Seyed Moein Moghimi
Professor
Newcastle University, UK
Nanomedicine: A New Frontier in Precision Medicine
Moein Moghimi is a Professor of Pharmaceutics and Nanomedicine at the School of Pharmacy, and Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University (UK), and an Adjoint Professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy, University of Colorado, Denver. He is co-founder of S M Discovery Group Inc. and S M Discovery Group Ltd. He further serves as Associate Editor of Molecular Therapy (the flagship journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy) and Drug Delivery (Taylor and Francis). Previously, he was Chair of Nanomedicine at Durham University (UK), Professor of Nanomedicine at Copenhagen University, Director of the Centre for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology (Copenhagen University), Visiting Professor at the University of Padova (Italy) and Affiliate Professor at Houston Methodist Research Institute (Texas). He graduated with Honors in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester (UK) in 1985 and completed his PhD in Biochemistry at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School (Imperial College). He is widely published and reported in the press, and recognised for his contribution to fundamental and translational research in nanomedicine and drug delivery, especially in mechanistic understanding of nanoparticle-mediated complement activation and adverse reactions, and as an inventor of many particulate systems for tissue-specific targeting.
Stefaan De Smedt
Professor
Ghent University, Belgium
Exploring Light for Advanced Drug Delivery & Surgery in the Eye
Professor De Smedt graduated from Ghent University (Belgium) in 1995 and joined the pharmaceutical development group of Janssen Research Foundation. In 1999 he became Professor in Physical Pharmacy and Biopharmacy at Ghent University where he initiated research on advanced delivery of biologics/nanomedicines and founded the Ghent Research Group on Nanomedicines. The research focus in his lab is on the delivery of bio-therapeutics, nucleic acids and proteins, for future therapies of lung and ocular diseases and cancer (through mRNA vaccination and cell therapies).
Professor De Smedt served as dean of his faculty between 2010 and 2014. From 2014 till 2022 he has been a member of the Board of Directors of respectively Ghent University and the Academic Hospital of UGent. He has been a Guest Professor at various universities in Belgium and China. Since 2004 he serves as the European Editor of the Journal of Controlled Release; since 2023 he leads the JCR as Editor-in-Chief. He is a Distinguished Visiting Scientist of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has been elected as member of the Flemish Royal Academy of Medicine, the European Academy of Sciences and the Académie Nationale de Pharmacie de France.
Gert Storm
Professor
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Novel nanotherapeutics enabled by high target accessibility of nanoparticles
Gert Storm, professor Pharmaceutics/Targeted Nanomedicine at the Department of Pharmaceutics of the Utrecht University in The Netherlands. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1987 at the Utrecht University. In 1988-1989, he was a visiting scientist at Liposome Technology Inc. in Menlo Park, USA, and visiting assistant professor at the School of Pharmacy, UCSF, San Francisco. In 1990-1991, he became senior research scientist at Pharma Bio-Research Consultancy B.V. in Zuidlaren, The Netherlands. During this period he contributed to the design, co-ordination and evaluation of clinical pharmacological studies. In September 1991 he took up his position at the Utrecht University. He is honorary professor (Biomacromolecular Drug Delivery) at the University of Copenhagen. From 2012 on, he was also professor (Targeted Therapeutics) at the Department of Biomaterials Science & Technology (BST). Currently, he is research professor at the Department of Surgery of the National University Hospital in Singapore.
Andreas Zimmer
Professor
University of Graz, Austria
Are Lipid Nanoparticles the Game Changer in Drug Delivery ?
Andreas Zimmer (1963) studied Pharmacy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He stayed with a PhD program and did part of the work which focused on the evaluation of nanoparticles as ophthalmic drug delivery systems at the University of Wisconsin with Joe Robinson, Madison WI, USA. After the PhD at Jörg Kreuter’s lab in Frankfurt he continued with a university career at the Biocenter at the University of Frankfurt in the field of drug delivery and pharmaceutical nanotechnology. 1999 he joined the group of Robert Gurny in Geneva, Switzerland, as guest scientist and from 2000 on he moved to the University of Graz, first as guest lecturer and later as full professor. Since 2004 he is leading the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy and since 2022 he is head of the institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz, Austria. His research is focused on drug delivery and drug targeting devices and specialized on nanoparticles used for DNA- and RNA-drugs as well as for peptides and proteins.
Bruno Spieldenner
Head of Division
Chemical substances and products, herbals and general methods, EDQM – France
A journey through the European Pharmacopoeia: concepts and standard setting approaches
Bruno Spieldenner studied physics and chemistry at the University of Strasbourg and holds a Master’s degree in analytical chemistry and spectroscopy from the University of Aix-Marseille.
After graduating, he worked for 7 years as a laboratory engineer for a pharmaceutical company in Switzerland, where he mainly performed analytical procedure development on LC-MS for both small and large molecules.
In 2013, he joined the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare (EDQM) in Strasbourg, where he worked as a scientific programme manager in the European Pharmacopoeia department and got involved in the modernisation of texts on general methods and the implementation of ICH Q3D.
Since March 2022, he is Head of the Division A for Chemical products and substances, herbals and general methods within that same Department.
