Upon completion of Postdoctoral Fellowship training at the Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Jun Yan joined the faculty of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, Department of Medicine University of Louisville as an Assistant Professor in 2003.  In his laboratory, they seek to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which natural compound yeast-derived polysaccharide -glucan elicits antitumor immune responses.  This research focuses on tumor immunotherapy mediated by anti-tumor antibodies that bind to tumors and activate the complement, and which have been shown to be enhanced by co-administration of yeast-derived soluble -glucan.  Soluble -glucan is currently approved by the FDA for the Phase II/III clinical trials. Recently, his laboratory has identified critical roles of innate gammadelta T cells (T), particularly IL-17-producing T cells in inflammation and cancer. In 2008, he was promoted as an Associate Professor of Medicine with tenure. In 2012, he was promoted as a Professor of Medicine. He was the Co-Director of Tumor Immunobiology Program at the Brown Cancer Center and also holds endowed chair in translational research. He currently is the Professor of Surgery, Division Chief of Immunotherapy, and Director of Immuno-Oncology Program at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center. He has published more than 120 papers with H-index 54 and citation more than 10,000 (Google Scholar).

Amancio Carnero studied Biological Sciences at the University of Granada where he began his scientific career at the Department of Genetics. Later he moved to the Institute of Biomedical Research ( CSIC ) where he did his doctoral thesis at the signal transduction mechanisms mediated by the ras oncogene , obtaining the title of Doctor of Science by the Department of Molecular Biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1994. After a short stay ( 1995 ) as an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the UAM , in 1996 he moved as a postdoc at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory ( New York ) where he remained until transfer the group to the Institute of Child Health ( University College London , London). During this time he worked on the development of new genetic screening techniques to identify new targets involved in cancer. In 1999 the group moved to Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research (University College London , London ), a position held until joined the CNIO in 2001 where he took charge of Assay Development Group continuing his research. His group focused its efforts on the development of new cancer therapies , for which based its work on the identification and validation of new molecular targets in the development of a biological platform / technology to allow the identification and validation of new drugs and their preclinical characterization. In September 2009 took possession of his position as head of the Molecular Biology of Cancer Laboratory at the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (CSIC) continuing his work on the identification of new molecular targets involved in cancer and could serve as a basis for the identification of new antitumor compounds.

Dr Wu is a professor in the Cancer Research Institute, and the Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Xiangya Medical School, Central South University. Dr Wu’s work focus on epigenetic and non-coding RNA, and how they regulate tumor cell proliferation and find potentially novel cancer therapeutics targets. Dr Wu used to be a physician scientist, and received her M.D. in North China University of Technology in 1995. She received her Ph.D. in Cancer Research Institute, Central South University in 2005. Dr Wu received several awards including Hunan Natural Science Award, Talent support program for the new century of China, et al.

Professor Beebe was one of the founding members of the Frank Reidy Research for Bioelectrics at Old Dominion University (ODU), where he is presently the Principal Investigator of the Laboratory for Molecular Cell Signaling in Cancer Therapeutics and Bioelectrics. He was previously an Assistant Professor in the Jones Institute for Reproduction, Dept Gynecology, and an Associate Professor the Center for Pediatric Research Dept Pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Dr. Beebe serves/has served on the editorial boards of 8 journals and has published 136 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals, book chapters, and editorials. He was awarded a post-doctoral fellow at the Howard Hugh Medical Institute at Vanderbilt; a Fulbright Scholar / Professor and a Norwegian Marshall Scholar Award, Oslo, Norway (1988-89); the Iwao Yasuda Award for excellence in the field of biomedical research, from the Society for Physical Regulation in Biology and Medicine (2002); The Martin Black Prize from the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (2005); The Frank Reidy Award for Outstanding Achievements in Bioelectrics (2017); Included in the top 2% of most cited scientist worldwide within 22 disciplines from a Stanford University study (2020); a Member at Large Sigma Xi. He is Chair of the ODU IACUC. He continues investigating nature’s mysteries in normal and malignant cell functions.

Prior to joining the UK Discovery Medicine Catapult (https://md.catapult.org.uk/) as Head of Translational Science, Dr Ryan was Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, and previous to that he was a Principal Scientist in the Cancer Discovery Department at AstraZeneca based at Alderley Park in Cheshire.  Dr Ryan has also held research posts at the University of Cambridge and the University of Manchester.

Selma Ugurel is working in the field of experimental therapy and predictive biomarkers of skin cancer. Her specialties are melanoma and Merkel cell carcinoma. She is experienced in cancer immunology and immunotherapy.

Professor Ferlito was Formerly Director of the Department of Surgical Sciences at the University of Udine School of Medicine. Since 2009 he is the Coordinator of the International Head Neck Scientific Group (www.IHNSG.com). Professor Ferlito has been author or co-author of 699 referred publications in 83 medical journals and 54 chapters in various books. He serves/has served as editor, co-editor, assistant editor or reviewer for 1004 journals. Professor Ferlito has been honored with several distinctions from professional ENT Societies including two Presidential Citations from the American Laryngological Association for his contributions made to the field of laryngology and the association. He has divided his professional life between clinical practice, teaching and research. One of his chief interests is the promotion of international cooperation in head and neck surgery, oncology and cancer research. 

Daniele Santini is Full Professor in Medical Oncology at Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome and the Chief of Oncology Day-Hospital Single-Speciality Unit. He is actively involoved in clinical and translational research with a longstanding expertise in Immuno-Oncology and Bone Pathophysiology. As scientific Director of Translational Oncology Laboratory at Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome. He coordinated several research projects focused on the crosstalk between cancer cell/bone microenvironment and interactions of cancer/immune cells obtaining several national and international awards. He is authored of 554 publications on international journals.

Prof. Felicetto Ferrara was born in Montefredane on May 5,1954. Graduated in 1978 in Medicine and Surgery at the Federico II University of Naples, he is a specialist in Hematology and Oncology. Since 2000 he has directed the Hematology division of the Antonio Cardarelli Hospital in Naples and the Department of Onco-Hematology. He is a member of the GIMEMA Working Party for acute leukemias, reviewer for the most authoritative peer reviewed international hematology journals and author of over 150 publications in the field of oncological hematology, in particular of acute myeloid leukemia.

