Cheminformatics and Computational Chemical Biology

Chris Beecher is Chief Scientific Officer for IROA Technologies. He was a member of the Department of Pathology, University of Michigan School of Medicine until 2011 when he founded NextGen Metabolomics. He was also one of the founders of Metabolon, and Metabolic Analyses. His Ph.D. was granted in 1985 in Pharmaceutical Sciences specializing in Natural Products drug discovery. He has more than 25 years of experience in metabolomics and drug discovery and development, has published over 80 peer-reviewed papers, and is listed as the inventor of 8 patents in metabolomics.

Chief Scientific Officer
IROA Technologies
USA

Vladimir Tolstikov, Ph.D., is Scientist at Eli Lilly and Company. He received B.S. and M.S in Organic Chemistry in 1977 from M.V. Lomonosov Institute of Fine Chemical Technology, in Moscow, Russia. He received Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1983 from the Institute of Chemical Means for Plant Protection, Moscow, Russia. He is a pioneer in HILIC separations development applied to Metabolomics. During his career he was working in leading research institutions in USA, Germany, Hungary and Russian Federation. He has joined Eli Lilly and Company in 2012. He is author contributor and participant of 45 conferences, 5 book chapters, and 54 articles.

Director of Metabolomics
BERG
USA

He is an associate professor of pharmacology & toxicology.

Computational, analytical and statistical approaches for metabonomics and systems biology in human health

Bjoern Riefke, Head of Metabolic Profiling and Clinical Pathology, Bayer Schering Pharma After the study of Biology and his PhD in Zoology/Animal Physiology at the Heinrich-Heine-University in Duesseldorf, Germany Bjoern Riefke started to work as a research fellow in 1994 at the Institute of Diagnostic Research in Berlin. His main research field was the biological characterization of dyes for near-infrared in-vivo imaging. In 1998 he followed an offer of Schering AG to lead a research group at Justesa Imagen S.A. in Madrid, Spain as assistant manager and head of biological research and development in the field of X-ray contrast media research. In 2003 he moved back to Bayer Health Care Berlin (former Schering AG) and headed the group of early and mechanistic toxicology with research support for the early detection of safety liabilities of drug candidates and one year later headed the group of clinical pathology with the establishment of metabolic profiling technology in toxicology. Since 2005 he participated in the validation of new biomarkers within the HESI Nephrotoxicity Working Group. Beside the routine support and project related work the main area of interest are the application of metabolic profiling in toxicology and in pharmacological studies and the evaluation of new biomarkers for different organ toxicities in comparison to traditional endpoints of clinical pathology and histopathology in the context of toxicology testing.

Metabolic Profiling and Clinical Pathology

Dr. Jeff Patrick is the Director of Marketed Technology at LECO based in Saint Joseph, MI. He is responsible for applications, new products and marketing for their line of GC-TOF-MS Products. Prior to his role at LECO he was in the Pharmaceutical Industry as a leader in Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry for 18 years. Jeff is a graduate of Purdue University (Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry) where he studied with Graham Cooks and the University of South Carolina (M.S.) where he studied with John Baynes. Jeff has more than 30 publications and book chapters to his credit.

Director of Marketed Technology
LECO Corporation
USA

Scott Tebbutt is Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Respiratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, and Principal Investigator at the James Hogg Research Centre, Institute for Heart + Lung Health, St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. Since 2006, he has served as Co-Director of the Molecular Phenotyping and Genotyping Core of the James Hogg Research Centre, and he is currently Director of the Technology Development Core. He is also Chief Scientific Officer of the Prevention of Organ Failure (PROOF) Centre of Excellence, focused on heart, lung and kidney failure. Dr. Tebbutt earned his B.A. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford (Oriel College), England in 1989, and his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the University of East Anglia in 1993 (supervised by Dr. David Lonsdale, Cambridge Laboratory, John Innes Centre, England). He pursued post-doctoral fellowships in the laboratories of Professor Ann Harris (University of Oxford, Institute of Molecular Medicine) and Professor Diana Hill (University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand), where he studied the molecular genetics of cystic fibrosis. He was appointed Research Fellow at the University of Otago (1995-2001), leading a research team investigating the genomics of the sheep cystic fibrosis locus. He was seconded to a start-up biotechnology company (Global Technologies (NZ) Ltd.) as Director of Genomics (1999-2001). He moved to Canada in 2001, and was Senior Researcher in the Centre for Biomedical Research (University of Victoria, 2001-2002), prior to being recruited to the James Hogg Research Centre (formerly the iCAPTURE Centre) at St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver (2002).

