Helen Sheridan B. Sc (UCD), PhD (UCD) is Associate Professor in Pharmacognosy and former Director of Research at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SoPPS) at Trinity College Dublin. She is an academic founder and director of the TCD centre for natural product research, NatPro. She is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Society of Chemistry; a recipient of the TCD Provost’s award for teaching excellence and a recipient of the TCD Innovation Award for 'Societal Impact'. Helen has 86 publications including 7 international patents. She has graduated 33 PhD/ MSc students, and mentored 24 postdoctoral researchers. She currently has sixteen researchers in her group. She was awarded €19 million in grant income from national and international sources. Helen's collaborative and interdisciplinary research is in Natural Product (NP) chemistry; Traditional Medicine (TM); ethnopharmacology; global health and bioeconomy. Her research focusses on finding new therapies for disease and addressing global issues that may be resolved using NP approaches. During her career she identified a lead molecule from TM which her team advanced from discovery to human clinical trials. Helen co-founded the TCD Campus company, Trino Therapeutics Ltd, where she was co-PI on funding of approximately €13 million. She was also co-applicant on seven patents in the US, EU and Asia. In later years Helen has become involved in global ethnopharmacology, investigating quality, safety and efficacy of TMs, and the link between the established use of TM and its role in international development. She has supervised 5 research projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Helen was recently awarded €6M to direct a project entitled “Unlocking Nature’s Pharmacy from Bogland Species” focused on the therapeutic and economic potential of the Irish bog land plants, from scientific and educational perspectives. She is a collaborator on a further successful €3.5m award to be announced Feb 2022. Helen is the Phytochemical expert to the Irish Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA). She is on the Board of the International Natural Product Sciences taskforce (INPST); was elected to the Board of the GP-TCM Research Association; and most recently was appointed by the Cross-Government Bioeconomy Implementation Group (BIG) to the Expert Advisory Group, as the expert in NP science, to support the National Bioeconomy Forum. Helen holds a TCD award for excellence in teaching. She has taught at all levels across the SoPPS curriculum and has contributed to courses across faculties. Her teaching is research led, maps frontier developments, is informed by government policy and international regulation, and is aligned with global development goals. Her course design and delivery involve synergy at the interfaces governing her discipline. She has recently been funded by the IRC ‘New Foundations’ scheme, to build educational and research collaborations between TCD, and Maseno University (Kenya). Helen has held senior administrative positions in College, including Director of Research SoPPS (2016-9); Academic Disability Liaison Officer (2006-To date); positions in safety at school, faculty and college level and is the faculty representative on the College Safety Committee. She was faculty representative on the Trinity International Development Initiative steering committee. Helen has acted as external examiner to the School of Pharmacy in UCL (2015-8); has examined at masters and PhD level nationally and globally; has acted as an international grant reviewer on several programmes. Helen is engaged in outreach with a range of stakeholders. Most recently she and her group have launched a national programme for Transition Year students looking at biodiversity, scientific and commercial potential of bogland ecosystems. Helen drives her research, teaching, and outreach toward mankind a difference to society. Helen was recently awarded the TCD Innovation Award for Societal Impact.

E-mail: hsheridn@tcd.ie
Web Page: http://www.pharmacy.tcd.ie/staff/sheridan-cv.php

Following an MSc in machine learning at King’s College London and a PhD in data inference at Imperial College London, Dr Ballester held a Junior Research Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry of the University of Oxford. In 2010, he became an MRC Methodology Research Fellow at the European Bioinformatics Institute and a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Since October 2014, he is a tenured research scientist at INSERM and group leader at the CRCM in the south of France owing to A*MIDEX Excellence Chair and ANR Tremplin-ERC awards. He currently serves in the editorial boards of several international journals, including npj Precision Oncology and oup Briefings in Bioinformatics.

Mustafa Djamgoz was born in Cyprus and came to the UK in 1970 to finish his secondary school education. He is a graduate of Imperial College London (First-Class BSc degree in Physics and a PhD in Biophysics). He became Professor of Neurobiology in 1995, and later (2005), Professor of Cancer Biology. He worked on the electrophysiology and synaptic plasticity of neurones for more than 20 years before becoming interested in the pathophysiology of cancer! With his highly unusual scientific background in biophysics and neuroscience, he has introduced novel techniques aiming at early diagnosis and non-toxic therapy of solid cancers. This work (now called cancer neuroscience) has led to a new vision of the metastatic process. His approach is ‘integrated’ (combining ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ medicine).

