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.

Maria J. Alonso

Professor
University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Nanotechnology: the key for RNA vaccines and personalized therapies

María José Alonso is Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Her lab has pioneered numerous discoveries in the field of nanomedicine, notably in the design of novel nanovaccines and nanotherapies for the treatment of cancer.
She has coordinated consortia financed by the WHO, the Gates Foundation and the European Commission and has authored more than 315 scientific contributions with H factor >100. She is the inventor of 22 patent families, most of them licensed to industry and she has been part of 3 start-up ventures. She has been among the TOP TEN in Pharmacology (THE, 2010). She has been in the “Power List” of the most influential researchers in the field of Biopharmaceuticals (The Medicine Maker)
She was President of the CRS in 2018 and she is Editor-in-Chief of the Drug Delivery and Translational Research, an official journal of the CRS, and she is part of the editorial board of 12 journals.
She has received more than 50 awards, among them the “National Research Award Juan de la Cierva”. She is a member of 5 Academies in Spain and of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium and of the US National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Recently, she was awarded with an “Honoris Causa” doctorate by the University of Nottingham.

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.

Klemen Korasa

Head of Pharmaceutical technology at Krka
KRKA, tovarna zdravil, d.d., Novo mesto, Slovenia
Applicability of process analysers in pharmaceutical technology

Dr. Klemen Korasa works as Head Pharmaceutical technology in Slovenian pharmaceutical company Krka, d. d., Novo mesto, where he is responsible for formulation and process development. He has a wide knowledge of different process analysers (e.g., NIR and Raman spectroscopy, SFT, and image analysis) applicable in design, development, and optimisation of pharmaceutical processes. In 2019, he completed his Ph.D. research, focusing on the applicability of PAT tools in monitoring of pellet coating process. He is an author of several patent applications describing innovative pharmaceutical solutions and scientific publications focusing mainly on PAT tools applicability.

Svetlana Ibrić

Professor
University of Belgrade, Serbia
3D printing in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications: current achievements and future perspectives

Svetlana Ibrić is full professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, where she held the position of Vice-Dean of Research and International Cooperation between 2012-2018. European Directorate for Quality of Medicines nominated Prof. Ibrić as an expert in the European Pharmacopoeia (since 2017). Prof. Ibrić is member of the Committee for marketing authorization of human drugs in the Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia (from 2010).

Prof. Ibrić is coordinator of academic specialization in Industrial Pharmacy, as well as head of the Centre of Industrial Pharmacy, which brings together members of all pharmaceutical companies in Serbia, regulatory authorities and academia. Prof. Ibrić is founder of the PharmPrintLab at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade. She was supervisor of 14 completed PhD theses. She is member of Editorial Board of Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology. Her main research interest is 3D printing, controlled release dosage forms development, application of machine learning tools in product/process optimization and QbD implementation in development of dosage forms and processes.