Dr. Tebbutt’s research programme is focused on the genomics of complex respiratory disease, including the early and late reactions in allergic asthma and rhinitis. He also leads a multidisciplinary collaboration to investigate interactions between fungal spores and human airway cells. His research combines hypothesis-driven study of biological mechanisms with the development of advanced tools and technology (including bioinformatics and microfluidics-based systems) to better facilitate basic and translational research. Dr. Tebbutt has published original research contributions in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), Journal of Medical Genetics, Genomics, BioTechniques, Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Medical Genomics and PLoS ONE. He has published numerous technical reviews as well as book chapters on the role of genetic variation in respiratory disease. He has served as reviewer on several grant panels, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and he is Associate Editor for the journal BMC Genetics. Dr. Tebbutt has received several fellowships and awards, including an Edward Penley Abraham Research Trust Fellowship (U.K.), a Journal of Cell Science Traveling Fellowship Award, and a Research Fellowship from the Cystic Fibrosis Association of New Zealand. He has been awarded competitive research funding from organizations such as the National Sanitarium Association (Canada), the British Columbia Lung Association, AllerGen NCE Inc. (Allergy, Genes and Environment Network), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the BC Proteomics Network, and the Wellcome Trust (U.K.).

Dr. Vladimir E. Bondarenko is Assistant Professor at Georgia State University, USA. He did his Ph.D. Physics and Mathematics, Moscow State University, Russia, 1990. Dr. Bondarenko’s research interests include dynamical systems, neuronal and cardiac cell models, neural networks, models of cardiac arrhythmias, ion channel models.

dynamical systems, neuronal and cardiac cell models, neural networks, models of cardiac arrhythmias, ion channel models.

Paul L Wood has completed his Ph.D. from Queen’s University and postdoctoral studies from the NIMH. He is the director of the Metabolomics Unit at Lincoln Memorial University and is professor of pharmacology and physiology. He has published more than 280 peer-reviewed papers, serves as Editor-in-Chief of Metabolomics, and is a member of the editorial board of the JAOA.

Utilization of metabolomics to study mechanisms of pathogenesis in neurogegeneration and oncology

Deliang Guo is an Assistant professor at Department of Radiation Oncology, James Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University Medical Center.

EGFR signaling, lipid metabolism

As an NIH-funded translational scientist and an Associate Professor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Jay Kim aims to improving the means of objectively diagnosing IC/PBS and to discover the mechanistic basis for this disorder. She was originally trained as a cancer biologist at Harvard Medical School, and is a rising leader of research on basic urological diseases including IC/PBS. One of the major focus areas in her group is the study of the metabolic signature for the diagnosis of IC/PBS, using a number of approaches, including large-scale “Omics” methods, to elucidate the signaling network in human cells that is perturbed in IC/PBS.

Cancer Biology,Biomedical Sciences, surgery

Preeti Bais is associate scientist at the Computational Sciences group at the Jackson Lab’s new research institute at University of Connecticut - JAX Genomics Medicine (JGM). It is an independent, nonprofi t organization focusing on mammalian genetics research to advance human health. She holds a Ph.D. in bioinformatics and computational biology and has worked in the metabolomics fi eld for many years including her tenure as a principal scientist at Stemina Biomarker Discovery, where she worked on many projects involving metabolomics analysis of Human Embryonic (hES) and Induced Pluripotent Stem (IPS) cells based assays for drug toxicity screening, autism biomarker detection using blood samples and cancer drug effi cacy testing using orthotropic mouse models of GBM.

Mass Spectrometry, Machine learning, bioinformatics , database , biomarkers

My current research focuses on combining metabolomics, a new and exciting post genomic technology with the power of bioinformatics tools for studying perturbations in metabolism caused due to changes in diet and/or the disease state. In one of our projects, we are investigating the change in the metabolomic patterns produced due to introduction of neutraceuticals in non-small cell lung carcinoma model. The NMR spectral data is subjected to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to evaluate Biomarkers for early diagnosis of lung cancer. In another project, we are utilizing the metabolomics approach to observe alterations in metabolomics patterns in NMR spectra of biofluids (urine/plasma) from a spontaneous diabetes model. The change in metabolomic pattern or the biomarker profile will enable targeting of specific metabolic pathways affected by the disease condition, leading to mechanistic insight.

George G Chen is a professor in the Department of Surgery, Director of Surgical Research Laboratories, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. He is also served as a principle investigator at the Hong Kong Cancer Institute. He has extensive experience in cancer research, particularly in the area of apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma, lung caner and thyroid cancer. He has authored or co-authored ~120 papers and has written a number of books or book chapters. He is currently a member of editorial boards or a guest editor of a number of scientific journals and a regular peer-reviewer for several grant agents. He was educated in China and United Kingdom and has MB and PhD degrees.

Metabolomics

Professor Alexander A. Kamnev is a Leading Scientist at the Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants and Microorganisms, Russian Academy of Sciences (Saratov, Russia). He received his Cand. Sci. (PhD equivalent; 1992) and DSc (2002) in physical chemistry from Saratov State University. Since mid-90s, his research has been focused on the application of various spectroscopic techniques in studying biomolecules, biocomplexes, supramolecular structures and microbial cells. Professor Kamnev is the main author of more than 100 papers in reputed international journals and several invited review chapters, serves as an editorial board member of a few international scientific journals and is involved in editorial and reviewing activities for a number of international specialized journals in the fields of chemistry and biology.

