Keynote Speakers

Dr. Elena Batrakova
The University of North Carolina, USA
Plenary Speaker

Elena V. Batrakova obtained Ph.D. in Polymer chemistry at the Department of Polymers, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), Russia. Since 2012, she is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. For more than twenty years, she has been studying the assembly and applications of drug-loaded nanocarriers. Recently, the main focus of Dr. Batrakova’s group is on the development of personalized drug delivery systems by loading therapeutics into immune response cells or extracellular vesicles (EVs) released from these cells. Specifically, her group developed and characterized EV-based drug delivery systems for therapeutic proteins, nucleic acids, and low molecular chemotherapeutics to treat Parkinson’s disease, stroke, ALS, HIV-related dementia, and cancer. Overall, she has published over 130 papers and filed 20+ US and foreign patents on the application of drug delivery systems of biologically active molecules. She is a highly cited of total 10 scientists at UNC, and a Thomson Reuters agency named her top 1% Highly Cited Researcher.

Topic of Keynote: Using Extracellular Vesicles for Brain Delivery of Therapeutic Proteins
Keynote Abstract

Dr. Jonathan Coulter
Queen's University Belfast, UK
Keynote Speaker

Dr Coulter is a Senior Lecturer, working within the Nanomedicine and Biotherapeutics research group at the School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast. His research has always had a focus on developing strategies  to overcome treatment  resistance  in cancer, with a specific focus on radiotherapy. His work has spanned approaches that include the use of suicide gene therapy and more recently exploiting the unique physical properties of high atomic number nanoparticles as radiosensitisers. Recent iterations have been developed as biologically active formulations, designed to overcome tumour microenvironment properties which are known to confer treatment resistance, in addition to the core particle acting as a radiation dose modifier. This presentation aims to outline some of the successes we have experienced in this space while looking to spark discussion around the key challenges that have limited clinical translation to date.

Topic of Keynote: Development And Pre-Clinical Validation Of Multi-Functional Radiosensitising Nanoparticles - Successes And Challenges

Dr. Swadeshmukul Santra
University Of Central Florida, USA
Keynote Speaker

Swadeshmukul Santra, PhD received his Ph. D. degree in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India and postdoctoral study at the University of Florida.

Dr. Santra is a Professor at UCF holding a joint appointment with the NanoScience Technology Center and the Department of Chemistry. He is the Director of UCF Materials Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA) Center. He has been actively working in the field of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology for over 20 years. He has published 78 peer-reviewed research articles, 7 review articles, 11 book chapters and delivered 96 invited talks. He has been awarded 31 patents including 26 US patents. His research has been funded by NSF, USDA, Citrus Research and Development Foundation, Environmental Research and Education Foundation and several industries with a portfolio of over $5.6M research funding.

Dr. Santra is a Steering Committee Member of NanoFlorida International Conference 2019. He is serving as the Vice President of Florida Association for Nanobiotechnology (FAN), 2019-2021. He is the founding faculty member of NanoFlorida and UCF MISA Center. He is a member of several professional societies including ACS, MRS, AVS and AAAS.

Topic of Keynote: Quantum Dot Nanotechnology for Bioimaging and Drug Delivery Applications
Keynote Abstract

Dr. Dejian Zhou
Leeds University, UK
Keynote Speaker

Dejian Zhou is full Professor of Nanochemistry at University of Leeds, UK. He obtained his BSc and PhD in Chemistry both from Peking University, China. Following postdoctoral research at Cranfield University and University of Cambridge, he was appointed to a Senior Lecturer at University of Leeds in 2007 and promoted to Professor of Nanochemistry in 2018.

He is pursuing a polyvalent multifunctional nanoparticle strategy to address some important biomedical challenges, e.g. early detection and targeted multimodal treatment of cancer; probing structural mechanisms and developing new therapeutics targeting specific lectin-glycan interactions. He has published 4 book chapters and ~150 research papers (including 2 research highlights on the BBC) in some leading journals, e.g. Nature Nanotech., Adv. Mater., JACS, Angew. Chem.

He has received several awards and recognitions, Young Chemist Award (Chinese Chemical Society, 1996), National Excellent PhD Thesis Award (Ministry of Education, China, 1999) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, 2016). He is an Associate Editor of Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal (Elsevier, IF: 6.02), and sits on the Editorial Board of Sensors (MDPI, IF: 3.28) and Advisory Board of Particle & Particle System Characterization (Wiley-VCH, IF: 3.83).

Topic of Keynote: Polyvalent Multifunctional Nanoparticles: A Powerful Tool to Address Various Biomedical Challenges
Keynote Abstract

Dr. Seongtae Bae
University of South Carolina, USA
Keynote Speaker

Prof. Seongtae Bae received Ph. D degree in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA in 2003.
He is currently working as an assistant professor and a director of “Nanobiomagnetics and Bioelectronics Laboratory (NB2L)” in the department of electrical engineering at the University of South Carolina (UofSC), Columbia, USA. In addition, he has a joint appointment with biomedical engineering program in the college of engineering and computing at UofSC. Prior to joining the UofSC, he was an associate professor in the department of neurosurgery at the Seoul National University (SNU) college of medicine, Seoul, KOREA, and he was also an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) (Singapore) for 9 years before joining SNU. While he was at the SNU, he was doing clinically translatable biomedical researches to develop magnetic nanofluid hyperthermia systems for brain tumors and bioelectronics engineering researches to design and commercialize new types of bioinstrumentations and medical devices/electronics for neurodegenerative diseases, neuromodulation, and cancers. Furthermore, while he was at the NUS, he established “Biomagnetics Laboratory (BML)” in 2005 to support basic applied researches and education in the field of biomagnetics, nanomedicine, and applied biospintronics. Prof. Bae’s current research interests are focused on 1) Magnetic nanofluid hyperthermia and its clinical applications in nanomedicine, 2) Nanomagnetic biometerials and ferrite nanoparticles/Nanofluids for biomedical applications, 3) Nano-/Microstructures magnetic biosensors and bioMEMS for bioelectronics, 4) Extremely low frequency electomagnetic devices for therapeutics and healing, 5) Bioelectromagnetism and bioelectricity for neural engineering and neuromodulation, 6) Bioinstrumentation/medical electronics & devices for neurodegenerative diseases, 7) Nano-scale spintronics structures and devices for active/passive digital/analog electronics, 8) Nanostructured magnetic/electronics thin films and devices, 9) Designing and processing of materials for spintronics for advanced electronic devices, and 10) Bioelectric/spintronic based hybrid power generators for energy sustainability.
Prof. Bae is currently members/board member/editorial board member of IEEE Magnetics Society, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, American Physics Society (APS), Korean Society for Nanomedicine, Society for Thermal Medicine (STM), International Society of Hyperthermic Oncology, and EC Ophthalmology

Topic of Keynote: Colossal magnetic heat induction of Magnesium shallow doped γ-Fe2O3 nanofluids and somatically safe AC magnetic field generator system for clinical safe hyperthermia
 Keynote Abstract