Patrick M. Woster currently serves as Professor, Chair and SmartState® Endowed Chair in Drug Discovery at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Woster received a B.S. in Pharmacy in 1978 and a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistryin 1987, bothfrom the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He was a postdoctoral associatein Chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Michigan, mentored by James K. Coward. Dr. Woster has conducted research in multiple areas, including the discovery of inhibitors of the polyamine pathway, novel antimalarial, antitrypanosomal and antibacterial agents, a variety of antitumor compounds, chemopreventive agents and epigenetic modulators. He is perhaps best known for the 1996 discovery (in collaboration with David Edwards) of 6,7-dihydroxybergamottin, the constituent in grapefruit juice that inhibits cytochrome P450 in the gut, altering the bioavailability of numerous therapeutic agents. In collaboration with Robert A. Casero, he was also the first to produce small-molecule inhibitors of lysine-specific demethylase 1, the first-discovered histone demethylase, and to show that inhibition of this enzyme promoted the re-expression of tumor suppressor factors. Most recently, he has expanded his work with epigenetic modulators to non-cancer diseases such as sickle cell disease, cardiovascular reperfusion injury and periodontal disease. Hisresearch has consistently been supported by NIH, WHO, the Doris Duke Foundation and several other external sources. He has authoredmore than 135 manuscripts, holds 11 patents and has given numerous invited presentations. Dr. Wosterwas Chair of the 2009 Polyamine Gordon Research Conference, and Chair of the 2014 National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium. He has served on numerous grant review panels, including more than 40 NIH study sections, is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry,Genesand Medicinal Chemistry Reviews, andreviews for more than 50 scientific journals. Dr. Woster is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2014), the Royal Society of Chemistry (2015), the Asian Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (2017), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2017). In 2019, he was inducted into the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame.

Associate Professor Tina Skinner-Adams is a research leader and head of the Parasite Biology Laboratory at the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery. Her research is driven by a desire to improve human and animal health and focuses on identifying, understanding and improving the activity of antiparasitic agents. Key examples of Tina’s impact in this area include, the demonstration that antiretroviral protease inhibitors can kill malaria parasites, identifying the antiplasmodial target of bestatin, demonstrating that proguanil has potent slow-action antiplasmodial activity and developing and using a novel anti-Giardia drug discovery platform to identify potent new classes of anti-parasitic compounds. Tina has >100 publications (H index 36), including papers in J Infect Dis, J Med Chem, PNAS, Trends Biochem Sci Antimicrob. Agents & Chemo & IJP Drugs Drug Resist (ranked in the top 1% of highly cited papers in Microbiology) and has trained 21 Hons & 13 RHD students (29 graduated; 5 current). She will provide an overview of her current research focusing on studies with a new potent series of anti-Giardia compounds.

Patrick Lam is currently a medicinal chemistry and drug discovery consultant at Lam Drug Discovery Consulting, LLC, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Baruch S. Blumberg Institute and Adjunct Professor at Drexel University College of Medicine. He retired from a chemistry director position of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. Patrick joined DuPont in 1984 and moved to BMS in 2001. Patrick has >30 years of drug discovery experience. His expertise is in innovations in structure-based drug design, ADME-T, focused libraries, molecular recognition and nucleic acid therapeutics to deliver biopharma clinical candidates with novel profiles. Patrick is responsible for a total of eight clinical candidates. He was the group leader/co-inventor responsible for the discovery of Eliquis®/Apixaban, a novel Factor Xa anticoagulant drug. Eliquis® is a transformational “mega block-buster” medicine. It is currently the best-selling small-molecule drug, with ~$14B of annual world-wide sales. In 2015, the Eliquis discovery team received the American Chemical Society Heroes of Chemistry Award for a successful commercial product that benefits human welfare. In recent years, he has been involved with antivirals (HBV capsid, surface antigen and cccDNA inhibitors, Dengue Fever inhibitors, HIV-DCSIGN blockers), antithrombotics (FXIa and FXa inhibitors as anticoagulants; P2Y1 and PAR4 antagonists as antiplatelet agents), PCSK9 antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapeutics, prodrugs and carbohydrates. Patrick is internationally known as the co-discoverer of the powerful Chan-Lam Coupling Reaction. This is the copper-promoted oxidative coupling reaction for N/O-arylation with arylboronic acids and is complementary to the Nobel-prize winning Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling Reaction. Patrick has authored 103 papers/reviews/book chapters and is an inventor on 37 patents/patent applications. He has presented >100 invited seminars worldwide. Patrick has received numerous awards including BMS Ondetti-Cushman Innovation Award for FXa inhibitor discovery in 2003; DuPont-Merck Summit Award for the discovery of cyclic ureas as HIV protease inhibitor capable of displacing the “structured water” in 1993. Patrick received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester (Dr. Louis Friedrich) and was a postdoctoral fellow in UCLA (Prof. Mike Jung and the late Prof. Don Cram, 1987 Nobel Laureate in chemistry).