Professor
Russian Academy of Sciences
Russia

Zeeshan Ahmed works at the University of Wuerzburg with a strong interest in scientific software solution design and development. He is Post Doc. and Scientific Software Engineer and in the central computation support project of the collaborative research center SFB 1047 at the Biocenter, Department of Neurobiology and Genetics. He did Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Wuerzburg Germany in collaboration with Technical University of Munich Germany. Furthermore, he is also the alumni (pre. Doctoral research and degree course work) of Vienna University of Technology Austria, Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering Germany and Blekinge Institute of Technology Sweden.

Neurobiology and Genetics

Zuyi (Jacky) Huang completed his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2010 and then worked as a Research Scientist in the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at Villanova University as an Assistant Professor in 2011. He is now the Director of Computational Systems Biology Lab at Villanova University. He has published 18 papers in reputed journals. He is now serving as an editorial board member of Journal of Computer Science & Systems Biology. He is also serving on the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Policy Committee.

1) deriving quantitative data for transcription factors by analyzing GFP images and solving an inverse problem; 2)integrating available qualitative information into modeling by using Fuzzy logic;3) performing nonlinear model reduction of uncertain systems; 4) sensor network and experimental design for chemical plants.

Dr. Vicki has done MS Analytical Chemistry from University of Nebraska, PhD Analytical Chemistry, Iowa State University, Her research includes characterizing the small molecules in natural systems to understand how they interact synergistically in maintaining the energy balance in mammalian cells. As such, she have collaborated with other experts in the nutritional / biomedical area to link specific dietary metabolites to potential health outcomes. Her experience in dietary metabolites, background in pharmaceuticals, and education as a bioanalytical chemist provides the foundation needed to achieve her long term goals.

Synergistic interactions of secondary metabolites on maintaining the energy balance / fluxes in mammalian cells. Synergistic interactions of secondary metabolites of plant systems on phenotypic switches (e.g. inflammation (M1 to M2 states) and virulent bacteria). Effects of farming practices on secondary metabolites in various crops, with an emphasis on dry edible beans, strawberries, wheat and tomatoes. Development of high-throughput metabolomic analytical methods.

Pelech is the President and Chief Scientific Officer of Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. He is concurrently a full professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he has been on faculty since 1988. He contributes leadership, vision and strategic planning to Kinexus with over twenty-five years experience in the areas of science, business and administration. He was the principal founder of Kinetek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and served as its President and C.E.O. for six years and was one of the founding scientists of the Biomedical Research Center in Vancouver. Prior to his academic and industrial experience, he spent five years in post-doctoral training with Sir Philip Cohen at the University of Dundee in Scotland and Nobel laureate Edwin Krebs at the University of Washington in Seattle. Pelech received his B.Sc. (1979; Honours) and Ph.D. (1982) degrees in Biochemistry from UBC. Pelech has authored over 220 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters about signal transduction and is one of the discoverers of the MAP kinase family of cell signalling proteins. His accolades include the 1993 Martin F. Hoffman Award for Research at UBC, and the 1993 Merck Frosst Canada Prize from the Canadian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He was the 2001 Distinguished Lecturer for the Faculty of Medicine at UBC for the basic sciences. He has served on grant review panels for the US National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the National Research of Canada, the Michael Smith Medical Health Research Foundation, Genome Canada, the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation and the American Heart Association, and he has acted as an external reviewer for 22 other agencies including the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Israel Science Foundation. He has also been an external reviewer for 30 scientific journals.

Proteomics, Bioinformatics

Matthew Kuruc is a serial entrepreneur, starting as a co-founder of Affinity Technology Inc., where he was President from 1990 until 1996. After it was acquired by LigoTech, Inc., he held an executive business development role until becoming a co-founder of ProFACT Proteomics in 2004. From 1987 to 1990 he held various marketing and sales positions with Amicon Division of W. R. Grace & Co. (now Millipore), and prior to that, product and sales positions with industrial separations equipment suppliers.

Proteomics, Proteomic-Instruments

Professor of Computer Science and the Lee and Wilma Seaman Distinguished Dean of the College of Information Science and Technology (IS&T), at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). He currently serves as the director of the UNO Bioinformatics Core Facility that supports a large number of biomedical research projects in Nebraska. He has published numerous articles in various IT areas including scheduling, distributed systems, VLSI design, wireless networks, and Bioinformatics. He has also published two books in scheduling and graph algorithms, and several book chapters in Bioinformatics. He is currently serving as the PI or Co-PI of several projects funded by NSF, NIH and Nebraska Research Initiative (NRI) in the areas of wireless networks and Bioinformatics. He has been leading a Bioinformatics Research Group at UNO that focuses on developing innovative computational approaches to identify and classify biological organisms. The research group is currently developing several next generation Bioinformatics tools for integrating, and mining various types of biological data. This includes the development of new graph theoretic models for assembling short reads obtained from high throughput instruments, as well as employing a novel correlation networks approach for integrating and analyzing large heterogeneous biological data associated with various biomedical research areas, particularly projects associated with aging and infectious diseases. He has also been leading two funded projects for developing secure wireless infrastructure and using wireless technologies to address tracking and monitoring problems in medical environments, particularly to study mobility profiling for aging research

