Maro is focused on Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biological Sciences. In particular, the main focus of his researches is aimed at clarifying the structure/function relationship of proteins.

Associate Professor Martin gained her PhD in Chemistry from The Australian National University. She obtained the Alexander von Humboldt and Fulbright awards to undertake post-doctoral stays in Germany and USA, respectively, before her first academic position at The Flinders University of South Australia. She currently holds a position at Monash University (since 2003) where she has a research focus on the electrochemistry of cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in steroid biosynthesis, membrane action of antimicrobial and amyloidogenic peptides and incorporation of biomolecules into novel materials especially those with semiconducting properties.

Dr. Matsushima completed his doctorate in polymer physics at Hokkaido University. After that, he joined Hokkaido Institute of Technology in 1980-1983 and Sapporo Medical University from 1983-2013. In 1986-1988 he joined the University of Virginia, USA, as the visiting associate professor. Now he is the head of Institute of Tandem Repeats. He has studied the structure, evolution, and function of tandem repeats including leucine-rich repeats by bioinformatics and their solution structures by nuclear magnetic resonance and small-angle x-ray scattering. He has published more than 90 scientific publications. He is the editorial board member of Annals of Virology and Research.

Dr. Ujjwal Maulik is a Professor and Head in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He did his Bachelors in Physics and Computer Science in 1986 and 1989 respectively. Subsequently, he did his Masters and Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1992 and 1997 respectively. Dr. Maulik has worked in many university and research institute in USA, Australia, Germany, China, Italy, France, Poland, Hungary and Slovenia. He co-authored 7 books and more than 300 research publications.

Dr. Adriano Mollica is Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Univ. “G. d’ Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Italy and PhD in “Pharmaceutical Sciences”. From 2013 he is Member of the Board of PhD program “Biomol. and Pharm. Sciences” and Tutor of several PhD students and Post-doctoral fellows. His research interests are focused on opioid peptides, neurodegeneration, treatment of chronic and neuropathic pain, multi-target compounds and nutraceuticals. He is co-author of 82 papers published in international journals, one European Patent and one Italian Patent. He is currently “Editor in Chief” of “Current Bioactive Compounds”, and Editorial Board Member of Mini rev. in Org. Chem. and of Prot. & Pept. Lett.

Hidehito Mukai received his Ph.D. degree in Applied Biochemistry from the University of Tsukuba in 1990. After a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (during which he designed "G protein antagonists"), he advanced his career by working at University of Tsukuba, NEDO Project of MITI, Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Sciences, and Kyoto Pharmaceutical University. He is now Principal Investigator of Laboratory of Peptide Science and Associate Professor of Graduate School of Bioscience, Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology from 2011. His main research interests are the physiological and pathophysiological roles of "cryptides", novel endogenous regulatory peptides hidden in protein structures, and their "accumulative" signaling mechanisms.

Dr. Oliveira obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Biochemistry from the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland. Currently Dr. Oliveira is a Titular Professor at the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. He has published more than 120 scientific publications and has been working with proteins and pathways involved with plant defense against pathogens.

Dr. Papageorgiou graduated from the University of Athens with a BSc degree in Chemistry (1979-1984) and carried out his PhD at the National Hellenic Research Foundation (1987-1991). He was a recipient of a post-doctoral fellowship (1992-1994) from AstraZeneca and worked at the University of Oxford, Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics. He continued his post-doctoral training as a research officer at the University of Bath. In 2000, he moved to Finland as Head of the Protein Crystallography Core Facility at the Turku Centre for Biotechnology and he is currently Principal Investigator and Adjunct Professor in Biochemistry and Structural Biology at the University of Turku. He has authored more than 90 scientific papers.

Dr. Permyakov obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in physics and mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and defended a doctor dissertation (Doctor of Sciences) in biology in Moscow State University. Previously he worked in the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics (Russia) and the Ohio State University (USA). Currently Dr. Permyakov is a director of the Institute for Biological Instrumentation (Russia). He has published 10 monographs and more than 160 articles.

Professor David Andrew Phoenix, OBE, FAcSS, DSc has held visiting chairs in Canada, China, UK and Russia. He has over 250 publications focused on the structure function relationships of bioactive amphiphilic molecules and was awarded a higher doctorate by Liverpool University for his impact on the field. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, The Society of Biology, The Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications and the Royal Society of Medicine. He was elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh) for his contribution to medical research and education, made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to Science and Higher Education and recognized as an Academician by the Academy of Social Sciences. He was awarded an individual Excellence award by China’s Vice Premier and was admitted to Order of Friendship (China) for outstanding contribution to the country’s economic and social development.

