MEDCHEMMEET2023

Quentin Perron is a medicinal chemist by training. He holds a PhD in organometallic chemistry from the University of Geneva. During his post-doc fellowship at UCLA he worked on the total synthesis of Brasillicardin A, a complex natural molecule known for having a potent immunosuppressive activity. After working as a medicinal chemist in CNS indications at Laboratoires Servier, he switched to data science and chemoinformatics at Quinten, a company specialized in data science services. In 2016, with his business partners Yann Gaston-Mathé and Nicolas Do Huu, he co-founded Iktos, a start-up company developing AI technologies for new drug design. He is now the CSO of the company.

Brice Hoffmann is a Senior Scientist, Molecular Modeling & Computational Chemistry, working on structure-based generative models and retrosynthesis and reaction prediction. Experienced researcher with a demonstrated history of working in the research industry. Skilled in Bioinformatics, Virtual Screening, Protein Chemistry, Cheminformatics, and Molecular Biology. Strong research professional with a Doctor of Philosophy - PhD focused in Biomathematics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology from MINES ParisTech

Dr. Hurley’s present research interests are in the areas of design and development of antitumor agents. Over the last forty years, work from his laboratory has led to elucidation of the structures of the drug–nucleic acid complexes for seven different groups of compounds that are potentially useful in the treatment of cancer. In cooperation with the pharmaceutical industry, several drugs developed with the aid of these studies have been evaluated in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. Most recently his research has centered on secondary DNA structures, particularly G-quadruplexes and C-quadruplexes (also called i-motifs), as gene targets for drug design. While he was CSO of Cylene Pharmaceuticals a first-in-class G-quadruplex-interactive compounds Quarfloxin and CX5461, developed from this technology and licensed from the University of Arizona, were advanced into phase 1 and 2 clinical trials in 2007 and 2020. The latter has received FDA Fast Track Designation for Breast and ovarian cancer in BRCA1/2 mutant cancers. He has published 278 papers and has an H-Index of 93. Dr. Hurley has been a consultant to a number of pharmaceutical companies and was a Senior Editor for Journal of Medicinal Chemistry from 1992 to 2010, Chair of the MEDI Division of the ACS in 2010, Chair of the Chemistry in Cancer Research in 2009, and Chair of the NCI Board of Scientific Councilors in 2010. He is a recipient of the 1988 George Hitchings Award in Innovative Methods in Drug Design and the 1989 Volwiler Research Achievement Award from the American Association of College of Pharmacy. He received the 1992 APhA Research Achievement Award in Medicinal Chemistry and the 1994 American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Award. He was awarded D.Sc. degrees from Bath University (1996) and Purdue University (2013). In 2005 he was awarded the George & Christine Sosnovsky Award in Cancer Therapy by the Royal Society of Chemistry, and in 2007 he was inducted into the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame and named Innovator of the Year by the University of Arizona. He was presented with the 2008 AACP Paul Dawson Biotechnology Award and the 2011 Nucleic Acids Award from the Royal Society for Chemistry; and in 2017 he was named Arizona Biosciences Researcher of the Year and in 2018 Innovator of the Year—Academia: Arizona Technology Council’s Governor’s Celebration of Innovation. In 2020 he was Elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He was the first to demonstrate drug targeting of promoter G-quadruplexes in 2002 and then C-quadruplexes in 2014. Most recently his research program has focused on DNA damage and repair by G-quadruplex interactive compounds and transcriptional targeting of important oncogenes, including hTERT, c-MYC, KRAS, BCL2, n-MYC, PDGFR-β, and hTERT. He is currently CSO of Reglagene, a company with a platform technology to target G-Quadruplexes.

Dr. Weber has studied chemistry and pharmacy in Budapest, Hungary, and received its PhD and habilitation from the University of Leipzig, Germany. He has over 24 years of industrial research experience in pharmaceutical chemistry, chemoinformatics, drug discovery and development. Dr. Weber is a university lecturer, has held various scientific and managerial positions at Hoffman-La Roche in Basel Switzerland. Dr. Weber has been co-founder of biotech startups Morphochem AG, Alphaptose GmbH, OntoChem GmbH and MolGenie GmbH in Germany as well as NexusPharma Inc. in the U.S.A. He has been a recipient of two European Union research grants and several German government research grants. Dr. Weber is the author of over 100 scientific papers, book chapters and reviews. Dr. Weber’s experience includes the direction of several early drug discovery projects that led to the identification of new small molecules as drug candidates and moving four projects into clinical development.

