Shenping Hu earned her MD from Tonji Medical University, China and Ph.D from Sydney University, Australia and completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard and Boston University Medical Schools. She joined Shantou University Medical College of China in 1999 and is currently a faculty member and professor in molecular biology and forensic genetics. The interest of her laboratory is to investigate human DNA, polymorphism in genetic susceptibility to cancers, particularly polymorphisms of HLA and nasopharyngeal and esophageal carcinomas, two cancers with high prevalence in certain areas in south China. She is state-certified for DNA parentage testing and her laboratory also embarks on research related to the forensic molecular genetics. She has served as a grant reviewer for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and served other grant provider bodies and a referee for several prestigious journals including Human Immunology, Tissue Antigens, Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice and for the Bentham Science Publishers.

Shenping Hu research interests include Human DNA polymorphisms (HLA, STRs, mtDNA) in genetic susceptibility to cancers and its applications in forensic and population genetics.

Natalay Kouprina received her M.Sc. in physical chemistry from the St. Petersburg State University, Russia, and her Ph.D. and Dr.Sc. in cell biology from the Institute of Cytology, Russian Academy of Sciences. While in Russia, she worked on the identification of genes that control the replication and segregation of chromosomes in budding yeast. In 1991 she moved to the United States and focused her interests on genomics. At present she is a staff scientist at the National Cancer Institute, USA. Her current interest is to combine a transformation-associated recombination (TAR) cloning technology that allows selective isolation of a gene of interest up to 300 kb in size from complex genomes, including humans, with the human artificial chromosome or HAC-based gene delivery vector to develop a novel system for the delivery and expression of full-length mammalian genes. Such a novel approach has a potential for gene functional studies and gene therapy. She has 83 publications in many leading journals.

Combining a transformation-associated recombination (TAR) cloning technology that allows selective isolation of a gene of interest up to 300 kb in size from complex genomes, including humans, with the human artificial chromosome or HAC-based gene delivery vector to develop a novel system for the delivery and expression of full-length mammalian genes.

George Perry is Dean of the College of Sciences and professor of biology at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Perry is recognized in the field of Alzheimer’s disease research, particularly for his work on Oxidative Stress. Perry received his bachelors of arts degree in zoology with high honors from University of California, Santa Barbara. After graduation he headed to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and obtained his Ph.D in marine biology under David Epel in 1979. He then received a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Cell Biology in the laboratories of Dr. Bill Brinkley and Joseph Bryan at Bayor College of Medicine where he laid the foundation for his observations of abnormalities in cell structure.

His research interest is on Alzheimer’s disease, Oxidative stress, Parkinson’s disease, Cytoskeleton Mitochondria, Amyloidosis, Neuropathology, Cytochemistry.

Kazi Rafiqul Islam is currently working in Department of Pharmacology at Kagawa university, Japan.

Genetic Syndromes & Gene Therapy

Dr. Ram Kushal Singh, presently holding the position of Head, Center for Sugarcane Biotechnology at Sugarcane Research institute, Shahjahanpur, India, has a distinguished record all throughout his long research career spanning over two and half decades begin 1984 when he enrolled for his Ph.D. program in Cytogenetics at Gorakhpur University, India. He holds the credit for guiding more than 14 students towards the accomplishment of their M.Sc. /Ph.D. Degrees. He specializes in sugarcane molecular biology, transgenic sugarcane, Cytogenetics, and Plant Breeding. Dr. Singh has more than 32 publications to his credit in premier international journals and also developed 7 sugarcane varieties for general cultivation.

He specializes in sugarcane molecular biology, transgenic sugarcane, Cytogenetics, and Plant Breeding.

Dr. Rudenko serves the Food and Drug Administration Director of Animal Biotechnology at the Center for Veterinary Medicine. In that capacity, she has worked within the agency, at the USG coordinating level, and with public and private sector stakeholders to develop a coherent, science-based policy for the regulation of animal biotechnology. She been responsible for the successful development and implementation of new paradigms for the risk assessment of animal clones and genetically engineered animals by working with diverse groups of subject area experts. Dr. Rudenko is recognized internationally as an expert in animal biotechnology, having served on a European Food Safety Authority working group on animal cloning, FAO-WHO Codex Alimentarius Task Forces and Expert Consultations, OECD Working Groups, international and US federal grant study sections, program review committees, and scientific advisory panels to the US government and industry sectors. Dr. Rudenko received her AB degree from Bowdoin College (Biology, Music) and her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (Brookhaven National Laboratory), and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.

