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Editorial Board Members

Our Editorial Board Members work closely with our in-house editors to ensure that all manuscripts are subject to the same editorial standards and journal policies. Editorial Board Members are active researchers recognized as experts in their field. Our Editorial Board Members handle manuscripts within their areas of expertise, overseeing all aspects of the peer review process from submission to acceptance. 

Cardiovascular Medicine

Fares Al-Ahdab, MD, MSc

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5481-696X
Research interests: Global burden of cardiovascular disease, machine learning, preventive cardiology, nuclear cardiology, systematic review, meta-analysis, echocardiography, cardiac computed tomography angiography

Fares Al-AhdabDr. Fares Al-Ahdab is a physician-scientist with expertise in the areas of research methods and epidemiology, bioinformatics and machine learning, preventive cardiology and nuclear cardiology, along with his long-time research work in the areas of evidence-based medicine, evidence synthesis (systematic reviews and meta-analyses), clinical guidelines and clinical guidelines development. He has published more than 180 peer-reviewed scientific publications including clinical guidelines and authoritative papers, in top-tier journals including The Lancet, BMJ, JAMA, JACC, among others. He has long served as a referee for top journals also, including The Lancet, BMJ, many BMC journals, among others, and an senior/associate editor with several peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Alahdab enjoys medical education and mentorship (on both ends of the transaction) and is an avid reader of nonfiction books. Webpage.

Shiu Lun Ryan Au Yeung, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6136-1836
Research interests: Cardiovascular diseases, Type 2 diabetes, Mendelian randomization, alcohol, epidemiology

Ryan Au YeungRyan Au Yeung (MPH (HKU), PhD (HKU)) is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. He is interested in the use of Mendelian randomization to identify causes and consequences of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes, and to explore drug reposition opportunities. His earlier research focused on exploring the causal role of alcohol in cardiovascular diseases and mental health using ALDH2 polymorphism in a Southern Chinese Biobank (Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study). His recent work involves the use of UK Biobank and summary statistics from genome wide association studies to explore pleiotropic effects of commonly prescribed medications in cardiovascular diseases and diabetes (e.g. metformin). With the COVID-19 pandemic, he is also using Mendelian randomization to explore determinants (e.g. glycaemic traits) contributing to COVID-19 susceptibility. Ryan Au Yeung is currently one of the academic leads of the “Children of 1997” birth cohort in Hong Kong, where he is responsible for curating the genomic and metabolomic data. Webpage

Anping Cai, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3953-5881
Research interests: Hypertension, heart failure, health disparities

Anping Cai picAnping Cai (MD PhD) is currently a cardiologist in Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital and Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute. He is interested in the use of data from population-based study to evaluate the prevalence and potential modifiable risk factors of hypertension and heart failure. In addition, he is also interested in studying the factors related to health disparities. His current research is focused on the burden of hypertension and related cardiovascular disease in the community; and using cardiovascular imaging and plasma biomarker to timely identify people with hypertension who are at high risk of developing cardiovascular events. In addition, his research is also focused on management and outcomes in hospitalized patients with heart failure from registry study, aiming to identify prognostic factors that can be intervened so as to improve the outcomes for these population groups. Furthermore, Dr. Cai is also very interested in health disparities incurred by socioeconomic status and sex/gender. Webpage.

Tao Chen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-5489-6450
Research interests: Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, clinical trial, medical statistics, trial-based or model-based health economics evaluation, clinical epidemiology, system review and meta-analysis

Tao ChenTao Chen earned his first degree in medicine (2006), followed by MSc (2009) and PhD (2012) in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Peking Union Medical College. He joined the Centre for Health Economics at University of York from Nov 2022. Prior to his role at York, he worked at University of Liverpool, Liverpool School of Tropic Medicine, King’s College London and Nanjing Medical University in China.
His research includes: 1) the trial based or model-based economic evaluation. 2) Statistical issues in design, analysis and reporting in clinical trials for medical and public health problems. 3) Disease modelling to assess the clinical and cost impacts from breakthrough trials or health policies locally and globally 4) Epidemiological study in non-communicable diseases, particularly in cardiometabolic diseases. Webpage.
 

Chengming Fan, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-0497-1798
Research interests: Clinic practice, cardiovascular surgery, treatment of ischemic heart disease with human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC)-related strategy and with preclinical animal models

Chengming Fan picDr. Chengming Fan was featured in the list of Most Active Scholars in Global Cardiovascular Surgery Research in 2021. Dr. Fan's research has received support from grants provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Hunan Provincial Excellent Youth Science Foundation, and the Hunan Provincial Excellent Postdoctoral Foundation. He has authored over 50 academic papers in national and international journals, boasting an H-index of 14. Webpage.

Min Gao, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6196-7088
Research interests: Diet, health behaviour, cohort study, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mental illness, health behaviour, obesity, cardiometabolism, BMI, biobank

Min Gao headshotDr Gao is an epidemiologist and health behaviour scientist at University of Oxford. Dr Gao has a particular interest in understanding how health behaviours and obesity impact cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mental health, etc. Dr Gao is experienced in analysing longitudinal data, primary care datasets across behavioural science and health policy. In the meantime, Dr Gao has conducted several systematic reviews and several clinical trials to help patients manage their weight and health behaviours. Webpage. 

Frederick Ho, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7190-9025
Research interests: epidemiology, statistics, cardiovascular, public health

Frederick Ho headshotDr Frederick Ho is a Lecturer in Public Health at the School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow. He received formal training in statistics (BSc Statistics, Chinese University of Hong Kong) and epidemiology (PhD, University of Hong Kong). He has extensive experience working with complex big data, including the Scottish and English primary care, hospital, and death records, national health surveys, and the UK Biobank. His research attempts to uncover the neglected complexity in exposure-outcome associations, such as their nonlinearity, mechanisms, and interactions. He has been the referee for top funders and journals, such as the British Heart Foundation, World Cancer Research Fund, Swiss National Science Foundation, the Lancet, and BMJ. Webpage.

Costan Magnussen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-6238-5730
Research interests: Atherosclerosis, obesity, lipids, blood pressure, chronic disease epidemiology, early-life determinants of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, cardiometabolic conditions with paediatric origins

Dr. Costan Magnussen is a chronic disease epidemiologist and Associate Professor, specialising in the investigation of early-life determinants of cardiovascular and metabolic (cardiometabolic) diseases. Harnessing the power of long-term observational studies, randomised controlled trials, and biorepositories, Dr. Magnussen’s research has advanced our understanding of the development and progression of cardiometabolic conditions with paediatric origins. Currently serving as an Editorial Board Member at BMC Medicine and an Associate Editor at Annals of Medicine, Dr. Magnussen has also provided his expertise as a reviewer for over 50 journals. As a journal editor, he is committed to upholding research standards and cultivating an open and proactive environment for the exchange of ideas toward important discoveries. With a passion for nurturing the next generation of scientists, Dr. Magnussen is engaged with the professional development of early-career researchers, providing guidance and support to help them excel in their chosen fields. Webpage.

Giulio Francesco Romiti, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3788-8942
Research interests: Cardiovascular Diseases; Atrial Fibrillation; Epidemiology; Systematic Review

Giulio Francesco RomitiDr. Giulio Francesco Romiti is a Medical Doctor from Rome, Italy, where he obtained his medical degree at Sapienza - University of Rome. His research activities and expertise are related to clinical research in the broad field of cardiovascular disease, with a particular focus on atrial fibrillation. His research interests also include evidence synthesis. He also serves as a peer reviewer for several medical journals. Webpage
 

Gaetano Santulli, MD, PhD, FAHA

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7231-375X
Research interests: Coronary artery disease, hypertension, cardiometabolic, cardiac arrhythmia, biomarkers, cardiac remodelling, blood pressure

Gaetano SantulliGaetano Santulli, MD, PhD is currently working at Albert Einstein College of Medicine - Montefiore University Hospital. A physician-scientist, he received his MD and PhD at the University of Naples “Federico II”. He completed his postdoctoral training at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, fully supported by the American Heart Association (postdoctoral fellowship and Scientist Development Grant). Dr. Santulli’s expertise comprises both clinical – he is a cardiologist - and basic research topics, including hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, arrhythmias, vascular disease, microRNA, and mitochondrial pathophysiology. Webpage.

Alessandro Spirito, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7473-6577
Research interests: Atherosclerosis, percutaneous coronary intervention, coronary arterty bypass grafting, coronary artery disease, ischemic heart disease, antiplatelet therapy, oral anticoagulation

Alessandro Spirito picAlessandro Spirito, MD is currently working at Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland. He received his MD at the University of Genoa, Italy. He completed his postdoctoral training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at Bern University Hospital, Switzerland. He spent 2 years as research fellow in interventional cardiology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, fully supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Dr. Spirito’s clinical activity comprises general and interventional cardiology and his research expertise focuses on ischemic heart disease, percutaneous coronary intervention and antiplatelet therapy. Webpage.

Xiaoqiang Tang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-1314-3417
Research interests: Cardiovascular biology Heart Failure, Cardiac Remodeling, Ischemia, Vascular Biology, Aging, Metabolism, Epigenetics, Fibrosis, cardiac hypertrophy, cellular senescence

Xiaoqiang TangDr. Xiaoqiang Tang received his Ph.D. degree at Peking Union Medical College, where he studied cardiac hypertrophy with his mentor Prof De-Pei Liu. In 2017, Dr. Tang joined West China Second University Hospital of Sichuan University and he is currently an Associate Professor and Hundred Person Project Scholar. Dr. Tang is also the Associate Editor of Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, Frontiers in Endocrinology, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, Editorial Board of Heliyon and BMC Cardiovascular Medicine, and TRAging. He has been the reviewer of over 30 peer-reviewed journals, including Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B, Clinical Science, Aging and Disease. Dr. Tang focuses on the pathology of cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure, cardiac hypertrophy, and vascular diseases. Especially, Dr.Tang studied epigenetics, metabolism, and niche mechanisms underlying cardiovascular aging and diseases. He is the author or co-author of many scientific articles, including Circulation, European Heart Journal, Science Translational Medicine, Circulation Research, Journal of Experimental Medicine, and Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. His articles have received over 2000 citations. Webpage. 

Guo-Wei Tu, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7861-7631
Research interests: ICU, Mechanical Ventilation, Respiratory Physiology, Critical Care Medicine, Intensive Care Medicine, Sepsis, Hemodynamics

Guo-Wei TuDr. Guo-Wei Tu received his MD Degree in Medicine at Fudan University, China. He is the Professor of cardiac surgery intensive care unit of Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, China. In 2016, he was awarded with the Chinese Young Investigator Award for the research in critical care medicine. Dr Tu was awarded as Excellent Academic Leader of Shanghai and Top Young Talent of Shanghai in 2020. He has published more than 60 articles (first or corresponding author) in SCI-indexed journals and serves as guest editor and editorial board member of many scientific journals including Annals of Translational Medicine, BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, Cardiology Research and Practice et al. Webpage.

Hideki Uosaki, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8964-8609
Research interests: iPS cell-derived cardiomyocytes, cardiomyopathy disease modeling, gene therapy, genome editing, transcriptome analysis, cardiomyocyte physiology, mitochondrial function

Hideki Uosaki, M.D., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at Jichi Medical University. He joined the Center for Molecular Medicine at Jichi Medical University, after completing postdoctoral training in heart development and cardiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (2016). He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. from Hokkaido University (2004) and Kyoto University (2011), respectively. He is primarily focusing on deciphering the molecular mechanisms and finding treatment for cardiomyopathy. His research includes 1) iPS cell-based disease models, 2) animal models created with genome editing, 3) gene therapy (adeno-associated virus), and 4) transcriptome analysis. Webpage.

Bo Xi, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-0491-5585
Research interests: Obesity, Hypertension, Cardiovascular disease, Lifestlyle, Tobacco, Children, Women

Bo XiDr. Bo Xi is a professor at the School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University. He is the director of Children Cardiovascular Research Center of Shandong University. He is the winner of National Science Foundation for Outstanding Youth in 2017 and the winner of the 15th China Youth Science and Technology Award in 2018. His research mainly focuses on epidemiology of childhood obesity, hypertension and cardiovascular risk factors. He has presided over 5 national projects. He has published over 50 English papers, including papers on BMJ, Circulation, JACC, Diabetes Care and Lancet Global Health. Dr. Bo Xi currently serves as the member of the National Expert Committee on cardiovascular diseases, the member of Chinese Preventive Medicine Association-Childhood Chronic Disease Prevention and Management, the youth member of the Epidemiology Branch of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, and the corresponding editor of the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology. Dr. Xi is also the peer reviewer of several international top journals including BMJ, Ann Intern Med, JACC, and Lancet Public Health. Webpage.

Junjie Xiao, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9202-0003
Research interests: Cardiovascular diseases; Heart failure; Cardiac Hypertrophy; Myocardial infarction; Exercise training; Biomarker; Extracellular vesicles; Non-coding RNAs

Junjie XIAOJunjie Xiao is currently a Professor at Shanghai University. He is the Vice Dean of Medical School and also the Vice Dean of School of Life Science at Shanghai University. He obtained the National Science Foundation for Outstanding Youth in 2017. He is also the Associate Editor of Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research, Editorial Board of Journal of Sport and Health Science, Social Media Editor of Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, etc. He is the author or co-author of many scientific articles, including Circulation, Circulation Research, Cell Metabolism, Nature Communications, Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, and BMC Medicine. He has been the reviewer of Physiological Reviews, Circulation Research, Cell Reports Medicine, Hypertension, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Molecular Therapy, etc. He obtained 2018 and 2019 Peer Review Awards (Top 1% in Field, Publons). His major research interest is heart failure and exercise training, especially using exercise as a platform to identify novel targets for enhancing cardiac regeneration and combating cardiovascular diseases. Webpage.

Hongsong Zhang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-4251-7609
Research interests: Atherosclerosis, vascular calcification, heart failure, endothelial function, coronary artery disease, vascular biology, cardio-metabolomics, CVD epigenetics

Hongsong ZhangDr. Hongsong Zhang obtained his PhD degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests focus on endothelial function in atherosclerosis, vascular calcification and diabetes. At present, he has published SCI-indexed articles as the first or corresponding author in top journals including Circulation Research, Cardiovascular Research and American Journal of Human Genetics. He has presided multiple projects including the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He is currently the academic member of Chinese Association of Pathophysiology. He was awarded Paul Dudley White International Scholar by American Heart Association (AHA). Dr. Hongsong Zhang is currently the Junior Editor Board Member of Aging and Disease, Journal of Genetics and Genomics and Journal of Translational Internal Medicine, Guest Editor of Journal of Clinical Medicine and Frontiers in Genetics, as well as the reviewer of many SCI-indexed journals including Canadian Journal of Cardiology, Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine and Journal of General Internal Medicine. Webpage.

Jie Jane Zhao, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-1564-0057
Research interests: nutrition; antihypertensive drugs; Mendelian randomization; non-communicable chronic diseases

Jie Jane Zhao headshotWith trainings in medical science, nutrition and epidemiology, my broad research interest is to understand the aetiology of non-communicable chronic diseases, as well as identifying modifiable targets for prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. I have been interested in the effect of endocrine factors in chronic diseases, such as the role of sex hormone binding globulin and testosterone in chronic kidney disease (published in JASN 2021 and BMC Medicine 2020, the latter selected as featured article of that issue). I’m also working on the role of dietary factors and medications, such as antihypertensive drugs, as potential targets for prevention and treatment of chronic diseases, with 50 publications in area-leading journals such as American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, BMC Medicine, BMJ, Diabetologia, and Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

In my research, I applied several study designs, including randomized controlled trial, cohort studies, as well as Mendelian randomization which uses genetic variants as instruments to minimize confounding. I also chaired a randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of intervention and the underlying mechanisms. I’m always open to collaborations in projects relevant to public health and clinical practice, and would like to serve the scientific community. Currently, I’m reviewer for Nature Ageing, BMJ, Diabetes Care, BMC Medicine, International Journal of Epidemiology, JAHA, British Journal of Cancer, Kidney International et al. Webpage. 