Biomedical Research, Bioinformatics

Hoffmann received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry at University of the Saarland, Germany in 1999. He spent four years in Melbourne working with Richard Simpson and Bruce Kemp where he specialised in the use of free-flow electrophoresis in proteomics and the detection of protein phosphorylation by mass spectrometry. He moved back to Germany in 2003 and played an integral role in establishing a proteomics facility at the University Leipzig, Germany. In 2005, he was recruited back to Australia to establish a Proteomics Centre at the University of Adelaide. The Adelaide Proteomics Centre is equipped with the latest technology in Proteomics and provides service to academic researchers and industry. His research is focused on biomarker discovery in cancer, detection of protein phosphorylation and Tissue Imaging Mass Spectrometry. Hoffmann\\\'s group was the first in Australia to establish Tissue Imaging Mass Spectrometry. The Adelaide Proteomics Centre houses the national facility for Tissue Imaging Mass Spectrometry for Australia. Hoffmann is also Deputy Director of the newly formed Institute of Photonics and Advanced Sensing of the University of Adelaide and he overlooks projects to use Photonics and advanced sensing technology for biological and medical applications.

Proteomics, Analytical Chemistry

Dan Crimmins received his Ph.D. at Washington University (WU) in Saint Louis in 1980. He trained in physical chemistry. Post-doctoral work (WU School of Medicine) investigated viral membrane glycoprotein structure and endocytosis via clatherin-coated pits. Crimmins then worked at Mallinckrodt developing radio-labeled antibodies. Next he directed the HHMI Core Protein/Peptide Facility at WU for 10 years; later joining the Department of Pathology & Immunology in the Division of Laboratory & Genomic Medicine at WUSM. His expertise and research interests are: Bioanalytical protein/peptide characterization, immunogen design/antibody selection, biomarker discovery/evaluation, clinical/biological implications of post-translationally modified pro forms of diagnostic protein analytes.

Physical Chemistry, Protein Analysis Study

Alan J Tackett is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He received a PhD in Biochemistry from UAMS and performed a NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship in proteomics at Rockefeller University. Tackett now leads a NIH-funded research group focused on developing new proteomic technologies for epigenetic research. Additionally, he serves as Director of the UAMS Proteomics Facility. Tackett has published more than 46 manuscripts, served on 11 NIH study sections, served as editor for multiple journals, and has been NIH-funded for his career to date.

Proteomics, Biochemistry

By 1990 Soraya graduated in Biological Science at the University of Valencia and remained there to undertake a PhD under the supervision of Consuelo Guerri at Research Institution (Instituto de Investigaciones Citologicas), which I completed in 1996. During my PhD my dissertation was \"Changes of astroglia intermediate filaments gene expression during rat brain development: Effect of alcohol exposure\". She analyze the events which occur during the early stages of astrogliogenesis during brain development, experiments. I did experiments in cells in culture primary as radial glia (stem cells in brain), astrocytes and neurons

Biology, Neurology

Jasmina N. Jovanovic received her BSc in Molecular Biology and Physiology from the Faculty of Science, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and her PhD in Neuroscience from the Rockefeller University, USA. During the course of her PhD, Dr. Jovanovic studied the mechanisms involved in the neurotrophin-dependent regulation of neurotransmitter release. She was a recipient of The John S. Segal Memorial Fellowship Award and The Rockefeller University Karolinska Institute Exchange Program Award. Following a short postdoctoral appointment at The Rockefeller University, Dr. Jovanovic was awarded The Wellcome Trust Travelling Fellowship to join the Department of Pharmacology, at UCL, where she studied the regulation of GABAA receptor phosphorylation, function and trafficking. As a recipient of The Grass Fellowship in Neuroscience in 2001, and The Grass Foundation Faculty Award in 2004, Dr. Jovanovic worked as a summer investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA. Dr. Jovanovic was appointed as a Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy in 2003, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2007.

Molecular Biology, Neuroscience

Chunyu Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Human Genetics, at University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. of Human Medical Genetics from the Hunan Medical University (1998). He has worked on study of genetics and genomics of neuropsychiatric disorders. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, several book chapters. He serves as academic editor or reviewer for multiple journals and funding agencies.

Genetics, Psychiatry

Tiziana Bonaldi has completed her Ph.D. from the Parco Biomedico San Raffaele (Milano) and two post-doctoral studies, first from the Ludwig Maximillians University (2003-2006) and from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich (2006-2008). During her post-doctoral work she became progressively expert in the field of chromatin biochemistry and chromatin-proteomics, using high-resolution MS to decrypt the code of histone modifications and to dissect how distinct chromatin determinants synergize to enforce specific gene expression patterns. Since 2008 she is Group Leader at the Department of Experimental Oncology of the European Institute of Oncology in Milano, where she is continuing focusing on the use of MS-proteomics to investigate chromatin-mediated gene expression regulation. She has published more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and has been serving as an editorial board member of various journals in the field of MS-proteomics. She was awarded the EMBO Long-term fellowship in 2004 for her post-doctoral research, the Armenise-Harvard Career Development Award in 2008 and the Inner-wheel award \"Women in Science\" in 2010 for her scientific achievements.

