FACULTY SPEAKERS
We’re proud to provide a platform for outstanding professors in academia. Check out our roster of speakers for the upcoming conference below, and read through their bios to get a better sense of what you can expect from their sessions.
If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to reach out.
PROF. ZHEN GU
Zhejiang University
​College of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Dr. Zhen Gu is a Qiushi Chair Professor and Dean of College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Zhejiang University. Dr. Gu received his B.S. degree in Chemistry and M.S. degree in Polymer Chemistry and Physics from Nanjing University. In 2010, he obtained Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA. He was a Postdoctoral Associate working with Dr. Robert Langer at MIT and Harvard Medical School during 2010 to 2012. Before he moved to Zhejiang University in 2020, he was a Full Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the NIH Biotechnology Training in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering Program at UCLA. From 2012 to 2018, he was working in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, where he had been appointed as a Jackson Family Distinguished Professor. Dr. Gu’s group studies controlled drug delivery, biomaterials and cell therapy. He has published over 200 research papers and applied over 150 patents. He is a co-founder of five start-up companies. He is the recipient of the Felix Franks Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2020), Young Investigator Award of Controlled Release Society (2017), Sloan Research Fellowship (2016) and Pathway Award of the American Diabetes Association (2015). MIT Technology Review listed him in 2015 as one of the top innovators under the age of 35. He was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2019.
PROF. YAN-RU LOU
Fudan University
School of Pharmacy
Dr. Yan-Ru Lou obtained her BSc in Pharmacy from West China University of Medical Sciences in 1996 and PhD in Anatomy from Faculty of Medicine, University of Tampere, Finland in 2005. Before joining Fudan University as a professor in July 2020, she had worked in REGEA Institute for Regenerative Medicine, University of Tampere for 1 year, A*STAR Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), Singapore for 2 years, and Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Finland for 10 year. She was granted the title of Docent (also called adjunct professor, equivalent to associate professor) at University of Helsinki in 2016. Dr. Lou made significant discovery on vitamin D endocrine system during her PhD studies. After PhD, she has been working on human stem cells (mesenchymal stem cells and pluripotent stem cells) and 3D cell culturing. Her research on 3D culture of human pluripotent stem cells has generated a novel biomaterial that is a commercial product for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. Her current research focus is human organoid-based in vitro models for drug research and clinical pharmacy. Dr. Lou has obtained 1,163,340 EURO of research grants. She has published 46 articles with H-index 26. Dr. Lou is an inventor of nine patents and one commercial product. She is now a professor and supervisor of Master and PhD students at Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Drug Administration, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, China.
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PROF. SANDRO DA ROCHA
Virginia Commonwealth University
​School of Pharmacy
Pharmaceutical Engineering
Sandro R.P. da Rocha, Ph.D.
Nanomedicines for Pulmonary Drug Delivery
Dr. da Rocha is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics and founding Director for Pharmaceutical Engineering in the School of Pharmacy at VCU. He also holds an appointment in Chemical and Life Science Engineering and is a full member of the Massey Cancer Center at VCU. He obtained his BS and MS in Chemical Engineering from Brazil. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. After a postdoctoral position in Chemistry and Biochemistry also at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. da Rocha joined the faculty in Chemical Engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI in 2002. He joined VCU in 2015 where he lead the establishment of the Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering and Sciences and also the new PhD in Pharmaceutical Engineering at VCU – first of its kind in the nation and is currently the School of Pharmacy founding Director for those programs.
Prof. da Rocha’s expertise is in the broad area of nanomedicine, with a focus on pulmonary formulation and drug delivery for the treatment of lung diseases, particularly lung cancer. The work in his laboratories focuses on the development of biomaterials with properties that allow for control of their interaction with the lung physiological environment, for enhanced performance and safe delivery of therapeutics, including biologics and immunotherapies. The group employs in silico methods and molecular level experimental assays to understand the impact of the chemistry of those materials on their critical attributes, advanced synthetic strategies to prepare the nanomaterials with desired characteristics, and in vitro and in vivo models to understand their behavior and efficacy. The da Rocha group has demonstrated the ability of such nanomedicines to achieve not only spatially and temporally resolved release of drugs, but also to passively and actively target specific tissues, cell populations, and intracellular organelles, leading to advanced drug delivery strategies to treat lung (and other) diseases.
PROF. XIN GUO
University of the Pacific
​PMED
Dr. Xin Guo received his PhD degree of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at University of California, San Francisco. He is working as a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry in Thomas J Long School of Pharmacy, where he teaches medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutics. His current research interests include developing lipid-based nanoformulations as drug delivery systems and developing more clinically relevant models of lung cancer.