Karol Bruzik received his BSc degree (1972) from the Technical University of Lodz, Poland, and his PhD (1980) and DSc (1987) degrees from Polish Academy of Sciences. After postdoctoral work at The Ohio State University (1981-83) and a short stay at Ohio State University as Research Scientist he joined the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois at Chicago as Assistant Professor, and is now Professor and Associate Head for Curriculum. He is an author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in the area of organic and bioorganic chemistry, enzyme mechanisms, phosphoinositide signaling and allosteric modulators of ligand-gated ion channels, with emphasis on GABA-A receptors. His current interests include structure-based design of null-allosteric ligands of GABA-A receptor as anesthesia reversal and anticonvulsant agents.

Dongmin Liu has completed his Ph.D. at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) and postdoctoral studies in the University of Iowa Medical College. He is presently a professor and the director of Molecular Nutrition Laboratory in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech. Dr. Liu’s research is primarily focused on identifying and characterizing naturally occurring small molecules for prevention and treatment of obesity, diabetes, and vascular disease, as well as promoting healthy aging. Specifically, his lab has discovered several botanical small molecules for preventing diabetes or its vascular complications. In addition, he for the first time discovered a human steroid DHEA membrane receptor. He has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Liu has served on various grant review panels such as National Institutes of Health and American Diabetes Association, and is also serving as an editorial board member for several scientific journals such as American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology & Metabolism, Nutraceuticals and as associate editor for the journal Frontier in Nutrition.

Biography: Prof. Yoko Matsumoto is a Professor of Department of Life Sciences at Sojo University, Japan. She received her PhD in Pharmacy from Kyushu University, Japan.She was a visiting researcher in Colorado University at Boulder with Prof. Tom Cech, USA. Yoko Matsumoto has received Outstanding Female Researcher Award from the Society of Chemical Engineering, Japan. She is one of Director for Japan Nanomedicine Society and Councilor for Japanese Association for Molecular Target Therapy of Cancer. Her current research interest focuses on liposomes for therapy against cancer. She has published more than 140original papers.

Carrie K. Jones is a highly trained behavioral and systems neuroscientist and neuropharmacologist, who has expertise in the use of neurochemical, behavioral and imaging methodologies to study the in vivo effects of metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR) and muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR) ligands in the regulation of brain function and behavior, and in development of novel approaches to the treatment of CNS disorders. She has been involved in small molecule discovery both in industry and academia for more than two decades. As an in vivo pharmacologist at Eli Lilly and Company, I was a key contributor on several scientific teams focused on the development of novel therapeutics for schizophrenia and chronic pain. Her efforts contributed to four clinical candidates, including the M1/M4 preferring muscarinic receptor agonist xanomenline for schizophrenia, the balanced serotonergic and noradrenergic reuptake inhibitor duloxetine, the mixed AMPA/kaniate receptor antagonist LY293558, and an iGluR5 antagonist for chronic pain. Her characterization of duloxetine in several preclinical models of inflammatory and persistent pain directly contributed to the ongoing drug discovery effort for this molecule that culminated with the approval of Cymbalta® (duloxetine HCl) for the treatment of chronic pain and depression associated with painful diabetic neuropathy and fibromyalgia. Dr. Jones is currently Director of In Vivo Pharmacology and Development for the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery and Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. Her group provides the in vivo characterization of novel mGluR and mAChR subtype-specific ligands for the ongoing development of novel hit and lead molecules as well as preclinical efficacy for potential clinical candidates for psychiatric and neurologic disorders; several preclinical drug candidates have advanced from these efforts to clinical collaborations with pharmaceutical companies, including Acadia, Neumora, Prothena,Boehringer Ingelheim, Johnson and Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, and others. More recently, Dr. Jones has coordinated the successful bench to bedside translation of the clinical drug candidate M1 PAM VU319 from IND-enabling studies through a Phase I SAD clinical trial at VUMC for the treatment of cognitive impairments in AD. Dr. Jones is also a section editor for the Neuropharmacology journal. To date, she has published over 140 peer-reviewed articles and served as mentor and/or co-mentor to over 80 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and undergraduates that have advanced to top medical and graduate training programs and faculty and senior scientist positions in both academia and industry.