Proteomics, Biochemistry

David Sheehan is in the School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland. He holds a Ph.D. from Trinity College Dublin (1985) and a DSc (published work) from the National University of Ireland (2009). He has taught at UCC since 1989 but previously worked in the biotechnology industry (US, UK and Ireland). He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, two editions of his textbook Physical Biochemistry: Principles and Applications (Wileys) and edited several books. He serves on editorial boards including Journal of Proteomics and Bioinformatics, Toxins and Drug Testing and Analysis.

Proteomics, Bioinformatics

Xuequn Chen is currently an assistant professor in the School of Medicine at Wayne State University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (2003) and did his postdoctoral work with Phil Andrews in the National Proteomics Center at Michigan. He has been conducting quantitative subsellular proteomics research in the mammalian secretory pathway and published his works in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, Journal of Proteome Research, Proteomics and Journal of Proteomics.

Proteomics, Cellular Proteomics

Achuth Padmanabhan has completed his PhD from University of Maryland Baltimore County and is currently doing postdoctoral training from Yale University School of Medicine. He has published papers in reputed journals and also serves as an editorial board member of repute for many international journals.

In 1982 Gjumrakch Aliev graduated summa cum laude from the Azerbaijan Medical Institute in Baku, Azerbaijan receiving a M.D. degree in the fields of general medicine and health sciences. In 1989, he received his PhD (Summa Cum Laude) in the field of Cardiovascular Biology and Pathology, from the Ivanovo Medical Institute, Department of Electron Microscopy and Cell Pathology of the Institute of Human Morphology, Moscow State University, and Russian Cardiology Research Center, Moscow, Russia. The excellence of Dr. Aliev\'s professional service deserves special attention. He serves as an editor or an editorial board member for many prestigious journals. He has served and is currently serving as a grant review board member and reviewer for international granting agencies and foundations. In addition, Dr. Aliev possesses prodigious administrative skills, including logical decision-making, high efficiency, and his excellent rapport with colleagues, friends, employers and subordinates. Dr. Aliev is an outstanding scientist and administrator with a unique and distinguished ability in cell and molecular biology, neurodegeneration and ultrastructural pathology as well as neurology and cardiology.

Drug development strategies.

Dr. Mire Zloh was awarded a BSc and an MSc in Physical Chemistry by University of Belgrade and was awarded a PhD in Chemistry by University of London in 1998. He is working as a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and a Head of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Hertfordshire. His research interests include computer aided drug design, structural chemistry and chemometrics. Currently, he is working on rational design of bioactive dendrimers, modeling of PEGylated proteins and developing strategies to utilize small molecule-small molecule interactions for enhancing activities of therapeutics.

Computer-aided drug design, structural chemistry and chemometrics

Patrick M. Woster received a B.S. in Pharmacy from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln in 1986. Following postdoctoral work in chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1986), and in medicinal chemistry at the University of Michigan (1987), he joined the Wayne State University Faculty of Pharmacy in 1988. In 2011, he was appointed as Professor and SmartStateâ„¢ Endowed Chair in Drug Discovery at the Medical University of South Carolina. He also serves as Director of the MUSC Drug Design and Synthesis Core. Ongoing research projects in the Woster laboratories include the synthesis of alkylpolyamines as antitumor or antiparasitic agents, design and synthesis of mechanism-based enzyme inhibitors, synthesis of inhibitors of chromatin-remodeling enzymes such as histone deacetylases and histone demethylases, and studies aimed at elucidating the cellular mechanisms of epigenetic modulators.

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of epigenetic modulators, antitumor and antiparasitic agents

Dr. Xie is an expert in Medicinal Chemistry, Computational Chemistry/Biology and Biophysics with research focuses on GPCR chemical genomics, in-silico design/cheminformatics virtual screening method development, medicinal chemistry synthesis and recombinant GPCR membrane protein NMR structural biology. Xie received his Pharmacy B. S. degree in 1982 from the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai, China, his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the School of Pharmacy, University of Connecticut, 1993, and followed by a Biophysics Post-doctoral training at MIT Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory. In addition, he received an Executive MBA degree in 2003. Currently, He is currently a tenured Professor at the Dept of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Drug Discovery Institute (UP-DDI). He is the Principal Investigator of an integrated research laboratory, consisting of CompuGroup, BioGroup and ChemGroup (www.CBLigand.org/XieLab) and also a Founding Director of Computational Chemical Genomics Screening (CCGS) Center (www.CBLigand.org/CCGS) at University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Xie is co-PI/core director of the NIH funded Pittsburgh Center for Chemical Methodologies & Library Development (UPCMLD) and NCI/SAIC funded University of Pittsburgh Center for Diversity Chemistry (UP-CDC). He was co-PI of the Pittsburgh Molecular Library Screening Center (PMLSC) which was previously funded by the NIH Roadmap Initiative. He also holds joint faculty positions at the Departments of Computational Biology and Structural Biology, and Pitt Cancer Institute MT/DD Program. Before he joined Pitt, he was an Associate Professor and a Founding Director of Pharmacoinformatics Research Center in the College of Pharmacy at University of Houston Texas. He held several joint faculty positions at the Institute for Molecular Design (MDL), Texas Learning Computing Center (TLCC), and the Keck Center for Computational & Structural Biology, served as an Advisory Committee Member for the NIH Pharmacoinformatics Training Program at Houston Gulf Coast Consortium (GCC), and was a Director of the Chemistry Coordinating Unit for GCC-Chemical Genomics Screening Center. Prior to UH, Dr. Xie was a Director of the IMS NMR Lab and a joint faculty member of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Connecticut for over 10 years. Currently, Dr. Xie is a regular member of the US NIH BPNS Study Section Review Panel, an oversea expert reviewer for the Chinese Natural Science Foundation Review Panel, an invited guest editor for AAPS Journal, and an editorial board of American Journal of Molecular Biology. He also served as an ad hoc reviewer for NIH study section panels (BLIRC, MSFD, ZRG1, ZDA1 MXL-F) and an expert reviewer of the MCMB grant for MRC United Kingdom. He was invited as an International Assessment Panelist for Fudan University, a member of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Association of Professionals in Science and Technology (CAPST), and a Chair of the CAPST-Biomedical & Pharmaceutical Society. He was also a reviewer for many peer-reviewed scientific journals and a consultant for pharma and biotech companies. He has over 100 book chapters, journal articles, patents, abstracts and presentations, as well as 7 new drug discovery patents.