Dr. Baell is a Medicinal Chemist with more than 25 years of experience at the public-private interface and his research is focused on the discovery of new medicines for treating diseases with an unmet medical need. From 2004, he has authored more than 100 primary publications with frequent entries in Nature and Science group publications. His translational efforts in medicinal chemistry have resulted in a body of protected intellectual property of great depth, with more than 40 granted patents, representing >25 separate patents most of which are alive and licensed to different parties) and outcomes which include drug candidates progressing into clinical trials. In 2004 he won a national medicinal chemistry award for an early to mid-career researcher for his discovery of a new class of potential multiple sclerosis therapeutics – the Biota Award, then in 2018 Australia’s highest medicinal chemistry award, the Adrien Albert Award for Sustained Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry, then in 2019 the Monash University Research Award for the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, in 2020 the Scientific Achievement Award in Drug Discovery and Development, awarded by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and in 2021 The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) Clunies Ross Award for Knowledge Commercialisation based on his KAT6A inhibitor discoveries.

Prof. Mechoulam, one of the world’s pre-eminent cannabis scientists, is the Lionel Jacobson Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Hebrew University. Major scientific accomplishments of his research team include the first isolation and identification of several major plant cannabinoids, including ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the major psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant, and the isolation and characterization of the first known endogenous cannabinoids, anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG). Prof. Mechoulam is the recipient of several major Israeli and international scientific prizes and honorary degrees. He has served as the Rector of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and as president of the International Cannabinoid Research Society.

Dr. Shoenfeld has been working in his laboratory for years on deciphering the mechanisms of autoimmune diseases, and developing specific drugs for them, such as specific IVIG. He has educated a long list of students (N=43) being today heads of departments and institutes. His research includes experimental work on depression in autoimmune disorders such as in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis. One of Israel's top physicians and scientists, who has dedicated his life, as an investigative physician to deciphering the causality and mechanism of autoimmune diseases, to provide care for patients, and to develop innovative treatments, as well as to spread the scientific information through the professional and popular literature. In 2011, Dr. Shoenfeld described the new "ASIA" syndrome also recognized as "Shoenfeld's syndrome" (ASIA - Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants), and delineated the major and minor criteria (published in J. Autoimmunity 2015). His clinical and scientific works focus on autoimmune/rheumatic diseases, and he has published more than 1990 papers in journals such as New Eng J Med, Nature, Lancet, PNAS, J Clin Invest, J Immunol, Blood, FASEB, J Exp Med, Circulation, Cancer and others. His articles had over 65,000 citations. He has written more than 350 chapters in books, and has authored and edited 28 books, some of which became cornerstones in science and clinical practice, such as: "The Mosaic of Autoimmunity", "Infections and Autoimmunity", the textbooks "Autoantibodies" and "Diagnostic criteria of autoimmune diseases", "The environment geoepidemiology and autoimmune diseases", all of which were published by Elsevier and sold by the thousands. His book "Vaccines and Autoimmunity" was published by Wiley Blackwell Pub in 2015. He is on the editorial board of 32 journals in the field of autoimmunity and rheumatology, and is the founder and the editor of the IMAJ (Israel Medical Association Journal) the representative journal of science and medicine in the English language in Israel, and also is the founder and Editor of the "Autoimmunity Reviews" (Elsevier) (Impact factor 8.4) and Co-Editor of "Journal of Autoimmunity" (IF=7.9). For the last 20 years Dr. Shoenfeld is the Editor of "Harefuah" – The Israeli journal in medicine (Hebrew) and edited the Israel Medical Encyclopedia (10 volumes, 5000 items). He had organized over 20 international congresses in autoimmunity.