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Daniel Haymer attended the University of Tennessee Chattanooga from 2015-2019 and graduated Magna cum Laude with a BS in chemistry. He began undergraduate-research in his junior year, which focused on methodologies of bismuth-triflatecatalyzedMukaiyama Aldol reactions in aqueous conditions. After graduating, Danielbeganworking at the Warren Center for Neuroscience and Drug Discovery at Vanderbilt as a synthetic organic chemist. He has worked there nearly four years, primarily designing and synthesizing positive allosteric modulators targeting G-proteincoupled receptor (GPCR) neural pathways.The goal of Daniel’sresearch is to help treat the underlying neurodegenerative symptoms of Schizophrenia.

Dr. John Allen brings over 15 years of experience in molecular neuroscience and drug discovery and development, with particular focus on small molecule drug discovery for receptor and ion channel targets, including drug mechanism of action studies, the application of high throughput screening and early and late-stage lead development research. He holds a doctorate in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of Illinois-School of Medicine. He completed postdoctoral work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill followed by several years working at Pfizer Neuroscience, and then returned to academia to build an academic drug discovery research program. John is currently Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Galveston, Texas, USA, where he leads a laboratory focused on discovering translational targets and molecules that modulate the basal ganglia, a highly conserved brain region in vertebrates that controls motivation, decision making, and motor function. He is the recipient of several awards including a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, ACNP Young Investigator Award and a PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Award. His research applies large scale screening technologies and medicinal chemistry to discover and evaluate ligands for G protein-coupled receptors and their therapeutic potential in pre-clinical models of addiction and related neurological diseases. His research has made important advances in drug discovery for GPCRs in translational studies for neuropsychiatric disorders and Parkinson’s disease. Current research projects are focused on discovering and advancing chemical probes and drug-like ligands for dopamine receptors and more recently, the understudied brain orphan receptor GPR52.

Bruce is a Research Assistant Professor of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine and a Senior Director of Medicinal Chemistry in the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery @ Vanderbilt University. Bruce has served as Editor in Chief of ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies (a Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. journal) since 2017. His areas of expertise include medicinal chemistry, chemical methodology development, natural product synthesis, hit-to-lead, and lead optimization. The theme of his research in the areas of medicinal chemistry and drug discovery has been the development of small molecules which target G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) with high levels of specificity, affinity and potency for the GPCR of interest. Bruce received his B.S. in Chemistry from Louisiana State University with Professor Robert M. Strongin while working on the synthesis of resorcinarene chromophores as sensors for mono- and oligosaccharides. He received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame under the direction of Professor Richard E. Taylor. He developed novel cationic cyclopropanation reactions with high enantiospecificity from enantiomerically enriched sulfonate intermediates. He also investigated biomimetic approaches to cyclopropanes found in polyketide natural products. After successful completion of his Ph.D., he moved to Vanderbilt University to begin postdoctoral studies under Professor Gary A. Sulikowski. He was awarded an NIH fellowship through the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology to develop novel small molecule inhibitors of the Wnt signaling pathway as it relates to colorectal cancer. Additionally, he synthesized new apoptolidin-rhodamine conjugates to elucidate the biological target of apoptolidin A. In 2010, Bruce moved to the WCNDD as a drug discovery scientist and worked on the development of novel small molecule PAMs of the M1 and M4 muscarinic receptors for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. In 2015, Bruce accepted a position as a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Director of the Chemical Synthesis and Drug Discovery Facility at the University of Notre Dame. While at UND, he also served as Notre Dame Research Navigator for the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, an NIH NCATS CTSA awarded to the Indiana University School of Medicine (ICTSI NIH/NCRR Grant Number UL1TR001108). In 2019, Bruce returned to the WCNDD as a Research Assistant Professor and Project Leader for a collaboration with Boehringer-Ingelheim to develop novel small molecule PAMs of mGluR1 and mGluR3 as treatments for schizophrenia.