Hyung Sik Kim, Ph.D., Professor of Division of Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. He received M.S.in Feb. 25, 1991 from the College of Pharmacy, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea. He came to Dr. Byung Mu Lee’s Lab upon finishing graduate courses at College of Pharmacy, Sungkyunkwan University. He spent five years in this Lab during Ph.D. courses. He observed the correlation between chemical carcinogenesis and DNA-adduct formation during his Ph.D. period. He did excellent work during his graduate research by applying his analytical expertise to the studies on the cancer chemopreventive effects of plant polysaccharides on biomarkers associated with multistage carcinogenesis. In addition, He was experienced various techniques of molecular oncology. After He was awarded Ph.D. degree, He went to Korea Food & Drug Administration, and has served as a Senior Researcher thereafter. He has been involved in the adverse effect of Reproductive and Developmental toxicants. From 2003, He has been work as an Assistance Professor in the Division of Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, Pusan National University, Korea. He was a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), Society of Toxicology (SOT), International Congress of Toxicology (ICT), and Korean Society of Toxicology (KSOT). He also served as a vice president of 2013 International Congress of Toxicology (ICT), held in Seoul, Korea. Prof. Kim was the vice president of the 8th Asian Toxicology, held in Jeju, South Korea in 2015. He has contributed a great deal both to pharmacology, oncology and toxicology. His primary research areas of interest including identification of new cancer biomarker, mechanism study of new anticancer agents, cancer chemoprevention. He was involved as an author of several books including Encyclopedia of Environmental Health, Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology, Endocrine Disruptors etc.  He is currently Editorial Board Member of the Journal Toxicology & Environmental Health Part A, Associate Editor of The Journal of Toxicological Sciences, and Editorial board members of Toxicological Research. He published 260 papers have been of enormous value to scientists working with various pharmacology and toxicological research.

Matteo Ravaioli, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna and Medical Executive in General Surgery and Transplantation in Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Bologna. His clinical interest is HCC surgery, hepatic metastasis, bilious pancreatic tumors and liver transplantation, kidney transplantation, and multiorgan transplantation. He performed more of 2800 surgery operations, including hepatic resections (major, minor and laparoscopic), liver transplantation, kidney transplantation from living and cadaveric donator, nephrectomy. In 2006 he received an Award F. Mazzeo for the best scientific work in XXIII National congress S.I.P.A.D. He is author and co-author of more 251 scientific publications with 6708 citations of 5635 documents, with h-index 47.

Dr. Ben Valdez obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at Louisiana State Univ. He did his post- doctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX and became an Assistant Professor. His laboratory cloned the genes and corresponding cDNAs for RNA helicase II/Gu α and β and discovered their functions. His lab identifed the functions of treacle, encoded by the TCOF1 gene, in the expression and methylation of pre-ribosomal RNA. In 2005, he transferred to the Dept of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center where he is currently a Professor. His current research focuses on the identification of safe and efficacious conditioning regimen for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for patients with hematological disorders. He conceptualized and proved the efficacy of combined DNA alkylators, nucleoside analogs, and epigenetic modifiers in leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma cells, and proposed a model called the“1oop of death" to explain the cytotoxic synergism of these drugs. He developed an assay for cellular efflux of chemotherapeutic drugs which is relevant to understanding drug interactions. Using this assay, Dr. Valdez discovered the differential effects of HDAC inhibitors on Cellular drug transporters which have tremendous implications for using epigenetic modifiers in combination chemotherapy. The results of his pre-clinical studies have been used as bases for several clinical trials at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has co- authored 88 publications in peer-reviewed journals and three book chapters.

Dr. Jose A. Garcia-Sanz is a Tenured Scientist of Department of Molecular Biomedicine, Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas (CIB-CSIC), Spain. His main research interests are immunotherapy, therapeutic antibodies, CAR-T cells. They are interested on the development of new immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. These include new monoclonal antibodies and CAR-T cells, to be used either alone or in combinations with immune-checkpoint antibodies. The main effort of their lab is on T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, but they are addressing others.

Florence Faure is an INSERM Scientist in Curie  Institute, Paris. She graduated in Biology at Paris University and in Immunology at Pasteur Institute. During her first lab training experiences, interested by the genome mobility, she studied a procaryotic transposon and the human T cell receptor (for a PhD in Immunology in the european anti-cancer center institute, Gustave Roussy). She later worked in different research centers (LMB in UK, Pasteur Institute and Curie Institute, in Paris) analysing multiple facet of the anti-tumoral immune response. She studied the specificity for tumoral antigens, the negative regulation by a checkpoint inhibitor and she is deciphering the antigen expression, uptake and crosspresentation by different APC leading to tumor recognition by specific T lymphocytes.

Dr. Matin has been a full professor at Stanford University for several years and is affiliated with  several programs, including the Stanford Cancer Research Institute. He has contributed to many areas of biological research, including discovery of new drugs and therapeutic enzymes and their  improvement as well as their specific targeting to cancer (and other diseases). He did his Ph. D. at  UCLA, spent some years in the Netherlands (State University of Groningen), where he directed a  research group, before joining Stanford. He is recipient of numerous awards and honors.

Professor Michael Friedrich is director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the HELIOS Hospital Krefeld and the Teaching Hospital of the RWTH University of Aachen. The main field of his research activities is dealing with the vitamin d metabolism in gynaecological malignancies and in breast cancer. Another field he is working on is the interaction of DNA-mismatch repair and resistance to chemotherapy in gynaecological malignancies. Further mainpoints are the interstitial brachytherapy for recurrences of cervical cancer, the use of innovative therapies in gynaecological malignancies, the technique of sentinel lymph node in gynaecological malignancies especially in vulvar cancer and the use of intraoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) in ovarian cancer. He has more than 150 publications, mainly original contributions in peer reviewed journals concerning gynaecological malignancies and breast cancer as well as vitamin d metabolism. He is also the memberships of ESGO, IGCS, ESMO, EUSOMA, ASCO, DGS, AGO and Society of Reconstructive Surgery in Gynecology (AWO-Gyn), ISSVD.

Dr. Jose Gilberto Trevino is the Chairman of Division of Surgical Oncology of Virginia Commonwealth Univeristy. His research focus is dedicated to the better understanding of adenocarcinoma amongst a diverse patient population with investigations of key questions impeding better clinical outcomes and therapeutic target development. He has a significant basic science/translational research background with expertise in xenograft tumor models. His role as a surgeon-scientist allows for better understanding of the clinical problem in order to form provocative and actionable translational questions. His group is on the forefront of therapeutic discovery for personalized medicine and they relate their translational work for clinical trial development. With access to cancer patients and surgically resected tissues and subsequent development of patient-specific viable tumor models, they have a more personalized therapeutic approach emphasizing not only the important role of the tumor microenvironment but also the human system as a whole. With his expertise in basic/translational research in cancer research with established funding as well as a strong clinical background with access to patients and tissues.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a Professor & Research Director and holds Carter Kissell Endowed Chair in Urologic Oncology in the Department of Urology at Case Western Reserve University and The Urology Institute at the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. He also holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Nutrition and Division of General Medical Sciences at Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Gupta has joint appointment as Research Scientist at the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Gupta obtained faculty position in 2002 at Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine.