GPCR CB2 membrane protein structure/function studies and small molecule drug discovery

Mark D. Shenderovich, PhD, principal and CSO of Mol3D Research, LLC, is computational chemist and molecular modeler with 15 year experience of computer-aided drug design in biopharmaceutical industry and more than 25 years of overall research experience. Mark has extensive experience in many aspects of CADD including structure- and ligand-based design, protein homology modeling, protein-ligand and protein-protein docking, virtual ligand screening, evaluation of protein-ligand binding affinities, molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations, pharmacophore modeling and QSAR.He made critical contribution to discovery of IND candidate for Hsp90, and contributed to design of pre-clinical candidates for protein tyrosine phosphatase, protein kinase and cancer metabolism targets. In collaboration with Quest Diagnostics Inc. he developed Structural Phenotyping technology that provided 90% accurate predictions for resistance of clinical HIV-1 variants to commercial HIV protease inhibitors. As Scientist III, In-silico Chemistry in Myrexis / Myriad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (2005-2011), Mark did computer-aided drug design for medicinal chemistry department consisting of 20+ synthetic chemists. He supervised molecular modeling facility and was involved in many drug design projects for cancer, virology and CNS targets. From 1997 to 2005 Mark worked as Senior and Principal Scientist at Cengent Therapeutics in San Diego, CA, where he was involved in various projects on protein modeling, virtual screening, and structure-based lead optimization. He was PI of NIH funded SBIR Grant and supervised a group of PhD scientists. Mark was a Head of Research Group for Molecular Biophysics (1990-1992) in the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, Riga, Latvia. He holds PhD degree in biophysics from Belarusian National Academy of Sciences, Minsk, Belarus, and he did post-doctoral studies in computational chemistry with Professor Victor J. Hruby at the University of Arizona. He is a co-inventor of 9 US and international patents, and co-author of more than 60 peer reviewed publications.

Molecular modeling, computer-aided drug design, computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry.

Dr. Rossé has been involved in drug discovery research and development for more than 15 years. He is currently Associate Director, Structure Guided Chemistry, at Dart Neuroscience and also serves as Adjunct Associate Professor at Drexel University as well as Adjunct Professor in Medicinal Chemistry at the Pennsylvania Drug Discovery Institute. Prior he functioned in leadership and scientific positions in medicinal chemistry with Cephalon, Sanofi and F. Hoffman-La Roche. During his industrial tenure, he led multidisciplinary teams and invented multiple pre-clinical candidates and compound lead series spanning a wide range of therapeutic indications. These include CNS (cognition, schizophrenia, alzheimer’s disease), Inflammation, Metabolism, Oncology, Cardiovascular disease and Antibacterial agents. Dr. Rossé’s career is also characterized by implementation of innovative high throughput technology platforms in the area of small molecules and peptides drug discovery, analytical chemistry and data management that increased productivity and accelerated the drug discovery process. Dr. Rossé is a distinguished speaker at business meetings in US and Europe and has authored 40+ patents and publications. He received the Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Basel in Switzerland and postdoctoral training at Stanford University.

Drug discovery research and developemnt

Dr. G. Sridhar Prasad is the co-founder and VP of Research of CalAsia Pharmaceuticals. He has been the core member of multiple drug discovery teams, including the marketed drug, NESINA (Alogliptin, DPPIV Inhibitor) and clinical candidate MK-4965, for the treatment of HIV-1 AIDS. He obtained his Ph.D., from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India and post-doctoral training at University of Minnesota Medical School and the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, where he grew to the ranks of Assistant Professor. He has co-authored over 45 peer reviewed research articles, holds six US and international patents. He serves on the editorial board of Current Protein and Peptide Science.