Dr. Boutaud got his Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology from the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. After a post-doctoral position at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, USA, he joined the Faculty in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt. There, he spent 20 years studying the pharmacology of NSAIDs. During this time, he discovered a new platelet phenotype associated with high reactivity and led a clinical study to assess this phenotype as a possible marker for high risk for heart attack. He was also associated with several clinical studies investigating the effects of paracetamol, aspirin and resveratrol in neurological and cardiovascular disorders. Another interest of Dr. Boutaud is the involvement of reactive dicarbonyls in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. This work culminated with Dr. Boutaud leading a phase 1 clinical study investigating the safety of a natural scavengers of reactive dicarbonyl in humans. In 2020, Dr. Boutaud moved to the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery at Vanderbilt University, where he co-directs the laboratory of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics.

I gained PhD and MPhil in pharmacy and biomedical sciences from Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK and Medicinal chemistry was the main focus of a different project I worked on, where I developed and synthesised inhibitors of enzymes that were determined to be targeted in various diseases using structure-based molecular modelling. Dipeptidyl peptidase IV, a target for type II diabetes, was the enzyme for my MPhil, and sphingosine kinases, targets for prostate cancer, were the enzymes for my Doctorate. With the use of docking software and the profiling of structure-activity connections based on these investigations, I have developed my experience and expertise in molecular modelling of protein-small molecule interactions. I have grown into a skilled synthetic medicinal chemist after successfully synthesising, purifying, and characterising 150 molecules directed against these enzymes. I also created the main assay for determining the biochemical activity of all the substances I synthesised, which gave me a solid foundation in biochemistry and enzyme kinetics. As a medicinal chemist, I also had to evaluate in vitro ADME data to help direct compound optimization, which has given me a better understanding of the physicochemical and pharmacokinetic features in the context of drug development. Finally, I carried out a variety of cell-based experiments, including pharmacodynamic and phenotypic evaluations of drug-target engagement, to determine compound activity in pertinent cell lines.

Aaron earned his PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Michigan in 2016, working under the direction of Dr. Henry Mosberg. He then joined the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery at Vanderbilt University as a postdoc, working with Craig Lindsley. Upon completion of his postdoctoral training, Aaron remained at Vanderbilt and is currently an Assistant Director of Medicinal Chemistry. Aaron’s research interests are in medicinal chemistry, particularly the development of therapeutics targeting G protein-coupled receptors, and organic synthesis.

Michaela Serpi is currently Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry at Cardiff University. Her research interests encompass different areas of drug discovery such as oncology, antibiotic resistanceand rare diseases.She has expertise in drug discovery, spanning from compound design and synthesis, lead optimization and candidate selection to preclinical and clinical evaluation.She has a strong track record of publication in peer-reviewed journals, and she is named inventor on several worldwide patents.She graduated in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1998 from the University of Cagliari(IT) and received her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry in 2005 from the University of Perugia (IT). She has several years of post-doctoral studies in centers of excellence for research at European and USA universities. She has worked at the University of Southern California (LA, USA) as post-doctoral Fellow at the development of new and improved medical tools against potential bioterrorism agents. This project was funded by a NIH grant and featured close collaboration with TSRL Inc (Therapeutic Systems Research Laboratories), a privately-owned preclinical accelerator company. She worked asResearch Fellowat CardiffUniversity, where she was the PIof a translational oncology project sponsored by NuCana plc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. This programme has been very successful with three drugs, developed at Cardiff, reaching the clinical stage.

Maryam received her pharm-D's degree from Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in Iran in 2018. Her thesis focused on “preparation and characterization of curcumin loaded gold/graphene oxide nanocomposite for potential breast cancer therapy”. This work was published in "Research on Chemical Intermediates" journal in Sep’2018. Maryam has been working in pharmacy since 2019. Additionally, she’s been managing Cosmetic and Beauty Skin Clinic in Zanjan since 2022. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, photography, fitness training and playing guitar. She also love traveling and exploring new places!