Dr. Gupta’s research involves basic, translational and clinical areas of focus. In basic research his focus is to understand the risk factors and mechanisms of prostatic, breast, kidney and bladder diseases and develop appropriate biomarkers for early detection and prognosis. Translational research focus is to identify novel targets to monitor the efficacy of various synthetic and natural small molecules and develop them as chemo preventatives/therapeutics. His clinical research interests are translation of bench research to its application in clinics.

Dr. Gupta has authored some 150 publications, including book chapters, research articles and reviews, and has spoken at several occasions in cancer prevention symposium, seminars and meetings both nationally and internationally. He has been serving in various study sections at National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Department of Defense (DOD), and other councils around the globe. He also serves on the Editorial board as well as reviewer for several prestigious scientific journals. His innovative research on basic and translational aspects has been featured on NBC-5 news and highlighted in the Plain Dealer, and American Association for Cancer Research, and American Urological Association press release.

Dr. Sims-Mourtada is the lead scientist and director of translational cancer research at the Cawley Center for Translational Research at the Helen F Graham Cancer Center and Research Institute at Chrisitana Care in Newark, Delaware. She holds affiliated faculty appointments at the University of Delaware and the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, PA. She received her PhD in Immunology from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2004 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in radiation oncology.

Dr. Fu received Ph. D. degree from Sun Yat-sen University in 1996. And then he become an assistant professor, associated professor and full professor in Cancer Centor, Sun Yat-sen University. He also stayed in Medical University of  South Carolina as postdoctoral fellowship from 1999 to 2001. His active research fields include (1) reversal multidrug resistance induced by ABC transporters, (2) new drug research and development for treatment of cancer patients, (3) primary cancer tissue culture and test of  drug sensitivity for personalized chemotherapy. He got a lot of research foundations from 863 projects (PI and Co-PI), 973 project (Co-PI), National Natural Scientific Foundations of China and so on.He published more than 280 papers including Nature Communication, Cancer Res,etc.journals. He applied for 12 patents. He is Chairman of Board of Directors, Guangdong Anticancer Society Associate Director, Cancer Pharmacology and Chemotherapy Section, Chinese Pharmacological Society; Associate Director,Anticancer Drug Section, Chinese Anticancer Society; Active Member of AACR; Member of Board of Directors, Guangdong Pharmacological Society; Member of Chinese Pharmacological Society. He is also a member of editorial board for a lot of journals including Mol Pharmacol, Am J Cancer Res, Curr Pharm Des, Chin J Cancer, Acta Pharm Sin B and so on.

Dr. Mario Mandalà received his medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University of Rome, Italy. He completed residency trainings in Medical Oncology and Haematology and since then he has consistently been active in medical research. He is currently Head of the Melanoma Unit, Division of Oncology, Papa Giovanni XIII Hospital in Bergamo, Italy. In this position, he coordinates a prospective outcome research project and several clinical trials investigating new therapeutic strategies (including target therapies and immunotherapies) in melanoma and gastrointestinal cancer patients. Dr. Mandala has been recently appointed chairman of the systemic treatment of the EORTC melanoma group. He is full member of the European Society of Medical Oncology. He is Reviewer for several scientific journals, including Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology, Cancer, British Journal of Cancer, European journal of cancer, Annals of Oncology, Cancer Treatment Review, Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Arteriosclerosis-Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Critical Reviews in Oncology and Haematology. He has authored more than 120 publications and his major scientific interests are clinical and translational research on melanoma, gastrointestinal cancer and thromboembolic complications in cancer patients. Since 2008, he gave major contributions in ESMO, AIOM and ISTH clinical practice guidelines on the management of Melanoma as well as venous thromboembolism in solid tumors.

The Han lab is focused on how the activities of hundreds or even thousands of kinase or lncRNAs are coordinated to achieve biological meaning. We have pioneered methods to predict, dissect, and control large-scale gene regulatory network; these methods have provided insights into human cancer, and other disease. A particular interest is targeting delivery the drugs to the tumor region, particularly with the help of nanoparticles.

Dr. Paul Zarogoulidis, M.D, Ms. C, Ph.D finished his medical studies in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He continued his education as a pulmonary fellow in the Pulmonary Department of Democritus University of Thrace, Greece and finished his training as a Pulmonary apecialist in the Interventional Pulmonary Department, "Ruhrland Clinic, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. His post graduate training includes fellowship with the Medical Oncology Department, Cristie Hospital, Manchester, U.K and with the Interventional Pulmonary Department, "Ruhrland" Clinic, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Currently he is the director of the pulmonary department of  "Bioclinic" Private Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece. His interests apart from the daily activities of the dapartment include research in the gene therapy field and novel drug, design, development and therapy. He is a member of EABIP, CABIP, WABIP, ASCO, IASLC, ERS, IEAM and ATS. He is also an associate editor in 5 journals and editor in 20, he has 360 publicationa on pub med and h-index 32.

Assistant Prof. Gao’s research interests are focused on tumor metastasis and microenvironment. Using in vitro cell culture and in vivo animal models, his lab has been pioneered in developing epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) lineage tracing models to answer critical questions about tumor metastasis initiation, progression, and therapy resistance development. Following the old but reviving “seed and soil” hypothesis, disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) need to be capable of forming a secondary tumor, organ-specific microenvironment needs to be permissive, and eventually, the interactions between DTCs and microenvironment determine the outgrowth of metastasis. His long-term goal is to understand the biology of metastasis and target the critical steps to prevent this deadly manifestation of cancer.

Iradj SOBHANI is the professor and head of the department of Gastroenterology & Oncology in APHP-UPEC Université Paris Est Creteil France. His research focuses on colorectal cancer (CCR) and environment factors; the biological approaches to the environment have been through intestinal microbiota analyses in this field. He studied the impact of GI hormone peptides on CCR from 2000 up to 2008 and showed by Microbiota analysis that environment, hormones and CCR are be closely linked. As PI or co-PI on several French national and European grants, he constructed several human biobanks that facilitate researches on Microbiota and cancer. He is therefore highly qualified to undertake the proposed research as a co-PI on the metagenomic analysis of gut microbiota in melanoma patients, and the impact of gut microbial metabolites on response to immune therapy.