He has developed a new cancer drug which has reached a pre-clinical stage. Professor Djamgoz has published 5 books, more than 200 primary research papers and has trained more than 30 PhDs. His book aimed at the public, called “BEAT CANCER” was published in June 2014. His scientific consultancies and granting agencies include the Medical Research Council (UK), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, The Wellcome Trust, Breast Cancer Campaign, Prostate Cancer Charity and Prostate UK.

Prof Djamgoz is the recipient of the Huxley Memorial Medal, Japanese Government Research Award for Foreign Specialist and the Freedom of the City of London. Scientific charity work and public understanding of science are big parts of his life. In 2002 he established the Pro Cancer Research Fund in the UK and the Cancer Research Foundation (KAV) in the TRNC. In 2005 he became a Trustee of Breast Cancer care. He has also served as the Chairman of the Science Council of the College of Medicine. In 2020, he was appointed Emeritus Professor at Imperial and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Bioelectricity. Since then, he has been focusing on developing a small company (Celex Oncology Innovations Ltd) that was founded around his discoveries.

A pharmaceutical research scientist, Ahmed has served as Chief Scientific Officer since January 2017. Intuitively blending scientific knowledge with an extraordinary ability to strike up rapport, Ahmed seamlessly bridges the gap between the scientific and business worlds.

Holding a PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Warwick, Ahmed initially worked in Research and Development for GlaxoSmithKline, Astra Zeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Whilst in these roles, Ahmed conducted research into the manufacturing of biologically active compounds, primarily with oncological applications.

Combining his scientific expertise with a natural aptitude for relationship building, Ahmed later moved to more commercially focused roles with companies like Thomson Reuters and the American Chemical Society. Responsible for providing Research Information Systems to academics, governments and multinationals, Ahmed has worked throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Europe. Building on a strong scientific foundation within the global pharmaceutical market and with a solid academic background, professional experience and fluency in several languages, Ahmed brings a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the healthcare industry and the business principles that underpin it.

Dr. Ece is an associate professor of Chemistry at Biruni University. He received a B.Sc. in chemistry at Hacettepe University, Ankara. He completed his master degree in organic chemistry and obtained his Ph.D. in the field of organic, computational medicinal chemistry in the same institution. He worked as Research Assistant between 2002 and 2011 at Hacettepe University.

Dr. Ece gave several talks as invited speaker in international/national scientific organizations including NATO-ASI Summer School, Training Courses etc. He organizes Hands-On Training Courses on Computer Aided Drug Design.

He received two successive awards from Trinity College Dublin in 2017 and 2018. He serves as associate editor for BMC Chemistry journal by Springer Nature.

His research group (ECE Research) is mainly focused on the computer aided drug design & discovery. In that aspect, he uses both quantum chemical and molecular mechanics calculations. Supported by the leading software companies in the field, Ece Research uses effective and specialized computational tools to address a particular problem or to enlight an experimental finding in medicinal, organic or pharmaceutical chemistry.

He believes that there is no boundaries in different fields of sciences. Scientists should set aside the differences and collaborate with each other. It is the reason that the motto of ECE Research is "Combining Multidisciplinary Research".

E-mail: aece@biruni.edu.tr
Web Page: http://www.ece.biruni.edu.tr/

Prof. Durdagi received his PhD degree in Freie Univ. Berlin in 2009 and his PhD studies is supported by EU FP6 Marie Curie Research Fellowship. He also received many prestigious research grants (i.e., Max Planck Inst., Canadian Institute of Health Research-CIHR, Alberta Innovates Health Solutions-AIHS). Prof. Durdagi worked as postdoctoral fellow (2009-2013) and senior researcher (2012-2013) in University of Calgary (Canada) and Max-Planck Institute (Germany), respectively.

Prof. Durdagi’s research group currently works at the Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Bahcesehir University (BAU). The group of Dr Durdagi works on several projects for better understanding the drug-receptor and protein-protein, protein-DNA interactions of different systems using several computational modeling approaches and designing novel therapeutic compounds. Prof Durdagi’s research group carried out many national and international projects so far (TUBITAK, H2020, FP6 and FP7). Prof. Durdagi received many prestigious national and international awards including The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey-TUBITAK's Incentive Award in Health Sciences (2016); Contribution to Science Awards (2016, 2021); Health Institutes of Turkey -TUSEB's Aziz Sancar Incentive Award (2017); Science Academy's Young Scientist Award (2014).

