Nuno C. Santos was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1972. He graduated in Biochemistry from the Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon, in 1995, and received his PhD in Theoretical and Experimental Biochemistry in 1999 from the same University, although all the experimental work was conducted at Instituto Superior Técnico (Technical University of Lisbon) and University of California (Santa Barbara). Currently, he is Associate Professor with Habilitation of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, and Head of the Biomembranes & Nanomedicine Unit at the Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM). Among other distinctions, his research work was awarded with the Gulbenkian Prize for young researchers (2001), Dr. José Luis Champalimaud Prize – Basic Research (2004), Dr. José Luis Champalimaud Prize – Applied Research and Technology (2005) and the ULisboa – Caixa Geral de Depósitos Prize (2017). He is (co)author of 170 articles in per-reviewed international journals, which received more than 8300 citations (h-index 49 and i10-index 131, publishing since 1996), presenting a Journal Citation Reports impact factor sum of 876.1 (average 5.2 per article). In addition to these publications, he (co)authored 10 articles in Portuguese scientific journals, 15 book chapters (mostly published outside Portugal, in English), 3 books (editor, published by Wiley, Springer and MDPI) and 2 international patents. Among different National and International research projects, he was the coordinator of a consortium funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union (FP7), including 10 different research groups from Europe and Brazil. He is member of the Executive Committee of the European Biophysical Societies’ Association (EBSA) since 2019, and the Director of the M2B-PhD Doctoral Program in Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (involving 5 different institutions) since 2016. He was President of the Portuguese Biophysical Society from 2015 to 2021. He has supervised 11 completed PhDs, 8 as main supervisor and 3 as co-supervisor.
Riccarda Antiochia is Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). She received a MSc degree in Chemistry with honors in 1992 and a MSc degree in Pharmacy with honors in 2009 both at Sapienza University of Rome. In 1994 received the Diploma of Imperial College at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London and in 1996 received a Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome. She was awarded of the national scientific qualifications as Full Professor for the scientific sectors CHIM/01, Analytical Chemistry, in 2018, and MED/46, Applied Medical Technologies, in 2019.
She is a Member of the Steering Committee of CNIS, Research Center for Biotechnology applied to Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome from 2011. She is author of 90 papers on international peer-reviewed scientific journals, 3 book chapters and 1 monography.
Her scientific activity is focused on the fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology and analytical chemistry. The main area of research is the design, development and application of electrochemical biosensors for biomedical, food and environmental analysis. More recently, she is involved in the characterization of new nanostructured materials for electrode modification in second- and third-generation electrochemical biosensors, biofuel cells and microneedles-based biosensors development.
Pedro Fonte is Assistant Professor at Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Algarve, Portugal. He is also Research Associate in the Center for Marine Sciences (CCMAR), University of Algarve, Portugal and in the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB), Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal.
His area of scientific activity is on development of new drug delivery systems by means of colloidal carriers, structural characterization of proteins entrapped into micro- and nanocarriers, lyophilization of biopharmaceuticals, targeted and controlled delivery of drugs across biological barriers, solid state characterization of pharmaceuticals and drying of pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals. In his scientific activity has acted as coordinator in several scientific projects funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal and other funding agencies. He has published more than 50 papers in high impact journals and 10 book chapters.
Dr. Nathalie Mignet is Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France. She is the leader of the Laboratory Chemical and Biological Technologies for Health located at Université de Paris Cité, at the faculty of Pharmacy.
After a PhD in France in organic chemistry, Dr Mignet was hired by the company Lynx Therapeutics in San Francisco. She then joined the University of Sheffield in UK for one year before being hired by the French biotech company Capsulis to work on onion-based nanoparticles called spherulites. She joined the CNRS as a research Scientist in 2000 to work on non-viral gene delivery. Since then, she expanded her domain of interest from drug delivery systems to nanomedicine designed for triggered delivery or imaging.
With her lab (#Mignet Lab), she is interested in nanomedicine for delivery or imaging going from fundamental to preclinical studies mostly in cancer.
She is also the founder and the former president of the French Society for Nanomedecine, SFNano.
Ernst Wagner is professor of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at LMU and Munich Center of Nanoscience. Previously (1991-2001) he was Director Cancer Vaccines & Gene Therapy, Boehringer Ingelheim (first-in-world polymer-based human gene therapy trial in 1994), 1988 Junior Scientist/group leader at IMP Vienna and Medical Biochemistry Vienna Biocenter; 1985 -1987 postdoc at ETH Zurich, working on origin-of-life chemistry of sugar phosphates. He obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry, TU Vienna in 1985, is Academician of European Academy of Sciences, member of CRS College of Fellows, board member of German Society for Gene Therapy and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Gene Medicine. He has authored 476 publications with > 44 444 citations on GS, h-index 105 (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-5wWbVAAAAAJ&hl=en)
Artur M. Pinto graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences, obtaining his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering – University of Porto (FEUP), visiting U. Washington. Afterwards, Artur has been appointed as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology, Chemical Engineering Department, the Netherlands. Following his Post-doc, Artur has been awarded a long-term Researcher position at LEPABE (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy) - FEUP. He has been the Principal Investigator of several collaborative projects between LEPABE-FEUP, i3S (Institute for Research and Innovation in Health), and the University of Texas in Austin (USA), focused on developing innovative 2D-nanomaterials and adjusting their properties for biomedical applications, such as phototherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy of cancer.