Dr. Ruvo graduated in Chemistry at the University of Naples in 1991. He spent the first 10 years of his career as industrial researcher, working as head of the protein and peptide laboratory and contributing at the development of several bioactive peptides. In 2002, he joined the Institute of Biostructures and Bioimaging of the National Research Council (IBB-CNR) in Naples, working as senior scientist and leading several projects focused on the development of new bioactive peptides and monoclonal antibodies against targets with a role in cancers development. He was also the scientific founder of Kesios Therapeutics Ltd (London). He is author of about 120 papers and inventor of >10 patents.

Dr. Nandini Sarkar completeted her Ph.D in Biotechnology from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India in 2011. Currently she is working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology and Medical Engineering in National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India. Her research involves studies on protein amyloidogenesis and identification of potential anti-amyloidogenic agents. She is also interested in mutagenesis studies on physiologically important proteins.

Prof. P. Shukla is working as Professor and Head, Department of Microbiology at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India. Prof. Shukla was also awarded with Indo-USA Professorship by American Society of Microbiology at University of Cincinnati, USA. His current research interests are in the fields of enzyme technology, protein bioinformatics and microbial biotechnology. Prof. Shukla has written five books, twenty two book chapters, one patent and have published more than 61 papers in peer reviewed reputed international journals. He received several awards, including Received ‘Prof. S.B. Saksena, Award’ in life sciences (1999), Danisco India Award in Probiotics & Enzyme Technology (2010), AMI-Alembic Award 2015 etc. He is also working as General Secretary, Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) a premier scientific society in Asia.

Dr. Laishram R. Singh is presently working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Delhi. Dr. Singh is a well-known enzymologist and protein biochemist with 15 years of research experience. He has published more than 40 publications in many esteemed journals in the field of proteostatic regulation and protein covalent modification by homocysteine. He has also edited books and authored several chapters in many books published by Springer, InTech and Elsevier etc. Currently Dr. Singh’s research group is interested in developing strategies to remove toxic protein deposits in neuronal cells and cardiomyocytes using proteostatic modulators and small molecule compounds.

Maria Staiano obtained the Ph.D. in Cell Biology and Physiopathology at the University of Siena, Italy. Actually, she is a scientist with a tenured position at National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Food Science (CNR), Italy. Her research interests are focused on the study of protein-protein interactions and on protein manipulation for advanced biotechnological applications. She is author of almost 100 publications on international journals.

Dr. Darko Stevanovic is assistant professor in Medical Physiology at School of Medicine University of Belgrade, Serbia and research fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. His research focuses on role of regulatory peptides, neuropeptides and hormones in central and peripheral energy balance regulation. He received his PhD degree (2010) at Belgrade University, where he examined the role of inflammatory modulators in anorexia and obesity and their role in pathophysiology of metabolic imbalances. He received two fellowships from German Academic Exchange Service – DAAD (University of Tubingen, 2002, and German Institute for Human Nutrition, Berlin/Potsdam, 2008), European Society of Endocrinology Fellowship (Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2011/12), City of Belgrade Award for best young scientist (2003) and joint award from Endocrine Society (USA) and European Society of Endocrinology for outstanding achievements in endocrinology in 2010 and 2011. Since 2013, he is performing his research at Center for Life Sciences, Harvard Medical School, where he focuses on role of sugars in feeding behavior, thermosensation and central FGF21 signaling in stimulation of energy expenditure. He is a member of Endocrine Society (USA), American Diabetes Association and European Society of Endocrinology. In last 10 years, he published more than 20 original research articles.

Chunyan Tan obtained her Ph. D. in the University of Florida in 2004. After one-year postdoctoral training in Joseph T. Hupp’s group at Northwestern University, Chunyan joined the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University in 2005 and worked as a faculty member ever since. Chunyan has published over 50 scientific publications. She serves as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Protein & Peptide Letters and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Jin Tao has received his MD and PhD from Nanjing Medical University, China in 2012. He worked as Research Fellow at National University of Singapore and Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington University School of Medicine, USA. Currently he works as full Professor at Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, Soochow University, China. He is currently Head of the Department, Vice Dean of School of Basic Medicine, and Director of Centre for Ion Channelopathies in Soochow University. His research group is mainly using electrophysiological recording and biochemical approaches for drug discovery against ion channels, understanding the roles of neuropeptides and ion channels in pain regulation. He is the Editorial Board member of Research Journal of Pharmacology, Stem Cell Discovery, and Protein & Peptide letters.

