Thomas J. Webster’s (H index: 137) degrees are in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh (B.S., 1995; USA) and in biomedical engineering from RPI (Ph.D., 2000; USA). He has formed over a dozen companies who have numerous FDA approved medical products currently improving human health in over 45,000 patients. He is currently helping those companies and serves as a professor at Brown University, Saveetha University, HebeiUniversity of Technology, UFPI, University of the Basque Country, and others. Dr. Webster has numerous awards including: 2020, World Top 2% Scientist by Citations (PLOS); 2020, SCOPUS Highly Cited Research (Top 1% Materials Science and Mixed Fields); 2021, Clarivate Top 0.1% Most Influential Researchers (Pharmacology and Toxicology); 2022, Best Materials Science Scientist by Citations (Research.com); and is a fellow of over 8 societies.Prof. Webster is a former President of the U.S. Society for Biomaterials and has over 1,350 publications to his credit with over 55,000 citations. He was recently nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Prof. Webster also recently formed a fund to support Nigerian student research opportunities in the U.S.

Prof. Ernst Wagner is Chair of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Department Pharmacy, LMU Munich, Germany (2001-2026). He was Director Cancer Vaccines, BoehringerIngelheim 1992-2001 (world-wide first polymer-based gene therapy in 1994), 1987-1995 Group Leader at IMP Vienna and Vienna University Biocenter, 1985-1987 postdoc at ETH Zurich, 1985 PhD (TU Vienna, Austria). He is Academician of European Academy of Sciences, Controlled Release Society (CRS) College of Fellows, Honorary Professor at U of Sichuan. He authored ≥ 534 publications, with ≥ 56 800 citations, h-index 120 (GS).

Dr. Z. Hong Zhou is a Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics and the Founding Director of the Electron Imaging Center for Nanosystems (EICN, at UCLA. Trained as a nuclear physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China, he earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine under Wah Chiu and honed his computational skills as a postdoctoral fellow with mathematician Ridgway Scott. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Zhou has made seminal contributions to infectious disease research and structural biology, focusing on herpesviruses, dsRNA viruses, and protozoan pathogenesis complexes. A pioneer in cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM), his group was among the first to demonstrate de novo construction of backbone (Yu et al., Nature 2008) and atomic models (Zhang et al., Cell 2010; Liu et al., Science 2010) of large biological machines using cryoEM alone. Recently, Zhou has advanced cryoEM to study smaller complexes, developing innovative methods like cryoID (Nature Methods 2019) for cellular extracts and IsoNet/spIsoNet (Nature Communications 2022) for in situ cryogenic electron tomography (cryoET). Recent efforts have shifted to protein design and bio-engineering for biomedical applications, taking advantage of his experts in structural biology and discovery research. With over 320 publications, including more than 30 in Nature, Science, and Cell, Dr. Zhou’s work has garnered ~33,000 citations (h-index 89, i10-index 258; He is a Pew Scholar, Burton Award recipient, and an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Brian Cantor is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford, a Research Professor in the Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology at Brunel University London, and a Chief Editor of the Springer-Nature research journal High Entropy Alloys and Materials. He was previously Vice-Chancellor (President) of the University of York and the University of Bradford, Head of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Oxford, and a research scientist and engineer at General Electric Research Labs in the USA; he also worked briefly at Banaras Hindu University, Washington State, Northeastern University, IISc Bangalore and the Kobe Institute. He founded and built up the World Technology Universities Network, the UK National Science Learning Centre, the Hull-York Medical School, Oxford’s Begbroke Science Park, the York Heslington East campus, the Wolfson Centre for Applied Health Studies, and the UN-backed International Centre of Excellence (ICE) in Circular Materials. He was a long-standing consultant for Alcan, NASA and Rolls-Royce;editor of Progress in Materials Science; Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering; and Trustee of the UK National Science Museum Group, Marshall Scholarship Commission, and Leeds, York and Bradford Chambers of Commerce and Economic Development Boards. He invented the field of multicomponent high-entropy alloys and discovered the so-called Cantor alloys.He has won honours and prizes from many countries around the world. He is aCommander of the British Empire (CBE), Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng).