Junsang Doh
(Seoul National University, Korea, Republic of)

Prof. Doh received his bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University in 1999. He then moved to MIT for his graduate work with Prof. Darrell J. Irvine in the development of multi-component protein micropatterned surfaces for the study of the immunological synapses formed in T cells during activation. He received his PhD in 2006 in Chemical Engineering/Program in Polymer Science and Technology. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Doh studied homotypic interactions among activating T cells in the laboratory of Max Krummel at UC San Francisco from 2006-2008. In 2008, he joined POSTECH with a joint appointment in Interdisciplinary Bioscience and Bioengineering (I-Bio) and Mechanical Engineering. In 2019, he joined Seoul National University as an associate professor of department of materials science and engineering. Currently, Prof. Doh’s group develops engineering tools for cancer immunotherapy.

Li Tang
(EPFL, Switzerland)

Li Tang received his B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University, China, in 2007, and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2012, under the supervision of Prof. Jianjun Cheng. He was an CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Darrell Irvine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology during 2013-2016. He joined the faculty of Institute of Bioengineering, and Institute of Materials Science & Engineering, at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in 2016, and promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2022. His research focuses on developing multidimensional immunoengineering approaches for enhanced cancer immunotherapies. Dr. Tang is the recipient of Cancer Research Institute CLIP Award (2021), Anna Fuller Award (2021 and 2022), and named in the MIT Technology Review’s "Top 35 Innovators under Age 35" list of China region (2020), Materials Horizons Emerging Investigator (2020), Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator (2019), and the recipient of European Research Council (ERC) starting grant (2018), and Nano Research Young Innovator Award (NR 45 under 45) (2018).

Jianxin Wang
(School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, China)

Professor Jianxin Wang was born in 1971 and received his Ph.D. in pharmaceutics from West China University of Medical Sciences in 1999 in China. He has been working in the School of Pharmacy, Fudan University since 2005 and was granted as full professor in 2012. He worked as a visiting scholar in College of Pharmacy, University of Michigan from 2009 to 2010. His research interest areas include targeting drug livery, drug transport through biological barriers, and the development of novel dosage form and new preparations. He has been the principle investigator of more than 30 projects funded by the government. He has published more than 200 papers, edited or co-edited 18 books, and holds 20 issued patents.

Nathan Kucko
(Kuros Biosciences, Netherlands)

Nathan W. Kucko was born in 1990 in Binghamton, New York. In 2012 he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Materials Engineering Science from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University (Alfred, New York, USA). During his studies he participated in a 6-month internship at the United States Naval Research Laboratory (Washington, D.C., USA) as a research chemist working on electrochemical fuel cell batteries. In 2014 he completed his Master of Science degree in Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine from the University of Sheffield (Sheffield, UK). His research focused on the fabrication of hydroxyapatite-cellulose composite scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration. From 2015, he began his PhD studies in the Department of Regenerative Biomaterials at Radboud University Medical Center (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) focusing on improving the handling and mechanical properties of calcium phosphate bone cements. Suince 2019, he joined Kuros Biosciences B.V. (Bilthoven, The Netherlands) as a Product Development Scientist to develop innovative medical synthetic bone grafts in the field of orthobiologics.

Jelena Rnjak-Kovacina
(University of New South Wales, Australia)

Dr Jelena Rnjak-Kovacina is a Scientia Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow at the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, UNSW Sydney. Her research interests are at the interface of biology and engineering, focusing on the development of biomimetic biomaterials that direct cell interactions for enhanced vascularisation and treatment of cardiovascular disease. She completed her doctoral degree in Anthony Weiss' lab at the University of Sydney and postdoctoral training in David Kaplan’s group at Tufts University in Boston.
She joined UNSW in 2014 where her research has been supported by funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Heart Foundation, the National Health & Medical Research Council and NSW Health. Her work has been recognised through multiple awards, including most recently being named the NSW Early Career Researcher of the Year in the 2020 NSW Premier's Prizes for Science & Engineering and receiving the 2021 Ministerial Award for Rising Stars in Cardiovascular Research.
She participates in the medtech sector through a range of activities including her role as the Vice President of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering, as a board member of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance Biomedical Engineering Flagship, and through editorial board roles at multiple international journals.

Sung Yun Yang
(Chungnam National University, Korea, Republic of)

Sung Yun Yang received her B.S and M.S. from Ewha Womans University in 1991 and 1993, respectively. After serving in the Chemistry division at KRICT and KIST, in 1995 moved to USA for her doctoral degree in Polymer Chemistry and Engineering at Polytechnic University, New York University currently. In August of 2000, she moved to MIT as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She worked in a biotech company for a year and returned to Korea in 2004 starting her professorship at Chungnam National University. Since 2004 she has been with CNU, is now a professor of Organic Materials Engineering. Along with her research and academic activity, she also served as a vice-president of the Center for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology to promote educational opportunity for woman engineers. Prof. Yang’s research interests include functional nanomaterials for energy, environmental sustainability, and biomedical application.

Sung Yun Yang
(Chungnam National University, Korea, Republic of)

Sung Yun Yang received her B.S and M.S. from Ewha Womans University in 1991 and 1993, respectively. After serving in the Chemistry division at KRICT and KIST, in 1995 moved to USA for her doctoral degree in Polymer Chemistry and Engineering at Polytechnic University, New York University currently. In August of 2000, she moved to MIT as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She worked in a biotech company for a year and returned to Korea in 2004 starting her professorship at Chungnam National University. Since 2004 she has been with CNU, is now a professor of Organic Materials Engineering. Along with her research and academic activity, she also served as a vice-president of the Center for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology to promote educational opportunity for woman engineers. Prof. Yang’s research interests include functional nanomaterials for energy, environmental sustainability, and biomedical application.

Pei Yuin Keng
(National Tsing Hua University, Chinese Taipei)

Professor Keng obtained her Doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and was honored with the UCLA Scholars in Oncologic Molecule Imaging (SOMI) award for her postdoctoral work in microfluidics and molecular imaging. In 2011, she commenced her tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA, where, as a Principal Investigator, she spearheaded the development of microfluidic devices and radiochemical techniques for the on-demand production of a wide array of radiotracers.

Over the years, Professor Keng has made substantial contributions to her field, authoring 28 SCI-indexed journal articles and 3 review papers, which have garnered 1728 citations. Her research excellence is further evidenced by her h-index of 19 and i10-index of 27. In 2019, Professor Keng joined the faculty at MSE-NTHU, focusing her research on the synthesis of boron-based nanomaterials for applications in catalysis, biomedical science, and environmental remediation, supported by significant funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). Her research team is particularly interested in exploring the self-assembly and disassembly mechanisms of nanoparticles to create nanostructures that can be tuned in size in response to specific biological stimuli.

Beyond her achievements in securing MOST basic research funding, Dr. Keng has also been successful in obtaining grants for the Nanoscience and Technology Innovation Project. Her engagement extends into collaborative efforts with the industry, notably participating in the first Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) University Integrated JPD program alongside MSE-NTHU. Since her association with MSE-NTHU, she has continued to publish extensively in respected peer-reviewed materials science journals, including Biomaterials Advances, Applied Surface Science, Giant, and Nanoscale Research Letters. Her significant contributions to the BNCT research program at NTHU have merited her invitations to present at the Nanobiomedicine Annual Conference and the Japan-Taiwan Neutron Capture Therapy Academic Conference of Elites, showcasing her prominence in the scientific community.

Dong Yun Lee
(Hanyang University, Korea, Republic of)

Prof. Dong Yun Lee is currently a professor of department of bioengineering at the Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on the immunomodulatory cell engineering (PEGylation to live cell, first-mover in worldwide with global patents), implantable cellular device with 3D bioprinting, molecular imaging with nanomedicine, oral drug delivery system for gene/peptide/cell therapy, as well as designing contact lens-based biosensor with developing software algorism for diagnosis of tear on eye. Dr. Lee’s research has led to 130 peer-reviewed publications (>43 H-index), including papers in Nature Communications, Science Advances, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Bioactive Materials, Nano Letters, Journal of Nanobiotechnology, Clinical Cancer Research, Biomaterials, Journal of Controlled Release, etc. Dr. Lee currently holds more than 50 domestic and international patents. Dr. Lee’s research has been recognized with the HYU Outstanding Professor Award by the Hanyang University (2014 & 2016), the Mid-Career Scientist Award by the Polymer Society of Korea (2018), the 2018 National R&D Excellence Achievement 100-selected Award by the Republic of Korea Government (Very Best Research Project) (2018), the ENF Creative Innovation Award by the Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (2022)and the ‘Commendation of Prime Minister’ Award by the Republic of Korea Government (2018).

Guoping Chen
(National Institute for Materials Science, Japan)

Dr. Guoping Chen is Group Leader of National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and Professor of University of Tsukuba, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 1997 majoring in Biomaterials and did postdoctoral research until 2000. He became Researcher in 2000 and Senior Researcher in 2003 at Tissue Engineering Research Center, National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan. He moved to Biomaterials Center, NIMS as Senior Researcher in 2004 and was promoted to Group Leader in January, 2007. He served as Principal Investigator and Unit Director of Tissue Regeneration Materials Unit from April, 2011 to March, 2015; Principal Investigator, Field Coordinator and Unit Director of International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, NIMS from April, 2015 to March, 2017. He concurrently joined the Joint Doctoral Program in Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tsukuba as Professor in 2013. His research interests include tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, polymeric porous scaffolds, photothermal scaffold, nanobiomaterials, biomimetic biomaterials, nano/micro-patterning and surface modification. He has authored more than 300 publications and holds 18 issued patents. He has given more than 150 plenary and invited lectures at conferences. He is Scientific Editor of Materials Horizons. He is Chair-Elect of TERMIS-AP. He has received some awards including Young Scientist Award from Japanese Biomaterials Society in 2001, Original Research Award from Japanese Society of Artificial Organs in 2002, Tsukuba Award of Chemical and Bio-Technology from Tsukuba Foundation for Chemical and Bio-Technology in 2005, Biomaterials Advances Innovation Award 2023, Outstanding Scientist Award and Distinguished Member Award of TERMIS-AP in 2023. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and Fellow of International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering.

Guoping Chen
(National Institute for Materials Science, Japan)

Dr. Guoping Chen is Group Leader of National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and Professor of University of Tsukuba, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 1997 majoring in Biomaterials and did postdoctoral research until 2000. He became Researcher in 2000 and Senior Researcher in 2003 at Tissue Engineering Research Center, National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan. He moved to Biomaterials Center, NIMS as Senior Researcher in 2004 and was promoted to Group Leader in January, 2007. He served as Principal Investigator and Unit Director of Tissue Regeneration Materials Unit from April, 2011 to March, 2015; Principal Investigator, Field Coordinator and Unit Director of International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, NIMS from April, 2015 to March, 2017. He concurrently joined the Joint Doctoral Program in Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tsukuba as Professor in 2013. His research interests include tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, polymeric porous scaffolds, photothermal scaffold, nanobiomaterials, biomimetic biomaterials, nano/micro-patterning and surface modification. He has authored more than 300 publications and holds 18 issued patents. He has given more than 150 plenary and invited lectures at conferences. He is Scientific Editor of Materials Horizons. He is Chair-Elect of TERMIS-AP. He has received some awards including Young Scientist Award from Japanese Biomaterials Society in 2001, Original Research Award from Japanese Society of Artificial Organs in 2002, Tsukuba Award of Chemical and Bio-Technology from Tsukuba Foundation for Chemical and Bio-Technology in 2005, Biomaterials Advances Innovation Award 2023, Outstanding Scientist Award and Distinguished Member Award of TERMIS-AP in 2023. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and Fellow of International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering.

Liming Bian
(South China University of Technology, China)

Prof. Bian Liming is currently a Changjiang Scholar Professor and the Associate Dean in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering at the South China University of Technology after serving as a tenured professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prof. Bian completed his Ph.D. study in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University in 2009. Prof. Liming Bian then conducted his postdoctoral research in the Department of Bioengineering, the University of Pennsylvania from 2009 to 2012. Prof. Bian’s research focuses on the development of novel multiscale biomaterials not only for investigating the role of cell microenvironment factors on cell behaviors but also for facilitating the regeneration of diseased or injured tissues and organs. Prof. Bian’s research work has been published in the leading journals including Science Translational Medicine, PNAS, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Advanced Materials, JACS, Angew Chemie, etc. Prof. Bian serves as the associate editor of APL Bioengineering and editorial member of Biomaterials, ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, ACS Applied Polymeric Materials, Bone Research, and BMEMat.

Quanyin Hu
(University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)

Dr. Quanyin Hu is an Assistant Professor at the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). He received his Ph. D. degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and North Carolina State University from 2014-2018. Before he joined UW-Madison, he was a postdoc associate at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2018-2020. Dr. Hu is currently serving as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Nanobiotechnology and Young Star Editor for Nano Research. He has published more than 80 research papers, including Nature Biomedical Engineering, Science Translational Medicine, Science Advances and Nature Communications, with over 10,000 citations. Dr. Hu is recognized as the UW-Madison Early Career Young Innovator, 2023 Controlled Release Society (CRS) Immuno Delivery Focus Group Young Investigator, 2023 BMES-CMBE Rising Star Junior Faculty, 2023 Journal of Nanobiotechnology Rising Star, 2022 iCANX Young Scientist, 2022 Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers, 2022 Badger Challenge Scholar, The World's Top 2% Scientists (since 2019), 2022 Emerging Investigator in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Finalist of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Innovation Award, etc., and won METAvivor Foundation Early Career Investigator Award, 2022 Fall Research Competition Award from VCRGE at UW-Madison, Outstanding Editor Award for Journal of Nanobiotechnology, BMES Career Development Award, etc.

Jiashing Ju
(National Taiwan University, Chinese Taipei)

Dr. Yu received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 2003 from National Taiwan University, Taiwan and Ph.D. in 2008 from UC Berkeley/UC San Francisco Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering. Dr. Yu worked as a postdoctoral researcher at UCSF Medical School and Cardiovascular Research Institute from 2008-2010. She relocated back to her alma mater in 2010 and was an Assistant Professor from 2010-2015 and Associate Professor from 2015-2019. Dr Yu is promoted to full Professor from Aug. 2019
Dr. Yu’s group focuses on customized and functional modification of biomaterials including surface modification of biomaterials to enhance cell and extracellular matrix (ECM) interaction. Antibody and peptides conjugated nanoparticles as biosensors and drug delivery vehicles for cancer therapy, hASCs (human adipose-derived stem cell) in various porous scaffolds and hydrogel for stem tissue engineering applications, functionalized and chemically enabled bioinks for 3D biofabrication.

Hae Lin Jang
(Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA)

Dr. Hae Lin Jang is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. She is a Co-Director of the Center for Engineered Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (https://cetbwh.org/). Her research is based at the interface of materials science, biomedical engineering, and cancer immunotherapy to develop next-generation biotechnologies for treating incurable diseases and injuries. She was the first to develop a facile scalable method of synthesizing pure whitlockite nanoparticles, the second most abundant biomineral in bone, and demonstrate its excellent bone regeneration capacity, which boosted the research field related to whitlockite. In addition, she developed advanced in vitro modeling systems to recapitulate sophisticated cellular structures of human tissues using 3D bioprinting and organ-on-a-chip for elucidating physiological/pathological mechanisms and testing the efficacy of new therapies in a human tissue context. This effort led her team to discover a novel immune evasion mechanism mediated by intercellular nanotubes through where mitochondria trafficking occurred (Nature Nanotechnology, 2022.) Dr. Jang and her team also developed a next-generation drug-device combination for treating bone infection (Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2022.) Overall, Dr. Jang has rich experience in engineering biomaterials and characterizing their physicochemical and biological properties using biomedical approaches to develop next-generation therapies and translate them into the clinic. Her research programs have been well funded by NIH, DoD, foundation, and global industries.

Arielle D'Elia
(Drexel University, USA)

Arielle is a 4th year PhD candidate at Drexel University in the Tissue Instructive Materials Laboratory where she works with Dr. Christopher Rodell. Her project focuses on the creation of a novel drug delivery system that enables controlled release of a biotherapeutic from a hydrogel. In her free time she enjoys volunteering, playing piano, and singing in a small band.

Claudia Loebel
(University of Michigan, USA)

Claudia Loebel, M.D. Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and a Biological Sciences Scholar at the University of Michigan, US. She obtained her MD (2011) at the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany and PhD (2016) at ETH Zurich (Switzerland), and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Professor Jason Burdick at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research involves the development of biomaterial platforms to characterize and uncover the role of nascent microenvironments on cell and tissue function. The applications of this research range from guiding lung alveolar stem/progenitor cell fate through material cues to developing engineered platforms for tissue repair and therapeutic treatment. Claudia Loebel is currently serving as an Associate Editor of the Wiley Journal Nano Select. She was awarded the Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at NIH and the Innovator Award through the American Lung Association for her work on synthetic lung tissue models to probe mechanisms of alveolar epithelial cell dysfunction.

