Ken Olsen is a protein and computational chemist at Loyola University Chicago. His experimental laboratory studies the development of hemoglobin-based blood substitutes, protein-based drug delivery systems and targeted photodynamic therapy. His computational laboratory studies the effects of mutations on protein structure, design of new antibiotics and drug-excipient interactions.

Dr. Vladimir Torchilin graduated from the Moscow University with MS in Chemistry, and also obtained there his Ph.D. (1971) and D.Sc. (1981) in Polymer Chemistry, Chemical Kinetics and Catalysis, and Chemistry of Physiologically Active Compounds. In years 1968-1973 Dr. Torchilin made his research at the Chemical Department of Moscow State University. In 1974-1990 he was with the Institute of Experimental Cardiology, Russian Cardiology Research Center, where he founded the Laboratory of Enzyme Engineering of which he was a Head in 1981-1990. In 1991 Dr. Torchilin joined Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School as the Head of Chemistry Program, Center for Imaging and Pharmaceutical Research, and Associate Professor of Radiology. Since 1998 Dr. Torchilin is with Northeastern University. In 1998-2008 he served as a Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Since 2005, he is also the Director of The Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine.

His research interests have focused on the engineering of biomedical polymers and polymeric drugs, medicinal enzyme stabilization and immobilization, drug delivery and targeting, drug carriers including liposomes and micelles, long-circulating drug carriers, novel imaging agents, antibody modification, and, more recently, experimental cancer immunology. His outstanding contributions to all these areas are widely recognized by the international scientific community. Related research has been communicated in more than 400 original publications. He also wrote more than 150 reviews and book chapters, wrote and edited 12 books including "Immobilized Enzymes in Medicine", "Handbook of Targeted Delivery of Imaging Agents", “Liposomes: A Practical Approach”, “Biomedical Aspects of Drug Targeting”, “Delivery of Protein and Peptide Drugs in Cancer”, “Nanoparticulates as Drug Carriers”, “Multifunctional Pharmaceutical Nanocarriers”, and 4 volume set “Handbook of Nanobiomedical Research”, made over 250 invited lectures and seminars and holds more than 40 patents. He is also a Co-Editor of a novel book series on Biomedical Nanotechnology with Pan Stanford Publishing (World Scientific). According to Google Scholar, his H-index is 97 with >47,000 citations. His commitment to the engineering of drug delivery and targeting systems is also reflected in the numerous grants and contracts awarded to him by the NIH and various industries.

Roger M Leblanc received his B.S. in chemistry in 1964 from Université Laval, Canada, and Ph. D. in physical chemistry in 1968 from the same university. From 1968 to 1970, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. George Porter, FRS, in Davy Faraday Research Lab, the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He was a professor from 1970 to 1993 at Department of Chemistry and Biology in Université du Quebec ii Trois Riviéres, Canada. During this period, he was Chair from 1971 to 1975 at the same department, and Director from 1981 to 1991 at Photobiophysics Research Center. In 1994, he moved to University of Miami, where he has been a professor at Department of Chemistry since then to present. At University of Miami, he was Chair of Department of Chemistry from 1994 to 2002, and he is appointed as Chair from 2013 to present. He was also one of the three editors of Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces from 1998 to 2017. During his early career as a scientist, his research interest was on the photosynthesis and photoconductivity using surface chemistry and spectroscopy. His current research interest is to apply 2-dimensional (2-D) surface chemistry combined with spectroscopy and microscopy to investigate the properties of nanomaterials (carbon dots, graphene oxide and quantum dots) and the fibrillation process of amyloidogenic proteins (insulin, amyloid-beta peptide and islet amyloid polypeptide). He is also interested to design and develop biosensors with high sensitivity and selectivity for diseases diagnosis. He has published 512 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. As a professor, he has supervised more than 100 master and Ph.D. students.

During his early career as a scientist, his research interest was on the photosynthesis and photoconductivity using surface chemistry and spectroscopy. His current research interest is to apply 2-dimensional (2-D) surface chemistry combined with spectroscopy and microscopy to investigate the properties of nanomaterials (carbon dots, graphene oxide and quantum dots) and the fibrillation process of amyloidogenic proteins (insulin, amyloid-beta peptide and islet amyloid polypeptide). He is also interested to design and develop biosensors with high sensitivity and selectivity for diseases diagnosis.

Nagatoshi Nishiwaki received his Ph.D. from Osaka University in 1991. He worked at Osaka Kyoiku University (1991–2008). From 2000 to 2001, he joined Karl Anker Jørgensen’s group at Aarhus University, Denmark. Between 2008 and 2009 he worked at Anan National College of Technology. He then moved to the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Kochi University of Technology, in 2009, and he became a professor in 2011. His research interests comprise synthetic organic chemistry using nitro compounds, heterocycles (ring transformations, 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions etc.), and pseudo- intramolecular reactions. He has more than 120 papers and 20 review articles.

His research interests comprise synthetic organic chemistry using nitro compounds, heterocycles (ring transformations, 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions etc.), and pseudo- intramolecular reactions

Jacob O. Midiwo attained a BSc degree at the University of Nairobi while his PhD training was at the University of Maryland at College Park, USA. He has been a lecturer in Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Nairobi since 1981. Prof. Midiwo has been involved in Phytochemistry research for more than three decades in Nairobi. The families of plants he has studied in some detail include Polygonaceae, Myrsinaceae, Compositae, Papilionaceae and other isolated genera and species. A particular area of interest is the study of plants with aerial flavonoid / terpenoid surface exudates: their biogenetic origin and potential application.

Organic Chemistry, Phytochemistry.