Title: Packing pentagons: from Albrecht Dürer to molecular detection

Short Biography: Doru Constantin received his PhD in 2002 from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon. After a Marie Curie fellowship in Göttingen, he joined the CNRS in 2005 and was appointed at the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, in Orsay. Since 2020 he is senior CNRS researcher at the Institut Charles Sadron, in Strasbourg. Dr. Constantin uses advanced synchrotron-based techniques to study the growth and assembly of inorganic nano-objects, as well as the interaction between components in colloidal systems. He also investigates the linear and nonlinear optical properties of noble metal nanoparticles.

Title: A perspective on Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Imaging

Short Biography: Adina Magda Florea is Professor at the Department of Computer Science of University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (UPB) and Director of the International Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence@UPB. Her research interests are in multi-agent systems, machine learning, ambient intelligence, active and assistive living, social robots, and human-robot interaction. Previous research interests were in symbolic logic and theorem proving, and expert systems. Prof. Florea founded and holds the chair of Artificial Intelligence in UPB, and since 2020 she is vice rector of UPB responsible with digital transformation of the university and Master of Science programs. She has authored or edited several books and book chapters, over 250 peer-reviewed papers, including papers in high impact journals and ranked conferences. She was awarded with one Prize for Excellence from IBM, 3 Best Paper Awards (co-authorship), and one IBM Faculty Award. Dr. Florea conducted several R&D projects financed by the European Structural and Investment Funds and over 25 national RDI grants and 6 international grants.

Title: Bacterial NanoCellulose: applications and market landscape

Short Biography: Professor Miguel Gama is Associate Professor at the Department of Biological Engineering of the University of Minho. He is the Director of the research group Funcarb, dedicated to R&D on polysaccharides. Miguel Gama published 190 papers registered on Scopus, with an h-index 49. Is the co-founder of the spinoff Satisfiber, dedicated to translational activities related to Bacterial NanoCellulose (BNC), a biomaterial with great technological potential. The current status of the BNC related R&D, covering applications in biomedicine, textiles, cosmetics and food will be addressed in the presentation.

Title: Advancing Health through Technological Innovation

Short Biography: Professor Chwee Teck Lim is the NUS Society Chair Professor and Director of the Institute for Health Innovation and Technology at the National University of Singapore. He has co-authored over 450 journal publications and delivered over 430 plenary/keynote/invited lectures. Prof Lim is an Elected Fellow of IUPESM, US National Academy of Inventors, AIMBE, IAMBE, ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology, Academy of Engineering, Singapore and Singapore National Academy of Science. He has cofounded six startups that are commercializing technologies developed in his laboratory. Prof Lim and his team have garnered over 100 research awards including Highly Cited Researcher, ASEAN Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award, Asian Scientist 100, Wall Street Journal Asian Innovation Award (Gold), IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award and the President's Technology Award among others.

Title: Engineering peptide-based biomaterials as candidates for nanomedicine

Short Biography: Prof. Dr. Ming Ni received his doctoral degree from the University of Washington. He joined GenScript in January, 2020, and has been responsible for technical support of plasmid DNA platform. He led the plasmid DNA project to improve the yield and optimize purification steps. Before he joined GenScript, he was a full professor and Head of Biomedical Engineering Department at Yachay Tech University and Senior Scientist with the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology,(A*STAR) Singapore. With over 50 peer-reviewed articles, 1600 citations and 4 US patents, he is one of the most prolific scientists at GenScript.

Title: Bio-printing technology for Bone Tissue Engineering: Biomimetic Hydroxyapatites as Osteoinductive Ingredient for Nanocomposite Bioinks Design

Short Biography: Monica Sandri is Director of Research at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Science, Technology and Sustainability for Ceramics (ISSMC, ex ISTEC), with expertise on the design and development of ceramic and hybrid biomaterials for tissue regeneration, nanomedicine, personalized therapies, and cosmetic. Coordinator of the research activity aimed at the study of biomineralization processes for the achievement of biomimetic nanostructured hybrid and polymer hydrogels and bioinks for the development 3D scaffolds for bone and cartilage tissues regeneration. Development of biomimetic and medicated membranes for chronic wound management capable of simultaneously fighting infections and guiding tissue healing and regeneration. Design and development of biomatrices for 3D in vitro predictive models, through 3D bioprinting and co-cultures approaches, for the study of personalized targeted pharmacological therapies in the field of tumor and infectious diseases (e.g. investigation on osteosarcoma, leukemia, osteomyelitis). Scientific responsible in funded European Projects, Coordinator of National and Regional Research Projects. She graduated in Chemistry in 2001 from the Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Italy and she obtained the PhD degree in Material Science in 2006. She has authored more than 142 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals, 13 book chapters and 6 Patents. H-index = 38, total citations exceeding 5351 (Source: Scopus).