Matteo D'Este
(AO Research Institute Davos, Switzerland)

Dr Matteo D’Este has a background in Physical Chemistry from the University of Padova, where he achieved the MSc in 2002, and the PhD in 2006. After the PhD, Matteo has been working as researcher in pharmaceutical industry, focusing on the chemical modification of biopolymers, tech transfer, and the development of injectable medical devices.
His career in Biomaterials Science started in 2011, when he joined the AO Research Institute Davos, where his current position is Principal Scientist. Dr D’ Este has wide expertise in biopolymers chemical modification for the development of molecular networks to be used for fundamental and translational research. His research interests embrace biofabrication, immunomodulatory biomaterials, and drug delivery. Dr. D'Este is also actively committed to the growth of the biomaterial community and rising of the research level in areas previously penalized by geopolitical situation and lack of infrastructures.
Dr D’Este is author of 6 patents and over 60 papers. He is adjunct professor at the Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and Chair of the ESB2023 conference https://esb2023.org/. He is member of the European Society for Biomaterials Council, of the Swiss Society for Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine Executive Committee, the International Society for Biofabrication, and the International Society for Hyaluronan Sciences.

Claudia Loebel
(University of Michigan, USA)

Claudia Loebel, M.D. Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and a Biological Sciences Scholar at the University of Michigan, US. She obtained her MD (2011) at the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany and PhD (2016) at ETH Zurich (Switzerland), and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Professor Jason Burdick at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research involves the development of biomaterial platforms to characterize and uncover the role of nascent microenvironments on cell and tissue function. The applications of this research range from guiding lung alveolar stem/progenitor cell fate through material cues to developing engineered platforms for tissue repair and therapeutic treatment. Claudia Loebel is currently serving as an Associate Editor of the Wiley Journal Nano Select. She was awarded the Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at NIH and the Innovator Award through the American Lung Association for her work on synthetic lung tissue models to probe mechanisms of alveolar epithelial cell dysfunction.

Matteo D'Este
(AO Research Institute Davos, Switzerland)

Dr Matteo D’Este has a background in Physical Chemistry from the University of Padova, where he achieved the MSc in 2002, and the PhD in 2006. After the PhD, Matteo has been working as researcher in pharmaceutical industry, focusing on the chemical modification of biopolymers, tech transfer, and the development of injectable medical devices.
His career in Biomaterials Science started in 2011, when he joined the AO Research Institute Davos, where his current position is Principal Scientist. Dr D’ Este has wide expertise in biopolymers chemical modification for the development of molecular networks to be used for fundamental and translational research. His research interests embrace biofabrication, immunomodulatory biomaterials, and drug delivery. Dr. D'Este is also actively committed to the growth of the biomaterial community and rising of the research level in areas previously penalized by geopolitical situation and lack of infrastructures.
Dr D’Este is author of 6 patents and over 60 papers. He is adjunct professor at the Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and Chair of the ESB2023 conference https://esb2023.org/. He is member of the European Society for Biomaterials Council, of the Swiss Society for Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine Executive Committee, the International Society for Biofabrication, and the International Society for Hyaluronan Sciences.

Yuting Niu
(Peking University, China)

Niu Yuting, male, was born in Beijing in March 1986. Associate researcher at the Central Laboratory of Peking University School of Stomatology, pre-appointed assistant professor, and doctoral supervisor. In 2011, he obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in prosthodontics from the School of Stomatology, Wuhan University. From 2011 to 2015, he studied nanoscience at the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland under the famous nanomaterials scientist Professor Chengzhong Yu, and obtained a doctorate in biomedical engineering. From 2016 to 2018, he went to Columbia University School of Dentistry in the United States as a visiting scholar to conduct research on regenerative medicine. From 2019 to 2022, he completed postdoctoral research in Professor Zhou Yongsheng’s research group in the Department of Prosthodontics, Peking University School of Stomatology. In 2023, he will work in the Central Laboratory of Peking University School of Stomatology to conduct research and teaching.
The main research directions are: developing nanocarriers and nanomedicines that imitate enveloped virus morphology, and applying them to treat tumors, osteoporosis, and Achilles tendon regeneration; developing hydrogel biomaterials, and applying them to treat tissue defect diseases, such as Regeneration of dental pulp, bone and cartilage. Hosted 1 National Natural Science Foundation of China youth project and 1 China Postdoctoral Natural Science Foundation project; participated in 5 National Natural Science Foundation of China general and key research projects as a main participant; was approved for 2 national invention patents; served as a leading researcher in related research fields SCI journal reviewer and guest editor. In 2022, he won the title of "Excellent Postdoctoral Fellow" from Peking University Health Science Center and the second prize of the "Excellent Youth Research Award" in National Oral Biomedicine. Currently, he has published more than 20 SCI research papers, including more than 11 research papers as the first author in internationally renowned journals such as Advanced Materials, ACS Central Science, Nano Today, Bioactive Materials, etc., with a total of more than 1,000 citations.

Changsheng Liu
(Shanghai University, China)

Prof. Liu has been engaged in the research of biomaterials for more than 30 years. He has developed a variety of active bone repair materials and novel techniques for preparation of growth factors and bioactive materials. Under his leadership, his group has developed the artificial bones made of self-setting calcium phosphate, which was issued the first registration certificate of this kind of products in China. Currently, the products have been widely applied for clinical uses. By using genetic engineering techniques, recombinant Human Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (rhBMP-2) has been expressed via culturing of prokaryotic E. coli. Cells. Moreover, rhBMP-2 has been immobilized into CPC-based materials and achieved the high osteoinduction capacity. He has more than 220 refereed journal publications, and 60 patents and invention disclosures. Because of excellent innovations and significant contributions, Dr. Liu has been awarded lots of honors including Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2018, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) in 2017, Second-prize Winner of National Award for Natural Sciences in 2014, International Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering in 2012, Second-prize Winner of National Award for Science and Technology Progress in 2003, etc.

Joachim Kohn
(Rutgers University, USA)

Joachim Kohn, PhD, FBSE is a national leader in the field of biomaterials science. As founding director of the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials (NJCBM) for 22 years and as Head of the Laboratory for Biomaterials Research at Rutgers, Prof. Kohn has made seminal contributions to the design and commercialization of new biomaterials for regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and drug delivery. He pioneered the use of combinatorial and computational methods for the optimization of polymer properties for use in medical implants (including a coronary stent and an antimicrobial device to prevent infections in pacemaker patients). These implants are being used by over one million patients and are currently approved in 46 countries. As a translational scientist, Prof Kohn has 78 issued US Patents on novel biomaterials and seven companies have licensed his technologies. He is the scientific founder of three spin-off companies. Dr Kohn retired from Rutgers in 2020 and remains active in research, entrepreneurship and the biomaterials community. He was elected President of the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering in 2020.

Selected Recent Honors and Awards
2022 Recipient of the Award for Distinguished Contribution in Advancement of Biomaterials Science, given by the Japanese Society for Biomaterials
2022 Recipient of the International Award by the European Society for Biomaterials
2020 Recipient of the National Award in Applied Polymer Science by the American Chemical Society.
2019 Recipient of the 2019 Society for Biomaterials Founders Award for life-time achievements in biomaterials science.
2018 Recipient of the 2018 Healthcare Heroes Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of biomaterials-based therapies.
2017 Recipient of the 2017 Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award for best patent in biomaterials in New Jersey presented by the Research and Development Council of New Jersey.

Changsheng Liu
(Shanghai University, China)

Prof. Liu has been engaged in the research of biomaterials for more than 30 years. He has developed a variety of active bone repair materials and novel techniques for preparation of growth factors and bioactive materials. Under his leadership, his group has developed the artificial bones made of self-setting calcium phosphate, which was issued the first registration certificate of this kind of products in China. Currently, the products have been widely applied for clinical uses. By using genetic engineering techniques, recombinant Human Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (rhBMP-2) has been expressed via culturing of prokaryotic E. coli. Cells. Moreover, rhBMP-2 has been immobilized into CPC-based materials and achieved the high osteoinduction capacity. He has more than 220 refereed journal publications, and 60 patents and invention disclosures. Because of excellent innovations and significant contributions, Dr. Liu has been awarded lots of honors including Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2018, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) in 2017, Second-prize Winner of National Award for Natural Sciences in 2014, International Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering in 2012, Second-prize Winner of National Award for Science and Technology Progress in 2003, etc.

Krasimir Vasilev
(College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Australia)

Professor Vasilev is currently a Matthew Flinders Professor and a Professor of Biomedical Nanotechnology in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University. He is also the Director of the Biomedical Nanoengineering Laboratory, which he established after joining Flinders University. Prior to taking a position at Flinders University, Professor Vasilev had built and led at The University of South Australia (UniSA) a large and highly productive team, which grew to more than 20 postdocs and PhD students, a size of a small research centre. His team is well connected having deep collaborative networks within Australia and internationally, and is strongly engaged with industry, end users, government agencies and community.

Professor Vasilev has attracted in excess of 25M dollars in research funding from Government competitive grants and Industry, published more than 300 papers and has been awarded several prestigious Research Fellowships from ARC, NHMRC and the Humboldt Foundation, and other awards such as the John A. Brodie Medal for achievements in Chemical Engineering in 2016, the election of a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2017 and a Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials in 2022. His contribution to UniSA has been recognised by several awards including the UniSA Research Excellence Award in the Mid-Career category (2018), and the Division of ITEE Excellence Award for Leadership in Research (2018), and the UniSA Interdisciplinary Award (2019) for his work across disciplines.

Professor Vasilev has established international reputation and leadership in his field evident (in addition to the awards mentioned above) by regular invitations to deliver plenary and keynote lectures at international conferences, and prestigious universities, institutes and companies around the world. The foundation of his research program was his revolutionary approach to the nanoengineering of plasma polymer films, which vastly expanded the opportunities for this technology. His publications have been cited more than 11000 times and his H-index = 60 (M-index ~ 3).

Professor Vasilev’s research has a strong translational focus. He has a track record of working with commercial partners to industrialise biomedical technologies. These include leading large commercial projects such as a $5M CRC-P project together with Motherson Australia Pty Ltd on a technology for bladder cancer diagnostics, a $6M IMCRC project with Corin Group on antibacterial surface modification for orthopaedic implants, and a $1.3M project with Anizop Holdings on antibacterial surface modification for dental implants. His translational work involving the entire spectrum of activities from research discoveries to commercial products was a key strength allowing him to win in 2020 the prestigious and highly competitive NHMRC Investigator Award ($2,738,000 over 5 year).

Benjamin Keselowsky
(University of Florida, USA)

Benjamin G. Keselowsky is a Professor in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida. He received his BS, Chemical Engineering from the University of South Florida, PhD, Bioengineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and joined as faculty at the University of Florida in 2005. He has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Arthritis Foundation, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Pfizer. He serves on editorial boards, including the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research-Part A, and the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Scientific Reports, the Journal of Immunology and Regenerative Medicine, ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, and was an Associate Editor for Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine. He has served as a standing member on the NIH Biomaterials and Biointerfaces Study Section. He is a recipient of the 2015 University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship Award, the 2016 UF Technology Innovator Award, the 2017 UF Preeminence Term Professorship Award and was inducted as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2018.

Deirdre Anderson
(Oregon Health and Science University, USA)

Dr. Anderson is a Scientist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR. She has a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from Michigan Technological University and a PhD in Bioengineering from Rice University. Her work focuses on cardiovascular biomaterials with an emphasis on hemocompatibility and cellular response characterization. Her most recent work studies biodegradable metals for cardiovascular devices.

Matteo D'Este
(AO Research Institute Davos, Switzerland)

Dr Matteo D’Este has a background in Physical Chemistry from the University of Padova, where he achieved the MSc in 2002, and the PhD in 2006. After the PhD, Matteo has been working as researcher in pharmaceutical industry, focusing on the chemical modification of biopolymers, tech transfer, and the development of injectable medical devices.
His career in Biomaterials Science started in 2011, when he joined the AO Research Institute Davos, where his current position is Principal Scientist. Dr D’ Este has wide expertise in biopolymers chemical modification for the development of molecular networks to be used for fundamental and translational research. His research interests embrace biofabrication, immunomodulatory biomaterials, and drug delivery. Dr. D'Este is also actively committed to the growth of the biomaterial community and rising of the research level in areas previously penalized by geopolitical situation and lack of infrastructures.
Dr D’Este is author of 6 patents and over 60 papers. He is adjunct professor at the Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and Chair of the ESB2023 conference https://esb2023.org/. He is member of the European Society for Biomaterials Council, of the Swiss Society for Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine Executive Committee, the International Society for Biofabrication, and the International Society for Hyaluronan Sciences.

Alvaro Mata
(Nottingham University, United Kingdom)

Alvaro Mata is Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials in the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nottingham. He holds a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Kansas, a Master's Degree from the University of Strathclyde, and a Doctor of Engineering Degree from Cleveland State University working with Prof. Shuvo Roy at the Cleveland Clinic. He conducted his postdoctoral training with Prof. Samuel Stupp at Northwestern University. His group focuses on bioinspired and biocooperative strategies to build functional biomaterials with biomolecules. His work has led to eight patents or patent applications; publications in journals including Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, and Science Advances, and recognitions such as a Welcome Trust Frontiers Innovation Award, a Ramon y Cajal Fellowship, and an ERC Staring Grant. He is President of the Mineralized Tissue Group of the International Association of Dental Research and Co-chair of the Manufacturing, Commercial and Regulatory Committee of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform (UKRMP2) - Smart Materials Hub.

Meifang Zhu
(Donghua University, China)

Professor Meifang Zhu, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, TWAS Fellow. Currently, she is the dean of the College of Materials Science and Engineering and the director of the State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials at Donghua University. She also serves as the vice-president for Chinese Materials Research Society (C-MRS), for China Textile Engineering Society, as well as the Editor-in-Chief for Advanced Fiber Materials. Prof. Zhu has long been engaged in the research of functional fibers, nanofibers and intelligent fiber materials, organic /inorganic hybrid materials. She published 10 books (chapters) and more than 500 SCI papers in peer-reviewed journals. She is also the author or co-author for more than 300 National Invention Patents. Her honors and awards include Second Prize of National Award for Technological Inventions, Second Prize of National Award for Progress in Science and Technology, National Innovation Competition Award, First Prize of Shanghai Natural Science Award, the Cheung Kong Scholars, Shanghai Science and Technology Elite, etc.

Carlos Roberto Grandini
(UNESP - Univ Estadual Paulista, Brazil)

Carlos Roberto (Beto) Grandini, professor at the Physics Department of Universidade Estadual
Paulista (UNESP), in Bauru, Brazil. Prof. Beto Grandini received his B.S. in Physics in 1985 from
Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar), Brazil, and his M.S. (1988) and Ph.D. (1993) in
Physics from Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Brazil. He did his post-doctoral research on
Physics at Università Degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy. He was chair of the Department
of Physics at UNESP from 1998 to 2000 and was appointed professor in 2008. He has published
over 170 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and supervised over 50 M.S.
and Ph.D. students. Our research programs are built upon interdisciplinary subjects, including
physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, biology, and dentistry. He develops novel
Ti-alloys aiming at orthopedical and dental applications with well-controlled composition,
structure, and functional properties. Dr. Grandini is a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and
Engineering (FBSE).

Tracy X. Cui
(University of Pittsburgh, USA)

Dr. Tracy Cui is the William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her PhD in Macromolecular Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan. She works in the field of neural engineering with special focuses on neural electrode-tissue interface, neural tissue engineering, drug delivery, and biosensors. She has a H index of 61 with over 12,500 citations and 6 patents. Dr. Cui has won numerous awards and recognitions, including 2023 Senior Member of National Academy of Inventor, 2017 Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, 2016 Fellow of American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, 2015 Carnegie Science Emerging Female Scientist Award, 2008 National Science Foundation Early Career Award, and 2005 Wallace Coulter Translational Research Career Award

Maria Asplund
(Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)

Maria Asplund is an expert in bioelectronics including flexible microtechnology, tissue-device interaction and electronic biomaterials. She is appointed as professor in Bioelectronics at Chalmers University of Technology. After completing her PhD at the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, 2009) she led her own research group at the University of Freiburg, Germany (2011-22). Her work has resulted in new technologies which contributes to smaller, more energy efficient and durable bioelectronics in the future. She currently holds an ERC proof of concept grant, is a Visiting Professor at Luleå University of Technology (2019-23) and an editorial board member of Bioelectronic Medicine and of Journal of Neural Engineering. Maria Asplund is also vice chair and scientific secretary for the Swedish Society for Medical Engineering.

Georgios Mikalef
(University of Birmingham, United Kingdom)

Georgios is a PhD student in the school of Chemical engineering based in the Healthcare and Technologies Institute. He graduated from the University of Birmingham with a biomedical sciences degree. His research focuses on smart materials, in particular electrically induced hydrogels.

Silvia Panseri
(National Research Council of Italy, Italy)

My research activity has always been characterized by a multi and interdisciplinary approach, at the interfaces between nanotechnology and regenerative medicine; this allowed tackling scientific challenges that required a broad knowledge that exceed one specific field of interest. My interests are focused on novel approaches in tissue engineering and nanomedicine. PI of several national and International grants. Author of more than 90 papers (H-index 33).

Young Hye Song
(University of Arkansas, USA)

Dr. Younghye Song is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas and a Project Leader of the newly established Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center. Dr. Song’s research interests lie in understanding the interactions between cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) to identify novel mechanisms and therapeutic targets of diseases and injuries. Her lab, named Therapeutic Testbed Engineering Laboratory, seeks to accomplish these goals using tissue-engineered pre-clinical testbeds. Her lab’s current areas of focus include 1) tumor microenvironment with a focus on cancer-nerve crosstalk, 2) fibrotic remodeling after neural injury, and 3) creating combinatorial therapeutics for nerve repair. Dr. Song is a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Society for Biomaterials, and American Association for Cancer Research. Since starting her lab in August 2019, Dr. Song has established a nationally recognized research lab in tissue engineering and has secured over $2M in research funding, including grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and PhRMA Foundation. She is a recipient of the 2023 Dean’s Excellence Award - Rising Star Research Award and 2021-2022 Department of Biomedical Engineering Outstanding Teacher Award, both from the University of Arkansas. She is an Early Career Editorial Board Member of ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering and a Review Editor of Frontiers in Medical Technology. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering with Additional Major in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University, and postdoctoral training in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida.