Dr. Tuffery is full time researcher and a team leader at INSERM (French Institute for Health). He has obtained a doctorate (Ph.D.) in Biomathematics from the University Paris-Diderot, Paris, and he has over 25 years of experience in structural bioinformatics, a field in which he has authored more than 70 scientific publications. Currently Dr. Tuffery is the leader of a team focusing on in silico protocols for peptide protein interactions. He is also a member of the board of the French national infrastructure for bioinformatics.

Dr. Edwin Veldhuizen received his PhD from the University of Utrecht in 2000. After several post-doctoral positions he returned to this University, where he currently is an assistant professor at the Dept. of Infectious Diseases & Immunology at Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, His research focusses on the role of innate immunity in (prevention of) infectious diseases. More specifically he studies the structure function relationship of secreted innate immune effector molecules , such as Host Defence Peptides and collectins, in order to use them as alternatives to current antibiotics.

Dr. Vitagliano is a senior scientist and group leader at the Institute of Biostructures and Bioimaging of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) where he held the position of deputy head of the Naples Unit from 2010 to 2013. The research activities of Dr. Vitagliano are focused in the large area of structural characterization of biological macromolecules. He is the (co)author of more than 150 publications, which include 140 papers published in ISI Web journals, and one patent. He has been also an invited speaker in several National and International Meetings, including Gordon and Murnau Conferences. Dr. Vitagliano has been the scientific coordinator of projects funded by regional (Regione Campania), national (Italian MIUR, CNR and ASI), and international (EU) institutions for a total of about three million euros.

Dr. Rui Wang earned his PhD degree in organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry in 1988 from Sino-Japan joint PhD program of Lanzhou University and Kyoto University, Japan. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Lanzhou University and University of Kansas, USA, from 1989 to 1993. He was appointed as a full professor at Lanzhou University in 1994 and named the Cheung Kong Professor of Peptide Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2004. Research Interests: (1) Peptides: Chemistry, Biology and Pharmaceutical Sciences (2) Medicinal Chemistry, Peptide Drugs and Chiral Drugs (3) Chiral Science, Organic Synthesis, Asymmetric Catalysis.

Currently serves as the deputy head, Department of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, editor-in-Chief, “Interdisciplinary Sciences- Computational Life Sciences”. Prof. Wei’s research is in the general field of bioinformatics with more than 250 journal papers, 9 monographs with 5000 SCI citations and an H factor of 45, made some ground breaking research works in theoretical and molecular simulations of liquids and biological systems.

Dr. Yu earned his doctor degree (Ph.D.) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Fudan University, Shanghai China and finished his postdoctoral training in Harvard Medical School. Currently Dr. Yu is the vice director of the Key laboratory of Molecular Medicine, the Ministry of Education and a Professor in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan university. He has worked in R&D of novel therapeutic recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies for more than 20 year. Dr. Yu has authored more than 30 manuscripts, 3 patents. He is also editors of a couple journals in China.

Dr. Hong-Yu Zhang is currently a professor and Dean of College of Informatics in Huazhong Agricultural University. He completed his Ph.D. in biophysics at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997. His research interest focuses on systems biology and chemical biology. Dr. Zhang has published 160+ articles in the related fields. He received Servier Young Investigator Prize from Chinese Pharmacological Society in 1999, Young Investigator Prize in Chemistry from Chinese Chemical Society in 2005 and also for Natural Science Research in 2011 from Ministry of Education, China.

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 University of California at Davis, and completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University and Harvard University, respectively. Dr. Zhou determined the 3D NMR structures of some proteins, protein-DNA complexes, super lipids such as dolichol and other polyisoprenyls, as well as polyisoprenol recognition sequences. 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. Dr. Zhou’s current research is focused on investigation into the relationship between the functions and structures of polysialyltransferases. In addition, Dr. Zhou has edited some special issues on structural biology for several influential scientific journals.

Dr. Sarah Petty received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Liverpool (United Kingdom) in 2004 before working as a postdoctoral research associate at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She is currently an associate professor of chemistry at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she works exclusively with undergraduate students. Her research interests lie in the field of biophysical chemistry with a focus on spectroscopic studies of misfolded proteins and peptides.