Christiane Contino-Pépin is currently an assistant professor of organic and medicinal chemistry at Avignon University, France. She received her PhD degree from the University of Avignon in 1997 and a habilitation degree to supervise research from the latter university in 2009.Her main research interest is the synthesis of fluorinated surfactants usable for the design of amphiphilic carriers and formulations for targeted drug delivery. She also has a good expertise on extraction and formulation of natural products. Since 2012 she is actively involved in several research projects dealing with the development of stabilized perfluorocarbon droplets for ultrasound imaging and drug delivery. Recently, her research activity is also dedicated to the design of innovative formulations for green chemistry applications (extraction/formulation of natural products, extraction/formulation of precious metals from electronic waste). Team-leader of the “Amphiphilic Systems and Eco-compatible Formulations” group (SAFE team) at Avignon University, she has published a total of 40 publications and holds 11 patents.

Dr. Koji Matsuoka is a Professor of Material Science, Graduate School of Science & Engineering, Saitama University (SU), Saitama, Japan. He received a Bachelor degree from SeikeiUniversity in 1990 and a Ph.D. from Hokkaido University (with Prof. S.-I. Nishimura) in 1995. He did his postdoctoral research at RIKEN, Saitama, Japan. He joined Department of Functional Materials Science, Faculty of Engineering, Saitama University in 1995 as an assistant professor, and was promoted an associate professor in 2001 and professor in 2011. He has published more than 100 research articles and book chapters in bioorganic chemistry and medicinal chemistry field.

Nagy is a founder and Head of R&D of MiNA Therapeutics. For over three decades Nagy has been at the forefront of clinical research and clinical practice in cancer. He pioneered the first clinical trial in the use of adenovirus and plasmid for the treatment of liver cancer, as well as the use of plasmid gene therapy in hydrodynamic gene delivery. Currently, he is driving the development of an saRNA drug (a new class of medicines) which is currently being trialed in patients with liver cancer in eight UK centres, and sites in Singapore and Taiwan (OUTREACH study, ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT02716012), a second trial in patients with solid tumours (TIMEPOINT study, ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT 04105335) in the UK, USA, Europe, Singapore and Taiwan and OUTREACH2 study, which is a randomised phase II follow-on study in patient with viral HCC (ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT 04710641). He has published widely in gene therapy, stem cell therapy, oligonucleotides, endoscopy and surgery. Previously Nagy was founder and Chairman of EMcision Limited (acquired by Boston Scientific Inc in 2018). Nagy is Lead Clinician and Head of the Department of HPB Surgery at Imperial College London.

Dr Sinda Lepetre-Mouelhi, Ph.D. in organic chemistry (2001), is Associate Professor since 2006 at InstitutGalien (Faculty of Pharmacy, Paris-Saclay Univ., France) and works in the team “Nanomedicine for the treatment of severe diseases » headed byDr. Julien Nicolas. She possesses a strong experience in chemical synthesis, formulation, nanomedicine and drug delivery. Since her recruitment, she developed the chemistry of squalene bioconjugatesand their formulation into nanoparticles. The main fields of application of thesesqualene-basednanomedicinesinclude cancer, HIV, neurologicaldisorders (brainischemia, spinal cordinjury) and more recently pain.She is currently developing nanomedicine scapable of precise and efficient delivery of natural Leu-enkephalines for pain control associated with inflammatory events. This discovery opens a new exciting perspective for an efficient treatment of intense pain, which evades the severe side effects associated with morphine or relatedsyntheticopioids. DrLepetre is also an expert for different national agencies (UPSA, SFETD) in the area of pain andisco-author of 41 peer review articles in international journals (Nature Nanotechnology, Advanced drug delivery reviews, Science Advances, Journal of controlled release, etc.…), as well as patent and book chapters.

Dongmin Liu has completed his Ph.D. at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) and postdoctoral studies in the University of Iowa Medical College. He is presently a professor and the director of Molecular Nutrition Laboratory in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech. Dr. Liu’s research is primarily focused on identifying and characterizing naturally occurring small molecules for prevention and treatment of obesity, diabetes, and vascular disease, as well as promoting healthy aging. Specifically, his lab has discovered several botanical small molecules for preventing diabetes or its vascular complications. In addition, he for the first time discovered a human steroid DHEA membrane receptor. He has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Liu has served on various grant review panels such as National Institutes of Health and American Diabetes Association, and is also serving as an editorial board member for several scientific journals such as American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology & Metabolism, Nutraceuticals and as associate editor for the journal Frontier in Nutrition.