Endocrinology and Metabolism

Ling-Wei Chen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-2661-8752
Research interests: Nutritional epidemiology, diet, dietary pattern, chrono-nutrition, DOHaD

Ling-Wei ChenDr. Ling-Wei Chen is a nutritional epidemiologist with a keen interest in the Developmental Origins of Health and Diseases (DOHaD). He earned his PhD degree from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (NUS; Singapore) and has held postdoctoral research positions at several institutions including the NUS School of Medicine, University College Dublin (UCD; Ireland), and Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR; Singapore). Currently, he holds an Assistant Professorship at the Master of Public Health Program and the Institute of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology at National Taiwan University College of Public Health (Taiwan). Dr. Chen has published extensively in top international journals such as BMC Medicine, PLOS Medicine, and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He is also a respected referee for academic journals and funding agencies, including the Medical Research Council (MRC; UK), Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT; Portugal), and Austrian Science Fund (FWF; Austria). Dr. Chen's contributions to the field of nutritional epidemiology and DOHaD have been recognized through various travel awards at prominent international conferences, such as the Early Career Travel Grants in conjunction with the 22nd IUNS International Congress of Nutrition and the DOHaD Society Travel Awards in conjunction with the 11th DOHaD World Congress. Webpage.

Marloes Dekker Nitert, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-1909-8920
Research interests: metabolic and cardiovascular complications of pregnancy and the role of the microbiome

Marloes DekkerDr Marloes Dekker Nitert is a Senior Lecturer in Metabolism at The University of Queensland. She was educated in The Netherlands (MSc, University of Amsterdam), Sweden (PhD, Lund University) and the UK (PG Certificate Clinical Trials, LSHTM). Marloes' research focuses on metabolic and cardiovascular complications of pregnancy and the role of the microbiome in the development of these complications. She works closely together with clinician-scientists. The overall aim of her research is to improve outcomes for mothers and babies. Webpage.

Huaidong Du, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9814-0049
Research interests: Nutritional Epidemiology, cardiometabolic disease prevention, eye disease epidemiology, Biobank study, prospective cohort study
Huaidong DuHuaidong Du obtained a Medical degree in Clinical Medicine and MSc in Ophthalmology from China, where she had been practicing as an Ophthalmologist for several years before she moved to the West. She joined University of Oxford in 2010 after completing her MSc and PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology from the Netherlands. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in Nutritional Epidemiology working on the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) study, which is large prospective cohort study involving over 0.5 million Chinese adults recruited from 10 different Provinces. Her main research interests focus on lifestyle factors (e.g. diet, physical activity and adiposity) in aetiology of major chronic diseases, and vision and eye-related diseases. She also coordinate periodic CKB resurveys which are conducted every 5-6 years among ~25,000 randomly selected surviving participants. Webpage

Yuanqing Fu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3955-9376
Research interests: Precision nutrition, gut microbiome, nutritional epidemiology, public health nutrition

Yuqing FuYuanqing Fu is a research associate professor at Westlake University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in nutrition from Zhejiang University in 2015. His research mainly focuses on investigating the interactions between diet, gut microbiome, and host genetics in the development of metabolic disorders such as dyslipidemia, cancer, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. To explore these relationships, he employs data derived from multiple omics disciplines, including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and metagenomics. Additionally, he is also interested in developing experimental designs for precision nutrition, such as n-of-1 trials, and elucidating the involvement of gut microbiome in achieving personalized nutritional interventions. He is now involved in several prospective cohort studies to understand the role of nutrients, dietary pattern, lifestyle factors and gut microbiome on risk of metabolic disorders, the effect of parental nutrition on offspring health, as well as the impact of early-life exposures on gut microbiome and long-term health issues. He serves as a committee member of the Nutrition and Health Food Division, the Public Health Nutrition Division of the Chinese Nutrition Society. Webpage.

Raúl González-Domínguez, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7640-8833
Research interests: Metabolomics, nutrition, gut microbiota, exposome, Alzheimer's disease, cognitive decline

Raúl González-DomínguezDr. González-Dominguez (PhD in Chemistry) is the Principal Investigator of the research group “Metabolomics & Bioanalysis”, located at “Instituto de Investigación e Innovación Biomédica de Cádiz” (INiBICA, Spain). His research lines are mainly focused on the development, application, and integration of mass spectrometry-based omics approaches, including metabolomics and metallomics, in biomedicine, nutrition, and food science. He has contributed to the development of bioanalytical key methods used for characterizing the role of the gut microbiota, nutrition, and other sources of exposure (i.e., the exposome) in health status, and to study inter-individual variability factors in the context of precision medicine. Using these omics approaches, Dr. González-Domínguez has great experience in investigating the molecular mechanisms behind the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline, obesity and other cardiometabolic diseases. Webpage.

Jiaqi Huang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7808-9477
Research interests: Precision nutrition, nutritional epidemiology, metabolomics, metabolic epidemiology, chronic diseases, biostatistics

Jiaqi HuangJiaqi Huang, Ph.D., is a professor at National Clinical Research Center for Metabolic Diseases, and a joint professor at Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University. She received her PhD degree in Medical Epidemiology from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; and she subsequently worked a post-doctoral fellow at the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute, United State. Her research expertise includes precision nutrition and preventive medicine, and her research experience has enabled applying rigorous study design and comprehensive statistical analytic skillset, as well as implementing state-of-the-science technologies through cutting-edge epidemiologic research projects within various data sources from large-scale studies. She has published original research articles in top tier journals, including JAMA Internal Medicine, Circulation, Circulation Research, Nature Communications, JNCI, and etc. Webpage.

Jingjing Jiao, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-4167-1567
Research interests: Nutrition and disease, precise nutrition, nutritional epidemiology, cardiovascular metabolic disease, type 2 diabetes, public health nutrition

Jingjing JiaoJingjing Jiao, Ph.D., is a professor at Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China within the Department of Nutrition at School of Public Health. She is a joint professor at the Department of Endocrinology of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine. She is also a visiting professor at Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health. Her research expertise includes precise nutrition and preventive medicine with a special interest in nutrition (including nutrients, diets and dietary patterns) and the prevention and control of chronic diseases especially cardiovascular metabolic diseases. Her research also focuses on the relationship between polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), especially long-chain n-3 PUFA, and cardiovascular metabolic diseases and the mechanism of regulating glycolipid metabolism. She has published original research papers in top peer-reviewed journals such as BMJ-British Medical Journal, Circulation Research, Diabetes Care, Journal of Internal Medicine, Chemical Reviews, Microbiome, etc. She serves as a committee member of the Nutrition and Health Food Division, the Nutrition and Omics Technology Division, the Nutrition Big Data and Health Division of the Chinese Nutrition Society, and the Sports and Public Health Division of the Chinese Biophysics Society. Webpage.

Lee-Ling Lim, MBBS, PhD, FRCP

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orcid.org/0000-0002-6214-6924
Research interests: Diabetes mellitus, cardiometabolic medicine, heart failure, diabetic kidney disease, integrated care, precision medicine, implementation science

Lee-Ling LimDr. Lim is a Senior Consultant Endocrinologist and Head of the Diabetes Care Unit, University of Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As a clinician-scientist, Dr. Lim’s major areas of interest are cardiometabolic medicine with translational and implementation science components. She sits on the Scientific Work Groups of the ADA/EASD Precision Medicine in Diabetes Initiative, the WHO Global Diabetes Compact and The Lancet Commission on Diabetes, who provide authoritative resources in tackling the global diabetes epidemic. She has published ~80 peer-reviewed articles including high-impact journals such as The Lancet, Nature, Diabetes Care, and PLoS Medicine. Dr. Lim has received several awards including the World’s Top 2% Scientists 2022 by Stanford University and the EFSD Albert Renold Fellowship. Webpage.

Sartaj Ahmad Mir, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6032-0936
Research interests: Lipidomics, metabolomics, metabolism, lipoproteins, fatty acids, maternal and child health, insulin resistance, diabetes

Sartaj Ahmad MirSartaj Ahmad Mir, Ph.D. is a research scientist at the Singapore Lipidomics Incubator, Department of Biochemistry, National University of Singapore where his main focus has been on lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. He has developed and applied quantitative lipidomics methods for population-scale studies. Through extensive national and international collaborative efforts, he has been examining the role of plasma lipids in maternal and child outcomes in population-based birth cohorts. He has implemented methods for the characterization of baseline changes in circulating metabolites from preconception through pregnancy to postpartum as well as the lipid signatures of cardiometabolic health in childbearing women. He continues to develop the state-of-the-art mass spectrometry methods to elucidate the role of lipids in pregnancy and early childhood. Webpage.

Noah Peeri, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-4278-650X
Research interests: Epidemiology, health disparities, genetic epidemiology, nutritional epidemiology, cancer survivorship, cancer epidemiology

Noah PeeriDr. Peeri is a post-doctoral research scholar at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He obtained his doctorate in epidemiology from the University of North Texas Health Science Center and his masters of public health in epidemiology from the University of South Florida. His research interests lie at the intersection of nutrition and genetics and their role in cancer etiology. He has training in advanced epidemiologic methods (i.e., causal inference), cancer epidemiology, and nutritional epidemiology. His research focuses on reducing cancer health disparities across several cancers. Webpage.

Catarina Schiborn, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9556-4540
Research interests: Risk prediction, risk scores, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, observational studies, population-based cohorts

Catarina Schiborn picDr. Catarina Schiborn is a postdoctoral research fellow at the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Germany. She earned her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Potsdam and holds an MSc in Epidemiology from the Charité University Medicine Berlin, Germany, and an MSc in Nutrition Science from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Her research is dedicated to the different dimensions of cardiometabolic disease risk prediction. She is working on the identification of novel risk markers, the construction of clinical risk prediction models for individual absolute risk estimations and is interested in risk score implementation and impact assessment. Webpage.

Gabriela Telo, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9093-383X
Research interests: Evidence-Based Practice; Type 1 Diabetes; Type 2 Diabetes; Obesity; Adherence; Mental Health; Cognitive Bias; Multiprofessional Care

Gabriela Heiden Telo FayGabriela H. Telo is an endocrinologist and associate professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) in Brazil. She completed her MSc and PhD degree, as well as her two years’ postdoctoral training in Endocrinology and Medical Sciences at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She was also a research fellow in diabetes at Joslin Diabetes Center/Harvard Medical School (2013-2015). Dr. Telo joined the School of Medicine at PUCRS in March 2019, creating and leading a National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) research group focused on prevention, identification and multiprofessional care in diabetes. She has been the creator and teaching coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Diabetes League (LIDIA) at PUCRS, an interinstitutional league that brings together undergraduate and graduate students from two Brazilian universities (PUCRS and UFGRS) for the development of projects aimed at bringing improvements to the community with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Webpage

Thaddäus Tönnies, Dr. PH

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orcid.org/0000-0003-1577-4212
Research interests: Diabetes Epidemiology, Epidemiologic Methods, Prevalence, Incidence, Years of Life Lost, Modelling, Projections

Thaddaus TonniesDr. Thaddäus Tönnies is an epidemiologist and post-doctoral researcher at the German Diabetes Center in Düsseldorf, Germany. After completing his MSc in Epidemiology he received his PhD in Public Health in 2020 from the Faculty of Medicine at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. His research focuses on descriptive epidemiology using aggregated data and projections of future disease and economic burden of diabetes with a special focus on socioeconomic inequalities. This includes the estimation and projection of future prevalence of diabetes and associated impacts on mortality, life expectancy and economic productivity. This work is often conducted in collaboration with national public health agencies. Further interests include the application of causal inference methods in observational research and social epidemiology. With his research, Dr. Tönnies aims to raise awareness for the future impact of the diabetes epidemic on population health. Webpage

Hongjiang Wu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-2193-1114
Research interests: Diabetes, Epidemiology, Noncommunicable disease, Socioeconomic status, Trend analysis

Hongjiang WuDr. Wu is an epidemiologist and a research assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received this PhD degree in epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, and completed two years’ postdoctoral training at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Dr. Wu’s research interests focus on diabetes epidemiology, including population surveillance of diabetes, young-onset diabetes, and social determinants of diabetes. He has extensive experience in large cohort studies and analysis of routinely collected administrative data. Over the past several years, Dr. Wu has contributed importantly to establishing the territory-wide Hong Kong Diabetes Surveillance Database involving more than 4 million individuals. His research aims to improve the understanding of epidemiology of diabetes and gaps of diabetes care in Hong Kong. Webpage.

Ju-Sheng Zheng, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6560-4890
Research interests: Nutrition epidemiology, type 2 diabetes, genetic epidemiology

Ju-Sheng ZhengJu-Sheng got his PhD degree in nutrition at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China (2009-2014). Within his PhD program, he received one year’s training in the Nutrition and Genomics Lab at Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in the USA (2012). He was also a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow supported by the European Commission and a postdoctoral researcher at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK (2015-2018). Ju-Sheng joined the School of Life Sciences at Westlake University as a Principal Investigator and group leader in September 2018 and has been leading the Laboratory of Human Nutrition and Epidemiology at Westlake University. Webpage

Gastroenterology

Ina Bergheim, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3356-4115
Research interests: Liver, nutrition, alcohol, endotoxin, intestinal barrier, obesity, aging

Ina BergheimDr. Ina Bergheim is a Full-Professor at University of Vienna, Department of Nutritional Sciences, RF Molecular Nutritional Science in Vienna, Austria. She is a Nutritional Scientist by training and obtained her PhD at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Hohenheim. After doing a PostDoc time at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA and habilitating at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany show was appointed as a Full-Professor at the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany before joining the University of Vienna as a Full-Professor in 2016. Her main interest in research lays in the interaction of foods and beverages including alcohol with intestine and herein especially the intestinal barrier function as well as the liver as modulators of health and diseases. Webpage.

Huarong Chen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-2192-1864
Research interests: Gastrointestinal cancer, cancer immunology, epitranscriptomicsm colorectal cancer, RNA modification, tumor immune microenvironment, cancer biology, cancer biomarkers, cancer diagnostics, targeted therapy for cancer, molecular oncology, signal transduction

Huarong ChenDr, Huarong Chen is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, and Principal Investigator in the State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His primary research interests include basic and translational research of gastrointestinal cancer. He revealed abnormal genetic and epigenetic changes that contribute to the development of gastrointestinal cancer and elucidated their molecular mechanisms and potential clinical implications. Dr. Chen completed his Ph.D. study in Oncology with Prof. Shu Zheng at Zhejiang University and conducted his postdoctoral work at the Department of Medicine & Therapeutics of CUHK with Prof. Jun Yu. He has published over 60 articles in renowned journals such as Gastroenterology, Gut, Cell Rep Med, FEMS Microbiol Rev, EbioMedicine, Theranostics, and Oncogene. Recognized for his outstanding achievements, he was honored as an Emerging Leader in the field of oncology by Oncogene journal. Webpage.

Arunkumar Krishnan, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9452-7377
Research interests: Obesity, Hepatobiliary diseases, metabolic syndrome, oncology, Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, Cirrhosis, pharmacoepidemiology, and endoscopic bariatric and metabolic therapies. advanced endoscopy

Arunkumar KrishnanDr. Arunkumar Krishnan obtained his Degree in Medicine and residency in India. He is now working as an Advanced Endoscopy Clinical Research Fellow at West Virginia University School of Medicine, USA. He worked as a Clinical Research Fellow in the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Krishnan received several prestigious awards and travel grants for his research works, which include a prestigious Young Clinician Award from World Gastroenterology Organization and Young Investigator Award from the international Pancreatic Association. He is interested in an innovative, integrative, and critical-thinking approach to evidence-based clinical medicine. His primary research concerns Internal medicine, Gastroenterology, and hepatology. His research works often connect related areas like metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases, oncology, and pharmacoepidemiology in his Internal medicine studies, in addition to integrating research after advanced therapeutic endoscopic procedures and endoscopic bariatric and metabolic therapies. He has published more than 60+ peer-reviewed papers in journals on diverse topics. Webpage.