Pr L. Zitvogel, MD (clinical oncology), PhD (tumor immunology), PU-PH Faculty Paris Sud, University Paris XI (Clinical Biology), graduated in Medical Oncology from the School of Medicine of the University of Paris in 1992. She started her scientific career when she was at the University of Pittsburgh in the USA in Michael Lotze’s laboratory. She became Research Director at Institut National de la Santé et Recherche Médicale U1015, and Scientific Director of the Immuno-Oncology program at Gustave Roussy, the largest cancer Center in Europe. She has been actively contributing to the field of cancer immunology and immunotherapy, and she brought together basic and translational research, including the design of cancer therapies through combined animal studies and Phase I/II patient trials. Her expertise is mainly dendritic cell and innate effector biology and relevance during tumour development as well as exosome-based vaccine designs. She pioneered the concept of immunogenic cell death and showed that chemotherapy, radiotherapy and inhibitors of tyrosine kinase mediate their tumoricidal activity, at least partly through the immune system. Her team discovered the critical role and impact of gut microbiota in cancer immunosurveillance and therapies. She was the recipient of many awards including the National Academy of Medicine, the Translation Research INSERM Prize, the ASCO-SITC, the Brupbacher Awards 2017, the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Award 2017, and the Griffuel Prize 2019.

Dr. Azzam A Maghazachi received a master degree from New York University Medical School (USA), and a PhD degree in Immunology from the University of Manitoba Medical School (Canada). He did post-doctoral fellowships at NYU Medical School (USA) and at the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Between 1988-2005, he held several senior positions in various institutes and universities in the USA, Canada and Europe. Between 2004-2007 he was the Chief Scientific Officer at Bio-Quant, Inc. in San Diego, and between 2007-2015 was a Professor of Physiology in the faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo, Norway. Currently he is a professor of Immunology in the college of Medicine, University of Sharjah.  He and his group were the first to identify all chemokine receptors on NK cells and were the first to examine the biological activities of chemokines on these cells. Later, they identified lysophospholipids and oxidized lipids receptors on NK cells and investigated the effects of these lipids. They also discovered a new subset of NK cells that secrete both IL-17 and IFN-g, and designated them as NK17/NK1 cells. Dr. Maghazachi is an expert in the fields of Autoimmunity and Cancer Immunotherapy. He developed several clinical trials using natural killer cells to treat breast or colorectal cancer. His research interests are NK Cells, Cancer, Autoimmune diseases, Chemokines, and Drug mechanisms of action.

Xiyun Deng is a professor of Pathophysiology and Molecular Pathology and chair of Department of Basic Medical Sciences. He is the founder and serves as director of Key Laboratory of Translational Cancer Stem Cell Research at Hunan Normal University. Dr. Deng’s research, which has been funded by the NSFC and other funding agencies for over 15 years, focuses on the experimental therapeutics targeting cancer stem cells. His team discovered that post-translational modifications of non-histone proteins play a crucial role in metastasis and drug-induced cellular stress responses in cancer stem cells, upon which he proposed the concept of “reverse nucleolar stress”. His work led to the development and mechanistic elucidation of cancer stem cell-targeting drugs (including a patented nanocarrier-based composite drug) particularly against triple-negative breast cancer. Dr. Deng has published over 100 articles/reviews including first-author and/or corresponding-author papers in Blood, Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer Treatment Reviews, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, International Journal of Cancer, European Journal of Cancer, etc. As chief editor, he has recently compiled a book titled “Triple-Negative Breast Cancer”, which is published by World Scientific Publishing (Singapore). 

Professor Noah Isakov is a member and former head of the Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, in Beer Sheva, Israel. He graduated from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel (1981) and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN (1981-1983) and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA (1983-1987). He performed sabbaticals at the NICHD, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD (1993-1995), the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City, OK, where he held the Esther Greenberg Honors Chair in Biomedical Research (2003-2004), and the Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand (2015).

Dr Zeyad Nassar is a NHMRC Early Career Fellow in the Adelaide Medical School at the University of Adelaide. He graduated with a BSc in Pharmacy from the University of Applied Sciences in Jordan in 2007, a MSc in Pharmacology from the University of Science Malaysia in 2011 and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Queensland in 2015. He enjoyed a stellar undergraduate career, graduating in the top 3 Bachelor of Pharmacy students from the University of Applied Sciences in Jordan and making the University and Dean’s Honours Lists 7 times. He also won the Best Thesis Award from the University of Science Malaysia for his Masters Thesis. He has been funded by scholarships and fellowships throughout all stages of his research career, since commencing his Masters in 2010 to his current NHMRC Early Career Fellowship (2018-21). Dr Nassar has published 36 articles and 1 book chapter to date, 11 as first author and 2 as senior author. Dr Nassar's research interests include prostate cancer, lipid metabolism and drug discovery.

As a medical oncologist with a focus on urologic oncology, I have a strong interest in translational research. I completed my fellowship at Fox Chase Cancer Center in 2018 and am now an Assistant Professor. In the past 5 years, I have developed projects, designed clinical trials and written research grants in the field of urologic oncology. I seek opportunities to collaborate with basic scientists who are interested in translating their work in clinic, to advance treatments in genitourinary oncology.

The long-term goal of his research is to promote immunotherapy for cancer stem cells (CSCs) in clinic and understand the mechanism(s) of these cells. In one of their recent studies, they found the cytotoxic effect of natural killer cells on CD133+ gastric cancer cells. In their previous studies, they isolated circulating cancer stem-like cells from the peripheral blood of gastric cancer patients by using CD133, CD44 or ALDH1. The correlation between circulating CD133+ cells and the survival rate of these patients has been confirmed by their team. Their colleagues and he has determined the anti-tumor roles of PDCD5, Trail, and DKK3 in CD133+ cancer stem-like cells. And they also carried out bioinformatic analyses in order to find a novel prognostic marker for cancer patients.

Mayra Paolillo is assistant professor at the Department of Drug Sciences, University of Pavia, Italy, where she cohordinates a research group and teaches Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. She graduated in1990 in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and during har Ph.D. she acquired skills in primary cultures of rat neurons, cell biology and molecular biology techniques.

Her research fields deal with cancer infiltration mechanisms, integrins, cancer stem cells and metastasis.

She has also acquired experience in dynamic, 3D cell culture systems to mimic metabolic pathways and other complex cellular processes.

Researches of Dr. Ning Ji is focusing on multidrug resistance (MDR) in cancer, especially the function and inhibitors for ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. He has reported a series of molecules that have the capacity to reverse ABC transporter-mediated MDR. Since 2018, he received 272 citations from 20 publications, with the h-index 10 (google scholar).