Title: Biodegradable amphiphilic copolymers with enhanced drug loading capacity and their toxicity evaluation through microfluidics

Short Biography: Mihaela C. Stefan received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Politehnica University Bucharest, Romania. She worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Matyjaszewski’s group at Carnegie Mellon University from 2002 to 2003. She also worked as a Research Scientist in Richard D. McCullough's group at Carnegie Mellon University on the synthesis of block copolymers containing semiconducting polythiophenes. She joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2007, and she is currently a Eugene McDermott Professor and Department Head. She received the NSF Career Award in 2010, the NS&M Outstanding Teacher Award in 2009 and 2017, the Inclusive Teaching Diversity Award in 2012, the President’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2014, Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring in 2015, and Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Graduate Research Mentoring in 2021. She also received the Wilfred T. Doherty Award from the Dallas Forth Worth Local Section of the American Chemical Society in 2021. Her research group is developing novel organic semiconductors for organic electronics, biodegradable and biocompatible polymers for drug delivery applications, and rare novel catalysts for polymerization of dienes and cyclic esters. At the University of Texas at Dallas, she supervised 36 graduate students and 24 Ph.D. students graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry under her supervision. She also mentored ~130 undergraduate students who worked on her research lab on various projects.

Title: Clinically Effective Scar Treatment via a Gene Silencing siRNA-Polymer Nanoplex Platform: From Bench to Bed

Short Biography: Dr Timothy Tan obtained his Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is interested in nanomedicine and nanotheranostics; his works focus in the engineering, manipulation and interrogation of nano-biophotonic systems, with an ultimate goal of enhancing biological and chemical functions. His group has developed novel upconversion nanotheranostics suitable for photodynamic and photothermal therapy, photoacoustic imaging and skin photomedicine, with potential application in eczema and carcinoma phototherapy. His group has also developed and patented an electrostatic tunable hydrogel delivery platform which has demonstrated effective siRNA delivery, cell internalization and gene knockdown for anti-inflammatory and anti-scar treatment. Dr Tan has published more than 120 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Angew Chemie, Adv Mat, Nano Letters, Small etc and obtained/applied for 8 patents. His work has garnered more than 7500 citations with a H-index of 52. He was awarded Singapore President’s Public Administration Award 2015 and Young Investigator Award in “International Symposium of Materials on Regenerative Medicine 2012”.

Title: Engineering Multi-Scale Cellular Interactions for Disease Modeling and Drug Testing

Short Biography: Yi-Chin Toh is currently a Future Fellow and Professor at the Queensland University of Technology. She is trained as a chemical and tissue engineer, having obtained her B.Eng. and PhD from the National University of Singapore. She did her post-doctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Professor Joel Voldman's guidance. Yi-Chin’s major scientific contribution is in the advancement of microfluidic tissue models for applications in drug testing and experimental biology. Her works on animal alternative technologies have won accolades, such as the Global 3R Award, and the 2022 Lab on a Chip Pioneers in Miniaturization Lectureship. She is an associate editor for Biomicrofluidics and Frontiers in Digital Health and the scientific advisory board member of Lab on a Chip. She is also currently serving in the ARC College of Experts. Dr Toh is a recipient of the Australia Research Council Future Fellowship, National University of Singapore Research Scholarship, A*STAR Graduate Scholarship and A*STAR International Fellowship.

Title: Viruses as bioinspired nanocapsules.

Short Biography: Dr. Guillaume Tresset received his master in electrical engineering from the Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité (Supélec) and obtained his PhD in physics at the French Atomic Energy Agency (CEA) in France. He worked at the University of Tokyo on microfluidic devices for handling biomolecular systems, then at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore on artificial viruses for gene delivery purpose. He is now senior research scientist with the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and he currently serves as deputy director of the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides in Orsay (France). He is an expert in the physics and engineering of self-assembled bio-inspired systems.