Dabin Liu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3811-8317
Research interests: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, medicine, liver cancer, oncology, cholesterol metabolism, obesity, nutrition, disorders of adipocyte-liver interaction

Dabin LiuDr. Liu obtained his PhD degree in medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2017, and completed three years’ postdoctoral training at the same university. He is now working as a professor at the NHC Key Laboratory of Molecular Probes and Targeted Diagnosis and Therapy, Harbin Medical University, China. Dr. Liu’s research interests focus on the pathogenesis, clinical diagnosis and treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and NAFLD associated HCC (NAFLD-HCC). His work was selected as one of the spotlight achievements in NAFLD pathogenesis and treatment in 2018. His research aims to discover and identify novel driver genes and therapeutic strategy of NAFLD and NAFLD-HCC in China. Webpage.

Alexandre Nuzzo, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8952-7620
Research interests: Gastroenterology and hepatology, enteral and parenteral nutrition, short bowel syndrome, abdominal pain, mesenteric ischemia, IBD (crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis). Intensive care medicine, GI emergencies.

Alexandre NuzzoAlexandre Nuzzo, MD, PhD, is a consultant gastroenterologist and intensivist. He completed a MD in both Gastroenterology and Intensive Care Medicine, before getting a PhD in Biochemistry at Imperial College London and Paris Cité University. His clinical and research work in the Intestinal Stroke Center (Beaujon Hospital, Paris Cité University) focuses on improving knowledge and management of gastro-intestinal vascular and inflammatory bowel diseases. Webpage.

Andrea Shin, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7284-3398
Research interests: disorders of gut-brain interaction, functional gastrointestinal disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic constipation, dyssynergic defecation, gastroparesis, gastrointestinal motility disorders, functional diarrhea

Andrea ShinAndrea Shin, M.D., is affiliated with University of California, Los Angeles. She received her medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine and completed her internal medicine residency at Indiana University School of Medicine. She then earned a master’s degree in clinical and translational research while training as a research fellow under the mentorship of Michael Camilleri, M.D., at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, followed by completion of a clinical fellowship in gastroenterology and hepatology at Indiana University. She is a member of several organizations including the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) and American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS). Prior to receiving her medical degree, she completed her undergraduate studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana earning a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in Spanish. She received the Arthur Metz scholarship for her undergraduate studies and was an honorary member of Phi Eta Sigma. Dr. Shin specializes in the care of patients with functional gastrointestinal and motility disorders. Her research focus relates to her clinical expertise and focuses on developing novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to treating functional gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Specific research interests include study of the role of the microbiome, metabolome, diet and psychological distress in IBS, chronic constipation and functional diarrhea. She is a prior recipient of an institutional career-development award (KL2) and a current recipient of a K23 career development award through the National Institutes of health. Webpage.

Guoxiang Xie, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-0951-4150
Research interests: Metabolomics, biomarker discovery, gut microbial-host co-metabolism, metabolic disease biomarkers, gastrointestinal cancer, gastrointestinal carcinogenesis, bile acid metabolism

Guoxiang XieDr. Guoxiang Xie is the vice president of the Human Metabolomics Institute (Guangdong, China) and an adjunct professor at Kunming University of Science and Technology, China. Previously, he has been an Assistant Professor of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center (a National Cancer Institute designated cancer center) (2013-2018). Dr. Xie also served as a research scientist in the Center for Translational Biomedical Research at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for about 5 years. Dr. Xie received his M.D. degree in Pharmaceuticals from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. Dr. Xie has more than 20 years of experience as a scientist in bioanalytical science, metabolomics and in the medical field, and published over 100 peer-reviewed papers on metabolomics and biomedical research. He has worked on dozens of metabolomics projects that span the translational research spectrum from various rodent models to human clinical trials. Dr. Xie’s current research focuses on conducting comprehensive metabolomic studies to (1) identify the metabolite markers for disease diagnosis and stratification and (2) define the molecular mechanisms that link metabolic disruptions in gut microbial-host co-metabolism to metabolic disorders and gastrointestinal cancer. Webpage.

Santosh Yadav, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9728-4561
Research interests: Gut microbiome and dysbiosis, pancreatitis, IBD and colon cancer, barrier proteins, PTSD, oxidative stress and Inflammation, cardiovascular disease, diabetes cardiomyopathy, inflammatory and non-inflammatory cell death mechanisms

Santosh Yadav picDr. Santosh Kumar Yadav (Ph.D), earned his degree from the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India. Dr. Yadav is currently working as a research instructor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). As an instructor, he is involved in understanding the pathophysiology of gut-related inflammatory diseases, including IBD and colon cancer, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), gut dysbiosis, and pancreatitis. Dr. Yadav delineates the role of barrier proteins in gut inflammation, gut dysbiosis, and their connection with the brain via the gut-brain axis using the repeated social defeat stress (RSDS) model. Along with the PTSD project, Dr. Yadav is also involved in understanding the role of barrier proteins in the pathophysiology of acute and chronic pancreatitis. Dr. Yadav’s previous research at UNMC was to understand the role of oxidative stress and inflammation in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease, including diabetes and obesity-induced cardiomyopathy, as well as cardiac stem cell physiology. Particularly, he was involved in delineating the role of inflammatory (pyroptosis/necroptosis) and apoptotic cell death mechanisms in the pathology of hyperglycemia/diabetes-mediated cardiac cell death and heart failure. Overall, Dr. Yadav’s research focuses on developing a therapeutic target for inflammatory mucosal and cardiovascular disease. Webpage.

Xiaotao Zhang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3968-5030
Research interests: Microbiome, epidemiology, nutrition, cancer epidemiology, liver disease, gastrointestinal disease, cancer prevention, clinical trial

Xiaotao ZhangDr. Xiaotao Zhang, is an assistant professor at Icahn school of medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Xiaotao Zhang earned his medical degree in Preventive Medicine in China. With a growing interest in disease prevention at the level of population health, he emigrated to the U.S to continue his education and training in Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Tulane University in New Orleans and The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. By merging epidemiologic methods with innovative techniques and bioinformatic/statistical strategies, his current research examines the role of biological and modifiable factors in cancer disparities and cancer prevention. He hopes to unravel risk factors and mechanisms to inform the development of new preventive interventions and clinical strategies. Webpage.

Geriatric Medicine

Prasad Nishtala, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-4155-8540
Research interests: Pharamcoepidemiology, geriatrics, polypharmacy, deprescribing

Prasad NishtalaI have a multidisciplinary background in pharmacy, epidemiology, and data science, and expertise in outcome-based health informatics and pharmacoepidemiology. My overarching research purpose is to develop a coordinated approach to accelerate real-world evidence using Big data to improve ageing and pioneer translational research to improve the safety of medicines in the ageing population. Webpage.

Yao Yao, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-6723-6152
Research interests: Healthy aging, fall prevention, compression of dependency, health management, cohort study

Yao Yao picYao Yao holds an M.D. from the Chinese PLA General Hospital and has undergone three years of training in Geriatrics. After completing the postdoctoral research at both Peking University and Duke University, Yao joined the China Center for Health Development Studies at Peking University as an Associate Professor. Yao Yao's research interests include F4 (Fight for Falls, Fractures, and Functioning disability) and "Compression of Dependency". Being a key investigator in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study (CLHLS), Yao is also key commissioners for two Lancet commissions "The path to healthy ageing in China: a Peking University-Lancet Commission" and "The Lancet standing commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care 2024." Webpage.

Global, Public and Environmental Health

Loai Albarqouni, MD, MSc, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-4114-9106
Research interests: Evidence-Based Practice; Primary Care; Low value care; Overdiagnosis; Non-communicable Diseases; Clinical Epidemiology

Loai Albarqouni picLoai is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare. His research expertise includes evidence synthesis, evidence-based practice, healthcare services, and primary care. He is a medical doctor (MD) from Palestine and completed a Master’s degree in clinical epidemiology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany, followed by a PhD degree in evidence-based practice from Bond University, Australia. Webpage.

Steven Bell, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6774-3149
Research interests: Alcohol; coronary heart disease; stroke; small vessel disease; Mendelian randomization; GWAS

StevenBellpicSteven is an Epidemiologist based within the Stroke Research Group at the University of Cambridge with an interest in cardiovascular disease and related conditions.
His work utilises genome-wide association studies (GWAS) alongside bioinformatic approaches to obtain insights in disease aetiology. This includes applying techniques such as Mendelian randomization to prioritise therapeutic targets and inform clinical or public health decision making.
More widely, he has an interest in individual participant data meta-analysis, the use of electronic health records in medical research, the application and integration of various “-omic” technologies (e.g. metabolomics, proteomics, phenomics), machine learning and modelling of longitudinal data. Webpage.

Jean Joel Bigna, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-8018-6279
Research interests: Epidemiology, Systematic reviews, Meta-analysis, Clinical Trials, Metabolic syndrome, Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiovascular risk factors, Dyslipidemias, Obesity, Pulmonary Hypertension, HIV, hepatitis, Tuberculosis, Public Health, Global Health

Jean Joel R BignaJean Joel is a medical doctor and researcher from Cameroon. It is an expert in epidemiology, clinical trials, and systematic reviews with focus on infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases and the interplay between these two conditions in the global context. He authored more than a hundred of papers in high-impact peer-reviewed journals. In his free time, Jean Joel spends a lot of time with his family playing video games and basketball. Webpage.

Emelda Okiro, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9543-8360
Research interests: Global Health, Malaria, RSV, Child Health, Childhood Immunization, Health Access, Population health

eokiro _ Kemri _ Wellcome TrustEmelda heads the Population Health Unit within the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kenya which aims to understand determinants of health transitions and vulnerabilities at fine scales across Africa and works to embed the use of data for decision-making by national ministries. Emelda has 20 years of Population and Public Health research experience. Deep expertise in Impact evaluation, epidemiology, public health, statistics, data analytics and operations research with a focus on evaluations and contribution analysis. Prior to this position Emelda was a Program Officer/Gates Fellow within the Global Health Team at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. She has worked on evaluating the public health impact of malaria control, on evaluating anti-retroviral treatment programs while at IHME and on developing strategies for primary health care at Philips Research Africa. Emelda has a PhD in Epidemiology, has been awarded two internationally competitive Wellcome Trust (UK) Fellowships and is widely published. Webpage.

Petteri Oura, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5637-3971
Research interests: Public health, life course epidemiology, causes of death, forensic medicine

Petteri Oura (1)Petteri obtained his MD-PhD degree at the University of Oulu, Finland. Since his PhD dissertation in 2017, Petteri has undertaken several research projects in the fields of life course epidemiology, public health, and forensic medicine. Petteri currently serves as a resident forensic pathologist in a joint position between the University of Helsinki and Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, where he also leads the Finnish Translational Forensic Neuropathology research group. Webpage.

Carmen Piernas, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7536-922X
Research interests: nutritional epidemiology, dietary interventions, NCD prevention

Carmen Piernas picDr Piernas is a Nutrition scientist, currently working as a Ramon y Cajal fellow at the University of Granada (Spain) as well as honorary University Research Lecturer at the University of Oxford (UK) since 2015. She graduated with a PhD in Nutrition and Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA). She is currently working on healthy and sustainable dietary interventions for the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases. Her research is grounded within the Precision Nutrition field and focuses on the integration of nutritional and lifestyle factors with omics data (from biological samples and microbiome data) to improve the understanding and prevention of noncommunicable diseases. Webpage.

Zhirong Yang, PhD

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Research interests: diabetes, hyperlipidemia, dementia, stroke, atherosclerosis, acne, primary care, routine healthcare data, pharmacoepidemiology, systematic review and meta-analysis

Yang-ZhirongZhirong completed a PhD in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at University of Cambridge. He also holds a bachelor's degree in medicine and master's degrees in epidemiology and in primary care research. He was a research fellow in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard University in 2018. Before his PhD, he worked as a biostatistician in Shantou-Oxford Clinical Research Unit and then as a research associate in Peking University School of Public Health. His current research interests are in the use of routine healthcare data and evidence synthesis to inform the management of cardiovascular diseases, dementia and diabetes. Webpage.

Zhenyu Zhang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3327-8637
Research interests: Environmental Epidemiology; Cardiovascular diseases; cohort study; Air pollution; Public Health; Global Health, climate change, respiratory infection

Zhenyu ZhangI am a start-career investigator in the field of environmental epidemiology and global health. My interdisciplinary research lies in global climate change, air pollution, exposure estimation modeling, global infectious diseases, global health, and general epidemiology. My interests are: (1). Evaluating the effects of climate change on infectious diseases. I combine methods from traditional epidemiology, atmospheric science, and statistical modeling with the aim of answering questions of relevance to patients and policymakers. (2). Environmental epidemiology, especially particulate matter, we used comprehensive statistical models to estimate the individual PM air pollution exposure for participants from different cohorts from China, US, and South Korea, we also evaluated the health effects of PM on cardiovascular, otolaryngologic diseases, and cancer in cohort studies. (3). Translational epidemiology: I have a great interest in creating modeling frameworks that allow decision-makers to translate epidemiological data into effective decisions. I welcome collaboration from researchers, clinicians, or students having expertise in any field, who hope to create models to translate epidemiological data into meaningful policy, practical, or clinical decisions.

Health Services Research

Mohamed Estai, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7109-0267
Research interests: Health services research, RCTs, systematic review, diagnostic accuracy, surveys, population health, e-health, epidemiology, digital health, qualitative research, disease screening, prevention, artificial intelligence, rural and remote health, user behaviour, dental public health, global health, social determinants, health promotion

I hold a PhD degree from the University of Western Australia (2018). I have over 10 years of experience in research, writing, and academic publishing. My research background lies in digital health and population health. I have been working with researchers from the USA, Singapore, Thailand and Saudi Arabia on different projects. I have a good track record in funding and publication. I secured over $500,000 in research funding over the past 4 years. Throughout my career, I have actively engaged with the scholarly community as both an author and an editor. With over 40 research papers published in reputable journals, I have gained invaluable firsthand knowledge of the publication process. Additionally, I have served as a reviewer for numerous journals, honing my attention to detail and comprehensive understanding of academic standards. My editorial contributions extend to prestigious journals such as BMC Public Health (Q2) and Scientific Reports (Q2), where I serve on the editorial board. Currently, I hold the position of Research Program Officer at Western Australia Country Health Services (WACHS) since November 2022. I also maintain the role of Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia since 2019. I am a member of the HREC at the North Metropolitan Health Services, Graylands Hospital. Webpage.

Yixue Shao, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-1410-5455
Research interests: Health economics and outcomes research, health policy, health services research, endocrinology and metabolism

Yixue ShaoDr. Yixue Shao is a Prevention Effectiveness Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, working within the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion-Division of Diabetes Translation. She obtained her PhD in Health Policy and Management and her MPH in Health Systems Management from Tulane University. Her research interests include health services research, health policy, and health economics and outcomes research, specifically related to diabetes. She has published original research papers in top peer-reviewed journals such as JAMA Network Open, Value in Health, Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, and Medical Care, among others. Webpage.

Jason Wasiak, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-5194-1586
Research interests: clinical expertise (burns, plastics, intensive care); clinical epidemiology; evidence-based medicine; evidence synthesis; randomised and non-randomised studies; medical writing; retracted publications.