PROF. ATEFEH RABIEE
University of the Pacific
Physiology and Pharmacology
A deep interest in disease biology and the ability to dissect the underlying mechanisms of human diseases drew Dr. Rabiee, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology and pharmacology, to pursue a career centered on biochemistry and molecular biology. Preventing and treating human diseases relies extensively on the efforts of basic science researchers, which serves as a strong motivator for Dr. Rabiee.
She earned her bachelor of science in cell and molecular biology and her master of science in biochemistry from Tehran, Iran. She earned her doctorate of philosophy in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Southern Denmark, DK.
Upon receiving her doctorate degree, she served as a postdoctoral researcher for 4 years and as an assistant professor for 2 years at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Prior to joining UOP in 2020, as a recipient of the prestigious visiting research scholarship from Novo Nordisk Foundation and Stanford Bio-X, Dr. Rabiee conducted 3-years of postdoctoral research scholar at Stanford University School of Medicine.
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PROF. GUIZHI ZHU
Virginia Commonwealth University
​Pharmaceutics
Guizhi (Julian) Zhu is an Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics, and Pharmaceutical Engineering and Sciences in Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He is an NIH KL2 Scholar, and an associate member of VCU Massey Cancer Center. He received PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Florida, followed by a postdoc training on drug delivery and bioimaging in the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. His multidisciplinary research group (https://www.guizhizhu.org/) studies the discovery and delivery of immune drugs and vaccines, often nucleic acids, for the immunotherapy of cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune diseases. He has published over 86 peer-reviewed papers with over 8000 citations.
DR. SKYLAR CARLSON
University of the Pacific
Chemistry
Skylar Carlson is an assistant professor at the University of the Pacific. She received her BS in Biochemistry from Florida State University in 2010 and her PhD in Pharmacognosy from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2015. Her first post-doctoral research position was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison evaluating potential biofilm inhibitors from sponges collected in the Florida Keys. In her second post-doctoral research position she worked with at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce identifying waterborne chemical cues in Belize and investigating cyanobacterial secondary metabolites collected in Guam. Her research interests are chemical ecology and secondary metabolites from aquatic bacteria from California’s alpine and hyper-saline lakes, as well as microalgae- and cyanobacteria-associated bacteria.
DR. SHANKAR CHINTA
Touro university California
​Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Dr. Chinta obtained Ph.D. in Neurochemistry from India and did his postdoc from Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA. Dr. Chinta joined the College of Pharmacy at Touro University California in 2016, currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Chinta published over 45 research publications and was awarded several foundational grants from American Parkinson's Disease Association.
His lab research focuses mainly on understanding the role of the various molecular mechanisms that cause cell death associated with neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The laboratory's ultimate goal is to define the mechanisms that lead to cell death in AD and PD and then use them as potential targets for drug development.
DR. ASHANA PURI
East Tennessee State University
Pharmaceutical Sciences
Dr. Ashana Puri earned her doctoral degree in pharmaceutical sciences from Mercer University, Atlanta, in 2019. She is presently an assistant professor at the department of pharmaceutical sciences, East Tennessee State University, Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. Her research interests are primarily directed towards the development and evaluation of topical and transdermal drug delivery systems, including patches and semi-solid formulations for the delivery of drugs and cosmetic actives. During her graduate program, she worked with many pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical companies and published her work in peer-reviewed reputed journals. She is also the recipient of the New Investigator Award 2020 from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.
DR. QINGGUO XU
Virginia Commonwealth University
​Pharmaceutics
Dr. Qingguo Xu is a Blick Scholar Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics (primary), Ophthalmology, Biomedical Engineering, Pediatrics, Massey Cancer Center, and the Center for Pharmaceutical Engineering at the Virginia Commonwealth University since 2017. He received B.E. and M.E. in Polymer Materials and Engineering from Tianjin University, and D.Phil. in Materials Science from University of Oxford in 2009. Dr. Xu was a postdoc fellow and research faculty in the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 2010-2017. His current work has involved the design and development of new methods for safe, effective drug delivery to treat various eye diseases, lung infection, and opioid use disorder.
PROF. SELENA BARTLETT
Group Leader, Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity
Translational Research Institute,
Queensland University of Technology.
Professor Bartlett is a group leader in Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity at the Translational Research Institute, as well as a Research Capacity Building Professor in the School of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Health, at QUT. Professor Bartlett was awarded the Lawrie Austin Award for her contributions to neuroscience from the Australian Neuroscience Society. She has received numerous awards including the Women in Technology Outstanding Achievement award and Biotech Research awards, Athena Swan awards for diversity and inclusion. She has written over 100 scientific papers and provides Brain Health and Fitness for Leaders to many Government organizations, companies, institutions, high schools and community organizations. Her brain health and fitness books and programs are designed to help people understand the importance of the brain’s plasticity and help people apply practical neuroscience tools to improve leadership skills and daily lives.