Dr. Kenneth A. Jacobson received his B.A. in Liberal Arts from Reed College in Portland, Oregon and his M.S. and Ph.D. (1981) in Chemistry with Prof. Murray Goodman at the University of California, San Diego. After completing his Postdoctoral work with Professor A. Patchornik at the Dept. of Organic Chemistry, Weizmann Institute in Israel, he joined the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive and Kidney Diseases at NIH in Bethesda, MD in 1983. He currently serves as Chief of both the Molecular Recognition Section, which he founded in 1993, and the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry. He began the NIDDK Chemical Biology Core Laboratory as Director in 2003. His creativity and his ability to combine the field of chemistry with those of pharmacology and molecular biology have had a major impact on biomedical research and therapeutic development. Over the course of two decades at NIH, Dr. Jacobson has made major contributions to the pharmacology of cell surface receptors, in particular purinergic receptors. He has studied recognition at the binding sites of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) by structural modification, both from the perspective of the small molecular ligands and of their protein targets. His group began the computer modeling of adenosine receptors as a tool for interpreting site-directed mutagenesis data soon after their cloning. Early in his career he pioneered the concept of “functionalized congeners,” a now widely used approach in drug development, which has recently led to the design of multivalent conjugates of GPCR ligands using dendrimers as nanocarriers. He also introduced the concept of “neoceptors” as a strategy for re-engineering the binding site of a GPCR for activation by chemically tailored small molecules. His research has led to agents in clinical trials for cystic fibrosis, cancer, degenerative diseases, and autoimmune inflammatory diseases. Two nucleosides from the Jacobson laboratory that act as selective A3 adenosine receptor agonists are currently in clinical trials for rheumatoid arthritis, hepatocarcinoma, psoriasis, and dry eye disease. Dozens of ligands used as pharmacological probes in research on adenosine receptors and P2 (nucleotide) receptors were introduced by Dr. Jacobson and colleagues. Many of these substances bear the designation “MRS” after the name of his Section. Dr. Jacobson has authored or co-authored over 500 scientific publications and is an inventor on 35 issued U.S. patents. He has served the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry as Chair in 2004 and has planned and chaired numerous symposia at ACS National Meetings. Dr. Jacobson is or has been on the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Bioconjugate Chemistry, Molecular Pharmacology, Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, Medicinal Research Reviews, and Future Medicinal Chemistry, and he is an Associate Editor ofPurinergic Signalling. He has mentored 63 postdoctoral fellows, both chemists and biologists. He received the 2003 Hillebrand Prize, the 2008 Sato International Memorial Prize from the Pharmaceutical Soc. of Japan, and the 2009 Pharmacia-ASPET Award from the American Soc. for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Jacobson was recently included in a listing of the ten most cited researchers in the field of pharmacology.

Professor Zhang is a faculty member of School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University. He has more than 30 years of research experience in the isolation, identification, structure elucidation, analysis, synthesis and biological evaluation of small molecules of natural products, leading to the publication of more than 160 peer-reviewed papers and dozens of granted patents. His current research interest is focused on drug discovery and development from natural resources, as well as the development of botanical dietary supplements from herbal medicines. Specifically, Professor Zhang is interested in finding natural lead compounds from plants found in the Lingnan region of China, and in developing dietary supplements from traditional herbal medicines against different disease targets and pathogens such as cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses (SARS-CoV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), flu viruses, Ebola/Marburg viruses, athlete’s foot fungi, tuberculosis, dental bacteria and cancer chemoprevention.

Professor Des Richardson holds the position of Alan Mackay-Sim Distinguished Chair of Cancer Cell Biology at Griffith University (Inaugral Chair – First Named Chair at Griffith University), Nathan, Brisbane, and is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia Senior Principal Research Fellow. He is a multi-disciplinary pharmacologist whose career has spanned metabolism, medicinal chemistry, drug design/development/commercialisation, cancer biology, and neurobiology. He has published >440 articles, reviews, patents, chapters etc., over his career with >93% as first, senior or corresponding author (H-index: 96; >39,400 citations over entire career; Google Scholar 10/3/21; with >18,700 citations over the past 5 years and H-index of 60 over the past 5 years; Google Scholar 10/3/21). He is Executive Editor of BBA-General Subjects and has served on the Ed. Boards of 47 journals, including: JBC, Antioxidants Redox Signaling, Biochem. J., Free Rad. Biology Med., J. Clin. Pathology (Assoc. Ed.), Int. J. Biochem. Cell Biology – Molecules in Focus Ed. (for 10 years), BBA-Mol. Cell. Res., Mol. Pharmacol., Pharmacol. Res., Cancers, BBA-Reviews on Cancer, etc. As a major translational research achievement, he has developed the anti-cancer and anti-metastatic drug, DpC, which overcomes P-glycoprotein-mediated drug resistance and up-regulates the potent metastasis suppressor, NDRG1. This has led to commercialisation of DpC and the development of the international company, Oncochel Therapeutics LLC, USA and its Australian subsidiary, Oncochel Therapeutics Pty Ltd. Notably, DpC has entered multi-centre Phase I clinical trials for the treatment of advanced and resistant cancer. These anti-cancer drugs target the lysosome via the P-glycoprotein transporter.