Dr. Hridayesh Prakash is an Associate Professor at Amity Institute of Virology and Immunology of Amity University, India. His primary focus is to unravel therapeutic potential of macrophage against solid and established and their contribution in various cancer directed interventions like radio / immune therapies. Major focus of the lab is understand how certain pathogens like H. pylori, Chlamydia and Mycobsabotage host immunity with special emphasis on macrophage during chronic and pinfections. Within frame of above, Dr. Prakash is exploiting the impact of exchange of TAM wmacrophage on mitigation of persistent infection driven cancer (adenocarcinoma) progression.

Lun-Xiu Qin, MD, PhD, Professor & Director, Department of Surgery, Huashan Hospital; Institute of Cancer Metastasis, Fudan University. He is one of the founding members of the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA), the member of Chinese Society of Surgery (Chinese Medical Association, CMA), the Chairman of Cancer Precision Treatment Society of Chinese Anti-Cancer Association (CACA), the Former Chairman of Cancer Metastasis Society of CACA and Shanghai Association of Tumor Molecular Target, member of CSCO. He is one of the Distinguished Young Scholars (China National Science Fund). He is also a Chang Jiang Scholar and the director of the Innovative Research Team (the Ministry of Education of China). He is focusing on the surgical treatment of hepatobiliary diseases as well as the translational study of metastatic recurrence of liver cancer. He is taking charge of many key projects including National Key Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) and the China National Key Projects for Infectious Disease, and has published over 120 papers in the peer-reviewed English journals including Cancer Cell, Cell Metabolism, Nat Med, Hepatology, Gut, Oncogene, Cancer Res, Clin Cancer Res, etc. He has got many scientific awards and honors from the government including the State Natural Science Award of China (2010). 

Dr. Shah is the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Professor at Harvard Medical School. He also Directs the Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics and Imaging and also Directs the joint Center of Excellence in Biomedicine. He is also the Principal Faculty at Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Boston.

Dr. Shah and his team have pioneered major developments in the Cell therapy field, successfully developing engineering targeted stem cells and immune cells for cancer. These studies have been published in a number of very high impact journals like Nature Neuroscience, PNAS, Nature Reviews Cancer, JNCI, Stem Cells and Lancet Oncology. Previously, Dr. Shah's stem cell work has caught the attention in the public domain and as such it has been highlighted in the media world-wide including features on BBC and CNN. Recently, Dr. Shah’s laboratory has reverse engineered cancer cells using CRISPR/Cas9 technology and utilized them as therapeutics to treat cancer. This work was published in journal Science Translation Medicine and highlighted world-wide including features on Scientific American, New York Times and NPR. Dr. Shah holds current positions on numerous councils, advisory and editorial boards in the fields of cell therapy and oncology. In an effort to translate the exciting therapies develped in his laboratory into clinics, he has founded two biotech companies whose main objective is the clinical translation of therapeutic engineered stem cells and cancer cells in patients.

Guang-Biao Zhou, MD, Ph.D, is a Professor of cancer biology and Deputy Director of the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Oncology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Institute and Hospital. He is a Professor of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College. The primary interest of his laboratory is environmental lung carcinogenesis and targeted therapy for cancer. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles. He is the Executive Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the journal Frontiers of Medicine, and acts as editorial board member for some other journals. 

Prof. Dr. Boban M. Erovic is the chief of the Institute of Head and Neck Diseases at the Evangelical Hospital, Vienna, Austria. His clinical and research focus is head & neck cancer, and subsequently defect reconstruction with free flaps, and treatment of skin cancer, in particular Merkelcell carcinoma. He has also particular interest in outcome research of malignant tumors of the salivary glands. Author of several books, book chapters and peer-reviewed publications, he has presided over and participated, as an invited speaker in many conferences and courses of head and neck cancer. 

Dr Kanwar currently works at the Department of Bio-Technology, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla (India). He does research in Nanotechnology, Medicinal Chemistry and Catalysis. One of his current projects is 'Improvement of activities of industrially important enzyme by protein engineering, rational design and enzyme immobilization'. Dr. Kanwar has guided more than 175 students for their Post Graduate degrees in Biotechnology with dissertation(s), 26 candidates for the Master of Philosophy Degree in Biotechnology and 18 candidates for Ph.D. Degree in Biotechnology. He pursues his research activities by developing bio-products and bio-processes for a variety of extracellular microbial enzymes such as lipase, cholesterol oxidase, ribonucleases, L-methionase, alkaline proteases & dye-degrading peroxidases. Dr. Kanwar has published 190 articles including chapters in the books (Published by Elsevier, Springer, InTech, CRC Press, Francis & Taylor etc.) over a career spanned over 26 years. He has filed six (06) patents and five of these have been published.

Dr. Jianxun Jim Song is a professor in the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology, the Texas A&M University Health Science Center, United States. The base of expertise on T cell biology needed to perform his research began to develop while he was a postdoctoral scholar and research scientist from the years 2001-2007 under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Croft at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. He became a junior faculty at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 2007, and extended his research on Developmental Immunology and Stem Cell Biology. As a PI on previous university-, foundation-, or NIH-funded grants, he laid the groundwork for the research by developing highly reactive T lymphocytes from pluripotent stem cells (PSC). His laboratory was the first to show that induced PSC differentiate into functional T cells for cell-based therapies. In addition to having the expertise to be successful with the research, he offers leadership and administrative skills that were developed during his independence as a mentor of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. In summary, he has a demonstrated record of successful and productive research projects in the area.

Prof. Yong Sang Song is currently the Professor at Seoul National University, College of Medicine. He received his medical doctor’s degree and Ph.D at the Seoul National University, Korea in 1983 and 1994 respectively. He worked at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, as research fellow in Department of Molecular Biology from 1997 to 1999. He served as the Associate Professor at Seoul National University from 2001 to 2005. He served as the Professor and the Associate Dean of College of Medicine Seoul National University Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology in 2006. He was elected as the Chairperson of Korean Society of Urogynecology in 2006. He was selected as director of Cancer Research Institute at Seoul National University in 2009. In the same year, he also organized International Conference of NAPA and was selected as the Chairperson of Asian Society of Gynecologic Oncology (ASGO) Scientific Committee. He was selected as the President of Korean Society of Cancer Prevention in 2012. He served as the President of International Society of Precision Cancer Medicine (ISPCM) in 2018.