Jason WasiakJason has worked as a clinician, clinical researcher, systematic reviewer and medical writer in diverse clinical and non-clinical settings. Tertiary qualifications cover adult education, critical care, epidemiology/biostatistics and public health. His research career has focused on working with health care professionals to improve the health of patients through decisions underpinned by reliable evidence-research synthesis. Work experience has concentrated on evaluating acute care practices in the clinical setting, identifying ways to deliver high-quality care through health services research and teaching evidence-based healthcare. His research expertise includes evidence synthesis, pragmatic clinical research, writing for publication, and research and publication ethics. Webpage

Infectious Diseases

Samuel Akech, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5126-1225 
Research interests: malaria, sepsis, antimicrobial resistance, paediatrics, quality of care, dehydration, malnutrition

Sam Akech 20210616_192334Sam (MBChB, MMED (Paediatrics), Dphil) is a principal investigator at the KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Programme, Nairobi, a honorary lecturer at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Nairobi, Kenya, and a Visiting Research Fellow, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He is a consultant paediatrician and clinical epidemiologist with research interest in severe febrile illnesses in children. His research spans understanding epidemiology of severe febrile illnesses in children, clinical trials, investigation of effectiveness of treatments in children admitted with severe illnesses, antimicrobial resistance, application of machine learning techniques and data science for biomedical clinical data, and in design of appropriate digital solutions for identification and management of paediatric sepsis. He runs an inpatient surveillance to answer questions of safety following introduction of new interventions, such a recently introduced malaria vaccine in Kenya, and to understand how compliance with clinical guidelines affect in-hospital survival. He is involved in teaching and supervision of postgraduate and doctorate students, is a peer reviewer for several medical journals and research funders and provides technical consultation to global bodies involved in health such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Webpage.

Andrei R. Akhmetzhanov, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3269-7351
Research interests: modeling, infectious diseases, outbreaks, COVID-19, Bayesian, infection control, reproduction number, emerging infectious diseases, vaccines, public health, global health

Andrei AkhmetzhanovAndrei R. Akhmetzhanov graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia and decided to pursuit his academic career in theoretical epidemiology and public health. With background in applied mathematics and physics, he found himself lucky to work with many profound scholars in biology, medicine, and computer sciences. He trained himself to deal with more applicable research involving data analysis and statistical inference. His expertise lies in mathematical modeling of infectious diseases with particular interest on outbreak investigation and identification of epidemiological parameters for emergent infectious diseases. In the past ten years, he lived in four different countries (Canada, France, Japan, Taiwan), and finally resided in Taiwan. Currently he is an assistant professor in Global Health Program and Institute of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology at National Taiwan University College of Public Health in Taipei. While working in Japan, he was a volunteer member of the national COVID-19 task force in 2020. During 2021-2022, he interacted with Taiwan Centers for Diseases Control on similar matters. Webpage.

Marion Brunck, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-8994-8276
Research interests: Neutrophils, granulocyte transfusions, breastmilk, flow cytometry

Marion BrunckI am currently an Associate Professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey, in Mexico. I completed my PhD in biotechnology at The University of Queensland and a postdoc in experimental hematology at the Translation Research Institute, both in Brisbane, Australia. There I studied ex vivo neutrophil production and hematopoietic stem cell mobilization, respectively. In Mexico, I applied my multidisciplinary background (immunology/biotechnology) to develop original research lines aimed at: 1-resolving remaining questions revolving granulocyte transfusions as a strategy for neutropenic infection treatments, and 2-dissecting human breastmilk-derived immunity. My laboratory recently evidenced significant regulations in B lymphocytes in breastmilk from mothers with obesity (published in BMC Medicine). Webpage.

Godfrey Bwire, MBCHB, MPH, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8376-2857
Research interests: Cholera, infectious diseases, public health, epidemiology

Godfrey BwireDr. Godfrey Bwire (MBChB, MPH, PhD) is a medical doctor, researcher and a policymaker. Godfrey is the head of the division of public health emergency preparedness and response of the Republic of Uganda Ministry of Health. Godfrey is also a research fellow in the department of Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Makerere University School of Public Health. Godfrey’s research interests are on infectious diseases, public health and cholera. Godfrey et al. identified a new Vibrio Cholerae transmission event lineage (T13) from South Asia to East Africa, PMID: 29864113. Godfrey has an excellent peer-review record. Webpage.

Emily Edwards, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-0240-4370
Research interests: Infectious diseases, primary immunodeficiency, immunology

Emily EdwardsDr Edwards received her BSc (Hons) in Applied Biomedical Science at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (UWIC), prior to completing a PhD at Cardiff University in the UK. She relocated to Australia in 2011. She has since conducted research at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Garvan Medical Research Institute and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne. Emily’s research focuses on the cellular and molecular pathways that underlie Primary Immunodeficiency, including identifying molecular and cellular patterns associated with viral infection, autoimmunity and gastrointestinal disease in these patients. Her research has identified new genetic causes of Primary Immunodeficiency, susceptibility to EBV and how these genetic defects influence immune pathway function, memory B and T cell function, and drive clinical disease. She is currently working to further understand primary immunodeficiencies, in order to examine the immune pathways altered in these diseases to better inform patient diagnosis and treatment. Webpage

Kwadwo Kusi, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5483-9985
Research interests: Cellular and humoral immunology of parasite and viral infections; Vaccine candidate discovery, design and testing; Pathogen biology

Kwadwo KusiDr. Kwadwo Asamoah Kusi is a Senior Research Fellow in the Immunology Department of Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), University of Ghana. He started his career at NMIMR in 2012 after graduating with a PhD in Medicine from Leiden University Medical Centre, based on his work at Biomedical Primate Research Centre in Rijswijk, The Netherlands. His research has been on assessing pathogen-induced cellular and humoral immune responses, with a special focus on Plasmodium falciparum. He is currently working on identifying HLA-restricted epitopes that elicit protection-associated T cell responses in individuals with a natural history of P. falciparum infection. He is principal investigator of an EDCTP2-funded Senior Fellowship that is investigating the impact of hepatitis B and Plasmodium co-infections on the liver. He is lead Immunologist on an on-going phase Ib clinical trial of an Inovio Pharmaceuticals Lassa fever vaccine at NMIMR as well as on a combined trial of measles/COVID-19 live vaccines for cross protection in Ghana, as part of a multi-centre trial under the CROWN CORONATION umbrella. He has on-going studies on multi-allele vaccine formulation strategies that aim to overcome the strain-dependent effects of polymorphisms in immunogenic Plasmodium antigens on antigen-specific immune responses. Webpage

Bartholomew Ondigo, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3607-9964
Research interests: Global health, infectious diseases, immunology

Bartholomew OndigoBartholomew completed a sandwich PhD degree program from Maseno University, Kenya and University of Minnesota, USA. He also completed postdoctoral training from an array of institutions, namely Kenya Medical Research Institute, University of Georgia, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA. Currently, he is an early career investigator at the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Egerton University, Kenya and a visiting post-doctoral fellow at National Institutes of Health, USA. His research interests focus on mechanisms of immunity and correlates of protection. Bartholomew particular focus is on pregnant women and children, the populations most susceptible to infectious diseases morbidity and mortality. He is interested in how people develop natural immunity to malaria, schistosomiasis and other tropical infectious diseases. In addition, he is interested in training and improving the prospects of graduate biomedical students. He is a member of several organizations including the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the Kenyan Society of Immunology. Webpage.

Matthew Quaife, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9291-1511
Research interests: Health economics, infectious disease modelling, TB, HIV, cost-effectiveness analyses, choice modelling

Matthew (1)

I am a health economist specialising in the prevention of infectious diseases, working at the interface of mathematical modelling and health economics. I enjoy the challenge of representing complex human behaviours in models and understanding how to encourage equitable and efficient health. My work mainly focuses on HIV and TB. Webpage.


Max Carlos Ramírez-Soto, BSc, MPH, FRSPH, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-0471-6746
Research interests: Sporotrichosis, subcutaneous mycoses, fungal infections, epidemiology, viral hepatitis (A, B, C, D and E), dengue, SARS-CoV-2

Max Carlos Ramirez-SotoMax is a PhD Researcher at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru. He has a BSc and completed a Master’s degree in Public Health at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru. He is a professor and researcher in epidemiology and infectious diseases. His research expertise includes evidence synthesis, clinical and epidemiological aspects of fungal infections and infectious diseases. He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals that explore clinical and epidemiological aspects of sporotrichosis, chromoblastomycosis, and superficial mycoses, and infectious diseases (HAV, HBV, HCV, dengue, SARS-CoV-2, and cutaneous leishmaniosis). He also works in managing funds in research and improving evaluation and selection processes in Peru. He is currently the Associate/Academic Editor and Editorial Board Member for various international journals. He also acts as an associate editor for the journals of BMC Cancer and BMC Infectious Diseases since May 2019. He serves as peer reviewer for various leading journals, and is a Top Peer Reviewer in Publons, Web of Science. Webpage

Shuo Su, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-0187-1185
Research interests: infectious disease; coronavirus; virus evolution ; emerging virus ;epidemiological

Shuo SuProf. Shuo Su is focusing on the research of comprehensive prevention and control of zoonose diseases. Through high-throughput sequencing and virus evolution research , we can look for emerging viruses in animals/human , assess the potential of new viruses to infect humans, and make predictions and early warning for new epidemics.
2. Made a series of innovative achievements from theory to practice in molecular epidemiological investigation, viral infection and cross-host transmission mechanism. Webpage.

Lin Wang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-5371-2138
Research Interests: Infectious disease epidemiology, mathematical modelling, Bayesian statistics, machine learning, serology, immunology, arbovirus, dengue, influenza, SARS-CoV-2

LinWangDr. Lin Wang is a Research Associate in the Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge. Before joining Cambridge, he was a chargé de recherché in the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease Unit at the Institute Pasteur, and a postdoctoral fellow in the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control, School of Public Health, the University of Hong Kong. He has a PhD in Electronic Engineering from Fudan University, MSc and BSc in Physics from Nankai University and Southeast University, respectively. His research interests include infectious disease epidemiology, mathematical modelling, Bayesian statistics, machine learning, serology, immunology, and viral evolution, with applications to arbovirus (e.g. dengue) and emerging diseases (e.g., pandemic influenza, SARS-CoV-2). Webpage.

Courtney Yuen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-5219-2599
Research interests: Tuberculosis, TB/HIV, community-based interventions, patient-centered care, implementation science, mixed-methods research, global health

Courtney YuenCourtney Yuen, PhD, is an epidemiologist in the Division of Global Health Equity at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, USA. Previously, she worked in the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She conducts implementation science research on community-based models for tuberculosis case-finding preventive treatment, as well as epidemiologic modeling to inform tuberculosis diagnosis and prevention policies. Her research has been funded by U.S. National Institute of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the Charles H. Hood Foundation. Webpage.

Medical Genomics

Sadhana Gaddam, MSc

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6477-0483
Research interests: Genomics, Bioinformatics, multi-omics, Biostatistics, Skin biology, Cardiovascular diseases.

Sadhana Gaddam headshotI'm a senior bioinformatician at Stanford University, College of Medicine. I received my B.E from Osmania University in India and my M.S in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology from the University of South Florida in the USA. After graduation, I started working in two research labs at Stanford. My research focuses on using bioinformatics and computational approaches in understanding ectodermal patterning during human development and identifying innate immune lncRNAs involved in various human diseases. In addition to this, I am collaborating on research projects related to cardiovascular diseases. Webpage. 

Chani Hodonsky, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-8566-5877
Research interests: Genomics, atherosclerosis, blood traits, epidemiology, ancestry, diversity, gene expression, TWAS, GWAS, somatic clonality

Chani Hodonsky photoChani Hodonsky is a postdoctoral research associate in the University of Virginia Center for Public Health Genomics. She completed her PhD in Genetic Epidemology at the UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health in 2019, where her dissertation involved identifying and fine-mapping genetic associations with red blood cell traits in the ancestrally diverse PAGE Study. Currently, Chani studies the role of genetic variation and gene expression changes in the development and progression of atherosclerosis in Clint Miller's lab at UVA. This work involves both population-based association studies (eQTL and related fine-mapping in coronary artery tissue) and single-cell-based analyses of individual human samples (somatic clonality in coronary artery disease). In addition to her work in the Miller Lab, Chani peer reviews for several academic journals, and is an active member of the American Society for Human Genetics and American Heart Association. Webpage.

Liang-Dar Hwang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-5535-2199
Research interests: Personalized nutrition, sensory nutrition, twin modelling, causal modelling, mendelian randomization, genetic epidemiology, statistical genetics, taste perception

Liang-Dar Hwang picDr Daniel Liang-Dar Hwang is a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. He received a BSc in Biochemical Science and Technology from the National Taiwan University, a MBiotech from the University of Pennsylvania. Following graduation, he worked as a trainee at the Monell Chemical Senses Center where he developed a keen interest in genetics and sensory nutrition. Later he completed a MSc in Nutrition at the University of Washington and a PhD in Genetic Epidemiology at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. Daniel has broad research interests include causal modelling, chemosensory perception, and personalized nutrition. He develops and applies statistical models to big data to understand genetic and environmental factors contributing to individual differences in taste and olfactory perception, their relationship with dietary behaviour and chronic conditions. He is a member of the National Committee for Nutrition of the Australian Academy of Science and is on the Leadership Team of the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research. Webpage.

Boyang Ji, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7269-4342
Research interests: Systems biology; Genomic Medicine; Omics integration; Modeling; Microbiome; Biomarker

BoyangJiBoyang is scientific data developer at BioInnovation Institute, Copenhagen. He received the B.S. and M.S. from the Huazhong Agricultural Unuvrsity in China, and Ph.D. of genomics and bioinformatics from the Aix-Marseille Univrsity in France. His research aims to uncover the metabolic basis linked to human disease by using both experimental and computational approaches. Currently, his work focused on the discovery of biomarkers of human diseases with muti-omics data and machine learning approaches. Webpage.

Dries Martens, PhD

orcid.org/0000-0001-7893-3642
Research interests: Ageing, telomere biology, environmental exposures, prenatal risk factors, developmental origings of health and disease, epigenetics, molecular epidemiology, child health, newborn health, air pollution

Dries MartensDr Martens obtained his degree in bio-science engineering, and molecular biology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, prior to completing a PhD at the Centre for Environmental Science at Hasselt University, Belgium. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Hasselt University. His work focuses on understanding and studying variation in early life molecular ageing markers. He has a profound interest in understanding the gene-environmental determinants of telomere length in newborns and the potential health-related effects of telomere length at birth. In addition, he studies the importance of air pollution exposure on molecular ageing markers (including omics-derived signatures) over the lifespan. Webpage

Nagarajan Raju, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3851-5520
Research interests: Bioinformatics and computational biology, anti-HIV-1/covid/viral antibody discovery, B-cell repertoire analysis

Nagarajan Raju picDr. Nagarajan Raju is an Associate Scientist Bioinformatics at Emory Primate center, Emory University, USA. He obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degree in bioinformatics at Bharathidasan University, India. After a year of research experience at Indian institute of Science (IISc, Bangalore), he joined Dr. Micheal Gromiha’s lab at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras to pursue doctoral degree in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.  After PhD, he joined as a post-doc at Vanderbilt University Medical center and focused on B-cell repertoire analysis and antibody discovery against infectious viral diseases. He published more than 45 articles in reputed journals and received more than 1300 citations. As an active editor, he handled more than 100 manuscripts in many journals including BMC Bioinformatics, Frontiers in Bioinformatics, PLoS One, PeerJ and BioMed Research international. He also reviewed manuscripts more than 180 times and received Top Peer reviewer award, 2019. His current interest is mainly focusing on the following areas: B-cell receptor repertoire analysis, public antibody clonotype and broadly neutralizing antibody discovery, scRNA-seq analysis, Viral genome sequence analysis to develop novel immunogen, computational tools and algorithm development. Webpage.