John Forsythe
(Monash University, Australia)

Prof John Forsythe is a bioengineer in the Department of Materials Engineering Monash University, Australia, and is Co-Director of the Monash Institute for Medical Engineering. His major research interest is in neural tissue engineering and light responsive hydrogels. He has over 130 journal publications and has research programs in biomaterials, brain tissue engineering, biointerfaces, and neural prosthetics.

Tzu-Wei Wang
(National Tsing Hua University, Chinese Taipei)

Tzu-Wei Wang is currently a Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He completed his Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University. His postdoc training was conducted at Harvard University during 2007-2009. He joined National Tsing Hua University as an Assistant Professor in 2009, and then promoted to Associate Professor in 2013, and Professor in 2018. His research interests are: 1) Development of functionalized smart biomaterials for the applications in tissue engineering and drug delivery; 2) Control of extracellular microenvironment using physical, chemical, and biological approaches for the manipulation of stem cell fate. He has published over 50 scientific peer-reviewed SCI papers (h index 30, i10 index 41) and received several international patents in the past few years. He has been awarded with TERMIS Young Plenary Award, IUMRS Frontier Materials Young Scientists Award, and several Young Investigator Awards in the field of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering. He also received Research Scholar Award and Biomedical Engineering Award for his research studies and contribution in the Biomateials and Controlled Release Society, Taiwan.

Young Hye Song
(University of Arkansas, USA)

Dr. Younghye Song is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas and a Project Leader of the newly established Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center. Dr. Song’s research interests lie in understanding the interactions between cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) to identify novel mechanisms and therapeutic targets of diseases and injuries. Her lab, named Therapeutic Testbed Engineering Laboratory, seeks to accomplish these goals using tissue-engineered pre-clinical testbeds. Her lab’s current areas of focus include 1) tumor microenvironment with a focus on cancer-nerve crosstalk, 2) fibrotic remodeling after neural injury, and 3) creating combinatorial therapeutics for nerve repair. Dr. Song is a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Society for Biomaterials, and American Association for Cancer Research. Since starting her lab in August 2019, Dr. Song has established a nationally recognized research lab in tissue engineering and has secured over $2M in research funding, including grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and PhRMA Foundation. She is a recipient of the 2023 Dean’s Excellence Award - Rising Star Research Award and 2021-2022 Department of Biomedical Engineering Outstanding Teacher Award, both from the University of Arkansas. She is an Early Career Editorial Board Member of ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering and a Review Editor of Frontiers in Medical Technology. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering with Additional Major in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University, and postdoctoral training in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida.

Zaida Alvarez
(Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Spain)

Zaida Alvarez is currently a Groupl leader investigator of the biomaterials for neural regeneration group at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Spain. She earned her PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering with Prof. Elisabeth Engel at Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 2014. In 2015, as a self-funded postdoc she joined Professor Samuel Stupp’s laboratory, at Northwestern University in Chicago to work on peptide amphiphiles for spinal cord regeneration. In 2019, she was promoted as an assistant professor at the department of medicine, at Feinberg Medical school at Northwestern University where she continued her research in spinal cord regeneration and in vitro platforms for iPs modelling. She is also consulting engineering in a couple of companies in the USA, she has 4 patents already transferred to AmphixBio Incorporation and got numerous awards such as Young Baxter investigator award in 2019, and Rafael Hervada award in 2021.

Nur Hidayah Shahemi
(Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia)

Currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in UITM, an accomplished professional in Materials Science specializes in Biomaterials. Noteworthy academic achievements and a track record of successfully securing major contracts, and optimizing operational efficiency. Proficient in implementing sustainable practices, with a proven history of success in multimillion-dollar projects.

Wei Qiao
(The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China)

Dr QIAO Wei is currently Clinical Assistant Professor and Research Assistant Dean at the Faculty of Dentistry, the University of Hong Kong. He also serves as an early career editorial board member for Bioactive Materials. He obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Oral Implantology from Sun Yat-sen University and then received his research training at the University of Hong Kong and Johns Hopkins University. He is passionate about investigating the interplay between host immune cells and peripheral sensory nerves during tissue regeneration. He is also interested in the development of biomaterials that can interact with the host tissue to establish a microenvironment conducive to infection eradication, inflammation resolution, and wound healing. His first-authored works have been published in prestigious journals such as Nature Communications, Advanced Science, Biomaterials, and Journal of Dental Research. He is the recipient of IADR Star Fellowship, IADR Lion Research Award, and World Biomaterials Congress trainee award.

Anthony Weiss
(University of Sydney, Australia)

Professor Tony Weiss is the President of TERMIS, and McCaughey Chair in Biochemistry, Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology, Director of the Charles Perkins Centre’s Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine Laboratory and NHMRC Leadership Fellow at the University of Sydney. His research on the elastic protein tropoelastin underpins novel applications in wound repair. He is a serial inventor on 172 granted patents in 23 families, and founded Elastagen which was sold in one of the largest national healthcare transactions. He was awarded the Order of Australia, and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology & Engineering, Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Australian Chemical Institute, Royal Society of NSW, American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering, and the US National Academy of Inventors. He is a highly decorated innovator, with multiple innovation medals from the RACI, ATSE’s Clunies Ross Medal, the Eureka Prize for Innovation in Medical Research, NSW Premier’s Prize for Science & Engineering Leadership in Innovation, and the top innovation prize in Australia: the Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation.

Ren-Jei Chung
(Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, National Taipei University of Technology, Chinese Taipei)

Dr. Ren-Jei Chung is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at National Taipei University of Technology (Taipei Tech), and also serves as the Director of Advanced Materials Research Center, Vice Director of the High-value Biomaterials Research and Commercialization Center. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). He received his B.S(1999), M.S.(2001), and Ph.D.(2006) degrees in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. has his research interests in Biomaterials, Biomedical Applications of Nanotechnology, Tissue Engineering and Biosensors. He has been has been awarded for Young Investigator Award in 2014 International Symposium of Materials on Regenerative Medicine; Dr. Shechtman Young Researcher Award from Taipei Tech in 2015; 2017 Excellent Young Member of Taiwan Ceramic Society; 2017 Excellent Junior Research Investigators Award from the Association of Chemical Sensors in Taiwan; 2018 and 2021 Excellent Research Award from Taipei Tech College of Engineering; 2019 and 2022 Excellent Research Award from Taipei Tech; 2019 Young Scholar Award from Taiwan Association for Coatings and Thin Film Technology; granted for the 2019 Project for Excellent Junior Research Investigators from National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan (NSTC Taiwan); 2022 Excellent Industry-Academy Cooperation Award from Taipei Tech College of Engineering and 2023 Excellent Research Paper Award from the Association of Chemical Sensors in Taiwan. He also won the 2023 Excellent Tutor from Taipei Tech.

Patrick S. Stayton
(University of Washington, USA)

Patrick Stayton currently serves as the Distinguished Career Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. He was the founding Director of the Institute for Molecular Engineering and Sciences at UW. His laboratory develops new materials for application to unmet medical needs in the therapeutics, diagnostics, and regenerative medicine fields. He has published over 300 scientific papers. Dr. Stayton has a strong interest in translating the group’s research, and was a co-founder of the PhaseRx Inc. based on his group’s RNA delivery technology that is now part of Arbutus Biopharma/Genevant Sciences. Dr. Stayton has been elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and has been the recipient of the Clemson Award from the Society For Biomaterials and the CRS-Cygnus Recognition Award from the Controlled Release Society. He served as Co-Chair of the Gordon Conference on Drug Carriers in Medicine and Biology in 2010. He has also been awarded the Faculty Research Innovation Award, UW College of Engineering, and the Distinguished Teacher and Mentor Award from the Department of Bioengineering.

Steve Roffler
(Academia Sinica, Chinese Taipei)

Steve Roffler received his B.S. degree from the University of Washington and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow and the Cancer Division Chief in the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. Steve has published more than 165 papers and been awarded over fifty patents. His lab developed the first monoclonal antibodies that specifically bind to polyethylene glycol, which changed the way that pegylated medicines are developed in the clinic. A range of anti-PEG monoclonal antibodies and humanized antibodies developed in his lab have been used by nearly 300 companies and labs to accelerate the development of new pegylated medicines. Steve has received several awards including the Ministry of Science and Technology Outstanding Research Award, the Ministry of Economic Affairs Innovation Award and the Ministry of Education Annual Academic Award. Steve’s major areas of research include anti-PEG antibodies, antibody engineering, targeted nanomedicines, and cancer prodrug therapy.

Selected Recent Publications

WA Chen, DY Chang, BM Chen, YC Lin, Y Barenholz, SR Roffler*. Antibodies against poly(ethylene glycol) activate innate immune cells and induce hypersensitivity reactions to PEGylated nanomedicines. ACS Nano 17: 5757–5772 (2023)

TT My Tran and SR Roffler*, Interactions between nanoparticle corona proteins and the immune system. Curr. Opin. Biotechnol., 84:103010 (2023)

BM Chen, TL Cheng, SR Roffler*. Polyethylene glycol immunogenicity: Theoretical, clinical, and practical aspects of anti-polyethylene glycol antibodies. ACS Nano 15:14022-14048 (2021)

Chen E, Chen BM, Su YC, Chang YC, Cheng TL, Barenholz Y*, Roffler SR*. Premature drug release from polyethylene glycol (PEG)-coated liposomal doxorubicin via formation of the membrane attack complex. ACS Nano 14: 7808-7822 (2020)

YC Su, PA Burnouf, KH Chuang, BM Chen, TL Cheng* and SR Roffler*. Conditional internalization of PEGylated nanomedicines by PEG engagers for triple negative breast cancer therapy. Nat. Comm., 8:15507 (2017)

Masaru Tanaka
(Kyushu University, Japan)

Masaru Tanaka: He worked for TERUMO Co. and commercialized medical devices such as artificial lung (Approved by FDA and Global market’s No.1 share). In 2000 he moved to Hokkaido University and in 2007 he moved to Tohoku University. He was a Visiting Scientist, at Max-Planck-Institute (2008-2009). In 2009 he was awarded a full professorship at Yamagata University. Since 2015, he has been at Kyushu University as a full Professor. Thus far, he has published over 210 papers in peer reviewed journals (H-index 56), 50 book chapter, 125 others, more than 250 patents. He received the Japanese Society for Biomaterials Award, the SPSJ Asahi Kasei Award, and the British Council PMI2 Connect-Research Co-operation (UK) Award.

Takuya Matsumoto
(Okayama University, Japan)

Prof. Matsumoto graduated from Faculty of Dentistry, Osaka University and got DDS on 1997. Then he started dental biomaterials research and got PhD on 2002 from Osaka University. He is known as one of the leading designers of new dental-related biomaterials. His research approach is studying the hard tissue development with materials science perspective, and designing new materials based on the newly acquired understandings. Consequently, he has reported a three-dimensional in vitro model system that reproduce bone development from cell aggregates, developed technology for early bone regeneration/reconstruction, and has developed solid adhesives that has never existed before. Relating to these works, he has so far published more than 100 original papers (H index = 39) and submitted more than 15 patents relating to this field. He has received many important awards including Society Award and Young Investigator Award of Japanese Society for Biomaterials and Japanese Society for Dental Materials and Devices. Based on these achievements, he is currently active as a leader in Dental biomaterials, including executive director of the Japanese Society for Biomaterials and the Japanese Society for Dental Science and Technology, and director of the Japanese Association for Dental Research.

Liraz Chai
(Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

Liraz Chai is an A/Prof. at the School of Chemistry in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Tel Aviv University, and she completed both her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Her Ph.D., under the supervision of Prof. Jacob Klein, focused on the intermolecular interactions between polymers- and charge- bearing surfaces. For her postdoctoral studies she switched gears to microbiology at Harvard University with Prof. Roberto Kolter, where she got familiarized with bacterial biofilms. Her current research combines Biochemistry, Soft Matter, Biophysics and Microbiology - all applied to an interdisciplinary research of bacterial biofilms. Her major interest in biofilms include the properties and assembly of extracellular matrix biopolymers, as well extracellular matrix - associated biomineralization processes.

Seung-Wuk Lee
(University of California, Berkeley, USA)

Professor Lee earned his B.S and M.S. from Korea University (Seoul) and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin (2003). After a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he joined a faculty position at UC Berkeley in 2006, was promoted to Associate Professor (2011) with tenure, a full professor (2015). He is also a Faculty Scientist, LBNL Physical Bioscience Division. The Lee group uses chemical and biological approaches to create precisely defined nanomaterials, to investigate complex phenomena at their interfaces, and to develop novel, biomimetic, functional materials. Among other awards, Professor Lee is R&D 100 Award (2013 & 2015) and an NSF CAREER awardee. He is a fellow at American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Lee’s on going research was chosen as one of 12 highlight researches chosen by the President Obama’s National Science Foundation Report for the US Congress entitled “Manufacturing Goes Viral” (2014) and chosen as one of top five Future Nanomanufacturings by Scientific American (2013). In 2022, he is a recipient of NSF Engineering Frontier Research Innovation Award.

Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez
(University of Glasgow, United Kingdom)

Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Glasgow and ICREA Research Professor at Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (IBEC). Manuel is a bioengineer working on advanced biomaterials for cell and tissue engineering, to develop in vitro models and as tools for mechanobiology. His group engineer materials to provide control of the local cellular microenvironment, both biochemically and biophysically. Manuel holds an ERC AdG to develop the next generation of viscoelastic materials to understand this important property of the extracellular matrix in the context of tissue regeneration. Manuel was Professor of Applied Physics in Valencia until his relocation to Glasgow in 2013 as Chair of Biomedical Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy for Arts and Sciences.

Masaru Tanaka
(Kyushu University, Japan)

Masaru Tanaka: He worked for TERUMO Co. and commercialized medical devices such as artificial lung (Approved by FDA and Global market’s No.1 share). In 2000 he moved to Hokkaido University and in 2007 he moved to Tohoku University. He was a Visiting Scientist, at Max-Planck-Institute (2008-2009). In 2009 he was awarded a full professorship at Yamagata University. Since 2015, he has been at Kyushu University as a full Professor. Thus far, he has published over 210 papers in peer reviewed journals (H-index 56), 50 book chapter, 125 others, more than 250 patents. He received the Japanese Society for Biomaterials Award, the SPSJ Asahi Kasei Award, and the British Council PMI2 Connect-Research Co-operation (UK) Award.

IULIAN ANTONIAC
(National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, Romania)

Iulian Antoniac obtained his M.E., Ph.D. and Postdoc degrees in Materials Science at University Politehnica of Bucharest, university that recently evolved into National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, Romania. Professor Iulian Antoniac is the leader of the Biomaterials Group, head of the Biomaterials & Interface Phenomenon Laboratory, full professor at Faculty Materials Science and Engineering. He was appointed Vice Dean of Faculty Materials Science and Engineering and member of the Senate of University Politehnica of Bucharest starting from 2016. Professor Iulian Antoniac has published widely, with over 250 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings with more than 3500 citations- h index 34 on GS and h index 29 on ISI, more than 10 patents, several books (like Handbook of Bioceramics and Biocomposites) and many invited lectures at conferences focused on biomaterials, bioceramics and materials science. He is Editor in Chief for the journal Materials Science Forum, editorial board member for other journals and reviewer for more than 50 journals. In 2005, he received the Daniel Bunea Award from the Romanian Society for Biomaterials. Also, he receives many awards for their patents at various international fairs and exhibitions dedicated to patents. He is currently President of the Romanian Society for Biomaterials (SRB), Former President and permanent Member of Executive Committee of the International Society for Ceramics in Medicine (ISCM).
Professor Iulian Antoniac research interests include metallic biomaterials and bioceramics for orthopedic and dental applications, bioceramic coatings, biocomposites, biopolymers, retrieval analysis of explants, microscopy techniques for materials characterization, bone regeneration, physical and chemical characterization of nano- and micro- particles for biomedical application.

Hongji Yan
(Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet, Sweden)

Dr. Yan develops bioinspired hydrogels and nanoparticles with tunable properties for therapeutics and diagnostics from biomass. Since 2023, he has been working as a Principal Investigator at the Department of Medical Cell Biology, UU Uppsala University, Sweden, with the prestigious Establishment Grant from the Swedish Research Council. Since 2023 he has been a Team Leader and since 2020 a Member at the Centre for the Advancement of Integrated Medical and Engineering Sciences (AIMES), Department of Neuroscience, KI Karolinska Institutet. Previously, he was a Maria Curie Awadee at ICL Imperial College London, UK. He received his PhD from UU Uppsala University in 2017 and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a researcher at the Department of Chemistry, KTH Royal Institute of Technology. He has published 26 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals, including several articles in Advanced Functional Materials (4 articles), Advanced Science, Bioactive Materials, ACS Nano, Biomaterials, Biofabrications, and ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces as first author or corresponding author. Some of his research has been reported in the media worldwide, including the Times&Sunday Times and AFP Paris. He has an international research background and a broad network. He has initiated and established fruitful collaborations with interdisciplinary experts from well-known research institutions. In addition, Dr. Yan has successfully taught and mentored at various levels and developed and taught a course module during his time as a visiting professor at the University of Turin, Italy.