His major research interests are molecular mechanisms of tumors, especially the role of tumor microenvironment in cancer cell metabolism, chemoresistance and precision medicine in gynecologic cancer. He is particularly interested in the impact of various cellular components on tumor microenvironment in ovarian cancer progression. He has published more than 250 papers in the science citation index (SCI) journals such as BMC cancer, Molecular Carcinogenesis, Cancer Letters and Oncotarget. He has received numerous awards including the prizes of Scientific Paper (Korean Scientific Association), Grand prize (Korean Society of Colposcopy and Gynecologic Oncology), Academic Award (International Conference on Ovarian Cancer), President Award on Prevention (Korean Government), Boryung Cancer Academic Award on Prevention (Korea) and Award of the 16th health/medical technology development (minister of health and welfare). He is also the editor-in-chief, senior editor and the member of editorial board of several scientific journals, such as International Journal of Clinical Medicine, Journal of Cancer Prevention, Cancer Letters, Molecular Carcinogenesis, Frontiers in Oncology and Scientific Reports.

Mengsen Li received the B.S degree in Basic Medicine Science from Beijing Medical University, Beijing, China in 1993 and the M.S. and Ph.D degree in Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Peking University, Beijing, China in 2000 and 2008 respectively. He obtains the professional title of professor and Director in Hainan Provincial Key Laboratory, Hainan Medical College, Haikou, China in 2009. He research interests include carcinogenesis and intervention, transduction of cellular signal pathway, cancer epigenetic and cancer stem cells.

Dr. Keqiang Zhang is an assistant research professor at the Department of Surgery, City of Hope National Medical Center, California, USA. Dr. Zhang worked in the research fields about ischemia-reperfusion damage, cancer angiogenesis, and potential roles of ribonucleotide reductase in carcinogenesis, cancer metastasis, and therapy. Recently, Dr. Zhang has been focusing on genomic and epigenomic alterations in several solid tumors; he is particularly interested in understanding the mechanisms and potential roles of histone methylation and ubiquitination abnormalities in cancer development and targeted therapy of lung cancer. Dr. Zhang has authored about 50 research articles, and he also serves as a reviewer as well as an editorial board member for several peer-reviewed biomedical journals.

Dr. Inbar Levkovich, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Graduate Studies, Oranim Academic College of Education, Israel. She received her PhD from the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, at Haifa University, in the area of symptoms cluster breast cancer survivors. And she completed her Postdoctoral at the School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University. She is occupied on a research, funded by the Israel National Institute for Health Policy. Between the years 2016- 2018 she served as the head of the research unit at the Division of Family Medicine, The Ruth & Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine in the Israel Institute of Technology.
Main areas of research are Stress, coping and health, grief, Covid-19 and psycho-oncology. She published more than sixty papers in refereed journals and several chapters in edited books. Many of her papers have been published in leading journals such as Palliative and Supportive Care, Children and Youth Services Review, Psycho-Oncology, OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, Journal of Health Sciences, BMC Family Practice, The European Journal of General Practice, Journal of Sexual Medicine, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Journal of Geriatric Oncology, Behavioral Medicine.

Prof. Xi Zhang, Chief physician, Changjiang Scholars Distinguished Professor, Director Hematology Medical Center, Xinqiao Hospital, Director of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Blood Disease Center, Standing Committee Member of the Hematology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, Deputy Leader of the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Application Group, Standing Committee Member of the Hematology Physician Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, Chairman of the Hematology Committee of Chongqing Medical Association.

Professor Gong is the deputy director of Department of Surgery, the director of General Surgery, the director of Gastrointestinal Surgery Center, the director of Cancer Research Institute, and the director of Molecular Medicine Center. He is the winner of National Outstanding Youth Fund, the special allowance recipient of the State Council, the member of external science branch of Chinese Medical Association, and the deputy leader of experimental surgery group of Chinese Medical Association. He is the chief editor of Surgery and the deputy editor of Oncology. From 1992 to 1996, he studied in New York Medical College. He has presided over a number of national key scientific research projects, and has been engaged in general surgery for more than 30 years. He is good at the surgical treatment of gastrointestinal tumors, especially the large-scale minimally invasive surgery of laparoscopic gastrointestinal surgery. He has taken the lead in proposing the concept of total mesorectal excision (D2 + CME) and "three ring" right hemicolectomy (laparoscopic right hemicolectomy D3 + CME) in the world, making gastric cancer and colon cancer and other complex gastrointestinal cancer treatment is more standardized, thorough and safe.

Dr. Nancy A. Espinoza-Sánchez, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the Münster University Hospital, in Münster Germany. She obtained her Ph D in Biomedical Sciences at National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is interested in the study of breast cancer and its tumor microenvironment including the role of extracellular matrix proteins and cells of the immune system in the progression of breast cancer and resistance to radiotherapy.

Dr. Emeric Limagne is currently a researcher at the Georges-François Leclerc Cancer Centre in Dijon, France. In 2009, Emeric joined the group of Professor Dominique Delmas at the University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France where he received his degree in Life Science from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in 2011. From 2009 to the end of  2012, he participated in research work on the anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties of natural molecules such as resveratrol. In 2013, he joined Professor François Ghiringhelli's team and obtained his PhD degree from the University of Paris Science Lettres in 2016. During his PhD thesis, he continued his work on the anti-inflammatory properties of natural  molecules, in particular on the SIRT1 agonists, in a context of differentiation of T-CD4  Th17 cells, known to participate in tumor escape in some types of cancers. He was also able  to specialize in preclinical and clinical immunomonitoring techniques, obtaining in 2015 Joseph Fournier's university “Cytometry in Research and Clinic” degree in Grenoble, France. His research activities thus evolved towards the study of immunological modulations induced by chemotherapies in humans and on mouse preclinical models of cancer. In 2016, he joined the Georges-François Leclerc Cancer Center, where he still holds  the position of researcher in preclinical and clinical immuno-oncology and where he works  in collaboration with Professors Sylvain Ladoire and François Ghiringhelli within the Cancer Biology platform integrated at the University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté and the  Inserm U1231 "Lipid Nutrition and Cancer" Research Center. He is carrying out translational research there, with the aim of highlighting new concepts of therapeutic  combinations, rapidly transposable to humans, involving in particular immunogenic chemotherapies and kinase inhibitors, in order to sensitize non-inflammatory or immunoexcluded tumors to immunotherapy.

Juan Ren is the Professor of radiotherapy department of First Hospital Affiliated to Xi’ an Jiaotong University.  Professor Ren has been author or co-author of 114 referred publication in 108 medical journals and 23 chapters in 6 books. She serves / has served as editor, co-editor or reviewer for 234 journals. She has divided her professional life between clinical practice, teaching, and research. Her research interests include the mechanisms of tumor immunoescape,  mechanisms of tumor angiogenesis, and mechanisms of tumor metastasis.