Liviu Movileanu is now a Professor of Physics at Syracuse University, Departments of Physics and Biomedical and Chemical Engineering. His expertise areas include single-molecule and membrane biophysics, chemical and synthetic biology, biosensors, and functional biomaterials. Liviu Movileanu is also affiliated with the BioInspired Institute, Syracuse, New York. Currently, his research group is funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
My research work contributed to the recent advances of the emerging research field of nanomedicine. In 2020 I have been appointed to lead nanoformulation and nanocosmetic platform within the interdepartmental infrastructure “Nanotechnology for precision medicine and personalized beauty and Healthcare” NanoCosPha. In 2019, I was awarded with the first prize of the “Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Premio Giovani Talenti dell'Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca”.
1) I developed novel nanoconstructs based on nanoparticles functionalized with peptides, monoclonal antibodies or antibody fragments, as innovative tools for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases. Moreover, in the last few years my research interest has been focused on the investigation of new nanoparticles administration routes alternative to the intravenous one, in particular oral, topical and intranasal delivery (Morelli et al. Pharmaceutics, 2019; Musazzi et al.J. Nanobiotechnol.;2017; Salvioni et al.Pharmacol. Res.,2016).
2) I contributed to the invention related to a Patent (WO2014013473-A1) describing the development of a multifunctional nanoconstruct useful for therapeutic purposes with potential in the preclinical and clinical treatment of cancer, inflammatory diseases, and neurodegenerative disorders.
3) Several high-impact publications reporting on the development of new methodologies for the synthesis, loading and bioconjugation of nanoparticles as drug delivery systems. I developed a new platform for tailoring the surface of nanoparticles. (Colombo et al. Nat. Commun.;2016).
4) I am author of 108 publications: 14 as first author and 24 as corresponding author with an IF of 34;(Scopus).
5) I have been the Principal Investigator of a My First AIRC Grant 2014 and AIRC Investigator Grant in 2022. These grant allowed me to establish and consolidate a new independent laboratory to conduct my research in nanomedical field and to develop a new targeted nanobased-tool.
Dr. Jun Chen is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Zhong Lin Wang. From 2016 to 2019, he was a postdoctoral research fellow with Prof. Yi Cui at Stanford University. His current research focuses on nanotechnology and bioelectronics for energy, sensing, and healthcare applications in the form of smart textiles, wearables, and body area networks. He has already published 2 books, 86 journal articles and 46 of them are as first/corresponding authors in Nat. Energy, Nat. Sustain., Nat. Commun., Joule, Matter, and many others. He also filed 10 US patents and licensed 1. Jun also received the 2015 Materials Research Society Graduate Student Award, and the 2015 National Award for Outstanding Students Abroad. He is currently an Associate Editor of Biosensors and Bioelectronics, and on the list of the 2019 Highly Cited Researchers from the Web of Science. His current h-index is 57. For more information, please visit www.junchenlab.com.
Professor Rosaria Rinaldi is currently Full Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Department of Mathematics and Physics “E. De Giorgi” of University of Salento, and she is a member of the Academic University Senate. Since 2019 she is Member of the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) Evaluation Committee for Flag Projects and Interest Projects to be implemented by public research institutions. Prof. Rinaldi is currently in charge of the research center in "Nanomedicine, Nanobioelectronics and Nanobiotechnology", at University of Salento. In 2005 R.R. was awarded the medal of "Le Scienze" and the medal of the President of the Republic (Carlo Azeglio Ciampi) for research carried out in the field of Nanobiotechnology. Since 2010, she was head of the Natural Sciences Area of and vice-director of University excellence school ISUFI till 2020. In 2015 she was visiting professor, winning an international selection for the "Eleonore Trefftz" chair, at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany. She was the coordinator of the doctoral school in Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technologies and Nanoscience at S.S. ISUFI and the coordinator of the doctoral school in Physics and Nanoscience, till 2020. She won the "ITWIIN-High Education" award (2016) and was one of the finalists for the 2017 EuWIIN “European Women Inventors and Innovators Network” contest prize. R.R. has coordinated or been a partner in more than 30 scientific projects at regional, national and EU level, in the last 15 years. R.R. is author and co-author of about 310 papers published in international scientific journals,13 monographs and book chapters, and 12 patents (H-index:40).