Will be updated soon

Josef Jampilek completed his Ph.D. degree in Medicinal Chemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Charles University (Czech Republic) in 2004. In 2004-2011, he worked in expert and managerial posts in the R&D Division of the pharmaceutical company Zentiva (Czech Republic). Prof. Jampilek deepened his professional knowledge at the Medicinal Chemistry Institute of the Heidelberg University (Germany) and at multiple specialized courses. In 2017, he was designated as a Full Professor of Medicinal Chemistry. At present he works at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia), the Institute of Neuroimmunology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, Palacky University in Olomouc (Czech Republic). In addition, he is a visiting professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland) and Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong SAR, China) and an invited professor/expert at various higher educational institutions. He is an author/co-author of more than 30 patents/patent applications, more than 220 peer-reviewed scientific publications, 7 university textbooks, more than 40 chapters in monographs, and many invited lectures at international conferences and workshops. He also received several awards for his scientific results, e.g., from Aventis, Elsevier, Willey, Sanofi and FDA. Prof. Jampílek is also an editor, guest editor and member of the editorial boards of several renowned international scientific journals. The research interests of Prof. Jampilek include drug design, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology as well as drug delivery nanosystems. He is also interested in ADME and solid-state pharmaceutical analysis.

Dr. Cheng is the founder and director of Dr. Cheng Integrative Health Center and Doctor’s Anti-Aging and Weight Loss Center, of Columbia, SC, since inception in 2003. Dr. Cheng and his colleagues take an integrative approach to help patients with chronic disease esp. diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Dr. Cheng also serves as consultant to Shenzhen BaoAn Central Hospital and Shenzhen Medical Association, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Dr. Cheng is also a consultant to SuHa International Hospital, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China. Dr. Cheng serves on the editorial board of Journal of Nutritional Oncology, China and Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. In recent years, Dr. Cheng grew particularly interested in functional medicine or anti-aging medicine. The current healthcare focuses on symptomatic treatments for many diseases, ignoring the root causes. For example, when we control the blood sugar of a diabetic patient or the blood pressure of a hypertensive patient, we are only treating the symptoms. We are not doing anything to the underlying disease processes. Functional medicine tries to holistically address the disease processes in addition to the symptomatic treatment.

Michael W Retsky has completed his PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago and made a career change to cancer research 30 years ago. He was on Judah Folkman’s Staff at Harvard Medical School for 12 years. He is Editor and Romano Demicheli is Co-Editor of a Springer/Nature book on breast cancer published in July 2017. He is the Founder and on the Board of Directors of the Colon Cancer Alliance and has published more than 60 papers in physics and Cancer.

Professor M. Akhter Hossain completed his Ph.D. (2001) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan) and undertook postdoctoral studies at Joseph Fourier University (France) and the Howard Florey Institute (Australia). He has been the Head of the Insulin Peptides Laboratory since 2012 at the now-Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne. He has published >150 papers (from 2000 to 2021) in key international journals including theChemical Reviews, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Chemical Science, Nature Communications, and PNAS. Eight of his discoveries have been patented to date. He is an Associate Editor/ Editorial Board Member of five international journals including Scientific Reports (Nature Group). He currently holds 2 NHMRC Ideas Grants as Principal Investigator (PI/CIA) and attracted 10 ARC/NHMRC (over $7.5 million) in the past 10 years. He is the current co-chair of the Solid Phase Synthesis Symposium, president of the Peptide User Group (Melbourne), and Victorian representative of the Australian Peptide Society. His research group is interested in designing peptidomimetics and developing novel chemical methods for preparing therapeutic insulin and insulin-like peptides.