Suyan Tian received her PhD degree in statistics from Jilin University and master degree in biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University. She worked as a biostatistician in Rockefeller University from 2007-2012. Currently, she works as an associate professor in Jilin University. Her research is in the areas of bioinformatics and big data analysis.  

The long term goal of my research is to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in regulating stemness and differentiation in neoplastic and non-neoplastic neural cells. We want to better understand Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) by studying the molecular mechanism by which these cells acquire a stem-like phenotype and use this knowledge to develop new ways to treat and diagnose the disease. My recent work contributed to highlighting a reprogramming mechanism regulating reprogramming transcription factors resulting in dedifferentiation and maintenance of GBM stem-like cells. We recently uncovered a novel molecular circuit by which Oct4 and Sox2 co-expression induces glioma cell stemness and tumor propagating capacity by modifying miRNA networks that act to regulate the epigenetic landscape. We used complementary pharmacologic, genome screening and bisulfite sequencing approaches to show that Oct4/Sox2 induce DNMT-dependent DNA hypermethylation that represses GBM SC inhibiting miRNAs with tumor-suppressing properties. We characterized two Oct4/Sox2 repressed miRNAs (i.e. miR-148a and miR-296-5p) that modify the epigenome by inhibiting DNMT and HMGA1 transcription. Reconstituting these miRNAs in GBM SCs was found to potently inhibit GBM cell stemness and most importantly the inhibition of tumor propagating capacity in vivo. We want to expand upon our current experimental model and conceptual paradigms and identify miRNAs and tumor suppressive pathways capable of inhibiting GBM stemlike tumor-propagating phenotype and apply that knowledge to develop new therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Zhaohui Gong has completed his Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China in 2006. He received many awards/honors and published more than 50 academic papers in peer-reviewed journals. Currently he is working as a Professor of Molecular Oncology and Vice Dean of Ningbo University School of Medicine. His research interest focuses on non-coding RNA in lung carcinogenesis and molecular cellular oncology.

Professor Xue graduated from the Shanghai Institute of Life Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and received her Ph.D. in 2010. From 2010 to 2015, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her lab is dedicated to exploring the immune response during the development of acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis and inflammation-related pancreatic cancer, which can help us better understand disease progression and find effective for patients with pancreatic disease. She has published many high-level articles in related fields, including Gastroenterology, Journal of clinical investigation, Nature Communications and Cancer Research. She was honored as Shanghai “Eastern Scholar” (2015) and Shanghai “Youth Talent” (2018). 

Dr.Zhu's research direction is the effect of cancer immune microenvironment, including CAFs, TILs, Tumor-associated macrophages on cancer cell growth, invasion, metastasis, and drug resistance.

Katarzyna Anna Rygiel, M.D., Ph.D., has a background in primary care and medical research/education. She is a graduate of the Medical University of Silesia (SUM) in Poland, and she holds a certificate in Clinical Trials Design and Management from the University of California (UCSD) in the U.S., where she completed her research training. Her professional interests are focused on cardio-oncology, immuno-oncology, psycho-oncology, cardio-metabolic diseases, psychosomatic diseases, stress management, lifestyle modification, human aging, quality of life, patient education, and interdisciplinary team collaboration. She authored over 50 articles in various international medical journals and three books.

Dr Gupta graduated with a B.Sc from the Delhi University, in 1994.  He completed M.Sc in Biochemistry from the Hamdard University in 1996. Dr Gupta was conferred by the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India with a PhD in 2002. Dr Gupta did his postdoctoral training with Prof. Emad Alnemri, a world leader in the field of apoptosis. After a short stint as an assistant professor, at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, He joined NUI Galway as a Senior Researcher in September 2007. He was appointed as a Lecturer in Pathology in December 2010. His research focuses on the role of microRNAs in determining cell fate during conditions of ER stress. ER dysfunction plays an important role in a range of diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. We use a combination of molecular cell biology, transcriptomics, proteomics and miRNA expression profiling techniques to address specific questions such as: is there a "tipping point" of ER stress beyond which the UPR switches from pro-survival to pro-death response? The regulation of ER stress response by miRNAs offers enormous opportunities both in basic cell biology and in potential clinical applications. 

Dan Wei, M.D, Ph.D

Chief of the Cell Therapy Center, Key Laboratory of Birth Defect Prevention of National Health Commission

Director of National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Stem Cell and Biotherapy

2015-present, Xinxiang Medical College Distinguished Professor, Master Supervisor

2010-2012 Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Medical School / Joslin Diabetes Center;

2008-2010 Postdoctoral Fellow, Indiana University School of Medicine;

2005-2008 PhD candidate, Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Prof. Stefano Scabini is Specialist in General Surgery. He works for IRCCS Policlinico Ospedale San Martino, Genoa (Italy) .He is the head of General Surgery and focuses on Oncological Pathology Operative Unit.

Vivian Alonso Goulart joined the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), MG, Brazil in 2011 as an Associate Professor of Biotechnology. Professor Vivian received her B.S. degree in Veterinary Medicine (1992) at Federal University of Goiás, GO, Brazil, M.S. degree and Ph.D. in Genetics Molecular (1998, 2001) at Federal University of Uberlândia. Vivian was a Visiting Research Scholar of Stem Cell Program at UCDavis- Davis-CA-USA (2018). She is also a member of a well-established multiuser research laboratory (Nanobiotechnology) in Brazil since 1996, and her research also focus on Phage Display and Cell SELEX approaches for biomolecules’ discovery, seeking bioactive peptides or nucleic acids and combinatorial antibody fragments for therapeutics, Beside that, she worked with mesenchymal stem cell and nanoparticles applied to regenerative medicine. Professor Vivian had experience in many different fields, including sequencing, real-time PCR, phage display, cell-SELEX, immunological assays (flow cytometry), microbiology, cell biology, 3D cell culture by magnetic levitation, tissue analysis by immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, and many other technologies.

Semra Paydas is a Professor from Cukurova University Faculty of Medicine.There are 223 publications in international refereed journals and now these publications received 2506 citations. She was awarded with Turkey Cancer Foundation Science Prize from Turkey Cancer Foundation in October,2014.She was awarded with Dr. Nejat F. Eczacıbaşı Medical Science Prize in October,2013.

