Dr. Merad is an internationally acclaimed physician-scientist and a leader in the fields of dendritic cell and macrophage biology with a focus on their contribution to human diseases. Dr. Merad identified the tissue resident  macrophage lineage and revealed its distinct role in organ physiology and pathophysiology. She established the contribution of this macrophage lineage to cancer progression and inflammatory diseases and is now working on the development of novel macrophage-targeted therapies for these conditions. In addition to her work on macrophages, Dr. Merad is known for her work on dendritic cells, a group of cells that control adaptive immunity. She identified a new subset of dendritic cells, which is now considered a key target of antiviral and antitumor immunity.

Dr. Merad leads the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine (PrIISM) to bring immunology discoveries to the clinic. PrIISM integrates immunological research programs with synergistic expertise in biology, medicine, technology, physics, mathematics and computational biology to enhance our understanding of human immunology. She also founded the Human Immune Monitoring Center at Mount Sinai, one of the world’s most sophisticated research centers, which uses cutting-edge single-cell technology to understand the contribution of immune cells to major human diseases or treatment responses.  .

Dr. Merad has authored more than 200 primary papers and reviews in high profile journals. Her work has been cited several thousand times. She receives generous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her research on innate immunity and their contribution to human disease, and belongs to several NIH consortia. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the recipient of the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. She is the President-elect of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS).  In 2020, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her contributions to the field of immunology.

Per I Arvidsson is Director of the national Swedish Drug Discovery & Development Platform at Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab DDD). He is also a fractional research professor at the College of Health Science, UKZN, and South Africa. Before joining SciLifeLab & Karolinska Institutet in 2013 to set up the SciLifeLab DDD platform, Prof. Arvidsson held various roles at the CNS & Pain iMED at AstraZeneca, Södertälje, the last being Director for late-stage pre-clinical and clinical neuroscience drug discovery. His accolades include several professorship positions at Uppsala University in Sweden and postdoctoral studies with Prof. D. Seebach at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

Prof. Arvidsson is named inventor on some 15+ patent applications, and co-author to some 100 peer-reviewed publications, two of which have won “most cited papers” awards.

Dr. Robbins received his B.A. from Haverford College, his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and then worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Mulligan at the Whitehead Institute at MIT. He was an Assistant, Associate and then full Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as well as Director of Basic Research for the Molecular Medicine Institute and Co-Director of the Paul Wellstone Cooperative Muscular Research Center. He then was a Professor of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida and Director of the Center on Aging.

He currently is a Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics and Associate Director of the Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism at the University of Minnesota. His current research is focused on developing therapeutic approaches to extend healthspan. He has co-authored more than 385 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 205 book chapters and reviews with an H-index of 133, i10-index of 483 and ~68,000 citations and has edited four books.

Naheed is the Co-founder, President and CEO of Cyclica, a leading AI in drug discovery company that advances molecules to medicines by embracing the complexity of the disease. In addition to his role at Cyclica, Naheed is also a Co-founder and Board Member of EntheogeniX Biosciences, a psychedelic inspired biotech company for mental health, Board Chair of the Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAIH), Board Member of the Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO), and Member of the Life Sciences Advisory Group for Global Affairs Canada. Naheed is passionate about how people interact with technology to inform effective decision making, while dedicated to advancing the responsible application of AI to healthcare and the impact on patients. Naheed holds an MBA from Rotman School of Business, an undergraduate degree from the University of Ottawa, and a certificate in AI from MIT.

Michael studied biology at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität in Oldenburg, Germany, from 1993-1999. He received his PhD from the Leibniz Universität in Hannover, Germany, in 2002. Since end of 2002 he is working as group leader at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. In 2011, he finished his professorial dissertation (Habilitation) and was appointed as Privatdozent (PD). In 2014 he was appointed as professor for biotechnology and in 2022 he became head of the Medical Biotechnology department. Michael published more than 170 articles and filed several patents in the field of antibody engineering and phage display. He is co-author of the German text book „Rekombinante Antikörper“ and editor of the book „Phage Display“. His research passion is the development of recombinant antibodies and antibody engineering for diagnostics and therapy with a focus on infectious diseases and toxins as well as the identification of biomarkers of pathogens using ORFeome phage display. He co-founded four biotech companies including YUMAB GmbH and CORAT Therapeutics.