Chao Xu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3821-6187
Research interests: multi-omics; genetic epidemiology; bioinformatics; biostatistics

Dr. Chao XuDr. Chao Xu is an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He is a member of the Stephenson Cancer Center Biostatistics and Research Design Shared Resource. He received his PhD in Biostatistics from Tulane University, US. He has a broad background in statistical genetics, biostatistics, bioinformatics, and genetic epidemiology, with specific training and expertise in genetic and genomic studies of complex diseases, such as the osteoporosis and cancer. Webpage.

Jie Zheng, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-6623-6839
Research interests: Genetic epidemiology, bioinformatics, genetic tools and platform development, drug development research, multi-omics Mendelian randomization, phenome-wide proteome research

Jie ZhengJie Zheng (MSc (University of Sheffield), PhD (University of Bristol)) is currently a professor in Shanghai JiaoTong University School of Medicine affiliated Ruijin Hospital. He is major in genetic epidemiology and bioinformatics. He gets multi-disciplinary backgrounds in statistical genetics, epidemiology, and bioinformatics, with specialist in building up platforms, applying causal inference method, such as multi-omics Mendelian randomization, to support translational research. During 2015-2018, He led/co-led on the development of a few post-GWAS databases and platforms, including MR-Base and LD Hub. Since 2018, he focus on using genetic tools and platforms to support translational research. I lead on the phenome-wide proteome research to support drug target identification, multi-ancestry research on complex diseases. Recently, I focused on research of several drugs related to endocrinology and metabolic diseases, including metformin, SGLT2 inhibitors, SOST inhibitors. Webpage.

Medical Informatics and Mathematical Modelling

Nan Liu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3610-4883
Research interests: AI, machine learning, data science, medical informatics, health services research, deep learning, heart rate variability, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

Nan LiuDr. Nan Liu is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Quantitative Medicine and Programme in Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS Medicine School, Singapore. He is also a graduate faculty member at Duke University, USA. His research focuses on interpretable and trustworthy machine learning with applications to medical informatics, health services research, emergency and critical care, cardiology, and health innovation. Dr. Liu has been awarded research grants from Singapore National Medical Research Council, National Health Innovation Centre, and National Research Foundation. He was recognized as one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University and Elsevier in 2022. Dr Liu serves and has served as Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member for more than 10 prestigious peer-reviewed journals, such as BMC Medicine, npj Digital Medicine, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, and PLOS Digital Health. Additionally, he is a regular reviewer for more than 80 international journals, including The Lancet, JAMA and Nature Medicine. Webpage.

Medical Statistics

Bhaskar Thakur, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6869-8968
Research interests: cardiovascular disease epidemiology, rehabilitation research, nutrition and liver disease epidemiology, cancer epidemiology, hypertension, diabetes, mental health disorder, maternal and child health

Bhaskar ThakurDr. Thakur is a faculty Biostatistician in the Departments of Family and Community Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, and Population and Data Science at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Texas, United States. His research interests are focused on the epidemiological and statistical practice for the study related to neuroepidemiology, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disorders and rehabilitation, liver disease, and cancer epidemiology at UT Southwestern. Active statistical areas include analysis of the mixed effect model; modeling for longitudinally measured exposures and outcomes, design and analysis for stepped wedge cluster randomized trial, methodological research for modern causal inference, quantitative methodologies and analytic approaches to population research, systematic review & meta-analysis; analysis of secondary data and survey data, etc. He is a member of the American Statistical Society and the Indian Society of Medical Statistics. Dr. Thakur is an author and co-author of more than 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Webpage

Guangyu Tong, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7697-5029
Research interests: Trial design, causal inference, treatment heterogenity, meta-analysis, machine learning, developmental psychiatry, mental health, gun violent crime, life-course research

Guangyu TongDr. Guangyu Tong is a faculty member at the Center for Methods of Implementation and Prevention Science and Department of Biostatistics at Yale University. He is interested in methodological research on pragmatic trial design, causal inference, Bayesian statistics and meta-analysis. He is also experienced in applied research on developmental psychiatry, mental health, gun violent crime, life-course research, immigrants and minorities, among others. Webpage.

Nephrology

James Fotheringham, MBChB, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8980-2223
Research interests: Health-related quality of life, Health Economics, Health Services Research, Causal Inference, haemodialysis, dialysis, kidney transplantation, chronic kidney disease, acute kidney injury, kidney


James Fotheringham photoJames is a consultant nephrologist and senior lecturer who works between the Sheffield Kidney Institute and the University of Sheffield’s School of Health and Related Research. His research has been recognised by young investigator awards from the British Transplant Society and the Renal Association, and the award of an NIHR intermediate fellowship on comparative effectiveness analysis using real world data. His primary interest is health economic evaluation in kidney disease. These combinations of skills are recognised by his appointment as Vice Chair of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence Technology Assessment Committee A, where he routinely appraises clinical trials, meta-analyses and survival modelling. He holds multiple NIHR grants, supervises PhD students and academic clinical trainees, and remains an active renal physician. Webpage. 

Sam Kant, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5863-3562
Research interests: Glomerulonephritis, Immunosuppression, Transplant, nephrology, kidney, anti–neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody–associated vasculitis

Dr. Kant is a transplant and general nephrologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has completed internal medicine residency and chief residency at University of Maryland, with subsequent general and transplant nephrology fellowship at Johns Hopkins. His research interests include immunosuppression, transplantation, immunology and glomerulonephritis. He is also chair of the American College of Physicians-Maryland Young Physicians Council. Webpage.

Ashish Verma, MBSS

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9497-6327
Research interests: Chronic kidney disease, diabetic kidney disease, renal amyloidosi, acid base and electrolytes disorder, aldosterone

Ashish VermaDr. Verma is a clinician-investigator interested in chronic kidney disease (CKD), Renal Amyloidosis, cardiorenal syndrome, diabetic kidney disease (DKD), renal physiology, and electrolyte abnormalities. Dr. Verma's research projects include epidemiologic investigations utilizing large databases and translational and patient-oriented research projects. Ongoing studies include predictors of CKD progression using CRIC cohort and UK biobank, predictors of mortality in CKD patients using NHANES, a Physiology study examining the role of Kidney Function Reserve and renal plasma flow in phenotyping chronic kidney disease and the role of intravitreal VEGF inhibitors in causing nephrotoxicity. Webpage.

Neurology

Pablo Andrade, PhD, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-2596-7301
Research interests: Neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, psychosurgery, spinal cord stimulation, functional neurosurgery, stereotactic neurosurgery, neuroprosthetics

Pablo Andrade picPablo Andrade is an Assistant Professor at the University of Cologne and Senior Consultant Neurosurgeon at the University Hospital Cologne in Germany. He was educated in Mexico/USA (MD, Anáhuac University/University of Miami), the Netherlands (PhD, Maastricht University) and Germany (Board-Certified Neurosurgeon, University Hospital Cologne). Dr. Andrade is Head of the Functional Neurosurgery Lab at the Department of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery at the University Hospital Cologne. His clinical activities and scientific research are oriented to the field of deep brain stimulation in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Currently, he focuses on the correlation between structural and functional connectivity patterns and their clinical outcome using neuromodulation. Webpage.

Sherief Ghozy, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5629-3023
Research interests: stroke prevention and treatment, endovascular and interventional neurology, neuroimaging in stroke and neurovascular diseases, health services, clinical trial methodology, meta-analysis, medical education, e-learning, telemedicine, and digital health technologies

Sherief GhozySherief Ghozy is a clinical researcher with a strong interest in stroke prevention and treatment, endovascular and interventional neurology, and neuroimaging in stroke and neurovascular diseases. He has also conducted research in musculoskeletal disorders, health services, clinical trial methodology, meta-analysis, medical education, e-learning, telemedicine, and digital health technologies. Sherief has authored multiple publications in reputable journals and serves in editorial and reviewer roles for various scientific journals. He is currently a Clinical Research Fellow at the Neurovascular Research Laboratory in the Department of Radiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Sherief is currently pursuing an MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care at Oxford University in the UK. Sherief's research interests lie in improving the understanding of the pathophysiology of cerebrovascular diseases and developing new therapeutic strategies that can help improve patient outcomes. He is dedicated to advancing medical knowledge through research and is committed to evidence-based practice to inform clinical decision-making. Webpage.

Panteleimon Giannakopoulos, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-4624-7386
Research interests: Cognitive and Affective Neurosciences, Psychiatry, Neuropsychology, Psychotherapy

Panteleimon GiannakopoulosBorn in 1965 in Greece, I obtained my MD degree in the University of Athens in 1989 before completing a full training on psychiatry and psychotherapy in London and Geneva as well as postdoc training in Paris (La Pitié-Sâlpetrière Hospital, Federation of Neurology). My psychiatric education combined early exposure to neurobiology and classical psychoanalytic training. In 1998, aged 33 years, I have been appointed as associate professor and medical head of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry of the University Hospitals of Geneva. Later on (2004) I obtained the position of full tenured professor of Psychiatry in the University of Geneva. From 2003 to 2011, I also assumed a parallel position of full professor of Old Age Psychiatry in the University of Lausanne in order to promote the academic careers of junior staff locally. An important part of my duties concerns the management and organization of psychiatric care for the Geneva state as Chairman of the Department of Mental Health and Psychiatry (2005-2015). In addition to this hospital position, I have been for 8 years vice dean of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Geneva having the responsibility of postgraduate and continuous education. To date, I have the responsibility of forensic psychiatry for law ordered treatments in the Geneva County. I have been also elected in the Executive Committee of the Council of Chiefs of Divisions in University Hospitals of Geneva.

My research field was initially that of the functional neuroanatomy of dementing conditions and may be illustrated by a series of clinico-pathological studies aiming to determine the relative weight of each aging-related lesion in cognitive deterioration. This work was made in close collaboration with the Department of Geriatrics and the Division of Neuropsychiatry of the University Hospitals of Geneva and the Department of Neuroscience of the Mount Sinai Hospital, NY. These ex vivo observations on neuropathological markers of dementia have been at the origin of an in vivo complement focusing on the identification of predictive markers of rapid cognitive decline in elderly controls. Lately, a new research program from my lab focuses on the fMRI and EEG correlates of human empathy in line with my current hospital position.
 

Lana Ruvolo Grasser, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7168-5524
Research interests: PTSD, trauma, anxiety, development, children and adolescents, dance/movement therapy, art therapy, inflammation, psychophysiology

Lana Ruvolo GrasserLana Ruvolo Grasser (she/her/hers) obtained her PhD in Translational Neuroscience from Wayne State University. Under the mentorship of Drs. Arash Javanbakht and Tanja Jovanovic, her NIMH-funded dissertation project, “Biomarkers of Risk and Resilience to Trauma in Syrian Refugee Youth”, identified skin conductance response to trauma interview and fear potentiated startle as candidate biomarkers of trauma-related psychopathology in youth exposed to civilian war trauma and forced migration. Dr. Grasser has extended this work to query efficacy and underlying mechanisms of creative arts and movement therapies to address trauma-related psychopathology in families resettled as refugees of Syria, Iraq, the Congo, and Afghanistan. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led efforts to expand these programs to the virtual space, to reach school children across southeast Michigan. She is also passionate about science policy and advocacy, and is a member of the National Science Policy Network as well as her local branch SciPol Detroit. Webpage.

Wenting Guo, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3585-7728
Research interests: neurodegenerative diseases (with special expertise in Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Frontotemporal Dementia and Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease), regenerative medicine, translational research

Wenting GuoDr. Wenting Guo is a neuroscientist and postdoctoral research associate in both VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research and KU Leuven Stem Cell Institute (SCIL) of KU Leuven University in Belgium. She received BS in Biological sciences and BA in English language and literature from Shanxi University in China, MSc in Genetics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, PhD in Biomedical sciences from KU Leuven University in Belgium. Dr. Guo’s research focus on building up in vitro/in vivo models, studying disease pathogenesis, and finding new therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative disorders with specialized expertise in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Charcot–Marie–Tooth (CMT) disease and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). She has published a series of peer-reviewed articles in high impact journals and own several research grants, fellowships, and prizes. Her research article on axonal transport defects in ALS patient derived motor neurons has been ranked as top ten most trendy articles in PubMed in the first week online and has been widely reported by social media including Alzforum, ALS News Today et al. Aside from research, Dr. Guo serves as external expert for two European Union's Horizon research and innovation programme funded projects to promote collaboration and communication between Europe and China, she also works as reviewer board, guest associate editor and invited reviewer for several international journals. Webpage

Niklas Joisten, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9947-8746
Research interests: Exercise, tryptophan metabolism, kynurenine, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, rehabilitation, physical activity

Niklas Joisten picDr. Niklas Joisten is an exercise physiologist with particular interest in the interaction between metabolism and immunology. He obtained his PhD in 2021 at the German Sport University Cologne and is currently working at TU Dortmund University, Germany. His research focus is on tryptophan metabolism and exercise-mediated health effects among inflammation-driven chronic diseases. Webpage.

Feng Sha, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-0966-5733
Research interests: neuroepidemiology; statistics; machine learning; dementia; mild cognitive impairment; mental health; health behaviour; routine healthcare data; global burden of health, population health, global burder of disease survey

Feng ShaFeng Sha is an associate professor at Shenzhen Institute of Advanced technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. As a health data scientist in the field of neuroepidemiology and population health, he focuses on using mathematical models, statistics methods and machine learning techniques to conduct epidemiological studies on dementia, mild cognitive impairment and mental health. His recent work includes AI-based screening models for mild cognitive impairment, exploring modifiable risk factors for dementia and epidemiological issues in using routine healthcare data to conduct medical research. Webpage.

Shashank Shekhar, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-8720-6690
Research interests: Neuroscience, neuronal circuit-signaling regulating homeostatic responses, UPR, autophagy, stress reponses, neurodegeneration

Shashank ShekharI am a postdoc in neuroscience interested in the neuronal circuit-signaling for regulation of homeostatic responses for long term adaptation during environmental changes. During my postdoctoral research, I discovered a conserved secreted pseudokinase which we named Allnighter (Aln) and found that Aln is part of a feedback loop in the Drosophila visual system. Aln is critical for proteostatic responses, including the UPR and autophagy in neurons. Our study identified a molecular link between proteostasis and sleep. This a first example of a secreted pseudokinase acting on different cell types. This surprising finding suggests that kinases and pseudokinases can be released from one cell to signal in another cell, in contrast to the conventional cell intrinsic signaling activity of such enzymes. During my PhD, I worked on Alzheimer’s diseases. I used human samples to explore possible biomarkers and designed and synthesized several peptides with potential therapeutic implications. From my PhD work, I published 15 papers; my thesis received the distinction of best PhD thesis of 2019 in our institute. Several other awards during my PhD. I am member of faculty search subcommittee (Neuroscience), UT Southwestern Medical center, Dallas, TX, Member, American Society for Cell Biology, Member, Genetics Society of America, Rockville, MD. Webpage.

Yuzhen Xu, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-1289-3438
Research interests: Cognitive, dementia, stroke, biomarker, rehabilitation, diabetes, complementary and alternative medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, sports medicine

Yuzhen Xu picYuzhen Xu is a professor at Shandong First Medical University. As a medical expert in the fields of neurology and rehabilitation medicine, he specializes in epidemiological and evidence-based medical research in the areas of cognitive disorders, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), diabetes, stroke, and sports medicine. His recent work includes prevention and treatment of cognitive disorders based on TCM interventions, exploration of early risk factor screening and preclinical interventions for dementia, and rehabilitation research on a variety of disorders including cognitive disorders utilizing conventional and cutting-edge technologies. Webpage.