Meili Sun, Assistant Director of Oncology, Deputy Chief Physician, Doctor of Oncology, Postdoctoral, Master's Supervisor of Shandong University, Visiting Scholar of Karolinska Institutet of Sweden, Outstanding Young Talent of Qilu Health and Health, Young Academic Leader of Jinan City. She has been engaged in oncology professional work for more than ten years, has rich clinical experience, and is familiar with the frontier trends of the profession. The main research direction is tumor radiotherapy and targeted therapy and immunotherapy of gastrointestinal tumors. Currently serving as the executive director of the First Youth Council of the Shandong Anti-Cancer Association, a member of the Precision Medicine Branch of the Shandong Medical Association, a member of the Gastrointestinal Tumor Professional Committee of the Shandong Anti-Cancer Association, and a member of the Clinical Translational Medicine Professional Committee of the Shandong Medical Biotechnology Society. Secretary of Jinan Anti-Cancer Association. She presided over one project of National Natural Science Foundation and several projects in Jinan, published 18 SCI papers and 4 papers in Chinese. She won the second prize of Jinan Science and Technology Progress Award (first place), the first prize of Shandong Health Science and Technology Award (first place), the second prize of Shandong Medical Science and Technology Award (second place), and the Outstanding Physician Award of China Medical Education Association.

Gaetano Aurilio was born in Caserta, Italy, on March 17 1977. During his early adolescence he developed a strong motivation towards human medicine, and at the first opportunity he entered the oldest medical school in the Campania region. There, he immediately felt high propensity towards the study of cancer. Accordingly, he firstly graduated in Medicine and Surgery and then specialized in Medical Oncology in both cases discussing topics on gastrointestinal cancer. Subsequently he obtained a Ph.D. in medical oncology presenting a translational research in prostate cancer. After an international fellowship experience, he obtained a grant at the IEO cancer center in Milan, followed by a physician assistant position, for culminating in a role as medical doctor, currently ongoing. Winner of national/international scientific awards and first author of numerous relevant publications, he recently obtained the scientific abilitation for associate professor. His major research commitment deals with genitourinary malignancies.

Dr Antonello Veccia graduated in medicine and surgery at Second University of Naples in 2005 and specialized in medical oncology at same University in 2010. He achieved in 2014 the second level master in “Clinical trials and therapeutics development in oncology/hematology” at University of Pisa and in 2020 the first level master in “Biostatistics for clinical research and scientific reporting” at University of Padova. His training included also the SIOG training course in Geriatric Oncology in 2016 and the training course in Oncological genetics at University of Pisa in 2018. He is a member of several professional organizations including the Italian Medical Oncology Association and European Society for Medical Oncology. He works as medical oncologist at Santa Chiara Hospital of Trento, Italy, where he is referring physician for thoracic oncology. His research is mainly focused on lung and genitourinary cancers. 

Dr. Gurudatta Naik is a physician from Indian and moved to the United States to pursue higher studies in clinical research. His focus is studying health and racial disparities in outcomes of cancer survivors. He has completed his master’s in public health at University of Alabama at Birmingham and currently works at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB.

Dr. Eckhardt, as a translational breast cancer researcher, is to improve the survival of patients with aggressive forms of breast cancer through the identification and development of new markers and therapeutic targets. Through his extensive postgraduate and postdoctoral training at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (Australia) and MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC; USA). He has established tumour models and performed genomic/proteomic profiling on samples that identified functional targets for preclinical evaluation. During this time, he was awarded a Susan G. Komen Postdoctoral Fellowship, which enabled his transition to Faculty at the Department of Breast Medical Oncology (MDACC). Here, his research focused on translating lab-based science to the clinic through the development of patient-derived tumour xenograft models for aggressive breast cancers; triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). Their efforts have been sponsored by several grant agencies, philanthropic support and commercial contracts. In 2018, he transitioned back to Australia to continue his research efforts into aggressive breast cancers at The Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute (Melbourne, Australia). 

Dr Dehua Yu received his PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Indiana University and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF).  Dr. Yu has over 20 years of biopharmaceutical, as well as academic R&D, experience in cancer drug discovery and molecular diagnosis, including leadership roles as project leader, R&D Associate Director and CSO in top fortune 500 pharmaceutical company and biotech companies.  He currently holds a Professor position at Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities. Dr Yu has published more than 40 manuscripts and filed over 30 patent applications in the signal transduction， oncology drug discovery and molecular diagnosis areas. 

Dr. Hou is the deputy director of clinical laboratory in Lianshui People's Hospital Affiliated to kangda college of Nanjing Medical University. He engages in research on tumor immunization. He Published more than 30 academic papers. And received several awards，such as excellent academic paper award in the World Congress of World Association of Societies Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Second prize of Huaihai science and Technology Progress Award, and so on.

Dr. Junhe Zhang is currently working as Assistant Professor (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) in Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, Henan Province, P.R. China. His areas of interest include gene expression regulation and cancer gene therapy, especially for tumor gene therapy. He has published many articles in these areas in various journals. Additionally, he has also granted several China patents and participated in the compilation of two books. He is also serving as reviewers for international peer reviewed journals.

Dr. Rauf Bhat received his doctorate in Immunology form FAU University, Erlangen, Germany. He worked in the University of Heidelberg and German Cancer Research Centre in the field of NK cell Immunology, oncology and oncolytic Virotherapy. He is currently Assistant Professor in King Saud University, Riyadh, KSA and mainly engaged in the immunology of respiratory viruses. His interests include human immunology, oncology and oncolytic Virotherapy.

Mrs. Manik Pratap Kuvalekar completed MS Biochemistry (2011), University of Mumbai, India. She, further wanted to pursue higher education and research in United States. She completed her MS Biological sciences, specialization in molecular biology in 2014, University of Houston, Clear Lake, Houston, TX. While studying MS, she did her research internship at UT Health Science Center which focused on the role of nuclear receptors to identify gene targets using genomics & proteomics. Currently, she is serving as Senior Research Associate at Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas and GMP manufacturing Supervisor as a consultant role at Allovir. She is GMP certified with 6+ years of research and clinical experience. Her research interests include using T cell immunotherapy for the prophylaxis and treatment of virus associated malignancies. Research also involves the development of effective methods to reactivate and expand tumor-specific T cells directed against tumor antigens which will lead to the development of immunotherapy protocols. Active involvement in preclinical and clinical trials to treat High-Risk Patients with COVID-19  The overall goal will be to develop a method, which will allow the production of tumor-specific CTL in the GMP facility that can subsequently be delivered to patients with relapsed lymphoma. She is a member of Association of Women in Science, AWIS and University of Houston-Clear Lake Alumni Association (UHCL).