Alexander Hillisch is a Vice President and Head of Computational Molecular Design at Bayer AG, Wuppertal, Germany. His team supports small molecule and biologics drug discovery in cardiologywith computational chemistry, chemoinformatics, machine learning,in silico ADMET and structural bioinformatics techniques. From 1998 to 2003 he headed a research group at EnTec GmbH, Jena, Germany, a subsidiary of Schering AG, Berlin. There he was project manager in preclinical research and involved in the computer-aided design and pharmacological characterization of drugs against gynecological diseases and cancer. He conducted his Ph.D. thesis at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMB), Jena in the area of biophysics (NMR, FRET) and molecular modeling. Alexander Hillisch received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry with Prof. Peter Schuster in 1998 and his diploma in Pharmacy in 1995 from the University of Vienna, Austria. He is co-author of 48 research papers, 2 books and 62 pharmaceutical compound patents which led to 6 clinical development candidates. Alexander teaches “Molecular pharmacology and Drug Design” at the University of Cologne from which he received a honorary professorship in 2010. He is a member of the board of directors at the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC, Toronto & Oxford), and at the scientific advisory board of Cresset and EUROPIN.

Full time researcher at the Department of Medicines and Technologies for Health, in the Toxins Receptors and Ion channels team. In charge of the identification and therapeutic development of animal toxins active on G-Protein Coupled Receptors for human benefit. Dr. Nicolas Gilles has a 20-year experience in the study of animal toxins. He is pioneering the investigation of animal toxins acting on GPCRs, the largest therapeutic target class. His strongest expertise lies in venom manipulations, HT screening, toxin production, selection of therapeutic targets, molecular pharmacology and in vivo experiments. When the pharmacological properties of these new ligands are deemed exceptional, a hit-too-lead process is realized and its therapeutic development initiates.

Weishuo Fang graduated from Peking Union Medical College with Ph.D. degree in Medicinal Chemistry in 1997. After two years' postdoctoral study in Florida State University, USA, he started his independent career in Institute of MateriaMedica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences as Associate Professor and was then promoted to full Professor. The major theme of his research lab in is medicinal chemistry and chemical biology of bioactive natural products. Two research directions have been actively pursued in the past two decades: (1) Small molecules interacting with tubulin/microtubule system, with an emphasis on microtubule (MT) and microtubule associated proteins (MAPs) protein-protein interaction (PPI) for drug resistant and metastatic tumors as well as neurodegenerative disease thearpy; (2) Natural products (NP) and NP-inspired library design and preparation for drug discovery. Explored drug targets include beta-secretase (enzyme) for Alzhheimer's disease, farnesoid X receptor (nuclear receptor) for metabolic disorders and other diseases, and c-Myc for cancer therapy.

Brief Biodata: Hany A.M. Sherif is assistant professor, faculty of pharmacy, Deraya University, Minia, Egypt. Over the past five years El-Sherif has focused his research in two broad areas: 1) Design and Synthesis of Coumarin/ Nitric Oxide Donor Hybrids with Potential Antibacterial and Antiproliferative Activities and 2) Design and synthesis of novel 1,2,4-triazole derivatives and their nitric oxide donor analogues as potential Anticancer and anti-inflammatory Agents. EL-Sherif has been lecturer at faculty of pharmacy, Nahda University, Cairo, Egypt, since May, 2015. He received his B.SC. at Cairo University since July, 2005, his Master (2015) and Ph.D in july 2018.EL-Sherif published nineresearch papersin design and synthesis of new compounds with different biological activities as El-Sherief, H. A., et al. EL-Sherif is a reviewer in Journal of Drug Design and Medicinal Chemistry(JDDMC).El-Sherief revised many papers as in differentJournals like Cancer Science and Clinical Oncology journal (JCS) (JCS-P-174) and Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry journal.El-Sherief is concerned at this time with design, study and synthesis of triazoles derivatives as novel compounds targeting cancer cells. El-Sherief has strong teaching experience in pharmaceutical and organic chemistry teaching.El-Sherief worked in three great universities Nahda University-Egypt, JoufUniversit-KSA and now at Deraya University-Egypt.

Dr.AnjuGoyal is currently working as Professor & Head in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Assistant Dean (PhD Programme- Pharm. Sciences) at Chitkara College of Pharmacy, Chitkara University, Rajpura. She has completed her Masters’ and Ph.D. Degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from Guru Jambheshwar University of Sciences & Technology, Hisar, Haryana. Her research areas include Synthesis and Derivatisation of Heterocyclic Compounds to get final Nitric Oxide Donors. She has more than 35 Publicationsand 07 patentsto her credit. She has attended and has also presented papers in National/International Seminars and Conferences. She guided M.Pharm and PhD students. She is also co-author of book “Pharmaceutical Chemistry-VI (Medicinal Chemistry-1)” published by Thakur Publications and editor of series of Advanced Methods of Analysis (Vol-1, II and III) by Bentham Publishers.