Obstetrics and Gynecology

Francesco Dessole, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3581-2503
Research interests: Obstetrics, urogynecology, urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction, delivery and pelvic damage, bi-quadri radiofrequency treatment

Francesco DessoleDr. Francesco Dessole is currently working as a Surgeon Specialising in Gynaecology and Obstetrics at Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria di Sassari. He received his MD and PhD at the University of Sassari (UNISS), researching "Gender Medicine of Women, Men and Children". He is involved in several theoretical-scientific integrative teaching activities within the discipline of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (Gynaecological Diagnostics, Medico-Surgical and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Pre- and Perinatal Medicine, Paediatrics, Obstetrical-Gynaecological Nursing Sciences, as well as Childbirth and Childbirth Complications). He is particularly interested in using CBD in female chronic pelvic pain and its potential treatment with implantable controlled-release devices of a CBD-based active ingredient. Webpage.

Jon Huang, PhD, MPH

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orcid.org/0000-0002-5901-8403
Research interests: Reproductive, perinatal, pediatric epidemiology, causal inference, molecular epidemiology, environmental health, life course, birth cohorts

Jon HuangDr. Jon Huang is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Data Science at the Thompson School of Social Work and Public Heath, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, USA and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Quantitative Medicine and Programme in Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS Medicine School, Singapore. His research involves the application of quantitative causal inference and molecular methods to reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric health and using multi-modal data from birth cohorts across four continents. He has held competitive funding for several projects in this theme, including: environmental contaminant effects on child health and neurodevelopment; placental multi-omic mediators of early development; social determinants of the exposome; and an mHealth RCT for expectant couples. He has published widely including in JAMA Pediatrics, Environmental Health Perspectives, and Nature Communications, and provided invited commentaries to Epidemiology, Lancet Digital Health, Nature Human Behavior, and others. He has served as a methodological and biostatistical consultant on various projects for clinician scientists, basic scientists, and government agencies and currently serves as an educational editorial board member of International Journal of Epidemiology and a Methodological Editor at Fertility and Sterility. Webpage.

Kimiyo Kikuchi, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9397-4327
Research interests: global health, maternal and child health

Kimiyo KikuchiDr. Kimiyo Kikuchi is a lecturer at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, and specializes in global health, maternal and child health, and the social aspect of HIV. Dr. Kikuchi studied at the Graduate School of Medicine, the University of Tokyo, and obtained Ph.D. in Health Sciences, with research on the adherence of antiretroviral therapy among HIV-positive orphans and non-orphans in Rwanda (mixed methods study). Dr. Kikuchi worked as a consultant of official development assistance under Japanese government projects on maternal health, school health, and water and sanitation in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Dr. Kikuchi settled in the University of Tokyo as an assistant professor in 2012 and worked as the primary researcher of Ghana's EMBRACE project to ensure the continuum of care in maternal and child health, which embodies the "New International Health Policy 2011-2015" of the Japanese government. Then, in 2016, Dr. Kikuchi moved to Kyushu University and launched a project to improve the continuum of care on maternal and child health in Bangladesh using a telemedicine system. Webpage

Mengmeng Li, MD, MSPH

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7518-1641
Research interests: Reproductive medicine, in-vitro fertilization, environmental exposure and child health, neurodevelopmental disorder, adolescent gender norm, adolescent mental health

Mengmeng LiDr. Mengmeng Li is a Research Associate in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her interdisciplinary research activities cover reproductive medicine, maternal and child health, and adolescent health. In reproductive medicine, Dr. Li uses nationally representative samples to identify IVF procedure-related parameters that potentially inform better cycle and pregnancy outcomes. In parallel, she also serves as a senior data analyst on the Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS), a multi-country prospective cohort study, implementing cross-sectional and longitudinal analytical methodologies to evaluate how gender norm perspectives evolve and shape sexual and reproductive health during adolescence. Her research scope has recently been expanded to maternal and child health, specifically understanding how environmental inputs in prenatal windows impact neurodevelopmental disorders during childhood from a multi-omics lens. Besides being a reviewer for multiple journals, Dr. Li has published a series of peer-reviewed articles as first and co-author in leading journals, including the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Fertility and Sterility, the American Journal of Public Health, and the Journal of Adolescent Health. Webpage.

Johannes Ott, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-2761-5262
Research interests: Polycycstic ovary syndrome, amenorrhea, functional hypothalamic amenorrhea, laparoscopy, infertility, menopause, climacteric, ovarian stimulation, IVF, reproductive surgery, hysteroscopy, fallopian, fallopian tubes

Johannes OttAssoc.Prof. Dr. Johannes Ott, born in September 1980 in Vienna, Austria, currently is the interims chair of the Clinical Division of Gynecologic Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles with a main focus on polycystic ovary syndrome, fertility surgery, recurrent miscarriage, artificial reproduction, thyroid function and autoimmune thyroiditis. Webpage.

Alex Ridout, MBBS, BA, MRCOG, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-0988-7229
Research interests: Preterm birth, pre-eclampsia, global health, maternal mortality

Alex RidoutDr. Alex Ridout is an Obstetrics and Gynaecology doctor in London, at St Thomas’ Hospital and co-ordinators the NIHR Global Health Research Group CRIBS. CRIBS focuses on simple, scalable innovations to reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. She is leading the CRADLE-5 trial, evaluating the effectiveness and national scale-up of a vital signs alert device and training package into routine maternity care. Her research interest in high-risk pregnancy spans high and low-income settings; her thesis looked at strategies to personalise prediction of spontaneous preterm birth (King’s Outstanding Thesis Award). Webpage.

Natalie Suff, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-0736-7046
Research interests: Pregnancy, preterm birth, immunology, reproductive health, animal models, infection

Natalie SuffDr. Natalie Suff is a clinical lecturer with a research interest in Preterm birth. She is a Wellcome Clinical Research Career development fellow looking into the mechanisms of infection and inflammation-related spontaneous preterm birth. She is an Obstetrics and Gynaecology doctor in London, with a specialist interest in maternal and fetal medicine. Webpage.

Shengzhi Sun, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3708-1225
Research interests: Environmental epidemiology; climate change and health; air pollution and health; built environment and health; cohort study; time-series study

Shengzhi SunDr. Sun is currently a Research Scientist in Environmental Health at Boston University School of Public health. Prior to his current position, he completed two years of postdoctoral training at Brown University School of Public Health. He obtained a Ph.D. is in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Hong Kong (2017). His research focuses on climate change and health and, in particular maternal and child health. He applies sophisticated statistical approaches to large complex national data sets to inform public health. Webpage

Kilian Vomstein, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-2981-4211
Research interests: Infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss, embryo implantation, endometriosis, endometrium, reproductive immunology, early pregnancy

Kilian VomsteinKilian Vomstein is a gynecologist at the Fertility Clinic, Dep. of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre and at the Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Unit Copenhagen, Denmark. His research focuses on the immunology of the feto-maternal interface - especially NK-cells - and the interaction with the local microbiome in recurrent pregnancy loss and recurrent implantation failure. Webpage.

Jian Zhao, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-1306-1676
Research interests: Early life determinants of endocrinology & metabolic disorders, Mendelian randomization, integrative analysis of multi-omics data, aetiological epidemiology of reproductive and perinatal outcomes, prospective cohort studies

Jian Zhao resizedDr. Jian Zhao is currently an Assistant Professor at Southern University of Science and Technology, China and an Honorary Senior Research Associate at MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, the University of Bristol, UK. His research interests focus on investigating early life determinants of endocrinology & metabolic disorders (e.g., PCOS, NAFLD, T2D etc) in later life using state-of-the-art techniques including Mendelian randomization and multi-omics data integration analysis approach. He is also interested in computational medicine/ precision medicine research as to identify novel molecular biomarkers or therapeutic targets for adverse reproductive and perinatal outcomes leveraging human genetic data and advanced computational biology methods, in large-scale cohort studies such as UK Biobank and other collaborative birth cohorts. Dr. Zhao has published a series of peer-reviewed papers in leading medical/ statistical computing journals such as Journal of Hepatology, BMC Medicine, the Lancet Discovery Science - eBioMedicine, JCEM and Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine. He also serves as reviewers/ review editors for journals including Journal of Hepatology, BMC Medicine, Diabetes Care, International Journal of Epidemiology, Fertility and Sterility, Seminars in Liver Disease, Maternal and Child Health, Computers in Biology and Medicine, and Frontier in Endocrinology. Webpage.

Yeyi Zhu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7296-738X
Research interests: Pregnancy complications, gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, preterm birth, nutrition, epidemiology, obesity, children

Yeyi ZhuYeyi Zhu, PhD, is a Research Scientist II (equivalent to Associate Professor) at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research and adjunct faculty at Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Zhu's research interests are at the interface of disease etiology and prevention strategies in the arena of women's and children's health across the lifespan. She applies a life course approach to examine the developmental origins of cardiometabolic impairments of offspring exposed to nonoptimal intrauterine environment by integrating 'omics technologies, high-dimensional electronic health records, and "big data" analytics tools. Her research aims to inform upstream preventive strategies to interrupt the vicious intergenerational cycle of obesity and diabetes and its related comorbidities across the lifespan. Dr. Zhu's research is sponsored by grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Webpage

Oncology

Kilan Ashad-Bishop, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-6846-3499
Research interests: cancer biology, cancer disparities, social determinants of health, structural determinants of health

Kilan Ashad-BishopDr. Kilan C. Ashad-Bishop (she/her) is a biomedical scientist and advocate for inclusion who has carved her niche at the intersection of science, health, and social change. She is a proud alumna of Morgan State University, where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology, and the University of Miami, where she earned her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology. In her various professional capacities, Kilan works to improve the health and well-being of communities of color and expand opportunities for the next generation of innovators. Webpage.

Melvin L.K. Chua, MBBS, FRCR, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-1648-1473
Research interests: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, head and neck cancer, prostate cancer, genomics, biomarkers, clinical trials

Melvin L.K. ChuaProf. Chua is a Clinician-Scientist at the NCCS and Duke-NUS Medical School, and Principal Investigator of the Precision Radiotherapeutics and Oncology Programme, Division of Medical Sciences, supported by the NMRC Clinician-Scientist Award. He is also the Head of Department and Senior Consultant for Head and Neck and Thoracic Cancers, Division of Radiation Oncology, and Director of the Data and Computational Science Core at the NCCS. His research focuses on the development of Phase II-III clinical trials in nasopharyngeal (NPC) and prostate cancers. He also runs a laboratory that is involved in data science and omics analytics that help with therapeutic and biomarker discovery for these cancer types. He serves as Associate Professor (On Tenure) of Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore; Visiting Professor of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, China. His key accomplishments include: ASCO-CSCO International guidelines on the treatment of locoregionally-advanced NPC; Co-Lead investigator of the randomised controlled trial of induction gemcitabine-cisplatin in high-risk locoregionally-advanced NPC; Co-Lead investigator of the randomised controlled trial of consolidation radiotherapy in patients with metastatic NPC who manifest a good response to palliative chemotherapy. Currently, Dr Chua co-leads the Singapore NPC Large Collaborative Grant, where he leads a platform trial – RIBBON: tReatment Individualisation By eBv stratificatiOn in Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A multi-arm platform study – for locoregionally advanced NPC and recurrent-metastatic NPC. Dr Chua also received numerous honours such as SingHealth Excellence Distinguished Researcher Award (2021), Conquer Cancer Foundation ASCO Merit Award (2013, 2015, 2016), NMRC Clinician-Scientist Award (Investigator, 2017, 2021), Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists (2013), and Fellow of the Academy of Medicine Singapore (FAMS, 2021). Webpage.

Alexis Combes, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9110-6542
Research interests: Tumor immunology, cancer, system immunology, multi-dimensional single cell technologies

Alexis Combes resizedAlexis is holding a position of Assistant Professor, in the department of Pathology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).  His lab uses a system immunology approach leveraging immune monitoring and high-dimensional single cell technologies both on tumor of animal model and clinical samples to show the existence of archetypal organization of immune systems in tissue—collections of cell types that move together as modules. His focus is to better understand the immunological context of different diseases to expand and improve immunotherapies.  The concept of immune archetype is not limited to cancer. Therefore, in the lab we are also working toward building an atlas of the different immune archetype across tissues and biological systems to explore the parallels in immune states across conditions, and how we may better stratify patients using measurements of the immune system to improve diagnoses and treatment. This is enabled by the Disease-to-biology CoLab, a collaboration-based research lab where we provide our expertise to the broader UCSF research community to profile the immune system in various sets of tissues and organism. This teamwork will dissect the different immune archetypes in different contexts and will guide the development of relevant precision therapies that are aimed at adjusting the relative strengths of these archetypes depending on the diseases. Before Joining UCSF, Dr Combes obtained his PhD in immunology from the Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) in Marseille where he studied the regulation of protein trafficking in dendritic cell populations upon activation in viral infection and cancer.

Narendranath Epperla, MD, MS

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8216-3457
Narendranath EpperlaNarendranath Epperla, MD, MS, is an Assistant Professor in Clinical Medicine at The Ohio State University. After receiving his medical degree in India, Dr. Epperla came to the U.S. and completed Internal Medicine Residency at Marshfield Clinic where he also served as a Chief Resident. He obtained his master’s degree in Clinical and Translational Science and completed a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He was the recipient of the Donald J Schuenke Cancer Fellowship award for excellence in educational, clinical, and research activity.

Dr. Epperla is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Hematology, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, and the American Association for Cancer Research. He has authored numerous peer reviewed publications, including journal articles, meeting abstracts, and book chapters. His research interests focus on conducting early phase clinical trials using novel drug combinations to treat patients with lymphoid malignancies as well as to identify possible biomarkers that can predict treatment response. He is also actively involved in the CIBMTR lymphoma and cellular therapy committees and has published several high-impact papers utilizing the registry. Webpage.

Kelly Hirko, PhD, MPH

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orcid.org/0000-0002-0050-655X
Research interests: cancer, epidemiology, obesity, diet, disparities, rural, implementation science

Kelly HirkoI am a cancer epidemiologist, with a focus on understanding how lifestyle factors, such as diet, physical activity, and obesity influence cancer risk and survival. My research explores rural, socioeconomic, and racial/ethnic disparities and investigates social determinants of behavioral risk factors contributing to observed disparities. As a rural community-based researcher, my research is shifting toward translational work including using dissemination and implementation science approaches to effectively incorporate evidence-based interventions into underserved settings. Webpage

Jaidip Jagtap, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-1839-862X
Research interests: biomedical engineering, lasers & optics, physics, and Radiology. Computer assisted quantification, Cancer, Translational medicine, Bioinformatics, Radiomics, Radiation oncology, Medical Imaging (MRI, CT, Ultrasound, Digital imaging), Nanoparticles

Jaidip JagtapDr. Jaidip Jagtap received his both M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from the University of Pune in 2008 and from IIT Kanpur, India in 2015, respectively. He has completed 5 years of postdoctoral work at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA in the Biomedical Engineering Department on developing an NIR-SWIR imaging tool to image and analyze the altered vascular/lymphatic functions in small animal models due to impact from tumor or irradiation. Also developed a nanoparticle mediated therapeutic tool for diagnostic and therapeutic study. Currently, Dr. Jagtap is a research staff in Radiology at Mayo Clinic Rochester, working with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning to develop models and assist radiologist in decision making. His study involved various clinical data (MRI, CT, ultrasound, histopathology) from the kidney, skin, nerves, etc. He is the author of over 40 scientific papers published in international peer-reviewed journals, 10 book chapters, and several congress proceedings. He has peer-reviewed 70+ articles for various international scientific journals and also given invited talks and oral presentations on various platforms. Webpage

Jianguang Ji, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-0324-9496
Research interests: Cancer epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, colorectal cancer, stomach sancer, mendelian randomization

Jianguang JiDr. Jianguang Ji's research has a strong focus on the influence of genetic and environmental factors on chronic diseases, with a main focus on cancer incidence and mortality. By using data from nationwide registers and national and regional surveys, his research has shed new light on potential genetic and environmental factors associated with the development of various types of cancer. Results from his research studies can be found in highly ranked journals, such as The Lancet Oncology, J Clin Oncology, J National Cancer Inst, Gastroenterology, and Circulation, BMC Medicine, et al. Webpage.