Maria Tenje
(Uppsala University, Sweden)

Maria Tenje is a Professor of Microsystems Technology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Prof. Tenje received her PhD degree from the Technical University of Denmarkin 2007 on the topic of mechanical biosensors, after having completed her BSc degree in Physics at Imperial College, UK in 2002 and her MSc degree at Lund University, Sweden in 2004. She became a full Professor of Microsystems Technology in 2019 and leads the EMBLA group “Enabling Microtechnologies for Biomedical and Life science Applications”, comprising researchers with backgrounds in material science, nanotechnology, chemistry and biology. The research activities of EMBLA are focused on droplet-based microfluidics and organs-on-chip. These projects have an interdisciplinary character and use microfabrication techniques combined with microfluidics to develop new platforms for visualisation and characterisation of cells to learn more about the human biology.

Thomas Crouzier
(Cirqle Biomedical, Denmark)

After a Ph.D. at the University of Montpellier (France) in 2010 followed by a postdoctoral appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) until 2015, Dr. Thomas Crouzier took a position as a group leader at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, Stockholm, Sweden), where he pioneered a number of “mucus engineering” approaches. Dr. Crouzier defines mucus engineering as the use or modification of the mucus gel that covers our eye, nose, lungs, digestive tract, and female reproductive tract, to develop new bioinspired biomaterials and address mucus-related medical conditions. As a researcher and group leader, Dr. Crouzier has published 50 papers and has been granted several patents. During his stay at KTH, he and his group developed a mucus-reinforcing technology which was translated into a new mechanism of action for a female contraceptive. Dr. Crouzier now holds an Associate Professor position at the Danish Technical University, and is co-founder and CSO of Cirqle Biomedical, a company founded in late 2018 leveraging this mucus engineering approach to develop a new generation of hormone-free contraceptives for women.

Daniel Aili
(Linköping University, Sweden)

Daniel Aili has a background in Engineering Biology and did his PhD in Sensor Science at Linköping University (LiU), followed by postdocs at Imperial College London and the Center for Biomimetic Sensor Science at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is a Wallenberg Academy Fellow, ERC grantee, and Professor in the Division of Biophysics and Bioengineering and Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Materials at LiU. His work spans from fundamental studies of molecular materials design to development of bioresponsive materials and devices, for applications in biomedicine and biotechnology, including biosensors, drug delivery systems, and hydrogels for tissue and disease models.

Younsoo Kim
(POSTECH, Korea, Republic of)

oun Soo Kim has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at POSTECH since 2017. She received her B.S. (2009) and M.S. (2011) degrees in chemistry and nanoscience from Ewha Womans University in Korea. She received her Ph.D. degree in chemistry and biotechnology from the University of Tokyo in 2015 and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Tokyo from 2015 to 2017. Her current research interests include the self-assembly of block copolymers and the synthesis of functional hydrogels to develop biomimetic soft materials, bioelectronics, and bioadhesives.

Jiandong Ding
(Fudan University, China)

Dr. Jiandong DING is a Changjiang Distinguished Professor of Biomaterials and Polymer Science at Fudan University, and the Director of State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers. He obtained his BS, MS and Ph.D in School of Life Sciences, Department of Materials Science, and Department of Macromolecular Science, respectively, at the same University (Fudan University), and ever did his research as a postdoctor at University of Cambridge, UK. His research group is for tissue regeneration materials, drug delivery carriers, and cell-material interactions. He is the leading scientist of a 973 program and a national research and development program about biomedical materials in China.

His work on Injectable Medical Hydrogels won the "First-Place Prize of Natural Science Research" from the State Ministry of Education of China. A group of patents regarding medical hydrogels earned him a Gold Medal in Inventions Geneva 2021. He developed a unique surface patterning technique of stable arginine-glycine-aspartate (RGD) micro-nanoarrays on chemically inert poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels, enabling independent tuning of both RGD nanospacing and matrix stiffness. Using this patterning technique, his group confirmed unambiguously the stiffness effect while also discovered the nanocues on material surfaces that regulate specific adhesion, stem cell differentiation, and nonmonotonic relationship between cell migration and cell adhesion, particularly with regard to the crossing of 70 nm of the RGD nanospacing as a molecular ruler to adjust the cytoskeleton. Guided by the pioneering fundamental research of cell-material interactions in this group, he has led a collaboration among 10 national universities, hospitals, and companies about medical devices relevant to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine for over 10 years. As a result, the first nanocoated occluder of left atrial appendage has been applied clinically for interventional treatment of cardiovascular disease in over 23,000 patients worldwide including China, Europe, USA, and other regions. This innovative device is specifically designed for interventional treatment and proves highly beneficial for elderly individuals with atrial fibrillation, as it helps prevent strokes.

Dr. Ding serves as the Executive Associate Editor-in-Chief of the journal Regenerative Biomaterials and the associate editor of the journal Biomaterials Research. In 2016, he was elected as Fellow, International Union of Societies of Biomaterials Science and Engineering “for the development of cell responsive biomaterials for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and drug delivery”.

Younsoo Kim
(POSTECH, Korea, Republic of)

oun Soo Kim has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at POSTECH since 2017. She received her B.S. (2009) and M.S. (2011) degrees in chemistry and nanoscience from Ewha Womans University in Korea. She received her Ph.D. degree in chemistry and biotechnology from the University of Tokyo in 2015 and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Tokyo from 2015 to 2017. Her current research interests include the self-assembly of block copolymers and the synthesis of functional hydrogels to develop biomimetic soft materials, bioelectronics, and bioadhesives.

Byeongmoon Jeong
(Ewha Womans University, Korea, Republic of)

Byeongmoon Jeong received his B.S. (1987) in the Department of Chemistry from Seoul National University, M.S (1989) from KAIST, and his Ph.D. (1999) in the Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Utah. He worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA as a senior research scientist before joining Ewha Womans University in 2002. He has authored 150 international peer-reviewed papers and patents on stimuli-sensitive polymers; particularly related to biodegradable thermogels. His publications have been cited 17,000 times during the last decade. He received an Achievement Award in the Polymer Division of Korean Chemical Society (2010), Hanwha Polymer Award from Polymer Society of Korea (2021), Osstem Implant Biomaterials Grand Prize from Korean Society for Biomaterials (KSBM) (2022). His research concentrates on stimuli-sensitive hydrogels and their applications for drug delivery and tissue engineering. He is also serving as vice president of KSBM and editor in cheif of Biomaterials Research, an official journal of KSBM.

Lidong Zhang
(East China Normal University, China)

Lidong, Zhang is a professor of chemistry in East China Normal University of China. He got his Ph.D in 2013, from Pusan National University Korea, where he was working on smart polymer hydrogels. Then, he moved to New York University, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher of material science for three years. He joined East China Normal University in 2016, and created a smart materials lab. His current research interests focus on smart hydrogels for sensing and biomedical applications. He has published more than 60 papers in the international journals of Nature Commun, Cell Rep. Phys. Sci., Angew. Chem. In. Ed., Adv. Mater., Adv. Funct. Mater. and so on.

Jayakumar Rangasamy
(Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India)

Prof. R. Jayakumar is currently working at Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine (ACNSMM), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi-682041, India, from November-2007, specializing in the area of Polymeric Biomaterials for Healthcare Applications. Dr. Jayakumar's research laboratory at ACNSMM is mainly interested in the development of biopolymeric nanofibers, nanogels, nanoparticles, nanocomposite scaffolds and injectable hydrogels for Drug Delivery, Hemostasis, Infectious Diseases, Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine and Wound Healing applications. He received his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry from Anna University, Chennai, India (2002). He was awarded the University Postdoctoral Fellowship from Chonbuk National University (2002-2003), South Korea. In Portugal, he was awarded FCT Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Government of Portugal (2003-2005). In addition, he was also awarded the prestigious JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship (2005-2007) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Japan. He has published 262 articles in SCI Journals, edited 7 books, 12 book chapters and 12 patents to his credit. He is also reviewer and editorial board member of many international journals. His publications have been cited more than 25000 times with h-index-80. He has received the “Best Paper Award” from Journal of Materials Science Materials in Medicine (Springer) and IET Nanobiotechnology Journal. He received “Faculty Researcher Award-2016” from Indian Chitin and Chitosan Society and “MRSI Medal-2017” from Materials Research Society of India (MRSI). He also received “India Research Excellence-Citation Awards 2017 (Health & Medical Science area)” from Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science. He was selected as a “World Top 2% Scientists from India” in “Polymers” field by Stanford University, USA in the year of 2020 & 2021. He recently received “Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award-2021” from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (University), India. He also be listed in the “Top 10 Material Science Researchers from India”. He completed more than 20 funded projects. He has research collaborations in USA, Japan, South Korea, Portugal, Iceland, Germany and Taiwan.

Nathaniel Hwang
(Seoul National University, Korea, Republic of)

Nathaniel S. Hwang is currently a tenured full professor in the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. Prof. Hwang is a member of Institute for Chemical Processes and BioMAX Institute at Seoul National University. In addition, he also holds an adjunct position in Stem Cell Graduate Program and Interdisciplinary Program in Bioengineering at the Seoul National University.
Prof. Hwang received a bachelor degree in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering in 2002. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2007 under the guidance of Professor Jennifer Elisseeff. After doctoral studies, he was a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Department of Bioengineering, and worked with Professor Shyni Varghese. From 2008 through 2011, he worked as a postdoctoral associate in Professor Robert Langer’s laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2011, Dr. Hwang joined the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University.
Prof. Hwang is currently leading a group of students that work together to develop new biomaterials, study stem cells, and design new technologies for regenerative medicine. In particular, Prof. Hwang’s laboratory is working toward the fabrication of bio-synthetic microenvironments conducive to stem cell differentiation by manipulating scaffold properties and incorporating the desired biological signals. In addition, Prof. Hwang’s laboratory is developing non-viral strategies for a direct conversion stem cell technology. He has published over 110 research articles and book chapters covering biomaterials and stem cells for musculoskeletal tissue regeneration (h-index >41, citations>6300). Prof. Hwang is an active member of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society and Korean Society for Biomaterials.

Jayakumar Rangasamy
(Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India)

Prof. R. Jayakumar is currently working at Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine (ACNSMM), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kochi-682041, India, from November-2007, specializing in the area of Polymeric Biomaterials for Healthcare Applications. Dr. Jayakumar's research laboratory at ACNSMM is mainly interested in the development of biopolymeric nanofibers, nanogels, nanoparticles, nanocomposite scaffolds and injectable hydrogels for Drug Delivery, Hemostasis, Infectious Diseases, Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine and Wound Healing applications. He received his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry from Anna University, Chennai, India (2002). He was awarded the University Postdoctoral Fellowship from Chonbuk National University (2002-2003), South Korea. In Portugal, he was awarded FCT Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Government of Portugal (2003-2005). In addition, he was also awarded the prestigious JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship (2005-2007) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Japan. He has published 262 articles in SCI Journals, edited 7 books, 12 book chapters and 12 patents to his credit. He is also reviewer and editorial board member of many international journals. His publications have been cited more than 25000 times with h-index-80. He has received the “Best Paper Award” from Journal of Materials Science Materials in Medicine (Springer) and IET Nanobiotechnology Journal. He received “Faculty Researcher Award-2016” from Indian Chitin and Chitosan Society and “MRSI Medal-2017” from Materials Research Society of India (MRSI). He also received “India Research Excellence-Citation Awards 2017 (Health & Medical Science area)” from Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science. He was selected as a “World Top 2% Scientists from India” in “Polymers” field by Stanford University, USA in the year of 2020 & 2021. He recently received “Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award-2021” from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (University), India. He also be listed in the “Top 10 Material Science Researchers from India”. He completed more than 20 funded projects. He has research collaborations in USA, Japan, South Korea, Portugal, Iceland, Germany and Taiwan.

Adley Forti Rubira
(Maringá State University, Brazil)

Adley Forti Rubira holds a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry (1988) from the University of Campinas and he was a Post-doctoral fellow (1992-94) in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in Blacksburg VA. He joined the then young State University of Maringá in 1975 as an assistant professor, becoming a Professor of Chemistry in 1994 and contributing to the development of a course whose international level was acknowledged in 2017 (Capes class 6). He served as Deputy Department Chairman and Chairman of the Graduate Chemistry Committee in his university, as a member of the Chemistry committees in Capes (2002-2016) and CNPq (2015-2020, Coordinator in 2017-2019).
His research activity in the Soft Materials Chemistry and Nanotechnology areas created many new products based on materials from renewable sources that are made using scalable processes, answering to the directives of reaching sustainability towards Bioeconomy, Circular Economy and value aggregation to biomass products. For instance, cellulose nano-whiskers (from wood residues) and poly-saccharides (from cassava starch, shrimp shell and orange skin) were transformed in superabsorbent hydrogels that can absorb up to 1000 times their own dry weight, in water. These hydrogels perform as soil conditioners and carriers of plant nutrients or defensives. New functionalized-cellulose nano-whiskers (CNWs) improve hydroxyapatite growth, for osteoblast proliferation. Dr. Rubira’s research output is documented in 270 papers indexed in Web of Science (h-index=48, >8310 citations), 7 book chapters. He is also the inventor listed in 10 patent applications. He advised 11 Ph.D. theses and 30 M.Sc. dissertations in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, presented invited lectures in the US and Brazil, currently holding a CNPq 1A Productivity Fellowship, a Certificate of Appreciation from the American Chemical Society and a Commendation from the CRQ-9 (Chemistry Council region 9).

Yeongseon Jang
(University of Florida, USA)

Dr. Yeongseon Jang is an assistant professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida, leading a research team to develop bioinspired materials made of polymers and proteins. She received her B.S. degree and Ph.D. degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University in 2008 and 2013. Before joining the University of Florida, she did her post-doctoral training in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and Georgia Institute of Technology. The primary focus of the Jang Laboratory is on the precise engineering of both structural and functional properties in supramolecular biomaterials for specific applications, encompassing the development of smart capsules, artificial cells, antibacterial surfaces, and therapeutic coatings. Dr. Jang is also devoted to contributing the society by mentoring students from K-8 to the postdoctoral level to guide and motivate next-generation scientists and researchers in STEM.

Mario Barbosa
(Universidade do Porto, Portugal)

Emeritus Full Professor at University of Porto. Secretary of IUSBSE

Maud Gorbet
(University of Waterloo, Canada)

Dr Gorbet is a Professor in the Department of Systems Design Engineering and Director of the Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate program at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada. She is cross-appointed with the department of Biology and the School of Optometry at the University of Waterloo and also a collaborator with the Centre for Ocular Research and Education.
Her research interests center on biocompatibility issues with a focus on the role of innate immune cells and the impact of material-induced inflammation in the ocular and cardiovascular environments. Through research collaboration, she is also involved in the investigation of bone cell interactions with 3D-printed nanocomposites.

Rifang Luo
(Sichuan University, Chengdu, China)

Dr. Rifang Luo is currently an associate professor in National Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials in Sichuan University. He is focusing on cardiovascular materials and surface functionalization strategies for implantable interventional devices (vascular stents, artificial heart valves, and some other blood-contacting devices). Based on the specificity of the implant microenvironment, he has developed a series of functional coatings with anti-coagulant, anti-infective, anti-inflammatory and endothelialization promotion abilities. Functional cardiovascular implants with immune escape and immunomodulatory properties are also his research interests. In recent years, more than 50 papers have been published in Science Advances, Matter, Biomaterials etc., and more than 20 patents have been licensed. Some of his anti-coagulant coating technologies also achieve transformation.

César Rodriguez-Emmenegger
(DWI - Leibniz-Institut für Interaktive Materialien, Germany)

César Rodriguez-Emmenegger is a Research Professor at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) in Barcelona, Spain. The overarching goal of his research is to uncover design rules to develop materials capable of communicating with living matter —pathogens, cells, tissues— and directing its behavior in a self-regulated manner to enable new biomaterials, therapeutics, and medical devices. He studied Chemical Engineer at Universidad de la República, Uruguay; and a PhD in Biophysics and Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry in Prague under the mentorship of Eduard Brynda and Aldo Bologna Alles. Following a postdoctoral research at the group of Prof. C. Barner-Kowollik (Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship, 2012-2013), and research stays in Melville Laboratory in Cambridge (Prof. W.T.S. Huck, 2009), University of Pennsylvania (Prof. V. Percec, 2013, 2015) and Pasteur Institute in Lille (Prof. Lafont, 2015), César returned to Prague to start his independent group supported by a Junior Grant from GACR. He was then a Junior Group Leader at DWI-Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials in Aachen (2016 – 2022) before joining IBEC.

Rui Reis
(3B's Research Group, University of Minho, Portugal)

Rui L. Reis, PhD, DSc, Hon. Causa MD, Hon Causa PhD, FBSE, FTERM, member of NAE, FAIMBE, FEAMBES, is a Full Professor of Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine, Biomaterials and Stem Cells at University of Minho (UMinho), Portugal. He is the Founding Director of the 3B’s Research Group and Dean/President of the I3Bs – Institute for Biomaterials, Biodegradables and Biomimetics at UMinho. He is also the CEO of the European Institute of Excellence on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine and has been the Global President of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Soc. (TERMIS). He is Associate Editor of PNAS-NEXUS and is in the Editorial Board of several other relevant journals. He co-founded several companies that raised important private investments. His work has been cited more than 98000 times and he is listed in the annual Highly Cited Researchers 2022 and 2023 list from Clarivate. He has been awarded many important international prizes.