Drug discovery

Dr. Horacio Pérez-Sánchez graduated in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry from the University of Murcia (Spain) in 1999, where he also obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2006, which consisted in the development and implementation of computational methodologies for the study of macromolecular systems. He performed research in several European Institutions such as the Institute of Structural Biology (CEA, Grenoble, France), where he successfully developed and applied computational methodologies for the prediction and interpretation of macromolecular behaviour in solution, and at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Karlsruhe, Germany), where he developed new methodologies for drug discovery and implemented them in parallel architectures such as the Cell Broadband Engine, Graphics Processing Units and Supercomputers. Currently, he is full-time researcher at the School of Computer Science of the University of Murcia in the Parallel Computer Architecture Group where he works in several research lines related with the implementation and exploitation of bioinformatics methodologies in parallel architectures. Dr. Pérez-Sánchez has co-authored more than 25 conference and journal papers, book chapters and European patents. He has served as a reviewer for several conferences/journals/book editorials. His primary research interests are in the areas of Bioinformatics, mainly Drug Discovery, and its exploitation in parallel architectures. He has participated in several projects funded by the European Commission and the Spanish and German Ministries of Science.

Bioinformatics and drug discovery

Dr. Fang is an Associate Scientist and the Director of the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory at the University of Kansas. He obtained his bachelor degree at Peking University, master degree at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Shanghai, China, and PhD at Wayne State University. His research interests include bioinformatics, cheminformatics, data mining, database development and drug discovery. He is the author or co-author of over 60 papers.

Chemical informatics, bioinformatics, genomic and proteomic data analysis and mining

Dr. Alexander Heifetz is a Principal Scientist at Evotec (UK) Ltd, a drug discovery services company. He provides CADD expert support for drug discovery programs. He obtained his PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, in 2001 under supervision of former Israeli president and Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Prof. Ephraim Katzir and Dr. Miriam Eisenstein. Dr. Heifetz has more than 12 years of experience in drug discovery industry (EPIX Pharmaceuticals and Evotec) and was involved in discovery of 3 clinical drug candidates for treatment of anxiety, major depressive disorder, pulmonary hypertension, and Alzheimer’s disease. He has more than 18 patents, patent applications and a wide range of publications in the area of medicinal chemistry and molecular modelling. Recently, he received the Royal Society Industry Award and established a collaboration with academic group of Dr. Phillip Biggin from the University of Oxford, for development of methods for GPCR modelling.

Medicinal chemistry, molecular modeling, drug discovery

Larry Wilson completed his PhD from Emory University and postdoctoral studies from Stanford University. He has served various roles in research and development groups at several large pharmaceutical and small biotech companies. He has over 50 publications, patents, and review articles. He is currently principal scientist at Emory University, where he serves as project leader of the discovery of CXCR4 antagonists for potential treatments in stem cell mobilization, cancer, and HIV infection.

Drug discovery

Dr. Compadre has extensive research experience, on the development of bioactive compounds based on naturally occurring compounds, and on the use of molecular modeling in drug design and structure-activity studies. He has published over 100 papers and over 70 patents related to the development of bioactive compounds, and one FDA approved antimicrobial technology. Dr. Compadre has a BSPharm degree, and obtained his Ph.D degree in medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He conducted postdoctoral research on structure-activity relationships studies using molecular modeling at the University of Illinois and at Pomona College working with Professor Corwin Hansch. Additionally, he had a sabbatical experience at NASA Ames Research Center in computer modeling. At the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, he established and directs the molecular modeling facility. He has extensive research collaborations with many scientists locally, nationally and internationally.

Molecular modeling, natural products, structural biology, drug design

Dr. Prabagaran Narayanasamy is a faculty member in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neurosciences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He received his PhD at IIT in Organic Chemistry and did his postdoctoral studies at North Dakota State University, Harvard University and University of Illinois Urbana-champaign. Later, he joined as a Research Scientist at Colorado State University to explore drug discovery. He has been a faculty at University of Nebraska Medical Center since 2012. Dr. Narayanasamy’s research interests are on development, delivering and discovering drug for anti-mycobacterial medicine and antiretroviral therapy. Conventional drugs and new inhibitors are used in nanoformulation to generate active nanomedicine. For antibacterial drug discovery - glyoxalase, quorum sensing, MEP and menaquinone pathway are utilized. Additionally, development of exosomes as drug delivering agent is initiated for infectious disease. In addition, metabolites are evaluated in the infected brain for characterizing neurodegenerative disorders.

Development, delivering and discovering drug for anti-mycobacterial medicine and antiretroviral therapy

Dr. Rakeshwar has more than 80 papers including patents and book chapters published/accepted in various International Journals. Notably, in the area of Organic Chemistry, Dr. Rakeshwar has coauthored a chapter in the book entitled “Green Chemistry in Pharmaceutical industry”.
He has won the various awards in his career e.g. Chairman Excellence Award in the category of individual functional excellence, Best Cost Leadership Award  for the development of Lopinavir, Ritonavir & their components and Anveshan Award at Dr. Reddy’s. As a part of organizational building efforts, he also supervises master’s & Ph.D. students in their dissertations. He has been invited in several conferences e.g. IIT-Mumbai, IGCW-2009, BIT-Ranchi, BITS Pilani, 9th Heterocyclic Conference, University of Florida, JNTU-Hyderabad, ISCB-2011, Apollo Hospitals Educational & Research Foundation, Hyderabad etc. to deliver  lectures. He is also currently acting as an Associate  Editor of GERF Bulletin of Bioscience.   
Recently, he has become a member National Advisory Board of Indian Society of Chemists and Biologists.

