Thomas J. Webster’s (H index: 137) degrees are in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh (B.S., 1995; USA) and in biomedical engineering from RPI (Ph.D., 2000; USA). He has formed over a dozen companies who have numerous FDA approved medical products currently improving human health in over 45,000 patients. He is currently helping those companies and serves as a professor at Brown University, Saveetha University, HebeiUniversity of Technology, UFPI, University of the Basque Country, and others. Dr. Webster has numerous awards including: 2020, World Top 2% Scientist by Citations (PLOS); 2020, SCOPUS Highly Cited Research (Top 1% Materials Science and Mixed Fields); 2021, Clarivate Top 0.1% Most Influential Researchers (Pharmacology and Toxicology); 2022, Best Materials Science Scientist by Citations (Research.com); and is a fellow of over 8 societies.Prof. Webster is a former President of the U.S. Society for Biomaterials and has over 1,350 publications to his credit with over 55,000 citations. He was recently nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Prof. Webster also recently formed a fund to support Nigerian student research opportunities in the U.S.

Prof. Ernst Wagner is Chair of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Department Pharmacy, LMU Munich, Germany (2001-2026). He was Director Cancer Vaccines, BoehringerIngelheim 1992-2001 (world-wide first polymer-based gene therapy in 1994), 1987-1995 Group Leader at IMP Vienna and Vienna University Biocenter, 1985-1987 postdoc at ETH Zurich, 1985 PhD (TU Vienna, Austria). He is Academician of European Academy of Sciences, Controlled Release Society (CRS) College of Fellows, Honorary Professor at U of Sichuan. He authored ≥ 534 publications, with ≥ 56 800 citations, h-index 120 (GS).

Dr. Z. Hong Zhou is a Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics and the Founding Director of the Electron Imaging Center for Nanosystems (EICN, at UCLA. Trained as a nuclear physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China, he earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine under Wah Chiu and honed his computational skills as a postdoctoral fellow with mathematician Ridgway Scott. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Zhou has made seminal contributions to infectious disease research and structural biology, focusing on herpesviruses, dsRNA viruses, and protozoan pathogenesis complexes. A pioneer in cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM), his group was among the first to demonstrate de novo construction of backbone (Yu et al., Nature 2008) and atomic models (Zhang et al., Cell 2010; Liu et al., Science 2010) of large biological machines using cryoEM alone. Recently, Zhou has advanced cryoEM to study smaller complexes, developing innovative methods like cryoID (Nature Methods 2019) for cellular extracts and IsoNet/spIsoNet (Nature Communications 2022) for in situ cryogenic electron tomography (cryoET). Recent efforts have shifted to protein design and bio-engineering for biomedical applications, taking advantage of his experts in structural biology and discovery research. With over 320 publications, including more than 30 in Nature, Science, and Cell, Dr. Zhou’s work has garnered ~33,000 citations (h-index 89, i10-index 258; He is a Pew Scholar, Burton Award recipient, and an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Richard J. Spontak is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, and Alumni Distinguished Graduate and Undergraduate Professor at North Carolina State University. He received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering (with honors/high distinction) from the Pennsylvania State University in 1983 and was later awarded the Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988. He then pursued post-doctoral research in Materials Science & Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) and Condensed Matter Physics at the Institute for Energy Technology (Norway) before joining the Corporate Research Division of The Procter & Gamble Company in 1990. In 1992, he accepted a faculty position at North Carolina State University, where he supervises the Macromolecular Materials & Morphology Group. Since that time, Spontak has published over 300 peer-reviewed journal papers and over 35 scholarly works as book chapters and invited monographs, and his work has been featured on 31 journal covers and cited over 14,000 times according to Google Scholar (as of November 2021). Although active in a diverse range of disciplines, his primary research interests relate to the phase behavior and morphology/property development of nanostructured polymers, polymer nanocomposites and coatings, electron microscopy, and stimuli-responsive soft materials. In recognition of his fundamental and applied research endeavors, he is the recipient of numerous honors and awards such as the Alcoa Foundation Engineering Achievement and Distinguished Engineering Research Awards, Alexander von Humboldt and Tewkesbury fellowships, the North Carolina State University Alumni Outstanding Research and Global Engagement Awards, the 2006 American Chemical Society (PMSE Division) Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science & Engineering, the 2007 German Society for Electron Microscopy Ernst Ruska Prize, the 2008 American Chemical Society (Rubber Division) Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award, the 2011 Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining (IOM3) Colwyn Medal, the 2012 Norwegian University of Science & Technology Lars Onsager Medal, the 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers International Award, the 2021 Tau Beta Pi Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2021 International Association of Advanced Materials Researcher of the Year Award. An elected fellow of the American Physical Society, IOM3, and the Royal Society of Chemistry, he is or has been on the editorial advisory board of more than 20 international journals and holds editorial positions on three of them. He has been recognized as a 2007 Outstanding Scholar Alumnus and a 2012 Alumni Fellow by the Pennsylvania State University, and he is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences and the North Carolina State University Research Leadership, Global Engagement and Outstanding Teaching Academies. Spontak is also a highly acclaimed educator and academic mentor. For his instructional effectiveness employing cooperative and active learning pedagogies in the classroom and his widespread efforts to promote interdisciplinary engineering design and undergraduate research, he has received college- and alumni-level Outstanding Teaching Awards, as well as the university-level Board of Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest institutional honor bestowed by the University of North Carolina system. He has also received the 2006 International Network for Engineering Education & Research Recognition Award and the 2009 American Society for Engineering Education Southeast Region Outstanding Mid-Career Teaching Award, and he has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist and an Erasmus Fellow. Spontak resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife Josie and has two children, Danielle and Joshua.