Rui Reis
(3B's Research Group/University of Minho, Portugal)

Rui L. Reis, PhD, DSc, Hon. Causa MD, Hon Causa PhD, FBSE, FTERM, member of NAE, FAIMBE, FEAMBES, is a Full Professor of Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine, Biomaterials and Stem Cells at University of Minho (UMinho), Portugal. He is the Founding Director of the 3B’s Research Group and Dean/President of the I3Bs – Institute for Biomaterials, Biodegradables and Biomimetics at UMinho. He is also the CEO of the European Institute of Excellence on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine and has been the Global President of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Soc. (TERMIS). He is Associate Editor of PNAS-NEXUS and is in the Editorial Board of several other relevant journals. He co-founded several companies that raised important private investments. His work has been cited more than 98000 times and he is listed in the annual Highly Cited Researchers 2022 and 2023 list from Clarivate. He has been awarded many important international prizes.

Hwan Kim
(Korea National University of Transportation, Korea, Republic of)

Prof. Hwan Drew Kim graduated in Biochemistry from the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. He earned a MS and PhD. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the Seoul National University, South Korea. After training as a post-doctoral fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, he joined the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering at KNUT in 2021 as an assistant professor. His research interests focus on the Polymeric biomaterial-guided commitment and endochondral ossification, synthesis of calcium phosphates like whitlockite/hydroxyapatite nanoparticles, Ion release from inorganic nanoparticles and formation of calcium phosphate derivatives, Synthesis of bone organoids that biomimics natural bone environment, Mxene/Graphene Oxide based bone stimulating environment, and his research projects have been supported by NRF, KFRM, Ministry of Science and ICT, and KNUT.

Minkyu Kim
(University of Arizona, USA)

Minkyu Kim is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona in Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and the BIO5 Institute. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering and Materials Science from Duke University in 2011 and was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT from 2012 to 2016. Dr. Kim has a diverse range of research experiences, including protein design, biopolymer nanomechanics, polymer physics and self-assembly, biomolecular engineering, and soft materials. His research interests focus on the design, synthesis, and multiscale characterization of biopolymer-based functional materials for applications in human health, defense, and environmental safety. Dr. Kim is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2022, and his research projects have been supported by NASA, CDMRP, NSF, the US government, NIEHS, and USDA.

Aidan MacAdam
(University of Ottawa, Canada)

Aidan MacAdam received his B.Sc. in Biochemistry and B.A.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Ottawa in 2015. In 2022, he founded GastroTrackAI; a health tech startup that has developed an app for tracking digestive symptoms. Later that year, Aidan became the CTO of Rekupera Biotech Corporation; a startup that develops biosynthetic materials for tissue repair. Recently, Aidan published his research in 2023 on light-activated materials for restoring thinning corneas in Advanced Functional Materials. Aidan is currently working towards his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Ottawa while at the same time fulfilling his responsibilities as CEO of GastroTrackAI and CTO of Rekupera.

Yung Chang
(Deputy director, R&D center for membrane technology and Department of chemical engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Chinese Taipei)

Curriculum Vitae Yung Chang
Yung Chang
Born March 7th, 1976 in Japan
Distinguished Professor at Chung Yuan Christian University -Taiwan
Professor of Chemical Engineering at Chung Yuan Christian University -Taiwan
Director of R&D Center for Membrane Technology at Chung Yuan Christian University-Taiwan
Current Address: R&D Center for Membrane Technology, Chung Yuan Christian University– No.493, Xinzhong N. Rd., Zhongli Dist., Taoyuan City 320 – Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Phone : +(886) 3 264 4190 - Fax: +(886) 3 264 4198 – Mobile: +886 915 576 167
e-mail: ychang@cycu.edu.tw

Summary of career: `
1998: Graduate Engineer of the Chemical Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2000: Master in Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
2004: Doctorate in Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
2004-2005: Postdoctoral researcher in Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
2005-2006: Postdoctoral researcher in Chemical Engineering, University of Wanshington, USA
2006-2009: Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2009-2013: Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2013-now: Professor, Chemical Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2013-now: Distingusiged Professor, Chemical Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2022-2023: Deputy officer, R&D Office, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2023-now: Officer, Development Office for Academic-Industry Cooperation, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan


Scientific activity (Highlights)
Research activities in chemical engineering and bio-interfacial science
• Scientific research interests include advanced biomaterials, biomolecular engineering, biomedical interface science, biopolymer physical chemistry, biomimetic material science, and biomedical healthcare membranes.
• The development of universal anti-(bio)fouling principles for the design of sustainable interfaces and membranes. His membrane research activities involve the application of advanced membrane materials, process technologies, and engineering systems for industries in water treatment (membrane bioreactor) and health care (blood transfusion).
• Teaching in physical chemistry, quantum science, bio-interface science, and biomaterials science

Author or co-author of more than 260 publications in international journal (including >80 with international co-authors), 42 international patent, 5 chapter in books, 70+ invited conferences, more than 330 seminar communications - number of citations > 10,800 (h-index:58)
Supervision or co-supervision of 11 pHD students and 85+ mater students

Responsibilities
2023-now: Officer, Development Office for Academic-Industry Cooperation, CYCU, Taiwan
2022-2023: Deputy R&D Officer, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2021-now: Editorial Board, Journal of Membrane Science Letter
2020-now: National Examination Talent Selection Committee, National Examination Department, Taiwan
2019-2020: MOST project Reviewer, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
2019-now: Program Review Committee, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan
2019-now: Steering committee, World Association of Membrane Societies (WA-MS)
2019-now: National Program Review Committee, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
2019-now: Editorial Board, Membranes
2018-now: Associate Editor, Journal of Polymer Research
2018-now: Editorial Board, Taiwan Journal of Chemical Engineeering
2018-now: Council Members, Taiwan Polymer Society
2017-now: Director– R&D Center for Membrane Technology– Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2017-2018: Director– Competitive Development Center, R&D Office– Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2016-now: Council Members, Aseanian Membrane Society (AMS)
2016-now: Principle Founder, PuriBlood Biotechnology, Taiwan
2015-now: Council Members, Taiwan Membrane Society (TMS)
2015-now: Principle Founder, Body Information Biotechnology, Taiwan
2013-now: Distingusiged Professorship, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
2013-now: Moderator of Outstanding Young Scholars Program, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
2011-now: Preliminary committee member, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Ji-Hun Seo
(Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea University, Korea, Republic of)

Dr. Seo is a professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Korea University in Seoul, Republic of Korea. He obtained his Ph.D degree from the University of Tokyo in 2010. After brief stints as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo and Tokyo Medical and Dental University, he worked as a research and education staff at Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering (Tokyo Medical and Dental University) from 2011 to 2015. He was appointed to the Korea University from 2015 as an Assistant Professor, and promoted to Associate and Full Professor in 2017 and 2022, respectively. His research interest is about interfacial phenomenon occurred at biological and electrochemical environment on the soft materials including zwitterionic polymers.

Peng Zhang
(Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, China)

Prof. Zhang received his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington under the supervision of Prof. Shaoyi Jiang in 2018. From 2018-2020, he was a postdoc associate in the laboratory of Prof. Robert Langer and Prof. Daniel Anderson in Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Prof. Zhang joined the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering at Zhejiang University in 2020. His research focused on development of polymeric biomaterials for medical applications, including macromolecular drugs and medical devices. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in top journals including Nat. Biomed. Eng, Sci. Transl. Med, PNAS, Chem. Rev., etc., with 5000+ citations and an H-index of 33.

Osamu Suzuki
(Tohoku University, Japan)

Osamu Suzuki is a Professor and Chair of Division of Craniofacial Function Engineering, Tohoku University Graduate School of Dentistry, Sendai, Japan since 2004. He is in charge of education and research in biomaterials science and skeletal tissue engineering. He was a Researcher in Japan Fine Ceramics Co. Ltd., Sendai, and a Senior Researcher in JGC Corp., Yokohama and Oarai, Japan from 1986 to 2004. He received his M.Eng. in Yamagata University Graduate School of Engineering, Yonezawa, Japan in 1986 on the study of the fracture mechanics of bioceramics and his Ph.D. in Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan in 1991 on the study of the octacalcium phosphate (OCP) biomaterials. He was a visiting scientist in Forsyth Dental Center, Physical Chemistry Department, Boston, MA, USA from 1992 to 1994, where he conducted OCP materials research on the chemical composition, crystal structure, and relationship between the advancement of the hydrolysis into Ca-deficient hydroxyapatite (CDHA) and serum protein adsorption on the surfaces. He is now one of the board members and was an Executive Committee Member of Japanese Society for Biomaterials (JSB) and was Editor-in-Chief of Dental Materials Journal, an official English journal of the Japanese Society for Dental Materials and Devices (JSDMD), from 2018 to 2020. He received the Award of Japanese Society for Biomaterials for the study on Elucidation of Osteoconductivity and Establishment of Biomaterial Science of OCP Bone Substitute Materials in 2015 and was awarded as a Fellow, Biomaterials Sciences and Engineering (FBSE) in 2020. He has developed several OCP-based bone substitute materials with collaborators, which include OCP/collagen, OCP/gelatin, and OCP/poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and so forth, elucidated OCP-induced bone tissue cellular activities and reported them in SCI journals, such as Biomaterials, Acta Biomaterialia, Applied Materials Today and Journal of Biomedical Materials Research.

Christele Combes
(Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, France)

Christèle Combes received her PhD in Materials Science at the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse (INPT, France) in 1996. In 1997, she held a postdoctoral position at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada) dedicated to the development of polysaccharide based hydrogels for cartilage substitution and repair. Since 1998, she has been a teacher-researcher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Ingénieurs en Arts Chimiques et Technologiques (ENSIACET) in Toulouse. Currently professor, head of the Materials Science and Engineering Department of ENSIACET-INP Toulouse, she has been at the head of the ‘‘Phosphates, Pharmacotechnics, Biomaterials’’ research group of the CIRIMAT laboratory from 2007 to 2015. Her research focuses on calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate based biomaterials and biomineralizations in a view to substitute and/or repair bone defects and to go towards better understanding the formation of normal and pathological calcifications. She is the treasurer of the GRIBOI association since 2010 and in the scientific committee of the International Society for Ceramics in Medicine since 2014. Professor Christèle Combes has over 100 scientific papers published in international peer-reviewed scientific journals and 8 patents.

Marc Bohner
(RMS Foundation, Switzerland)

Dr. Marc Bohner holds a MSc and PhD degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (1990, 1993). His career included positions as postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich. In 1998, he joined RMS Foundation, a private research and testing lab located in Bettlach, Switzerland. Currently, he serves as a research director and leads the “Bioceramic & Biocompatibility Group”. His interests include the synthesis, production, and use of calcium phosphates for bone repair.
He holds over fifteen distinct patents, is the inventor of 4 commercial products, and has published and presented widely in his field (≈130 articles; h = 54-65). He has given 140 invited lectures in English, French, and German. His teaching positions have included adjunct and affiliated appointments at the University of Sherbrooke (2004 – 2019), the University of Berne (2011 - present), and ETH Zurich (2009 - present).
His services to the scientific community include: Editor of Acta Biomaterialia (2008 ; IF = 9.9); Co-chair of the annual congress of the European Society for Biomaterials (2009); Secretary, vice-president and president of the Swiss Society for Biomaterials (2004 – 2012); Secretary and president of “GRIBOI” (2007 – 2016); Secretary and then treasurer of the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB; 2013 – 2021); Member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation (2016 – present). In 2013, he received a “honorary life membership” from the Swiss Society for Biomaterials. In 2014, he was awarded the “Racquel LeGeros Award” of the “International Society for Ceramics in Medicine” for his contribution to calcium phosphate research. In 2016, he became “honorary president” of GRIBOI. In 2023, he received the Georges Winter Award of the ESB. Marc Bohner is among the top 50 scientists in Biomedical Engineering according to the Stanford database (https://dx.doi.org/10.17632/btchxktzyw).

Mani Diba
(Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands)

Dr. Mani Diba is an Assistant Professor and Hypatia Fellow at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands. After completing his B.Sc. degree (2010) in Materials Engineering at Isfahan University of Technology in Iran, he obtained an M.Sc. degree (2012) in Advanced Materials and Processes from University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany. He then completed his Ph.D. in the field of self-healing biomaterials at Radboud University Medical Center with the highest distinction. After his Ph.D., he performed postdoctoral research at Eindhoven University of Technology (Dankers lab), Rice University (Mikos lab), and Harvard University (Mooney lab) during which he further focused on the design of dynamic hydrogel biomaterials. Dr. Diba has received several awards and fellowships including Niels Stensen (2018), Rubicon (2019), Marie Skłodowska-Curie (2020) and Hypatia (2021). His research interests include bottom-up biomaterial design from (macro)molecular and particulate buildings blocks for regenerative therapies and for biofabrication of 3D tissue models.

Marian Hettiaratchi
(University of Oregon, USA)

Dr. Marian Hettiaratchi is an assistant professor of bioengineering at the Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact at the University of Oregon. She received a B.Sc. in chemical engineering from the University of Calgary and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University prior to conducting post-doctoral research at the University of Toronto as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) post-doctoral fellow.

Dr. Hettiaratchi's research program focuses on developing the next generation of affinity-controlled protein delivery vehicles for tissue repair. Using a unique combination of directed evolution platforms, rational protein design, polymer chemistry, and bio-transport modeling, Dr. Hettiaratchi’s lab engineers novel protein-material interactions to precisely tune protein delivery, sequestration, and bioactivity for a variety of applications, including repairing musculoskeletal, vascular, and central nervous system injuries. This versatile approach has enabled advances in both understanding the mechanisms of tissue repair and generating new treatment strategies.

Dr. Hettiaratchi fosters an inclusive, interdisciplinary research group where lab members of different backgrounds and skill levels are encouraged to work together to learn new techniques and make new discoveries. She has received several awards as an assistant professor, including the J.R. Neff Research Award from MTF Biologics and a Faculty Research Mentor Award from the Center for Undergraduate Research Engagement at the University of Oregon. Dr. Hettiaratchi has also been recognized as an Emerging Investigator by Biomaterials Science and the Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Rising Star by Advanced Healthcare Materials. The Hettiaratchi Lab's work is currently supported by a broad array of funding, including a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R21 Trailblazer Award, NIH R35 Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA), National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (NSF CAREER) Award, and Department of Defense Discovery Award.

Thomas E. Angelini
(University of Florida, USA)

Dr. Thomas E. Angelini is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. His research background includes the study of protein, lipid, DNA and virus self-assembly; collective cell migration and force transmission in cell monolayers; bacterial biofilm growth and spreading associated with biosurfactants and extracellular polysaccharide. Currently, his work focuses on cell-assembly and collective motion in 2D and 3D cell populations, 3D bioprinting, and 3D printing soft matter.

Huanan Wang
(Dalian University of Technology, China)

Huanan Wang is now a full professor affiliated to State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals and Department of Bioengineering in Dalian University of Technology, China. His research focuses on biomaterials design, cell-biomaterial interactions, and the development of novel tissue engineering techniques. He has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles and been issued more than 20 Chinese and international invention patents. His research on the nanostructured colloidal hydrogels has led to the design and industrialization of two types of Class III medical devices that are currently tested in clinical trials.

Khoon Lim
(University of Sydney, Australia)

Associate Professor Khoon Lim is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and the Director of the Light Activated Biomaterials research group at the University of Sydney, Australia. Khoon is a biomedical engineer with specialization in polymer chemistry. He completed a concurrent degree - Bachelors (Hons 1) in Chemical Engineering and Masters in Biomedical Engineering, followed by a PhD in Biomedical Engineering (graduated 2014) from the University of New South Wales. He then went to join the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Musculoskeletal Medicine at the University of Otago Christchurch in New Zealand for a postdoctoral fellowship, where he established the Light Activated Biomaterials (LAB) research group in 2019. In 2022, he joined the University of Sydney. His research focus is on adopting a class of polymers known as hydrogels as tissue engineering matrices for a variety of applications. His has developed a number of research technology platform, primarily using photo-polymerizable hydrogel bioinks for 3D bioprinting of functional tissues and also delivery of bioactive molecules to promote tissue regeneration. He has generated multiple high impact journal publications (Chemical Reviews, Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials), and raised a total of >$7.8 Million research grant funding with $5.4 Million as lead Chief-Investigator. He is currently the President of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, Board of Directors of the International Society for Biofabrication, and Executive Board Member of the Medical Technologies Translator Programme (New Zealand). He has won >20 competitive national/international awards and included in the World’s Top 2% Scientist List by Stanford University for 2022 and 2023. His research has also led to commercialisation of biomaterials licensed to a US-based company and commercial contracts with industry partners. He currently sits on the editorial board of Biomaterials Science, Tissue Engineering, Biofabrication, International Journal of Bioprinting, Macromolecular Bioscience, Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express and Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine.
His research has also generated a number of intellectual property and patent applications, including a full utility patent now granted in China, Australia, America and Europe, where he’s the lead inventor. He is also involved in a number of collaborative projects involving national and international collaborators (Germany, Netherlands, Australia, China and Scotland). He is the current President of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, Board Member of the International Society for Biofabrication, and Executive Board Member of the New Zealand Medical Technology Research Acceleration Programme. He also serves on a number of editorial boards including RSC Biomaterials Science, Biofabrication, Macromolecular Bioscience, International Journal of Bioprinting, Tissue Engineering: Part B, Biomedical Physics and Engineering Express and Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine.