She been responsible for the successful development and implementation of new paradigms for the risk assessment of animal clones and genetically engineered animals by working with diverse groups of subject area experts.

Dr. Qi serves as Editor-in-Chief for World Journal of Diabetes, Associate Editor for BMC Medical Genetics, and editorial board member for the Journal of Nutrition, the International Journal of Molecular Epidemiology and Genetics, and Frontiers in Nutrigenomics. Dr. Qi is a fellow of American Heart Association (FAHA) and American College of Nutrition (FACN).

Dr. Qi's research has focused on the genetic, nutrition, biochemical risk factors and gene-environment interactions in relation to obesity, type 2 diabetes and the cardiovascular complications in diabetic patients. Dr. Qi is the Principal Investigator of NIH R01 grant 'Obesity Genes, Energy Regulation in Response to Weight-Loss Diets' (NIDDK), a study in large cohorts (the NHS and HPFS) and randomized intervention trials (the Pounds Lost trial and DIRECT trial); he is the Principal Investigator of NIH R01 grant on the genome-wide association study of coronary heart disease among diabetic patients in the NHS and HPFS (NHLBI); he is the Principal Investigator of the American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant on the biochemical and genetic predictors for cardiovascular disease in diabetes; he is Co-Principal Investigator of European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes (EFSD) funded lifestyle intervention trial on prevention of metabolic risk in women with history of gestational diabetes (GDM). As Principal Investigator, he is also leading a metabolomic study in two diet intervention trials funded by U.S. – Israel Binational Science Foundation.

Prof. Mariam Sticklen has been a faculty member at MSU for the last 25 years and at the Ohio State University for 4 years. She is the recipient of Michigan State University 2009 Outstanding Faculty Woman Award, the 2008 University of Southern Mississippi and Hattiesburg Clinic Scholar Anti-HIV Speaker Award, and the 2000 Ralph H. Smuckler Award for Advancing Research, Studies and Programs at International Level. She is the inventor of over a dozen of patents, some exclusively licensed by a private sector. Prof. Sticklen has published two books and over 160 other publications. Presently, she serves as the Editor-In-Chief of one refereed journal and as Editorial Board Member of 3 other refereed journals.

Applied research on addressing the production of industrial biotechnological molecules in cellulosic biomass of feedstock crops for a sustainable biofuel and other biobased economy; Safe methods to develop and use genetic modification (GM) technologies that have no or very minimum concerns among the public; The specific biobased molecules that she has produced in corn leaves and stalks include: (1) Heterologous biodegradable plastic enzymes, polyhydroxybutyrate, (2) Heterologous microbial endoglucanase, (3) Heterologous microbial exoglucanase (Trichoderma reesei cellubiohydrolase or CBH1), and (4) production of a South African rumen anaerobic microbe cellobiase enzyme in corn biomass. Her team produces all these industrial molecules successfully in crops to replace the same molecules that are at present expensively produced in microbial fomenters; Another area of research of Dr. Sticklen is down regulation of lignin biosynthesis pathway enzymes to modify lignin configuration and content.

Arvind Chhabra is an Assistant Professor at Department of Medicine and Stem Cell Institute of University of Connecticut Health Center. He has completed his postdoctoral research in 2007 from Department of Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center before which he attained his doctoral degree from Department of Microbiology of Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) located at Lucknow, India in 2001.

His research work is aimed at developing an effective immune based cancer therapy. Since most human tumor antigens are “self-antigens” and most human tumors are MHC class I positive, but MHC class II negative the generation of a potent anti-tumor immune response faces many inherent constraints. Among these include and extremely low precursor frequency of an ti-tumor T cells in tumor immunity, expecially in an antigen specific manner. They have developed multiple approach to effectively address these limitations, utilizing the human melanoma associated antigens as model tumor antigens. He have published his findings in prominent peer-review journal and research work has earned him several awards at international cancer immunotherapy meetings. In addition to his work on human melanoma, ongoing research efforts in his laboratory are aimed at extending his expertise to the human breast cancer model and also to utilize the human pluripotent stem cells [hps, i.e.. human embryonic stem cells (hES) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS)] for developing patient specific cancer immunotherapy approaches through TCR engineering approach.

Yujing LI received his Ph.D from Institute of Genetics Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing China in 1996. Currently he is working as a Senior Scientist at Department of Human Genetics, Emory University. His research interests are molecular genetics in human, mouse and fly; neuroscience particularly in the roles of non-coding RNAs in neural development and neurodegeneration as well as chemical approaches towards dissection of RNAi pathway. He has authored more than 30 research articles and several book chapters. He is the member of American Society of Human Genetics. He has been honored as an honorary Professor at the Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and Breeding of Shaanxi Province PR China from 1997-2000.

