He graduated with honors and received PhD in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1981. He started his scientific carrier at P.N. Lebedev Institute of Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and later worked in many research centers worldwide. At present, he is Professor of Physics at Leibniz University Hannover, Institute of Quantum Optics and Chair of Nanoengineering. In 2024 he received the Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics.

Iwao Ojima received his B.S. (1968), M.S. (1970), and Ph.D. (1973) degrees from the University of Tokyo, Japan. He joined the Sagami Institute of Chemical Research and held a position as Senior Research Fellow until 1983. He joined the faculty at the Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Stony Brook first as Associate Professor (1983), was promoted to Professor (1984), Leading Professor (1991), and then to University Distinguished Professor (1995). He served as the Department Chairman from1997 to 2003. He serves as the founding Director for the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery (ICB&DD) at Stony Brook from 2003. He also serves as the President of the Stony Brook University Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors from 2015. His research interests include organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry and chemical biology, catalytic asymmetric synthesis, organic synthesis by means of organometallic reagents and catalysts, peptidomimetics, -lactam chemistry, and organofluorine chemistry. He has published more than 530 papers and reviews in leading journals and more than l60 patents granted (48 US patents), edited 10 books (SciFinder lists >1,000 publications to his credits, Google Scholar indicates h-index of 93, total citation >39,200 by March 2026), and he has given more than 140 Plenary and Invited Lectures in international conferences and symposia by March 2026. He is a recipient of the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (1994), the E. B. Hershberg Award (for important discovery of medicinally active substances) (2001), the ACS Award for Creative Work in Fluorine Chemistry (2013) and the Ernest Guenther Award (in the chemistry of natural products) (2019) from the American Chemical Society; The Chemical Society of Japan Award (for distinguished achievements) (1999) from the Chemical Society of Japan; Outstanding Inventor Award (2002) from the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. He was inducted into the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame, American Chemical Society (2006). He is an elected Fellow of the J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1995), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1997), The New York Academy of Sciences (2000), the American Chemical Society (2010), National Academy of Inventors (2014) and European Academy of Sciences (2020). He has served in various advisory committees for National Institutes of Health (National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of General Medical Sciences), National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. He has served as a member of the Executive Committee for the Division of Organic Chemistry and the Long Range Planning Committee for the Division of Medicinal Chemistry, American Chemical Society. He has organized and chaired numerous international and award symposiums at the American Chemical Society National Meetings. He has served and has been serving as Editorial Advisory Board member of Journal of Organic Chemistry, Organometallics, Journal of Molecular Catalysis, Chemistry Letters, Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry, Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Letters in Drug Design & Discovery, and Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Japan. He serves as the Senior Editor of “Future Medicinal Chemistry” and the Chief Editor of “Frontiers in Chemistry: Organic Chemistry”. He has granted 82 Ph.D. degrees and 44 M.S. degrees, advised 75 postdoctoral research associates/ fellows, 17 visiting scientists, 130 undergraduate research students, and 84 high school summer research students (many of them won Westinghouse, Intel, Regeneron and Siemens Science Competitions, including Grand Prize) by March 2026.

Dr Shahnaz Mansouri is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Monash University, with a background in Chemical and Process Engineering (PhD) and Food Engineering & Technology (Bachelor's & Master's degrees). She is the Course Coordinator for the Master of Food Science and Agribusiness. Her research is focused on future food & pharmaceutical engineering and education. Shahnaz has over 15 years of research experience in food manufacturing in Australia and overseas. She has worked in research and development and quality control for various food manufacturing companies, locally in Australia and abroad, to improve quality.

Jingwei Xie received his B.S. (1999) and M.S. (2002) from Nanjing University of Technology, China, and his Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore (2007). He worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Xia group at Washington University in St. Louis (2007‐2010). He is currently a Professor in the Department of Surgery-Transplant and Holland Regenerative Medicine Program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). He has won several prestigious awards including Most Promising New Invention Award at UNMC (2017), Maurer Scientific Achievement Award (2019), CAB Mid-Career Investigator Award (2020), and Distinguished Scientist Award at UNMC (2021). He was selected as AIMBE Fellow in 2024. His research interests include biomaterials, drug delivery, wound healing, hemostasis, and regenerative medicine.