Dr. Xueping Hu is currently an associate professor of computational chemistry at Shandong University. She received her PhD in 2018. In 2018–2021, she worked as post-doctoral fellow at College of Pharmaceutical Sciences,Zhejiang University, in the group of Prof. Tingjun Hou. Her main interest are structure-based drug design and molecular dynamic simulations. She has published 23 articles in peer reviewed journals such as Advanced Science, European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Acta Pharmacologica Sinica and Drug Discovery Today.

Prof. Hossam Hassan, is working as a working professor of natural product chemistry since November 2021. He got his PhD in collaboration between Faculty of Pharmacy, Beni-Suef University and University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM), USA, 2011. Then he got scholarship for 6 months as a visiting professor at SIO, UCSD, 2013-2014. Prof. Hassan has more than 100 international papers and he gave many talks about different strategies in drug discovery

Dr. Maryam Foroozesh, Margaret W. Kelly Endowed Professor in Chemistry, is an organic chemist with 29 years of experience in academia. Dr. Foroozesh obtained her bachelor’s degree from the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and her Doctoral degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. She joined the Department of Chemistry at Xavier University of Louisiana in 1995. The Foroozesh research group projects focus on the design and synthesis of ceramide-mimicking agents with the potential for the reversal of chemo- and endocrine-resistance in breast cancer, followed by their in vitro and in vivo biological studies; and the design and synthesis of novel mechanism-based inhibitors of the cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in carcinogenesis, followed by their structure activity studies. These projects have led to a number of peer-reviewed publications and presentations, as well as a patent. The Foroozesh group has many fruitful research collaborations nationally and internationally and has been funded by grants from multiple local and federal funding agencies. Over the years, Dr. Foroozesh has served in a variety of administrative positions including as the Head of the Chemistry Department, Interim Head of Physics Department, Interim Associate Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs, Chair of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and Chair of the Division of Biological and Applied Health Sciences. She has also served as the Chair and/or Member of a number of important university and departmental committees. In addition, in her position as the Chair of the two largest divisions on campus, she was involved in the development of a number of new academic programs (the Data Science and the Bioinformatics Bachelor of Science programs, and the Speech Pathology and the Public Health in Health Equity Master of Science programs). She served as the Principal Investigator and Program Director for Xavier’s United States National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) Program, focusing on increasing the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing graduate degrees in biomedical sciences, for eleven years. She is currently the Lead Principal Investigator, and Administrative Core and Research Enrichment Core Director for the NIH-funded Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity(BUILD) Program, now in its ninth year at Xavier University.

Dr. Nejla Cini receivedtwoseparatePh.D. degrees in chemistryfrombothUniversity of Strasbourg (UdS), EcoleDoctorale de Physique et Chimie–Physique, Institut Charles Sadron (ICS), Strasbourg, France, andIstanbul Technical University (ITU), Istanbul, Turkiye, in 2010 in theframe of jointdoctoratethesis. Shewasawardedbythe post-graduatefellowship of French Government (BourseduGouvernementFrançais (BGF), Co-Tutelle de Thèse) in thecourse of her Ph. D. studies in France. Shejoined ITU, ScienceandLetterFaculty, ChemistryDepartment as a researchandteachingassistant in 2001, andreceived her M. Sci. degree, from ITU in 2003, and is currently a ResearcherandLecturer Dr. at thesamedepartment.Her researchfocuses on design of intelligentmaterials, layer-by-layer (LbL) basedself-assembledmultifunctionalsystems, drugdeliveysystems, druganalysis, ionicmacromolecues, polyelectrolytecomplexes, nanocoatingandnanomaterials. Shehas served as expertevaluatorfortheEuropeanCommissionandshe has reviewedmorethanfiftyarticlesforhighimpactscientificjournals of Elsevier, Springer/Plenum, andWileyPublishers.She is alsoan activeguesteditorin bioengineeringforJoVEcoveredbySCI-E.

Dr Asmaa AboulMagd is an associate professor of medicinal chemistry, faculty of pharmacy, Nahda University. She got her Ph.D. from faculty of pharmacy, Ain Shams University in 2016. Her thesis was focused on synthesis of phthalazine based compounds as VEGFR inhibitors. Her main interest was synthesis of small heterocyclic molecules as possible cytotoxic candidates. She published more than 30 articles in well reputational journals.