Yujing LI research includes non-coding RNAs and neurodegeneration, epigenetics, neuron development and chemical biology approach towards the dissection of RNAi pathway.

Xinghua (Victor) Pan obtained his M.D. degree from the Southern Medical University (previously called First Military Medical University), Guangzhou, China and earned his Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Genetics, Fudan University School of Life Science, Shanghai, China in 1993. His Ph.D. research was on the genetic associations between HLA and SLE and myasthenia gravis. After receiving his Ph.D. degree he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the National Key Laboratory of Molecular Oncology, Cancer Institute, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CAMS & PUMC), identifying a candidate tumor suppressor gene with a grant support from The China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. Beginning in December 1994, he served as Associate Professor in Genetics in the Department of Biology, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China, where he earned his grant from the National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF) of China, with which he established nm23 transgenic mouse and elucidated its effect on hepatocarcinoma. In addition, he studied EBV BHRF1 on nasopharyngeal carcinoma, reconstructed the phylogenetic tree of mammalian MHC DQA alleles based on nucleotide substitution and codon usage, and found the role of positive selection in maintaining their polymorphism. In 1997, Dr. Pan joined Dr. Sherman Weissman’s laboratory in the Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, and developed an approach (Gadav) globally scanning the DNA mutations. From 2000 to 2004, he worked for Molecular Staging Inc. as a Research Scientist and Enzymatic Leader, and substantially contributed to the development of a kit for whole-genome-amplification (WGA), REPLIg, which is currently used world-wide and regarded as one of the best WGA technologies. In 2004, he obtained his current position as an Associate Research Scientist, working with Dr. Weissman, and in recent years he has been focusing on the development of the technologies for functional studies for single and low quantity of cells, especially single cell WGA, whole transcriptome amplification, and CpG methylation profiling, for which he conceived and is supported currently by a NIH R21 grant. Prior to this, he obtained a pilot grant from NIH via the Yale Skin Diseases Research Core Center (YSDRCC). These technologies combining with other advanced platforms are being applied in iPS, ESC and adult stem cells (ASC, including hematopoietic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells), neurons and cancers.

His research is on functional genomics, focusing on the development and application of functional genomics technologies for analysis of single cells and low quantity of cells. These approaches include whole DNA pool amplification, whole mRNA transcriptome amplification, CpG methylation pattern scanning, DNase hypersensitive and resistant sites profiling, and telomere size analysis. Combining these technologies with second generation sequencing and microfluidic platform, and collaborating with other research teams, his group explores the genomic and epigenomic mechanism for reprogramming and transdifferentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), differentiation of embryo stem cells (ESCs) and adult stem cells (ASC, including hematopoietic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells), molecular regulation underlying sensory neurons, embryo development and carcinogenesis.

The CORL’s research has focused on the translational science in the area of gene therapy, cell therapy, and molecular engineering. The laboratory has demonstrated that the direct and cell-based gene therapy can promote improved healing of bone and cartilage tissue with rodent and equine models by using sophisticated imaging and gene expression analysis. These gene therapy strategies have already entered a clinical trial for complicated orthopedic disorders in various veterinary patients such as dogs, horses, and llamas. In addition, the laboratory has extensive studied the RNA-silencing technology to modurate cytokine activities for the treatment of arthritis with rodent models. Moreover, CORL has performed a number of equine exercise physiology projects to study the pharmacokinetics of several medications used for the treatments of musculoskeletal diseases. Furthermore, the laboratory has investigated the efficacy and safety of platelet-rich plasma therapy for the treatments of joint and ligament disorders as it’s already moved forward to clinical trials of equine patients with osteoarthrits and ligament injuries. All of these research works have shown extensive promising results, and some of therapeutic methods have already been applied for clinical cases with orthopedic conditions to make substantial contributions on health and welfare of veterinary patients and clients.

Dr Bertone has an interest in the molecular and stem cell therapy for various orthopedic disorders, pharmacokinetics of medications for the treatments of musculoskeletal diseases, nuclear imaging to study equine arthritis, and autologous blood products for equine bone and joint disorders. Dr Bertone has also designed the first commercial-grade equine microarray (equine GeneChip®). Dr Bertone is the Director of the Comparative Orthopedic Research Laboratories (CORL) in the College of Veterinary Medicine at The Ohio State University (OSU). Dr Bertone serves in the Trueman Endowed Chair at OSU, as well as the Director of Basic Science and Industry Contracts in Sports, Health and Performance Institute at OSU.