E-mail: serdar.durdagi@med.bau.edu.tr
Web Page: https://www.durdagilab.com

Dr. Atilla Akdemir obtained his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He later joined a small drug discovery company as a computational chemist. In 2011, he accepted a position as assistant professor in pharmacology in the faculty of pharmacy of Bezmialem Vakif University. In 2015, he was appointed as associate professor and in 2021 he was appointed full professor in pharmacology at the same group.

He is the founder and department head of the multidisciplinary Drug Discovery and Development MSc and PhD programmes as well as the Computer-Aided Drug Discovery Laboratory. He is in the board of the Drug Research Centre (ILMER). In addition, he was appointed as the vice-dean of the faculty of pharmacy between 2014 and 2020.

Dr. Akdemir’s research interests are in the rational development and optimization of lead compounds by combining molecular modelling as well as molecular pharmacology techniques.

E-mail: aakdemir@bezmialem.edu.tr
Web Page: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8416-0471

Tao Zhang graduated with First Class Honours from Dublin Institute of Technology with a B.Sc Pharmaceutical Technology (2004), subsequently was awarded with Postgraduate Diploma in Quality Improvement (2006) and Ph.D. degree in Pharmacy (2010) from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Following postdoctoral work in TCD, he joined Trino Therapeutics Ltd in 2011, where he held Senior Chemist and Principal Scientist positions involved in innovative drug discovery research programmes and led drug substance GMP manufacturing campaigns. In 2017, he joined APC Ltd as Team Lead, managed an interdisciplinary team of scientists, engineers and analysts on the development and optimisation of (bio)pharmaceutical processes. He was appointed as Lecturer in the School of Food Science and Environmental Health at Technological University Dublin in 2018. He lectures to undergraduate students across several programmes in the School, including Pharmaceutical Healthcare, Nutraceuticals in Health and Nutrition, Food Innovation, Environmental Health, Culinary Science, General Science and Pharmacy Technician Studies, ranging from first year science to advanced final year of BSc research projects. He is also a member of NatPro, Trinity Centre for Natural Products Research at TCD, and Associate Editor at BMC Chemistry.

Dr Zhang’s research interests lie in the area developing novel indane hybrid skeletons with biological activities. His main research focus is to identify and develop a novel class of indane compounds and further to investigate the binding events of these molecules against drug targets which are involved directly and indirectly in many disease conditions such as central nervous system, inflammation, cancer etc. He is also interested in identifying bioactive molecules from natural products and investigating traditional herbal medicine for therapeutic and nutritional needs.

E-mail: tao.zhang@tudublin.ie
Web Page: https://www.tudublin.ie/explore/schools-and-disciplines/science-and-health/food-science-environmental-health/people/taozhang.html

Dr. Mila Krämer studied chemistry at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where she also obtained her doctorate for research focusing on the development of machine learning methods enabling simulations of charge and exciton transfer. She joined Schrödinger in 2022 as a member of the Applications Science team.

Junying obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield, UK in 2012. In 2013 Junying was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Engineering of Nanchang University. The work tasks as an Assistant Professor are primarily research and supervision of PhD and Master students on basic and graduate levels, with at least 50 % research. Junying plays a key role in building up competitive research within the specified and. She has also worked at the University of Limerick as an MSCA-EI co-funded Research Fellow from 2019 to 2020 and conducted research at Trinity College Dublin as a Research Fellow since Oct 2020. Her research project is titled "Exploiting algal cell factories with systems biology for biopharmaceutical production".

E-mail: juliu@tcd.ie
Web Page: https://www.tcd.ie/natpro/people/JULIU

Prof. Dr. Kamil Can Akçalı graduated from Ankara University Faculty of Medicine in 1987. He received his PhD in 1998 from Department of Cancer and Cell Biology, University of Cincinnati, USA. He then returns to Turkey in 1999 and became a faculty member at Bilkent University, Faculty of Science, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. He is currently the head of Biophysics division in the department of Basic Sciences at Ankara University, Faculty of Medicine. He has been also serving as the Deputy Director of the Ankara University Stem Cell Institute since 2016. His is mainly interested in stem cell biology, cellular therapies and liver cancer.

Dr Klementyna Karlińska-Batres works as a solutions consultant at Clarivate and has been supporting scientific and academic institutions in achieving their mission for over seven years.

Before joining Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters) after her studies at the University of Warsaw, she worked as a research assistant at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany, where she completed her PhD in marine microbiology.

Combining her scientific and academic experience, Klementyna reveals how to use the world’s leading scientific information resources, such as Web of Science, InCites and Cortellis platforms, provided by Clarivate, to accelerate scientific discovery, identify emerging trends and optimize research and scientific publishing and development strategies.