Christiana Kartsonaki, PhD, DPhil

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3981-3418
Research interests: Cancer, statistics, epidemiology, COVID-19, case-cohort studies, fine-mapping, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, proteomics

Christiana KartsonakiChristiana Kartsonaki is a Senior Statistician at the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford (UK). She is working on the epidemiology of cancer and other diseases, as well as on related statistical methods. Her main interests include risk factors (including metabolic and lifestyle risk factors, infectious pathogens, and genetics), biomarkers, and risk prediction for cancer, and statistical methods motivated by biomedical applications. She is also involved in studies on cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, COVID-19, and cystic fibrosis. She has a degree in Mathematics, an MSc in Applied Statistics and a DPhil in Statistics. She has previously worked in the Department of Oncology of the University of Oxford and at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care of the University of Cambridge. Webpage.

Victor Kok, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3440-8154
Research interests: medical oncology, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, breast cancer, lung cancer, head and neck cancer, GI cancer, gynecological cancers, urological cancers, solid tumor oncology, cancer epidemiology, association study, in silico research.

Victor KokDr. Victor C. Kok is the medical director of Kuang Tien General Hospital Cancer Center, Taichung, Taiwan. He obtained his MD and MMedSc degrees from Chung Shan Medical University, Taiwan. Dr. Kok got his Ph.D. from the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Asia University Taiwan. Victor Kok trained as a medical oncologist at the Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center, Taipei. He was board-certified in the Medical Oncology Certification Exam at the European Society for Medical Oncology and Taiwan Oncology Society. After that, he joined Asia University as an assistant professor. Dr. Kok graduated from the Harvard Medical School High-Impact Cancer Research-Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Program 2018/2019, Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Kok has been awarded Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP) and is now an active member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the Japan Cancer Association (JCA), the Taiwan Society of Internal Medicine, and the Taiwan Oncology Society. VC Kok's research interests include clinical cancer research, cancer epidemiology, cancer bioinformatics, medical oncology, internal medicine, palliative care, and clinical and population-based disease informatics. Webpage. 

Can Küçük, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5540-9012
Research interests: Lymphoma, mutiple myeloma, hematological malignancies, cancer biology, oncology, molecular biology and genetics, genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics

Can KüçükDr. Can Küçük earned his B.S. degree from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at METU. He completed his Ph.D. studies on oncology and cancer biology in 2012 at the UNMC. Having continued post-doctoral studies at UNMC and City of Hope Medical Center for two years, he returned back to Türkiye, and started working at the Medical Biology branch of Dokuz Eylül University and İzmir Biomedicine and Genome Center. Dr. Küçük has publications in prestigious journals such as Lancet Oncology, Blood, PNAS, and Clinical Cancer Research. One of his first author research articles published in Nature Communications was cited as the basic reference for classification of EATL by the WHO. At the international level, he has three awards from the American Society of Hematology (Abstract Achievement Award, Global Research Award, Supplement Award) as well as the International Young Scientist Award from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. At the national level, he earned TÜBA GEBİP and Science Academy BAGEP awards. The research group led by Dr. Küçük focuses on genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic aberrations causing lymphoid cancers to identify molecular biomarkers that can facilitate diagnosis, risk stratification, and disease monitoring of lymphoid cancers and to discover more effective therapeutic targets. Webpage.

Shuai Li, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8696-8594
Research interests: Genetic epidemiology, epigenetic epidemiology, twin research, family research, cancer risk prediction, breast cancer

Shuai Li resizedDr Shuai Li is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne. Dr Li is trained in medicine and epidemiology, with a Bachelor of Medicine degree and a Master of Science degree obtained in Peking University, and a PhD degree obtained in the University of Melbourne in 2018. From 2018 to 2020, he worked at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, Cambridge University. Dr Li’s research interests include genetic and epigenetic epidemiology of cancers, twin and family research, and cancer risk modelling. Webpage

Suping Ling, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7207-5656
Research interests: Diabetes, cancer, inequalities, electronic health records data

Suping LingSuping has a medical background and completed her PhD in Cancer Epidemiology at Centre for Public health, Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland) in 2018. She then moved to the University of Leicester (Leicester Diabetes Centre and Department of Health Sciences) to do post-doctoral research using electronic health records data. In June 2021, she joined the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as Assistant Professor in Epidemiology within the Inequalities in Cancer Outcomes Network (ICON) group. Her research interests include diabetes, cancer, inequalities and use of routine data. Webpage.

Huai Liu, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7854-8082
Research interests: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, head and neck cancer, lung cancer, radiotherapy

Huai LiuDr. Huai Liu is an associate professor of radiation oncology at Hunan Cancer Hospital and the Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine in Changsha, Hunan, China. In 2014, he earned his MD degree in Oncology from Sun Yat-sen University. Dr. Liu's research focus lies primarily in the realm of clinical and translational research, with a particular emphasis on nasopharyngeal carcinoma, lung cancer, and head and neck cancer. As a radiation oncologist, he also takes a keen interest in investigating the mechanisms and treatments of radiation-induced injuries, a crucial area for enhancing the effectiveness and safety of radiation therapy in cancer treatment. He has published his research findings in prestigious journals such as Lancet Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO), Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JCNI), and European Journal of Cancer (EJC). Webpage.

Tanimola Martins, PhD

orcid.org/0000-0001-5226-4073
Research interests: Health inequity/inequality, cancer diagnosis in primary care, public health, stroke rehabilitation, racial/ethnic disparities

Tanimola MartinsTanimola is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer in Postgraduate Education at the University of Exeter Medical School. He has a background in Medical Rehabilitation and Public Health. His research aims to identify and quantify sociodemographic differences in primary care diagnosis of cancer, intending to formulate appropriate interventions to address such inequalities. Presently, Tanimola is collaborating with researchers from University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to investigate ethnic inequities in diagnosis and outcomes of symptomatic cancer. Webpage

Yoshiaki Nagatani, PhD

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orcid.org/0009-0000-6153-6456
Research interests: Chemotherapy, gastrointestinal cancer, oncology, immuno-oncology

Yoshiaki NagataniI am affiliated with medical oncology and hematology in Kobe University Hospital and practices clinically across organs. I am an oncologist in specializing in the gastrointestinal tract including esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, and colorectal cancer. I am Specialist of The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine, Specialist of The Japanese Society of Gastroenterology, Specialist of The Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society, and Specialist and Supervisory Doctor of The Japanese Society of Medical Oncology. My research interests are in immunotherapy, with a particular focus on immunosuppressive cells. Webpage.

Hirak Patra, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-6142-5489
Research interests: Regenerative medicines, drug delivery, theranostics, biosensing

Hirak PatraDr. Hirak K Patra is among the next generation of scientist with translational focus cross-discipline interests. He is an Associate Professor of Nanomedicine and Regenerative Medicine at the Division of Surgery and Interventional Science at the University College London (UCL). The Patra Lab at UCL is exploring nanoscale science, technologies, and materials for advanced healthcare applications. Dr Patra has been awarded with MRC Career Development Award by the Medical Research Council UK and developing medicated artificial implants. He was a fellow (Jr, B1) at the Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge where he implemented his EU Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual European Fellowship developing nano tools combating drug resistance. Dr. Patra obtained his PhD with his thesis work on “Synthetic nanoforms as designer and explorer for cellular events” with several high rank publications and huge citations from University of Calcutta. He moved to the Applied Physics Division of Linköping University with prestigious Integrative Regenerative Medicine fellowship at Sweden. His research interests across the discipline attract attention of pioneer leading scientists and awarded with several ‘Young Scientist’ category globally. His personal dedication in the field and passion for the innovation together with his skills and experience enable him to publish 4 PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty). Webpage.

Ramesh Pothuraju, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-0216-2578
Research interests: Cancer, Cancer biology, Drug delivery, Cancer therapeutics, Colorectal cancer, gut microbiota, obesity, diabetes, dietary fiber, intestinal homeostasis

Ramesh PothurajuDr. Ramesh Pothuraju, Ph.D. is currently working as Junior Faculty in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), Omaha, USA. During initial years of postdoctoral training at UNMC, he studied the differential expression of mucins in pancreatic cancer (PC) as well as colorectal cancer (CRC) progression and developed genetically engineered mouse models for these cancers. Overall, his research interest is gastro-intestinal cancers, dietary fibers, obesity, diabetes, gut microbiota and intestinal homeostasis. Webpage

Joseph Rothwell, PhD

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europepmc.org/authors/0000-0002-6927-3360
Research interests: Cancer epidemiology, cancer prevention, cancer risk factors, cohort studies, metabolomics, biomarkers, omics technologies, nutrition

JosephJoseph is a molecular epidemiologist and researcher at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm). His main focus is understanding cancer, metabolic diseases and their risk factors, such as nutrition and environmental exposures, in the context of primary prevention. He aims to bring together traditional epidemiology and molecular techniques such as -omics technologies to aid the understanding of these diseases and contribute to their prevention.
Initially trained as a laboratory bioanalyst, he spent the early part of his career operating and maintaining instruments such as mass spectrometers for studies of various design on nutrition and health. This led him to specialise in metabolomics and these days he has traded the laboratory bench for epidemiological data analyses and programming. His recent research pertains to colorectal and breast cancer, with large metabolomics datasets frequently put to use. He is a proponent of reproducible research and a fan of open-source code and version control. Webpage.

Alessandro Russo, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3365-1972
Research interests: NSCLC; Liquid biopsy; Immunotherapy; SCLC

Alessandro RussoDr. Russo is a board-certified medical oncologist with interest in thoracic malignancies, immunotherapy and liquid biopsies.
Dr. Russo degreed as M.D. at the University of Messina (Italy) and there he completed his residency in Medical Oncology. He had his PhD in 2019 in Medical and Surgical Biotechnologies at the University of Messina, with a research project on the role of liquid biopsies as predictive biomarkers to immune checkpoint inhibitors in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). During his PhD, Dr. Russo joined as Visiting Researcher the Division of Thoracic Medical Oncology and Early Clinical Trials at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center (Baltimore, USA).
From February 2020 he joined the Medical Oncology Unit of the A.O. Papardo (Messina, Italy) as medical oncologist, with focus on thoracic malignancies.
He is member of several national and international scientific societies, including the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), the Italian Association of Thoracic Oncology (AIOT), the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (AIOM) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). Dr. Russo took part to the Executive Board of the Sicilian Section of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (AIOM) for the years 2015-2019.
Dr. Russo is co-author of more than 70 publications in peer-reviewed international journals, three book chapters and he is actively involved in clinical research in advanced NSCLC. Webpage

Mingwang Shen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-4553-800X
Research interests: Infectious diseases modelling, health economics, cost-effectiveness analysis, artificial intelligence, genetic screening and gene therapy, cancer screening

Mingwang Shen picMingwang Shen earned PhD degree in Applied Mathematics (2017) and now is an Associate Professor in Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health from Xi’an Jiaotong University. He is vice Director of China-Australia Joint Research Center for Infectious Diseases and Key Laboratory for Disease Prevention and Control and Health Promotion of Shaanxi Province. His research interests include infectious diseases modelling, artificial intelligence in medicine, health economics, cost-effectiveness analysis, genetic screening and gene therapy, etc. He has published original research articles in reputable peer-reviewed journals, including The Innovation, BMC Medicine, Lancet Regional Health-Western Pacific, Journal of the International AIDS Society, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, AIDS, etc. Webpage.

Ryota Tamura, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8637-901X
Research interests: Malignant glioma; Neurofibromatosis; iPS cells; Neural stem cell; Gene therapy; Immunotherapy; Skull base surgery

ryota tamuraMy clinical and research interests focus on neurosurgical approaches to patients with brain tumors. I am dedicated to management of patients with malignant glioma, sporadic schwannoma and neurofibromatosis type 2. As a neurosurgeon in Keio University, Japan, I specialize in skull base techniques for posterior cranial fossa tumors.
Active areas of research include stem cell-based gene therapy using iPS cells for the treatment of the central nervous system tumors and regenerative medicine. I serve as a PI leading multiple preclinical studies evaluating the treatment effect of genome-edited iPS cells utilizing orthotopic immunocompetent glioblastoma models and plan to transcribe into novel gene therapy clinical studies with glioblastoma patients. Another area of my research involves the role of anti-angiogenic immunotherapy for the treatment of unresectable benign tumors including neurofibromatosis type 2. Webpage.

Pei Yu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-7485-1751
Research interests: Environmental health, cancer epidemiology

Pei Yu picCommencing in November 2022, Pei serves as an early career research fellow in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University. She successfully completed her PhD training within the same school from August 2019 to February 2023. Demonstrating expertise in cancer epidemiology and environmental health research, CI-Yu has emerged as a promising young researcher, evidenced by her notable publications and awards. She holds a Monash SPHPM Early Career Postdoctoral Fellowship for the period 2023-2024. Webpage.

Dake Zhang, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9508-8209
Research interests: Tumor genomics, medical genomics, translational genomics, computational biology, biomarkers, DNA methylation, HBV infection, liver cancer

Dake ZhangIn 2009, Dr. Zhang obtained a doctoral degree in Genetics from the Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The same year saw him commence his position as an assistant professor in the Key Laboratory of Genomic and Precision Medicine, which too is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The year 2014 witnessed him embark on a one-year sojourn to the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics of the Baylor College of Medicine as a visiting scholar. In 2016, he became a member of the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Two years later, in 2018, he obtained a senior genetic counselor certification from the Chinese Board of Genetic Counseling. Finally, in the year 2020, he commenced his faculty position at Beihang University. His current research endeavors revolve around delving into and assessing the deleterious impact of tissue damage or affected cell populations, as it pertains to the emergence, progression, and mitigation of ailments. His research agenda will be centered on two critical areas: firstly, investigating the unique methylation changes and epigenetic remodeling patterns in tissues affected by diseases; secondly, tracking the ancestral origins of free DNA present in peripheral blood by analyzing their genomic features. Webpage.

Wen Zhang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3150-2751
Research interests: Biotherapy, Immunotherapy, Liquid biopsy, Tumor microenvironment, Biomarkers, Metastasis, Cancer stem cell

Wen ZhangI am a Research Associate in the Department of Immunology, Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College. I am trained in Bioengineering, with a Bachelor degree obtained in China Agricultural University, and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology obtained in the Beijing Normal University in 2018. My research focuses on cancer biotherapy and immunotherapy, especially the application of oncolytic viruses. Similarly, I am also interested in the influence of the tumor microenvironment on tumor therapy. In addition, part of my work has focused on liquid biopsy, especially clinical applications of circulating tumor cells. Webpage.

Yi Zhang, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5388-1276
Research interests: Bioinformatics, statistics, aging, cancer, preeclampsia, cell-free DNA, in-vitro diagnosis, epigenetics, DNA methylation

Yi Zhang picYi Zhang received his BSc and PhD in Biological Sciences from School of Life Sciences, Peking University. Yi is interested in developing experimental and computational methods to study a range of important disease-related biological processes such as cancer, pregnancy, development, and aging. He develops assays to non-invasively detect and monitor diseases, such as preeclampsia and cancer, using epigenetic information from cell-free DNA. Yi is the CTO of Euler Technology in Beijing, China. Webpage.

Bin Zhao, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-7065-2416
Research interests: T cell development/differentiation, B cell development/differentiation, autoimmune diseases, T cell metabolism, B cell metabolism, nutrition, chronic disease prevention and control

Bin ZhaoBin Zhao is a professor of the National key lab of Diabetes Immunology (the Ministry of Education), and National Clinical Research Center for Metabolic Diseases, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University. Bin Zhao obtained his Ph.D. from Karolinska Institutet and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania and the National Institutes of Health. As first author/co-corresponding author, he has published in top-tier journals, including Nature Immunol, Circulation, Trends Immunol, PNAS, etc. His lab focuses on 1. T &B cell development, differentiation and autoimmune diseases. 2. Nutrition, Metabolism, chronic disease prevention and control. Webpage.