Katherine M. Pappas completed her Ph.D. at the University of Athens (UoA) and postdoctoral studies at Cornell University, NY. She is currently Assistant Professor at UoA, where she teaches at the under- and postgraduate level. She has served as an elected administrative member in UoA, consultant for Food Safety in the Greek Ministry of Health (EFET), proposal evaluator in Greece and the EU, and ad hoc or permanent reviewer for highly reputable journals. She currently holds two collaboration projects with the US DOE-JGI, and is author of many papers in high impact-factor journals and book chapters.

Bacterial Molecular Genetics; Genomics; Plasmid Biology;Strain engineering; Quorum sensing; Transcriptional regulation; Bioethanol prodcution; Transgenic plant technology: Zymomonas mobilis, Agrobacterium tumefaciens

Prof. Shahzad, currently based in Vienna, Austria, is one of the pioneers, working for the progress of Translational Medicine (TM) field. Prof. Shahzad is currently serving as Director of Administration and Secretary General for “International Society for Translational Medicine (ISTM)”. He is also acting as a chair for Translational Medicine SIAC group at ‘Dug Information Association’ (DIA). Prof. Shahzad is serving as editor-in-chief for ‘Molecular Medicine & Therapeutics (MMT) Journal and for ‘Translational Biomedicine’ Journal. Prof. Shahzad has advised and participated in establishing Translational Medicine infrastructure for several organizations. Dr Shahzad is invited speaker for many international life sciences conferences. He is professor of Microbiology (V) and Professor of Medicine (V), at Harbin Medical University. In addition, various organizations are getting benefited from wide expertise of Prof.Shahzad in his capacity as a medical advisor and medical scientific expert.

Dr. Bera received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Calcutta University, India. He completed his postdoctoral research training at the Cancer Research Laboratory, UC Berkeley and at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute. Currently he held the Associate Scientist position at the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health.

His research goal and objectives are focused mainly on to understand the molecular basis of cancer by identifying the genes involved in this process and translate that information to possible targeted therapy of cancer.

Cai graduated from Hunan Medical University in China (M.D equivalent) and from the Tokushima University School of Medicine in Japan (Ph.D). Dr. Cai currently is the research faculty member of section of nephrology at Yale University School of Medicine and Yale PKD Center and is also the Guest (Visiting) Professor of Central South University, South Medical University and Chen-Du Medical College of China. Dr. Cai is the co-author in more than 40 research publications in well recognized journals including “Science’, “Cell”, “Nature Genetics”, “Nature Cell Biology”, “J Biol Chem” etc., Dr. Cai is the four times recipient of the Travel Award of the American Society of Nephrology (05’,08’,09’ & 10’ ) and the recipient of the American Heart Association Scientist Development Award, the PKD Foundation Research Grant, the NIH Sponsored Nephrology Training Grant and the Fuji-Ostuka Fellowship for International Exchange Program (Japan). Dr. Cai has been invited to give lectures in Universities in USA, Canada, South Korea and China and invited to serve as the reviewer for the “Journal of American Society of Nephrology”, “kidney International”, “Cancer Letter” and “African Journal of Biotechnology”. Dr. Cai also serves as the editorial board member for the “World Journal of Nephrology” and for the journal “Health”.

Genetic kidney disease, polycystic kidney disease, molecular pathogenesis, cell biology and protein biochemistry, transgenic animal model

Prof. Momiao Xiong is currently working as Professor in the Biostatistics department at the University of Texas School of Public Health, USA. Momiao Xiong earned his Ph.D. degree in Statistics in 1990-1993 from the University Georgia and Postdoctoral Fellows in Computational Biology at the University of Southern California. He received his Master’s degree from the University of Georgia in Statistics. He published 93 papers in several refereed journals.

As the Human Genome Project entered a second phase of genome analysis, our research is directed at developing methodologies for mapping complex traits such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, various cancers and mental diseases, and studying functional genomics. By employing population genetics and investigating common variants with functional significance in the population, we attempt to increase the power and improve the accuracy for mapping human diseases. Current studies for function genomics are directed at multiple DNA sequence alignment, construction of databases recording different types of expression patterns for a variety of human cell types and early human development, developing methods for classifying the profile of gene expressions, establishing genetic circuits for various biological processes and human diseases, and analyzing the dynamic behavior of these genetic circuits.