Mamoon Rashid is currently an Associate Research Scientist in King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC). He holds a PhD degree in Bioinformatics jointly from Institute of Microbial Technology and Jawaharlal Nehru University, India under Dr. GPS Raghava. He obtained a post-doctoral fellowship in King Abdullah University of Science and Technology under Prof. Arnab Pain and Prof. Uli Stingl.

He was one of the team members of Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) initiative by Government of India. He developed many machine learning-based prediction models for functional annotation of Mycobacterial and human genome. He has expertise in next-generation sequencing data (Whole genome sequencing, Whole exome sequencing, RNA-Seq, and Chip-Seq etc.) analysis and downstream analysis for biomedical research. He has a solid understanding of different types of genomic assays and their bioinformatics analyses and their implications in biomedical research.
Currently, in KAIMRC he is focusing on cancer genomics specifically breast cancer and blood cancers to identify “cancer antigens or neoantigens” leading to the development pf personalized cancer vaccine or therapy development.

Very curious, she is passionate about science and experiences.
PhD candidate in cell and molecular biology, Zoology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Master of Forensic Science (Entomology), Zoology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Bachelor of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Biology Department, College of Science, Princess Noura Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Master’s degree in Experimental Medicine (Molecular and Cellular Physiology), the Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Canada
Bachelor’s degree in Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Science, Umm Al-Qura University
Ph.D. Student in Clinical Physiology (Molecular Physiology) Faculty of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh

Research Interests: Molecular basis of disease, and Drug Discovery PhD student at the Department of Zoology, King Saud University, Riyadh
Bachelor’s and Master’s in Biology from Biology Department, King Khalid University, Abha
Member of the Saudi Society of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology

In year 2011, Ms. Amani Al-Sharidah graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology followed by a master’s degree in physiology from King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Ms. Al- Sharidah has worked as a research assistant and university lecturer in several medical institutes and research centers in Saudi Arabia. Ms. Al-Sharidah is currently a doctoral student at King Saud University and King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Ms. Al-Sharidah main research interest is in experimental pharmacology of natural products and their bioactive constituents in animals and humans. Ms. Al-Sharidah has also attended numerous scientific, technical, and vocational courses.

I am a Ph.D student at College of Sciences (Department of Zoology ) , King Saud University (KSU). In 2020 I received Master Degree in Science in Zoology from KSU Riyadh. Earlier I had a Bachelor in Biology from Princess Nora Bint Abdul Rahman University, Riyadh. 2010 – May 2014. I also have a General Diploma of Education from Bisha University, Bisha.

Dr. Bahauddeen Alrfaei is a Scientist in the Dept. of Cellular Therapy and Cancer Research at King Abdullah International Research Center. He earned his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pathology from the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA. Later, he did a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, USA. Dr. Alrfaei research focus is stem cells biology, neural development, cancer stem cells and metabolic diseases. He is a consultant for multiple governmental institutions such as Saudi FDA and Universities such as Majmaah university. He published more than 30 peer reviewed scientific papers. He currently work on glioblastoma therapeutic targets and Metabolic disorders biology of some rare diseases.

Dr. Alghanem is the Head of Proteomics and Metabolomics, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC). He received his Bachelor Degree in Biochemistry from King Saud University in 2003. He obtained his master degree in Advanced Genomic and Proteomic sciences from The University of Nottingham, UK (2010). Dr.Alghanem completed his PhD in Pharmaceutical sciences from University of Geneva in 2016. He completed one year post-doctoral fellowship in Proteomics at The Scripps Research Institute, California, USA (2018). Currently, Dr.Algahnem works is focused on developing tools mass spectrometry including Proteomics and Metabolomics. He is involving in multiple projects including cancer, infectious disease, rare disease and others.

Dr. Sahar S. Alghamdi is a computational chemist and assistant professor of Medicinal Chemistry at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS). She received her master’s degree from the University of Florida (UF) and obtained her Ph.D. degree in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). Her current funded research projects are focused on discovering the potential biological activities of natural products and small synthetic molecules using experimental in-vitro and in-vivo methods. Moreover, utilizing multiple computational tools to predict the pharmacokinetic properties, molecular targets, toxicity, CYP-P450 enzyme inhibition, homology models, and molecular docking and dynamic simulations for protein-ligand complexes. Dr. Alghamdi has been actively engaged in several activities such as community services, research projects, committees, student mentoring, research seminars, and scientific conferences.