Justin Cooper-White
(The University of Queensland, Australia)

Professor Cooper-White graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical) in 1991, University of Queensland, and thereafter worked for Shell (Australia) Pty. Ltd. for 5 years as a practicing chemical engineer and processing manager. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering (Rheology and thermodynamics of biomedical polymers and their blends), UQ, in March 2000. He subsequently held a postdoctoral position at the University of Melbourne (UMelb) under the mentorship of Prof. David V. Boger and joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UMelb as a tenured Senior Lecturer in early 2003. In 2004, Prof. Cooper-White was recruited to the University of Queensland (UQ) to head a new initiative in Tissue Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering and in 2007 was promoted to Professor of Bioengineering. He has over 250 scientific publications, published in high impact journals in his fields (including Nature, Chemical Reviews, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Science, ACS Nano, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, Nature Microbiology, Cell Stem Cell, Biomaterials, Biomacromolecules, Lab on a Chip, Stem Cells, Stem Cells Trans Med., APL Bioengineering), and has been cited >17,000 times. Prof. Cooper-White has produced 6 Worldwide patents that have reached National Phase Entry in USA, Europe and Australia in the areas of formulation design for agriproducts, microbioreactor arrays (MBAs) and tissue engineering scaffolds. Technologies developed in his laboratory have been commercialised by an Australian SME and a USA-based start-up company. His research focuses on understanding the role of microenvironmental cues on stem cell commitment and tissue genesis, and the critical roles that stem cells and their niches play in systemic losses of tissue and organ function as we age. His team applies this understanding to develop biomicrodevices, engineered surfaces and advanced scaffolds for cell therapy manufacturing and engineering tissue replacement or repair, and more recently, nanoparticles for targeted rejuvenation of our aged tissues.

Sandra Van Vlierberghe
(Ghent University, Belgium)

Sandra Van Vlierberghe (10-07-1981) was granted a full-time professorship at UGent since October 1st, 2017. Her research targets to establish at UGent, “a polymer-based technological platform covering processing and functionalization aspects sufficiently versatile to potentially address a wide range of tissue engineering (TE) challenges by exploiting the unique properties of light.” Indeed, her research focusses on the development of photo-crosslinkable (bio)polymers and their processing capabilities using 3D printing techniques. She has acquired expertise related to the synthesis, the modification and the processing (through extrusion-based 3D printing, electrospinning and light-based 3D-printing (two-photon polymerization (2PP), digital light projection (DLP) and volumetric printing) of a variety of (bio)polymers including thermoplasts (e.g. polyesters) and hydrogels (e.g. proteins and polysaccharides) in the field of regenerative medicine during the past 15 years. She graduated as a Master in Chemistry with high distinction with majors in Polymer Chemistry in 2003 and received her PhD in Sciences in 2008, both at Ghent University. She authored more than 235 Web of Science Core Collection cited papers of which 195 high impact journal papers (one with an impact factor of 42.846) and 16 full papers in international conference proceedings. In addition, she also authored more than 200 conference abstracts. She has a h-index of 44 (WoS) and is promoter of 23 PhD’s (in addition to 15 defended PhD’s), she edited three books, authored 7 chapters in books of which 5 invited and was invited speaker at > 15 international conferences and keynote as well as plenary speaker at 15 international conferences. She is treasurer of the Belgian Polymer Group (BPG), she was spokesperson of the YSF which is affiliated to the ESB and she is secretary of the Belgian Society for Tissue Engineering (BSTE). She is TERMIS-EU council member since 2019 and ESB council member since 2021. She is also founding board member of GATE (Ghent Alliance for Advanced Therapies and Tissue Engineering). Since 2020, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Fernand Lazard Foundation. Sandra is also editorial board member of the Biomaterials Network, associate editor of Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine and of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (editor-in-chief of Biofabrication section), academic guest editor of Materials, editorial advisory board member of Hydrogels and editorial board member of Biomedical Materials, Journal of Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology and Journal of Applied Biomaterials and Functional Materials. She has also been active in project reviewing and as panel member (e.g. 3 x panel member of ERC StG). In 2017, she received the Jean Leray Award from the European Society for Biomaterials (ESB). This award is established to recognize outstanding research in the field of biomaterials by scientists not older than 40 years. In 2020 and 2021, she also served on the Independent Awards Committee of ESB. She is co-founder of spin-offs BIO INX and 4Tissue Laboratory.

Sachiro Kakinoki
(Kansai University, Japan)

I'm a professor at Department of Chemistry and Materials Engineering at Kansai University. My research interests are including biofunctional surfaces,bioadaptable materials, cells and platelets engineering for drug delivery, peptide and protein engineering.

Kyla Sask
(McMaster University, Canada)

Dr. Kyla Sask joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada as an Assistant Professor in September 2019. She is an Associate Member of the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine. Dr. Sask obtained her BSc in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada in 2006 and her PhD from McMaster University in the School of Biomedical Engineering in 2012. Her PhD research was co-supervised by Dr. John Brash and Dr. Anthony Chan and involved biomaterial surface modification for improved antithrombogenicity. Dr. Sask completed a postdoctoral fellowship (PDF) in Dr. Brian Amsden’s Advanced Biomaterials Lab at Queen's University (2018-2019) with co-supervision by Dr. Kimberly Woodhouse. Between her PhD and PDF, Dr. Sask spent several years working at Interface Biologics Inc. (IBI), Toronto, Canada, developing innovative materials to improve the efficacy of medical devices. Dr. Sask’s current research program focuses on biomaterial surface modification, advanced characterization, protein and cell interactions, nanomaterials, blood contacting devices, and biosensors. She has authored 19 peer reviewed publications, one book chapter, 28 conference publications, and has filed one patent application and one provisional patent application.

​Conrado Aparicio
(UIC Barcelona International University of Catalonia, Spain)

Dr. Conrado Aparicio is Professor and Vice-rector for Research, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer at UIC Barcelona – Universitat International de Catalunya, Spain and director of the Bioinspired Materials and Interfaces Lab and the Research Group in Study and Control of oral Infections. He is associated researcher at IBEC-Institute for BioEngineering of Catalonia and elected fellow of the AIMBE-American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Dr. Aparicio is a materials scientist and engineer by training. After starting his academic career at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) he moved to the University of Minnesota (UMN) where he spent 12+ years in the Department of Restorative Sciences, and was the Deputy Director of the MDRCBB-Minnesota Dental Research Center for Biomaterials and Biomechanics. In June 2021 Professor Aparicio returned to his hometown, Barcelona, as FBA-BIST-UIC fellow.
For over two decades he has carried out multidisciplinary research on bioinspired biomaterials and interfaces for directing biological responses to repair/regenerate bone and oral mucosa as well as to prevent bacterial infections for dental applications. Using inspiration from nature’s molecules and structures, his team designs and develops bioactive surfaces using supramolecular assembly and enabling spatial-temporal control of bioactive responses.
He has published 140+ research papers and has lectured around the World on biomineralization and bioactivation of synthetic biomaterials for reparative and regenerative dentistry and medicine. He is co-inventor of multiple patents, one of them licensed and marketed by a dental implant company. He has been awarded multiple national and international research projects from US and EC agencies, foundations, and corporations, in interdisciplinary collaborations between academic and corporate engineers, biologists, and clinicians.

Atsushi Mahara
(National cerebral and cardiovascular research institute, Japan)

My name is Atsushi Mahara. I was born in Japan and am now a Laboratory Chief at the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center Research Institute. When I was in the university, my research focused on nucleic acid chemistry and photoanalytical chemistry. After that, in my professional career, I have studied and developed cardiovascular devices based on tissue engineering and imaging technology. Especially, I have been interested in the preclinical application of decellularized artificial blood vessels and supramolecular MR contrast agents. I received the Young Investigation Award from the Japanese Society for Regenerative Medicine and the Society for Artificial Organs. My recent hobbies are reading, listening to and playing music, and walking with my dog.

Sachiro Kakinoki
(Kansai University, Japan)

I'm a professor at Department of Chemistry and Materials Engineering at Kansai University. My research interests are including biofunctional surfaces,bioadaptable materials, cells and platelets engineering for drug delivery, peptide and protein engineering.

Irene Carmagnola
(Politecnico di Torino, Italy)

Irene Carmagnola obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2013 at Politecnico di Torino. Currently, she is a Researcher at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Politecnico di Torino. Her research activities are primarily focused on the design, fabrication, and characterization of scaffolds based on polymeric biomaterials and nanotechnologies applied to the biomedical field, particularly Tissue Engineering. She has used conventional techniques (freeze drying, electrospinning, etc…) and additive manufacturing techniques such as fused deposition modeling, bioprinting, and melt-electrowriting to engineer scaffolds for Tissue Engineering and tissue models for advanced therapy validation. In this context, she has studied the preparation, mixing, or synthesis of hydrogel polymers for use as ink in 3D printing techniques to generaate cellularized constructs. In parallel, she has developed nanostructured coatings using innovative strategies such as plasma techniques, layer-by-layer, and biomimetic approaches for different applications, including coronary stents, wound healing, soft tissue regeneration, and antibacterial surfaces. Her scientific output includes 28 scientific articles, 4 book chapters, and participation in over forty national and international conferences.

João F. Mano
(University of Aveiro, Portugal)

João F. Mano is a Full Professor at the Chemistry Department of University of Aveiro, Portugal, and vice-director of the Associate Laboratory CICECO – Aveiro Instituto of Materials, where he is directing the COMPASS Research Group (http://compass.web.ua.pt/). His research interests include the use of advanced biomaterials and cells towards the progress of multidisciplinary concepts to be employed in regenerative and personalised medicine. In particular, he has been applying biomimetic and nano/micro-technology approaches to polymer-based biomaterials and cell-rich systems to develop biomedical devices with improved structural and (multi-)functional properties, or in the engineering of microenvironments to control cell behaviour and organization, to be exploited clinically in advanced therapies or in drug screening. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Materials Today Bio (Elsevier). He has been coordinating or involved in many national and European research projects, including 2 Advanced Grants and 3 Proof-of-Concept Grants from the European Research Council. João F. Mano has received different honours and awards, including two honoris causa doctorates (Univ. of Lorraine and Utrecht Univ.) and was elected fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (FEurASc), Biomaterials Science & Engineering (FBSE) and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (FAIMBE).

Jeroen Leijten
(University of Twente, Netherlands)

Jeroen Leijten is a tenured Associate Professor at University of Twente, the Netherlands. He earned his MSc in Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University in 2007, and his PhD in Tissue Engineering with Prof. Blitterswijk at University of Twente in 2012, where he continued to work as a postdoc for an additional year with Prof. Karperien. Then, he conducted postdoctoral research work in KU Leuven (Belgium) and Harvard-MIT (USA), before accepting a tenure track position at the University of Twente. His lab focuses on developing novel microtechnologies with a particular interest in microfluidics, micromaterials, and on-demand tunable biomaterials, which he leverages to create 3D spatiotemporal microenvironments to control (stem) cell behavior. More recently, he has used this novel technology to advance the 3D bioprinting applications. Prof. Leijten is author of numerous papers in high-ranked journals including Cell Stem Cell, Nature Communications, Advanced materials, Small, and PNAS, and has valorized and licensed five patents to distinct companies. He currently leads two large international consortia including a Pathfinder. He received numerous recognitions, including an ERC Starting Grant, and the Veni and Vidi awards from the Dutch Research Council, as well as multiple early-career and presentation awards/honors. Those include the ‘Best engineering idea of 2018’ by the Dutch Academy of Engineers, the Jean Leray Award by the European Society for Biomaterials (2020), and the Robert Brown Early Career Principal Investigator Award by TERMIS-EU (2020)

João Borges
(CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials, University of Aveiro, Portugal)

Dr. João Borges is a Senior Researcher at the Department of Chemistry and CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. He graduated and received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Porto in 2008 and 2013, respectively, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Minho between 2013 and 2016. His research focuses on the molecular design, synthesis and development of supramolecular biofunctional materials to interface with living systems. In particular, he has been developing soft multicomponent self-assembling biomaterials by combining polysaccharides, self-assembling peptides and nucleic acids, to be used as bioinstructive matrices to control cell functions and as platforms for controlled drug/therapeutics delivery. He is author of original research articles, review papers, editorial, essay, comment, and viewpoint articles published in high impact journals including Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Materials, Nanoscale, Chemical Reviews, Nature Chemistry, Angewandte Chemie, Chemical Science, and Journal of the American Chemical Society and has edited one book on soft matter for biomedical applications. In 2019, he was distinguished by IUPAC as an outstanding early-career chemist, being featured in the Periodic Table of Younger Chemists.

Martina Stenzel
(University of New South Wales, Australia)

Martina Stenzel studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, before completing her PhD in 1999 at the Institute of Applied Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Germany. She started as a postdoctoral fellow at UNSW in 1999 and is now a Scientia Professor in the school of chemistry as well as an ARC Laureate Fellow. Her research interest is focused on the synthesis of functional nanoparticles for drug delivery applications. Martina Stenzel published more than 350 peer reviewed papers mainly on polymer and nanoparticle design. She is the editor in chief of Materials Horizons and currently serves on a range of editorial boards. She received a range of awards including the 2011 Le Fèvre Memorial Prize of the Australian Academy of Science. She is currently the chair of the National Chemistry Committee of the Australian Academy of Science and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Insung Choi
(KAIST, Korea, Republic of)

Prof. Choi, a PhD in Chemistry and MS in Computer Science, is a chemistry-centered naturalist, utilizing chemical, biological, and computational tools for deciphering the cytosociety. After earning his BS degree from SNU, he obtained his MS degree (with Prof. Eun Lee) at SNU and his PhD degree (with Prof. George M. Whitesides) at Harvard. He then conducted postdoctoral research (with Prof. Robert Langer) at MIT, before joining the faculty at KAIST in 2002.

Elisa Migliorini
(CEA, France)

Elisa Migliorini, CNRS researcher since 2017, is working at BRM team at CEA-Grenoble (France) since 2020. Actually PI of national and international grants in 2015 she obtained the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow working in Max-Planck Institute, Stuttgart, Germany after 2.5 years of post-doctorate between Grenoble and San Sebastian, Spain. Since the PhD (obtained in 2012 at the University of Trieste, Italy) she focused her studies at the interface between cells and substrates. She now aims to design biomaterials with controlled chemical functionalization and mechanical properties able to mimic selected aspects of the extracellular matrix presentation of growth factors and glycosaminoglycans.

Babatunde Okesola
(University of Nottingham, United Kingdom)

Dr Babatunde O. Okesola completed his PhD in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York, UK under the supervision of Prof. David K. Smith, mastering the use of supramolecular strategies to create soft matter. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Bioengineering, Queen Mary University of London in the group of Prof Alvaro Mata using his expertise in supramolecular chemistry to create hydrogel biomaterials for tissue engineering applications. In 2021, he joined the group of Prof Rachel Williams and Dr Hannah Levis at the University of Liverpool to develop synthetic graft for corneal tissue regeneration.
Babatunde in now a Principal Investigator and Nottingham Research Fellow leading his independent research team in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham, UK. His current research focuses on applying the fundamental understanding of supramolecular science, molecular self-assembly, soft matter, and redox biology to create novel biomaterials able to restore tissue redox homeostasis, monitor and treat chronic inflammation and repair damaged tissue at the site of inflammation.

Herdeline Ann Ardoña
(University of California, Irvine, USA)

Herdeline Ardoña is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Irvine, with joint appointments at Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering. Prof. Ardoña received her bachelor's degree in Chemistry at University of the Philippines Diliman, Ph.D. in Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University, and a postdoctoral training in Bioengineering at Harvard University. She is a recipient of the Society of Hellman Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, and NIH Stephen I. Katz Early-Stage Investigator Research Project Grant.

Kindness Uyanga
(City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China)

Dr. Kindness UYANGA is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. She received her PhD in Energy and Environment from City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Dr. Kindness is a Chemical Engineer whose research interest includes synthesis of new functional biopolymer composites, synthesis and characterization of natural polymer-based hydrogels, and their applications in wearable energy textiles/devices.

Hong Zhao
(School of Materials Science and Hydrogen Energy, Foshan University, China)

Professor Zhao Hong has been engaged in the field of new materials for more than 15 years, with significant contributions in research areas such as crystalline carbon materials for lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and bio-sensors. She currently balances academic research in the field of batteries with applied research in the industry.

Walid A. Daoud
(Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China)

Prof. Walid Daoud is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong. He graduated from the University of Technology Graz, Austria, with a Dipl-Ing degree (BS and MS) in Chemical Engineering and received his PhD in flexible bilayer photovoltaic cells from the University of Sheffield, UK. Prof. Daoud’s current research is mainly focused on the areas of energy harvesting and smart wearable technologies. His group is developing approaches for harvesting free or waste energy, such as light and kinetic energies. Being intermittent sources, it is equally important to find storage solutions for this form of energy. Therefore, the group is interested in the modelling and design of compatible batteries. He has received international renown and several awards for his pioneering research on wearable solar and kinetic energy harvesting technologies. His research has featured in Nature (2004) and Science (2008) and broadcasted through interviews by major international media, such as Reuters (2014), BBC (2015) SCMP (2017), Physics World (2021) and PV Magazine (2022). He has been invited to present Plenary and Keynote lectures at international conferences and is currently serving as the Chief Editor of Wearable Electronics, Frontiers in Electronics and Editorial/Advisory Board of Journal of Power Sources Advances and Industrial Chemistry & Materials.