Chemistry

Professor Brian S J Blagg completed his PhD from the University of Utah in 1999,followed by a postdoctoral position at The Scripps Research Institute. He is currently a Professor of medicinal chemistry at The University of Kansas and serves on several Editorial Advisory Boards for Medicinal Chemistry Journals and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. The Blagg research Group has won several awards, including the 2009 American Chemical Society’s David W. Robertson Award for excellence in Medicinal Chemistry.

Medicinal chemistry

Dr. Jiapu Zhang is an Australian-based Research Scientist. He finished his PhD degree in the Universities of Melbourne and Ballarat and then a CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Postdoc training in Australia. CSIRO has a world-wide reputation for excellence and achievement in basic and applied research; the successful drug Relenza@ for influenza was designed by CSIRO with its partners. Dr. Zhang was trained by CSIRO in protein structure-based drug design, materials. Dr. Zhang has investigated the secret of prion diseases and other neurodegenerative diseases, and served as an editor, a reviewer for many academic journals, as a committee member for many academic conferences, workshops and seminars.

Protein structure and function, structural dynamics and structure based drug design

Dr. Purushottamachar Puranik is currently a Research Associate in Dr. Vincent Njar’s laboratory at University of Maryland Baltimore. He received his Ph. D. degree (2003) from University Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai University, India. Thereafter, he worked for Chemical Process Research Laboratory of US Vitamins Ltd., Mumbai before he join Dr. Vincent Njar laboratory in 2005. Dr. Puranik applies computational and synthetic chemistry techniques in discovery and development of prostate and breast cancer agents. He has published more than 25 research articles in reputed journal, and he is editorial board member of Biochemistry and Pharmacology: open access of OMICs publishing group and other.

Chemical Technology

Dr Högberg has spent over 40 years in the pharmaceutical industry and had leading roles from early drug discovery up to marketed products. He has experience from big pharma (Astra and AstraZeneca), mid pharma (ALK-Abelló), biotech (7TM Pharma) and presently LEO Pharma. He led medicinal chemistry organizations and drug development in several therapeutic areas including dermatology, pain, obesity, diabetes, dyslipidaemia, inflammatory diseases, respiratory diseases, depression, psychosis, and infection. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (CChem, FRSC), Assoc. Prof. at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm and he has published over 100 scientific papers and 50 patent applications.

Drug discovery, medicinal chemistry

Dr. Tulay A. Atesin received her Ph. D. in 2007 from the University of Rochester under the supervision of Professor William D. Jones working on the mechanisms of strong bond activation reactions. She worked on Nazarov cyclization with Professor Alison J. Frontier during her M. S. She was a postdoctoral research associate with Professors Shannon S. Stahl, Charles P. Casey and Clark R. Landis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2007 to 2009. In 2009, she moved to Northwestern University to work with Professors Thomas J. Meade and Mark A. Ratner. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate with Professors SonBinh T. Nguyen and Joseph T. Hupp, working on the synthesis and characterization of novel coordination polymers and metal organic frameworks. She is a member of the American Chemical Society and serves as reviewer for JACS. She received a 2008 Young Investigator Award from the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry.

Organic reaction mechanisms, computational chemistry, and inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry

Dr. Csaba Hetényi is a Research Associate Professor at the Molecular Biophysics Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is a qualified chemist and has a PhD in Pharmacy. He has co-authored research articles in prestigious journals such as J Am Chem Soc, EMBO Reports, FASEB J, etc. and has already received more than one thousand citations for his research results. His works were favorably evaluated by several review articles. He is also co-inventor in three US patents. In 2011, Dr. Hetényi received the prestigious Talentum Academy Award of the Central-European Talent Search Foundation. Dr. Hetényi’s primary research interests focus on chemical biophysics, computational and medicinal chemistry, structural bioinformatics, molecular pathomechanisms of diseases, and he has also published works in the fields of chromatography and capillary electrophoresis.

Chemical biophysics, computational and medicinal chemistry, structural bioinformatics

Jaya Pandey has completed her PhD from Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow and she is presently working as an Assistant Professor at Amity University. She has experience of being a research fellow at Medicinal Chemistry Division in CDRI and NBRI, Lucknow during her PhD and post-PhD dissertations. She is also conferred with two prestigious ‘Young Scientist Awards’ by the “Indian council of Chemists” and “Indian Chemical Society”, respectively for her excellent scientific contribution to the fields of medicinal/organic chemistry. Her work has mainly been associated with a development of new diarylbenzopyrans (DABPs) as Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs.

Medicinal/organic chemistry