Jun Zhong, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3700-9434
Research interests: Cancer genetic epidemiology, computational oncology, cancer multi-omics, driver factors for tumorigenesis, pancreatic cancer, polygenic risk scores (PRS), comprehensive risk prediction, genome/transcriptome-wide association study (GWAS/TWAS), translational genomics, artificial intelligence.

Jun Zhong picJun Zhong, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow specializing in Computational Oncology at the laboratory of translational genomics within the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, US. His primary research areas include bioinformatics and tumor genetics/genomics, focusing on (1) developing pancreatic cancer risk prediction models (using polygenic risk scores (PRS) and non-genetic factors), (2) genetic susceptibilities through extensive multi-omics approaches (e.g., genome and transcriptome-wide association studies (GWAS/TWAS)), and (3) exploring tumorigenesis drivers in accessible chromatin regions and cis-regulatory elements. Dr. Zhong's academic journey includes a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and a staff scientist experience from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute. He has contributed to many high-quality publications, with 8 as the first/co-first or co-corresponding author in prestigious journals such as Nucleic Acid Research, JNCI, American Journal of Human Genetics, The Innovation, and Trends in Genetics. Notably, Dr. Zhong spearheaded a significant collaborative TWAS, identifying 14 novel genes linked to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer. This work received considerable recognition, including an editorial highlight in the JNCI. His accolades include the NIH DCEG Intramural Research Award (IRA), two NIH Fellows Awards for Research Excellence, and a Summer Research Mentor Award. Webpage.

Jian Gou Zhou, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-5021-3739
Research interests: EBM, Precision Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Immunotherapy, Biomarkers, bioinformatics

Jian-Guo Zhou MD, Dr. rer. biol. hum (Ph.D.) is a oncologist at Department of Oncology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University. His research focuses on how to identify the predictive and prognostic biomarkers for cancer patients with ICI and RT. He is an Associate Editor of Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment (TCRT), Frontiers in Oncology and Frontiers in Immunology; Section Editor of Cancer Control; Academic Editor of Pain Research and Management, Disease Markers, Medicine®, and a guest editor of Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology. He also served as a reviewer for more than 40 international Journals, e.g. JITC, Oncoimmunology, Gynecologic Oncology, IJC, et al. He got Merit Award in ESMO Asia (2018, 2019), KSMO Young Investigator Award (2020), CSCO 35 under 35 (2019), and received lots of oral presentations in ESMO Asia, EANO. Webpage

Pediatrics

Qihong Deng, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9824-3534
Research interests: Early life exposure, Pediatrics and children health, Global warming, Air pollution, Healthy cities, Environmental epidemiology.

Qihong DengDr Qihong Deng is a chair professor in Zhengzhou University School of Public Health and vice president for the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ). He has mainly focused on the health risk of air pollution and global warming, with the objectives to design comfortable and healthy buildings/cities. He is now associate editors for the International Journal of Environmental Health Research (Taylor & Francis), Frontiers in Public Health/Frontiers in Pediatrics, and Thermal Science and Engineering Progress (Elsevier), and editorial board members for several international journals, such as Environment International (Elsevier), BMC Medicine, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health (Elsevier), Annals of Epidemiology (Elsevier), Building and Environment (Elsevier), Indoor Air (Wiley), Energy and Buildings (Elsevier), Environmental Toxicology (Wiley), Journal of Thermal Biology (Elsevier), Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (Springer), and Journal of Asthma (Taylor & Francis). Dr Deng received several awards, such as National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation (2005) and New Century Excellent Talents in Universities of China (2005). He is now the Fellows of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ), New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM), Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), and International Society of the Built Environment (ISBE). He has published more than 150 papers in international journals (more than 60 during the past five years) and has been selected as the Most Cited Chinese Researchers since 2015 (Elsevier). His recent research on the role of prenatal exposure to indoor/outdoor air pollution in the late development of childhood allergic diseases has been highly cited by some world-leading professors and journals, some articles have been the Editor's Choice and Most Cited articles in international journals. His findings provide a new public health control strategy for the prevention or control of the rapid increase of childhood allergic diseases in the world, and have been incorporated into several international consensus, guidelines, and policies. Webpage.

Niina Kolehmainen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9229-9913
Research interests: child health, complex interventions, behaviour, paediatric, non-pharmacological, mixed methods, population health, applied health, allied health, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing

Niina KolehmainenDr Niina Kolehmainen is an allied health population scientist leading research into childhood health behaviours, their impact on health and well-being, and non-pharmacological innovations (NPIs) that support early-life health behaviours. Niina's particular focus is on children at the highest risk of ill health due to long-term conditions and disadvantage. Niina's research integrates behaviour science, applied health sciences, and clinical approaches to push the boundaries of current knowledge and thinking around child health, and to inform practice, policy and commissioning. Niina also leads the Reproduction, Development and Child Health Theme for the Newcastle University Faculty of Medical Sciences. This is a collaboration of around 40 academics across the Faculty, from biosciences to clinical and translational medicine to population health, with a mission to maximise life-course health and wellbeing for all through research into early-life events and interventions. As an Academy of Medical Sciences FLIER, Niina has a particular interest in interdisciplinary, cross-sector research that operates across traditional disciplinary boundaries and integrates diversity of views and expertise. Webpage.

Primary Care

Bhautesh Jani, PhD

orcid.org/0000-0001-7348-514X
Research interests: Multimorbidity; Primary care

Bhautesh JaniI lead a data science programme of work within which focuses on risk assessment and multimorbidity in clinical general practice. As a practicing GP, I have noticed that the patients I see often have multiple chronic diseases and complex health presentations consequently. My research programme focuses on application of data science approaches to provide solutions for better management of these complex health presentations and problems. I intend to use modern data science approaches to transform the understanding of relationships between multimorbidity (multiple chronic diseases) and a range of clinical outcomes (mortality, vascular outcomes, cancer outcomes and hospitalisation), and how individual patient factors (such as socio-economic status and frailty) influences these relationships. This new acquired knowledge has the potential to make the risk stratification of patients with chronic diseases more precise, which in turn can improve the chronic disease management programme in primary care. Webpage.

Psychiatry

Getinet Ayano, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9137-4141
Research interests: Mental health, child and adolscent psychiatry, intergenerational transmission of mental health, substance use, comorbid mental and physical disorders, crime, severe mental disorders, mental health interventions, risk and protective factors for mental health, crime and mental health among homeless people.

Getinet AyanoGetinet is a highly accomplished mental health professional and epidemiologist with a profound impact on the field. With a focus on mental health, suicide, physical health, and substance use issues, he has authored over 120 peer-reviewed articles, 12 abstracts, 5 reports, and a book. His research has been cited over 16,881 times on Google Scholar, underlining its substantial influence. Notably, he holds an impressive h-index of 38 and an h10x-index of 82, reflecting the enduring significance of his work. His contributions have earned him international recognition, particularly in the epidemiology of mental disorders and linked data analyses, making him a prominent figure in the global effort to address mental health and related public health challenges. Webpage.

Ji Chen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-9476-1737 
Research interests: Psychiatry, Machine Learning, Psychosis, Computational Psychiatry, fMRI, Insomnia, Mood Disorder Comorbidity, brain network, neuroimaging, big data, striatum

Ji Chen headshotDr. Ji Chen is an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, China. He is also affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, and completed his Ph.D. research in the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-7), Research Centre Jülich, Germany. Dr. Chen’s research is mainly in the area of computational psychiatry and neuroimaging. His research interests include psychiatric machine learning, big data, dimensions of psychopathology, functional MRI, schizophrenia and psychotic disorders, as well as insomnia and mood disorder comorbidity. He devotes to combining data-driven approaches with theory-driven modeling on the basis of cognitive and clinical neuroscience, aiming at advancing the understanding of neurobiology and nosology underlying mental illness. Webpage. 

Shanquan Chen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-4724-4892
Research interests: Psychiatry, Mental health, Dementia, Cognitive disorder, mild cognitive impairment, health service utilization, social support, quality of life

shanquan ChenMy current research focuses on psychiatry and geriatrics. Both are interpreted broadly to include well-being related to mental health and cognitive/ageing health, rather than only diseases meeting diagnostic criteria. In a clinical view, I am especially focusing on the diagnosis, prognosis, and medicine management of mild cognitive disorders and dementia. In the public health and global health view, I also focus on social support and health service utilization, as well as corresponding equity, for people with cognitive disorders.

My research methods include analysis of cross-sectional or longitudinal survey data or electronic clinical records, causal inferences, structural equation modelling, policy/intervention simulation, machine learning, mixed qualitative and quantitative observational studies, economic evaluation, and systematic reviews. My research is inherently multi-disciplinary and involves strong links with epidemiology, statistics, health economics, public health, global health, mental health, and ageing health. 

Runsen Chen, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0003-3398-5750
Research interests: Psychiatry, mental health, suicide, self harm, mood disorder, LGBT

Runsen ChenDr Runsen Chen is currently an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator of Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University, China. Dr Chen obtained his doctoral degree at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford in 2020. His main research interested are psychiatric epidemiology, psychopathology and psychological interventions, with focuses on mood disorders, self-harm and suicide, and gender dysphoria in youth people. He also has particular interest in LGBTQ+ mental health. Webpage

Philipp Homan, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-9034-148X
Research interests: schizophrenia; psychosis; relapse; computational psychiatry; dopamine; striatum; treatment effect heterogeneity; treatment resistance; clozapine; magnetic stimulation; cognitive network; fMRI

Philipp Homan headshotI'm a clinician scientist at the Psychiatric University Hospital and the Neuroscience Center Zurich. My research is focused on understanding clinical and neurobiological variability in individuals with psychotic disorders. To this end, I employ behavioral modelling and multimodal imaging, ideally in the context of clinical trials. Webpage.

Jianbo Lai, MD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8137-7701
Research interests: Affective disorders, neuroinflammation, brain-gut axis; psychiatric rehabilitation, non-suicidal self-injury, traumatic brain injury, bipolar depression

Jianbo LaiDr. Lai Jianbo is a young clinical psychiatrist and attending physician working at the Department of Psychiatry, the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine. He gained the M.D. degree in Psychiatry and Mental Health from Zhejiang University School of Medicine. He is also employed as a master supervisor and distinguished fellow in Zhejiang University School of Medicine. He was honored as one of the Elsevier 2022 Most Cited Chinese Researchers in the field of Clinical Medicine. His research interests include elucidating the role of neuroimmunology and brain-gut regulation in the development of affective disorders. He also devotes to promote psychiatric rehabilitation among young population with severe mood disorders or other psychiatric conditions with social disability. Webpage.

Ming Li, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8197-6552
Research interests: psychiatric disorders, psychiatric genetics, brain molecular mechanisms, iPSC, animal models of psychiatry, psychiatry GWAS

Ming LiI have been working on psychiatric disorders using combined approaches of genetics, brain imaging, molecular biology, gene editing, animal model, as well as neuroscience. The current research interest of our team is to elucidate the roles of risk genes identified via GWAS and candidate gene studies in the etiology and development of mental illnesses. Specifically, we integrate RNA-sequencing resources in human brains, and perform follow-up extensive experimental exploration using methods of molecular biology, gene editing, iPS cell biology, protein characterization and animal behavior tests. Webpage.

Julian Mutz, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-5308-1957
Research interests: Epidemiology, Frailty, Ageing, Depression, Bipolar disorder, Brain stimulation, aging, psychiatric genetics, biobank

Julian MutzDr Julian Mutz is a post-doctoral research associate at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King’s College London. He completed his undergraduate training in Psychology (BSc) at the University of Groningen and University College London. He earned a postgraduate degree in Affective Disorders (MSc) from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London and is a graduate of the International Master in Affective Neuroscience (MSc) of Maastricht University. Dr Mutz obtained a PhD in Epidemiology and Population Health from King’s College London where he explored predictors of health and ageing in the UK Biobank study. Prior to that he worked as a research assistant in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial College London. He is the author of 26 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals, including in the BMJ, BMC Medicine, the British Journal of Psychiatry and the International Journal of Epidemiology. He has served as an ad-hoc reviewer for 28 peer-reviewed journals across multiple disciplines. Dr Mutz’s research interests include population health, the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders, frailty and biological markers of ageing, and evidence synthesis studies of brain stimulation treatments for depression and bipolar disorder. Webpage.

Heather Palis, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-8570-5717
Research interests: Substance use, substance use disorder, opioid agonist treatment, harm reduction, mental illness, incarceration, overdose

Heather PalisDr. Heather Palis is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. Dr. Palis completed her PhD in Population and Public Health, where her research was focused on the treatment experiences and outcomes of people receiving pharmacological treatments for concurrent stimulant and opioid use disorder. Her Postdoctoral research uses administrative health and corrections records to investigate health service access and outcomes among people with substance use disorders in the general population and among people who have experienced incarceration. Webpage.

Hugo Senra, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0001-8054-6473
Research interests: Adult depression, anxiety, stress, eating disorders, interplay between physical and mental health (long-term medical conditions), vision

Hugo SenraI am researcher in mental health and data science based at the University of Aveiro (Portugal). My main areas of expertise and interest include long-term medical conditions (interplay between physical and mental health), adult mental health (depression, anxiety, eating disorders), randomized controlled trials, longitudinal studies, meta-analysis, and statistical modelling. I am also an honorary lecturer in clinical psychology, for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, at the School of Health and Social Care of the University of Essex (U.K.). Webpage.

Rheumatology

Emre Bilgin, MD, MSc

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orcid.org/0000-0002-2260-4660
Research interests: Rheumatoid arthritis, Adult onset Still's disease, ANCA-associated vasculitis, crystal arthritis, Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), rheumatology, Behçet's disease

Emre BilginI am working as a rheumatologist in Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. I am doing my MSc degree on Epidemiology in the same University. I am also serving for several journals in several different positions. I am interested in rheumatoid arthritis, crystal associated arthritis and vasculitis. Besides, data science is another are of interest for me. Webpage.

Feng Pan, MD, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-3403-0094
Research interests: Chronic pain, bone density, inflammatory mechanisms, health outcomes, osteoarthritis, musculoskeletal, pain biomarkers, MSK imaging, MRI

Feng PanDr Feng Pan is a Senior Research Fellow at Menzies Institute for Medical Research, Australia. He completed a Masters of Medical Oncology in 2012, having completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 2009. His PhD was conferred in May 2017. Dr. Pan has been researching both epidemiology and clinical interventions to osteoarthritis and musculoskeletal pain. Much of his work has been on identifying biomechanical risk factors/mechanisms for musculoskeletal pain and osteoarthritis, identifying pain and osteoarthritis phenotypes and testing new therapeutic treatments. Dr Pan's research is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Arthritis Australia, etc. Dr. Pan’s work has been published in some of the highest impact and most prestigious journals, including Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, PAIN, Osteoarthritis Cartilage, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. He serves as a committee member of the International Association for the Study of Pain (Musculoskeletal Pain) and several national societies. He also severs on the editorial board of six peer-reviewed journals. Webpage.

Xinghao Yu, PhD

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orcid.org/0000-0002-0589-0386
Research interests: causal inference, genetic pleiotropy, polygenic risk score, and genome-wide assoication study, Mendelian randomization, bone genetics, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis genetics

Xinghao YuXinghao Yu is currently working at the Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Genomics Research at Soochow University. Most of his work lies in epidemiological studies using genetic statistical methods to identify biomarkers of musculoskeletal pain and osteoporosis. His main research methods are causal inference, genetic pleiotropy, polygenic risk score construction, and prognostic prediction models. Webpage.