Lingyun Wang
(School of Microelectronics, Shandong University, China)

Dr. Lingyun Wang received her PhD degree from City University of Hong Kong in July 2019. Then, she worked as a Postdoc Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and City University of Hong Kong. Afterward, she joined Shandong University as a professor in Nov. 2022. Currently, her research interests mainly focus on functional (bio)materials and their applications in flexible/wearable smart devices, including epidermal bioelectronics for human health monitoring, flexible sensors for IoT applications, and flexible energy harvesters for wearable electronics. Dr. Wang’s research has been published in top-notch journals, including Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, ACS Nano, Nano Energy, etc. She serves as an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Electronics: Wearable Electronics and Guest Editor of Nanomaterials.

Donghee Son
(Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, Republic of)

DONGHEE SON
Associate Professor
School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University,
Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science (IBS),
2066, SEOBU-RO, JANGAN-GU, SUWON-SI, GYEONG GI-DO, KOREA 16419
https://sites.google.com/view/dsonlab

Kindness Uyanga
(City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China)

Dr. Kindness UYANGA is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. She received her PhD in Energy and Environment from City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Dr. Kindness is a Chemical Engineer whose research interest includes synthesis of new functional biopolymer composites, synthesis and characterization of natural polymer-based hydrogels, and their applications in wearable energy textiles/devices.

Carolina Vargas Estevez
(Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Spain)

Carolina Vargas-Estevez holds a degree in Electronic Engineering from the National University of Colombia, with a master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. In 2013, she obtained the FPI scholarship from the CSIC to carry out her doctorate at the Barcelona Microelectronics Center (CNM-CSIC), obtaining the title of doctor in Nanosciences (Universitat de Barcelona), with international mention and cum laude with her thesis titled "Suspended micro/nanogenerators for cellular stimulation." Throughout her career, she has undertaken several external research placements in the United States, Switzerland, and the UK, with a focus on the characterization of magnetoelectric materials. In 2019, she joined the Center for Research and Development of Medical Devices in Ireland (CURAM-NUIG) as a postdoctoral researcher where she was researching organic generators for cardiac monitoring devices. Subsequently, in 2021, she joined the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC-VUT) in Czech Republic to work on nano and microrobotics for environmental decontamination and biomedicine applications. Most recently, she joined UPC as a postdoctoral researcher, where she works in the group led by Professor Jose Manuel Garcia, focusing on magnetoelectric 3D hydrogels for applications in bioengineering.

Matthew Webber
(University of Notre Dame, USA)

Matthew Webber is the Keating-Crawford Collegiate Professor of Engineering and an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame (USA). His research group is interested in applying supramolecular principles, leveraging defined and rationally designed non-covalent interactions, to improve biomaterials and drug delivery. Prof. Webber received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. Subsequently, he was an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He is the recipient of the American Diabetes Association Pathway Accelerator Award and the JDRF Career Development award, and was named by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers as one of the “35 under 35” young leaders shaping the field in 2017. He also received the NSF CAREER award in 2020 and was inducted to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2023.

Patricia Dankers
(TU Eindhoven, Netherlands)

Patricia Dankers is professor in Biomedical Materials & Chemistry at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), The Netherlands. She studied chemistry in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her PhD studies were performed at TU/e, on supramolecular biomaterials (2006). She worked for SupraPolix, and the University Medical Center, Groningen. Her second PhD thesis work was performed in medical sciences on kidney regenerative medicine, in Groningen (2013). She worked at Northwestern University, Chicago, USA (2010). She climbed every step on the academic ladder, starting in 2008, ending in 2017 as full professor. She received Veni, Vidi, Vici (2008, 2017, 2023) and ERC starting, ERC PoC (2012, 2017) grants. She has been awarded the KNCV Gold Medal (2020) and the Ammodo Award for Fundamental Science (2021). She is a co-founder of the spin-off companies UPyTher (2020) and VivArt-X (2022). She is one of the main applicants of the Gravitation Grant to found the Research Center for Interactive Polymer Materials (IPM), in Eindhoven (2022).

Sei Kwang Hahn
(POSTECH, Korea, Republic of)

Sei Kwang Hahn is the SeokCheon Chair Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at POSTECH. He obtained his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at KAIST. As the youngest Ph.D. at LG Chemical Group in 1996, he started his research on biodegradable polymer and then sustained release formulation of hGH, which was successfully commercialized in Korea under the trade name of Declage® in 2007. From 2001, he did his post-doctoral research with Prof. Allan Hoffman in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. After that, he worked for long acting formulation of various biopharmaceuticals at the Roche Group, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. in Japan for more than three years. Since 2005, he has worked as a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at POSTECH, and an adjunct professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Bioscience and Bioengineering and in the Department of Creative IT Engineering at POSTECH. He was the SeAh Young Chair Professor for 2012-2015 and is the Seok Cheon Chair Professor since 2019. He was a consultant for Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey in 2008 and made a collaboration project contract with Hoffman-La Roche. In 2012, he joined in the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital for his sabbatical research supported by LG Yeonam Fellowship. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University in 2019-2020 and elected as the member of National Academy of Engineering Korea and the Outside Director of Kiswire Co. in 2020. He was the Samsung Future Technology Committee Member for 2016-2018 and the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology for 2017-2019. He is the founder and CEO of PHI BIOMED Co., National Innovative Enterprise 1000 nominated by the Korean Minister of SMEs and Startups. He received the Songgok Science & Technology Award in 2022, the Controlled Release Society Award in 2018, the Minister of Health and Welfare Award in 2017, the Korean President Award in 2015 and Korean Minister of Education Award in 2013. He published more than 130 SCI journal papers including Nature Reviews Materials, Nature Photonics, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Progress in Polymer Science, and Advanced Materials, and filed more than 130 Korean and international patents. He has worked as the Editorial Board Member of ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, ACS Applied Bio Materials, Biomacromolecules, the Guest Editor of APL Materials and Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, and the Associate Editor of Biomaterials Research and Biomaterials.

Matthew Webber
(University of Notre Dame, USA)

Matthew Webber is the Keating-Crawford Collegiate Professor of Engineering and an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame (USA). His research group is interested in applying supramolecular principles, leveraging defined and rationally designed non-covalent interactions, to improve biomaterials and drug delivery. Prof. Webber received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. Subsequently, he was an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He is the recipient of the American Diabetes Association Pathway Accelerator Award and the JDRF Career Development award, and was named by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers as one of the “35 under 35” young leaders shaping the field in 2017. He also received the NSF CAREER award in 2020 and was inducted to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2023.

Dominic Ruetsche
(ETH Zurich, University Hospital Zurich, University Zurich, Switzerland)

Dominic received his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich where he studied novel biofabrication methods and biomaterial modifications for vascular tissue engineering. His current work in the Skylar-Scott lab focuses on strategies to introduce a functional hierarchical vasculature into bioprinted cardiac tissues using novel endothelial cell differentiation strategies for iPSCs and various additive manufacturing techniques.

Bret Ulery
(University of Missouri, USA)

I joined the Department of Biomedical, Biological, and Chemical Engineering at the University of Missouri as an Assistant Professor in August 2014 and was subsequently promoted with tenure to Associate Professor in September 2020. After earning a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering and a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Iowa in 2006, I conducted graduate research with Dr. Balaji Narasimhan at Iowa State University and received my Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering with a Graduate Minor in Immunobiology in 2010. Following completion of my doctoral studies, I spent two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Cato Laurencin’s research group in the Institute for Regenerative Engineering at the University of Connecticut Health Center followed by eighteen months as a Postdoctoral Scholar under the advisement of Dr. Matt Tirrell at the University of Chicago. As the Principal Investigator of the Biomodulatory Materials Engineering Laboratory (BioMEL), I lead a diverse team of 22 researchers focusing on the synthesis of novel biomaterials to address unmet clinical needs.

Molly Stevens
(Imperial College London, United Kingdom)

Prof Molly Stevens FREng FRS is John Black Professor of Bionanoscience at the University of Oxford and also holds part-time professorships at Imperial College London and the Karolinska Institute.
She graduated with a First-Class Honours BPharm degree from Bath University in 1995 and a PhD from the University of Nottingham in 2001. After postdoctoral research in the Langer Lab at MIT, she joined Imperial College London in 2004 as a lecturer and was promoted to Professor in 2008 as one of the youngest Professors ever in the history of the institution.
Molly’s multidisciplinary research balances the investigation of fundamental science with the development of technology to address some of the major healthcare challenges. She is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of several companies in the diagnostics, advanced therapeutics and regenerative medicine space. Her work has been instrumental in elucidating the bio-material interfaces. She has created a broad portfolio of designer biomaterials for applications in disease diagnostics and regenerative medicine. Her substantial body of work influences research groups around the world (>430 publications, h-index 104, >44k citations, 2018, 2021 and 2022 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Cross-Field research).
Molly holds numerous leadership positions including Director of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform "Smart Acellular Materials" Hub, Deputy Director of the EPSRC IRC in Early-Warning Sensing Systems for Infectious Diseases and Scientist Trustee of the National Gallery. She is Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), Foreign Member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA) and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Brian Aguado
(University of California San Diego, USA)

Dr. Brian Aguado (Twitter: @BrianAguado) is currently an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego, where his laboratory research is focused on studying sex differences in cardiovascular disease using biomaterial technologies. Dr. Aguado completed his BS degree in Biomechanical Engineering from Stanford University and his MS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. He also obtained his certificate in Management for Scientists and Engineers from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Aguado has received the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, the American Heart Association Career Development Award, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Science Diversity Leadership Award, and the NIH DP2 New Innovator Award to support his sex differences research. Dr. Aguado currently serves on the editorial advisory boards for the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A, GEN Biotechnology, and Frontiers in Bioengineering. Dr. Aguado is also a dedicated science communicator outside of the lab and enages historically excluded and marginalized populations in the sciences. Dr. Aguado co-founded LatinXinBME (Twitter: @LatinXinBME), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive community of Latinx biomedical engineers and scientists to support each other personally and professionally through their careers. For his efforts, he was named one of the 100 Most Inspiring Latinx Scientists in America by Cell Press and received the Biomaterials Diversity Award for Young Investigator from the Biomaterials journal and the GEMINI Faculty Mentor Award from the Institute for Engineering in Medicine.

Greg Hudalla
(University of Florida, USA)

Dr. Hudalla is presently the Integra LifeSciences Term Professor, Associate Professor, and the Graduate Program Coordinator in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida, and the Strategic Advisor for Biomedical Research Translation in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering at the University of Florida. Dr. Hudalla received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2004, a M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2010. Dr. Hudalla was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University from 2010-2013 through support from an NIH National Research Service Award.

Dr. Hudalla leads the UF Supramolecular Bio Lab, which seeks to understand and employ the physical phenomenon of self-assembly as a means to localize and amplify the activity of biotherapeutics. Research in the Supramolecular Bio Lab is funded by the US National Science Foundation, the US National Institutes of Health, and the US Department of Agriculture. Dr. Hudalla has authored more than 50 publications, is co-editor of the book “Mimicking the Extracellular Matrix: The Intersection of Matrix Biology and Biomaterials”, and holds 5 US patents, with another 10 currently pending. Dr. Hudalla has received the Outstanding Early Career Paper Award from Molecular Systems Design & Engineering, the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovator award, Emerging Investigator honorifics from the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Biomaterials Science, and Molecular Systems Design & Engineering, a National Science Foundation RAISE award, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering Trailblazer award, the National Science Foundation Career award, the University of Wisconsin Alumni Early Career Achievement award, the Cade Prize for Invention and Creativity, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, a Pruitt Family Endowed Faculty fellowship from the UF Department of Biomedical Engineering, and was named a UF Term Professor from 2018-2021.

Carsten Werner
(Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Germany)

Carsten Werner is Professor for Biofunctional Polymer Materials at TU Dresden and Scientific Director of the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden (IPF), Germany.

After receiving a diploma in chemistry (University of Würzburg) and a doctoral degree in physical chemistry (TU Dresden) in 1999, he established a biomaterials program at IPF and held an Adjunct Professorship at the Institute of Biomaterials of the University of Toronto, Canada (2000-2018).
Since 2008 he is a full professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and the Center of Regenerative Therapies, since 2019 he is also member of the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life and the Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health at TU Dresden.

Research of the Werner Lab targets the exploration of living matter using physical and materials science methodologies, new biomimicry design approaches to functional materials and the translation of biomaterials technologies. Recent work concerned electrosurface phenomena, bioadhesion, hemocompatibility of biomaterials as well as cell-instructive hydrogel systems for tissue/disease models and regenerative therapies.

Carsten Werner is elected member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering and elected scientific member of the Leibniz Association. His research has been recognized with several awards, including the MaterialVital Award of the German Federal Ministry of Science and Education, and resulted in several patented technologies and spin-off companies.

carsten.werner@tu-dresden.de

www.ipfdd.de/ibp

Megan Lord
(University of New South Wales, Australia)

Megan Lord is a Professor in the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, UNSW Sydney. Megan attained a Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering, Master of Biomedical Engineering, and a First class Honours degree in Chemical Engineering from UNSW Sydney. Megan’s research is engineering vascular cell-biomaterial interactions for applications in drug delivery and tissue repair. Her research in underpinned by expertise in the analysis of cell-biomaterial interactions, matrix biology, and the biophysics of molecular interactions.

Megan's research has been published in over 100 peer-reviewed publications and has been supported by multiple national grants including an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship (2010-2012) and a Future Fellowship (2023-2027). Her research program has supported R&D pipelines for companies including the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Synedgen, TriCol Biomedical, Agenta Biotechnologies, and Cochlear. Megan has mentored emerging academic and engineering leaders having supervised 23 PhD/MPhil and 145 Engineering Honours candidates to completion.

Megan’s research leadership has been recognised by numerous awards including the UNSW Vice Chancellor’s award for excellence in higher degree research leadership in 2023 and the Barry Preston Award from the Matrix Biology Society of Australia and New Zealand in 2022. She has served as the President of the Matrix Biology Society of Australia and New Zealand (2019-2021), a Council Member for the International Society for Matrix Biology (since 2020), and an Associate Editor of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Conference Proceedings (since 2016). Megan also serves on the Standards Australia Committee HE-030 Biological and Clinical Evaluation of Medical Devices, which reviews and ratifies ISO 10993 and TC194, the international standard that evaluates the biocompatibility of medical devices and manages biological risk.

Megan is the founding Academic Director of the Australian Graduate School of Engineering Industry PhD Program within the Faculty of Engineering, UNSW Sydney where she has established a program with a focus on both academic and industry expertise supported by a mentoring and networking program to equip graduates with job-ready skills for their next career stage.

Feng Jiang
(, Canada)

Professor Feng Jiang is an Associate Professor at The University of British Columbia and holds a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Functional Biomaterials. His research focuses on the sustainable isolation and modification of lignocellulosic nanomaterials, along with the advanced manufacturing of bio-based products for emerging thermal, environmental, electrical, and energy applications. With over 100 journal articles published in esteemed journals such as Nature Materials, Chemical Reviews, Advanced Materials, Materials Today, and others, Professor Jiang has made significant contributions to the field. He has also delivered over 100 invited presentations at international conferences and universities and serves as Editor of Carbohydrate Polymers. Recognized for his research excellence, he has received prestigious awards including the 2021 ACS CELL KINGFA Young Investigator Award, the 2023 UBC Faculty of Forestry Outstanding Research Award, the 2023 TAPPI Nano Mid-Career Award, and the Paper360° 2022 TOP 50 POWER LIST, and 2024 UBC Killam Faculty Research Prize Senior Category @KillamTrusts Laureate. Professor Jiang holds leadership roles in the ACS CELL Division and TAPPI Nano Division. His research has led to the generation of 5 patents, numerous provisional patents, and has been covered by over 300 different media outlets, including CBC, CTV, and BNN Bloomberg.

Guang Yang
(Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China)

Guang Yang is Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. She received PhD degree in Chemistry from Wuhan University, China. She remained the Distinguished Young Chutian Scholar and Outstanding Talents in Hubei province, as well as Alexander von Humboldt and JSPS fellow. She was also a visiting scholar in Asahi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., Japan and University of Akron, USA. Currently, she is serving as the Deputy Director of the Cellulose division of the Chinese Chemical Society, Deputy Director of the Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Committee of Chinese Bioengineering Society, and the council member of several committees, including the Nanocellulose and Materials Committee of China Paper Association, the Polymer Materials Analysis Technology and Characterization Method Committee of Chinese Chemical Society, the Biomedical Polymer Materials Branch of China Biomaterials Society. She is an editorial board member of Carbohydrate Polymers, Polymers, Engineered Science, Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials, etc. She is Stanford University 's Top 2 % of Global Scientists, has authored more than 200 publications in high impact international peer-reviewed journals (h index = 47, citations: 7882 based on Scopus), including Progress in Materials Science, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Science, Advanced Functional Materials, Biotechnology Advances, Materials Horizons, Biomaterials, ACS nano, Bioactive Materials, Nano-Micro Letters, Small, etc. She edited 3 books, authored several chapters, and registered more than 30 authorized patents. Her current research focuses on the development of nanocellulose-based functional materials, design and fabrication of novel nano-drug transporters, 3D printing, nano-assembly of ordered materials, and tissue engineering.

Orlando Rojas
(The University of British Columbia, Canada)

Professor Rojas is a Canada Excellence Research Chair in University of British Columbia and Director of the Bioproducts Institute. Prof. Rojas received the Anselme Payen Award, the highest recognition in the area of cellulose and renewable materials. He is an elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2013), the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (2017) and recipient of the Tappi Nanotechnology Award (2015). During his career Prof. Rojas has advised 50 postdoctoral fellows, 61 PhD and 50 MS students. He has also hosted 112 international visiting scholars and professors. With a h-index of 92 and >40000 citations (Google Scholar), he has authored about ca. 550 peer-reviewed papers and a larger number of conference contributions related to the core research, mainly dealing with nanostructures from renewable materials and their utilization in multiphase systems. He is a to 1% researcher by citations for field and year according to Clarivate 2022.

Feng Jiang
(The University of British Columbia, Canada)

Professor Feng Jiang is an Associate Professor at The University of British Columbia and holds a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Functional Biomaterials. His research focuses on the sustainable isolation and modification of lignocellulosic nanomaterials, along with the advanced manufacturing of bio-based products for emerging thermal, environmental, electrical, and energy applications. With over 100 journal articles published in esteemed journals such as Nature Materials, Chemical Reviews, Advanced Materials, Materials Today, and others, Professor Jiang has made significant contributions to the field. He has also delivered over 100 invited presentations at international conferences and universities and serves as Editor of Carbohydrate Polymers. Recognized for his research excellence, he has received prestigious awards including the 2021 ACS CELL KINGFA Young Investigator Award, the 2023 UBC Faculty of Forestry Outstanding Research Award, the 2023 TAPPI Nano Mid-Career Award, and the Paper360° 2022 TOP 50 POWER LIST, and 2024 UBC Killam Faculty Research Prize Senior Category @KillamTrusts Laureate. Professor Jiang holds leadership roles in the ACS CELL Division and TAPPI Nano Division. His research has led to the generation of 5 patents, numerous provisional patents, and has been covered by over 300 different media outlets, including CBC, CTV, and BNN Bloomberg.

Guang Yang
(Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China)

Guang Yang is Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. She received PhD degree in Chemistry from Wuhan University, China. She remained the Distinguished Young Chutian Scholar and Outstanding Talents in Hubei province, as well as Alexander von Humboldt and JSPS fellow. She was also a visiting scholar in Asahi Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., Japan and University of Akron, USA. Currently, she is serving as the Deputy Director of the Cellulose division of the Chinese Chemical Society, Deputy Director of the Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Committee of Chinese Bioengineering Society, and the council member of several committees, including the Nanocellulose and Materials Committee of China Paper Association, the Polymer Materials Analysis Technology and Characterization Method Committee of Chinese Chemical Society, the Biomedical Polymer Materials Branch of China Biomaterials Society. She is an editorial board member of Carbohydrate Polymers, Polymers, Engineered Science, Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials, etc. She is Stanford University 's Top 2 % of Global Scientists, has authored more than 200 publications in high impact international peer-reviewed journals (h index = 47, citations: 7882 based on Scopus), including Progress in Materials Science, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Science, Advanced Functional Materials, Biotechnology Advances, Materials Horizons, Biomaterials, ACS nano, Bioactive Materials, Nano-Micro Letters, Small, etc. She edited 3 books, authored several chapters, and registered more than 30 authorized patents. Her current research focuses on the development of nanocellulose-based functional materials, design and fabrication of novel nano-drug transporters, 3D printing, nano-assembly of ordered materials, and tissue engineering.

Maryam Badv
(University of Calgary, Canada)

Dr. Badv is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and a member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute at the University of Calgary. She has contributed significantly to the field of biomaterial science and engineering, especially in antifouling biointerface design, development, and testing. After earning her PhD from McMaster University and being honored as the Valedictorian of the 2019 graduating class, Dr. Badv furthered her research at UCLA as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow. During her training, she collaborated with an interdisciplinary team of nanoscientists, engineers, clinicians, and industry professionals to develop multifunctional tissue-engineered scaffolds for biomedical applications.

The Badv Lab (Translational Biomedical Engineering Laboratory) focuses on translational biomedical engineering research, working at the interface of engineering, medicine, chemistry and biomedical sciences with the aim to develop multifunctional biomaterials and biomimetic models for various biomedical applications. Throughout her academic journey, Dr. Badv has authored numerous high-impact journal articles, with some of her innovative work leading to patents.

Hao Bai
(Zhejiang University, China)

Dr. Hao Bai is a professor at College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University. His research interests fall in multiscale design and fabrication of bioinspired materials. Representative works include high-performance thermal insulation fiber and textile mimicking polar bear hair and lightweight, multifunctional macroporous materials. His researches have been published in top-tier academic journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Science Advances, and Advanced Materials. His works have over 13,000 citations and have been highlighted in Nature, Science, and Chemistry & Engineering News. He has won the "Outstanding Youth Foundation" from National Natural Science Foundation, the National Overseas High-level Talents Introduction Plan Youth Project Funding, as well as the "Qiu Shi Outstanding Youth Scholar Award" from the Qiu Shi Science and Technology Foundation in Hong Kong, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences President's Special Award. Currently, he serves as a member of the Biomimetic Materials Chemistry Professional Committee of the Chinese Chemical Society, the editorial board member of China Science and Technology Science, etc.

Hao Bai
(Zhejiang University, China)

Dr. Hao Bai is a professor at College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University. His research interests fall in multiscale design and fabrication of bioinspired materials. Representative works include high-performance thermal insulation fiber and textile mimicking polar bear hair and lightweight, multifunctional macroporous materials. His researches have been published in top-tier academic journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Science Advances, and Advanced Materials. His works have over 13,000 citations and have been highlighted in Nature, Science, and Chemistry & Engineering News. He has won the "Outstanding Youth Foundation" from National Natural Science Foundation, the National Overseas High-level Talents Introduction Plan Youth Project Funding, as well as the "Qiu Shi Outstanding Youth Scholar Award" from the Qiu Shi Science and Technology Foundation in Hong Kong, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences President's Special Award. Currently, he serves as a member of the Biomimetic Materials Chemistry Professional Committee of the Chinese Chemical Society, the editorial board member of China Science and Technology Science, etc.

Jangho Kim
(Chonnam National University, Korea, Republic of)

Dr. Jangho Kim is a Professor of Convergence Biosystems Engineering at Chonnam National University. He also serves as a Director of BK21 FOUR Center for IT-Bio Convergence System Agriculture and a founder and CEO in NANOBIOSYSTEM, CO., LTD. He received the Ph.D. degrees in biosystems engineering from Seoul National University, South Korea. He also worked as a Research in the Thin Film & Charged Particles Research Laboratory at Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include 1) micro/nanofabrication & biologically inspired engineering systems, 2) mechanobiology & tissue engineering, and 3) bio/agricultural nanotechnology. He has authored and co-authored more than 145 peer-reviewed journal publications and 25 issued or pending patents. He is an Associate Editor of Journal of Biosystems Engineering (Springer Nature), Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (Frontiers), and IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience (IEEE), and serves as a member of the editorial boards of several journals. Among the awards he has received are Young Scientist Award (Korean and Japan Society for Biomaterials), Tissue Engineering Young Investigator (Tissue Engineering Parts A, B, & C), Young Plenary Speaker (TERMIS-AP conference), Samsung HumanTech Paper Award (Samsung Electronics), Keynote Speaker (TERM STEM 2014), Promising Young Scientist (Bioengineering Division, Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers), Excellent Young Professor Award (Chonnam National University), and Outstanding Reviewer (Biomaterials, Elsevier).

Kazumasa Suzuki
(Nagoya Univeristy, Japan)

Kazumasa Suzuki received Ph.D. (Engineering) from the University of Cagliari, Italy, and Osaka Prefecture University, Japan, as a double degree in 2017. After receiving the degree, he began his career as an assistant professor at the University of Shiga Prefecture in 2017 and was promoted to the lecturer position in 2019. He moved to Nagoya University and has been a lecturer since 2022. His research interests include the structural design of inorganic-based materials for the development of new functions in metastable states via relatively low-temperature synthesis based on solution processes to control the nanostructure, phase transition, and composite.

Patricia Dankers
(Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands)

Patricia Dankers is professor in Biomedical Materials & Chemistry at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), The Netherlands. She studied chemistry in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her PhD studies were performed at TU/e, on supramolecular biomaterials (2006). She worked for SupraPolix, and the University Medical Center, Groningen. Her second PhD thesis work was performed in medical sciences on kidney regenerative medicine, in Groningen (2013). She worked at Northwestern University, Chicago, USA (2010). She climbed every step on the academic ladder, starting in 2008, ending in 2017 as full professor. She received Veni, Vidi, Vici (2008, 2017, 2023) and ERC starting, ERC PoC (2012, 2017) grants. She has been awarded the KNCV Gold Medal (2020) and the Ammodo Award for Fundamental Science (2021). She is a co-founder of the spin-off companies UPyTher (2020) and VivArt-X (2022). She is one of the main applicants of the Gravitation Grant to found the Research Center for Interactive Polymer Materials (IPM), in Eindhoven (2022).

Matthew Webber
(University of Notre Dame, USA)

Matthew Webber is the Keating-Crawford Collegiate Professor of Engineering and an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame (USA). His research group is interested in applying supramolecular principles, leveraging defined and rationally designed non-covalent interactions, to improve biomaterials and drug delivery. Prof. Webber received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. Subsequently, he was an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He is the recipient of the American Diabetes Association Pathway Accelerator Award and the JDRF Career Development award, and was named by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers as one of the “35 under 35” young leaders shaping the field in 2017. He also received the NSF CAREER award in 2020 and was inducted to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2023.

Jacek Wychowaniec
(AO Research Institute Davos, Switzerland)

I am an enthusiastic Research Scientist currently interested in the advancement of healthcare systems through design of novel and innovative technologies based on soft matter materials and additive manufacturing.

Alberto Saiani
(University of Manchester, United Kingdom)

Alberto graduated from the University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France with a MSc in Soft Condensed Matter Physics and subsequently did a PhD in Polymer Physics at the same University. Following his PhD he held several post-doctoral positions in Japan, at Osaka University for which he was awarded a Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship, in the UK, at imperial College London and in Belgium, at Huntsman Polyurethanes. In 2000 he was appointed lecturer at the University Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, France before joining in 2002 the Department of Materials at the University of Manchester where he co-established the Polymers & Peptides Research Group (polymersandpeptides.co.uk) which is currently based at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB).
His research work spans a wide area of experimental polymer and biopolymer science and focuses on understanding the chemical architecture - thermodynamic - structure - physical property correlations in complex polymeric systems, encompassing a variety of synthetic and biological materials. His work includes fundamental, industrial, and translational research.
In 2006 he was awarded a 6-months industrial fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineers (RAEng) to work at AstraZeneca and in 2013 he was awarded a 5-year research fellowship by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC, UK) to pursue his work on the development of a technological platform for the design of self-assembled peptide based biomaterials for a broad range of biomedical applications from cell culture and drug / cell delivery to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In 2016 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
In 2014 this work led him to co-found a start-up company, Manchester BIOGEL, which for almost 10 years developed and commercialised advanced gel-based combination products for the life science and biomedical sector. In 2023 the PeptiGels® technology was taken on by Cell Guidance Systems (www.cellgs.com).
In November 2022, after 20 years in the Department of Materials, Alberto joined the Division of Pharmacy and Optometry in Manchester to pursue translational projects, looking at moving his biomaterial technology from the lab to the clinic.

Jacek Wychowaniec
(AO Research Institute Davos, Switzerland)

I am an enthusiastic Research Scientist currently interested in the advancement of healthcare systems through design of novel and innovative technologies based on soft matter materials and additive manufacturing.

Gulden Camci-Unal
(University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA)

Dr. Gulden Camci-Unal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her current research interests include the development of unconventional biomaterials such as eggshell microparticle-reinforced scaffolds, paper-based cell culture platforms, plant-derived scaffolds, and origami-inspired tissue engineered products. She also works on developing multicellular and compartmentalized tissue mimetics for regenerative engineering, hydrogel-based platforms for personalized medicine, bioactive scaffolds for template-guided biomineralization, oxygen-generating biomaterials for tissue repair, stem cell delivery approaches, and paper-based biosensors for low-cost and rapid detection of bacterial and viral diseases including Covid-19. Her research has been supported by the NIH, NSF, US Army, ONR, Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), American Heart Association (AHA), and Phase 1 and Phase 2 SBIR and STTR grants. Dr. Camci-Unal’s research and teaching achievements include the Robert and Gail Ward Endowed Professorship (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023), University of Massachusetts Lowell Teaching Excellence Award, Iowa State University Teaching Excellence Award, Runner-Up for the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2) $200K Challenge (2019, 2020), Wakonse Fellowship, Chevron-Phillips Award, Procter&Gamble Fellowship, and finalist for BioFlux Innovation Award. Her research has resulted in 94+ papers, 88+ conference abstracts, and 10+ patent applications so far. She is an Associate Editor for Bioactive Materials, and an Editorial Board member of Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group), PLoS One, Gels, Regenerative Engineering and Translational Medicine, International Journal of Bioprinting, and Micromachines.

Syam Nukavarapu
(University of Connecticut, USA)

Syam Nukavarapu, Ph.D., is a Castleman Professor in Engineering Innovation at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut (UConn). He holds joint appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UConn, and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, UConn Health. Dr. Nukavarapu leads the Tissue Engineering Science and Technology Laboratory (TEST Lab) at UConn, and his research interests include biomaterials, engineered grafts, and tissue engineering. Dr. Nukavarapu has authored over eighty original articles, book chapters, and invited opinion articles/reviews. He co-edited a textbook on tissue engineering, MRS symposium proceedings on bioinspired materials and structures, and a special issue on the topic of “Future of Biomaterials.” He serves on the editorial boards of major journals in the field, including Biomaterials, Bioactive Materials, and Tissue Engineering. Dr. Nukavarapu received a distinguished engineering educator award and has been an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Bikramjit Basu
(Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India)

Dr. Bikramjit Basu is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, since 2011 and earlier served on the faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (2001-2011). He has been pursuing research at the confluence of Materials Science, Additive Manufacturing, Biological Science, and Medicine, to address many unanswered questions related to regenerative engineering and reconstructive surgeries. His research group has effectively applied the principles and tools of these disciplines to develop next-generation implants and bioengineering solutions to address unmet clinical needs for musculoskeletal, dental, and neurosurgical applications; thereby impacting human healthcare. His research group has developed technologies related to the manufacturing of bioceramics, acetabular liners, customized bone flaps for cranioplasty surgeries, dental implants and variants of hydrogels. These technologies are transferred to multinational corporates or start-ups, and many of the products, after regulatory clearances, are currently used for patient care in India.
A Chartered Engineer of the UK, he has the unique distinction of being the only ceramic scientist from India to get elected to all the major international societies and academies, including the World Academy of Ceramics (2024), the European Ceramic Society (2023), the American Ceramic Society (2019). In India, he is the only engineering scientist to get elected as a Fellow of all the National Academies of Engineering, Science and Medicine, including the Indian National Science Academy (2021), Indian Academy of Sciences (2020), American Ceramic Society (2019), National Academy of Medical Sciences (2017), Indian National Academy of Engineering (2015), and National Academy of Sciences, India (2013). Internationally, he is an elected fellow of the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (2020), International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (2017) and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (2015). He is a recipient of India’s most prestigious Science and Technology award, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (2013) from the Prime Minister of India; and globally competent awards, like Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation (2022), and International Richard Brook Award from the European Ceramic Society (2022). He is currently serving on many advisory panels of the national institutes, European university and federal funding agencies as well as major multinational corporates. As the current President of the Society for Biomaterials and Artificial Organs India (1000+ members across India, US and Europe) and in his leadership roles as the Chair of Bioceramics Division and other principal committees of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS), he has brought transformative changes to significantly enhance international visibility of the biomaterials programs in different countries, while inspiring several hundreds of young researchers in Bioceramics area across the world. Such activities together with his roles as the lead investigator in several multi-institutional network programs including multicentric clinical studies enabled creating a vibrant translational ecosystem, to bring together key stakeholders (industry professionals and clinicians) on the innovation platform in India.

Jungbin Yoon
(POSTECH, Korea, Republic of)

Dr Jungbin Yoon is a research professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at POSTECH. She received her bachelor's
degree from the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto in 2011. She completed her PhD at the School of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University in 2019. Her current research interests include developing an integrative multi-organ-on-a-chip by utilizing multi-biofabrication techniques, including 3D bioprinting technology and tissue-specific bioinks.

Ge Gao
(School of Medical Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, China)

Dr. Ge Gao received his Ph.D. at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at POSTECH in 2019 and joined Beijing Institute of Technology at the end of 2020 as an assistant professor in the School of Medical Technology. His research focuses on novel 3D bioprinting strategies, formulation of innovative bioinks, as well as building tissue/organ equivalents, in vitro disease modeling, and organ-on-a-chip for applications in regenerative medicine, analytics, and diagnostics. The achievements have been published in over 20 top journals, including Advanced Functional Materials, Biomaterials, Biofabrication, Applied Physics Reviews, Small Methods, and other high-impact journals.