Zoran Rankovic is Professor of Chemical Biology and Director of the Centre for Protein Degradation at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London. His work focuses on advancing targeted protein degradation and translational chemical biology. Prior to ICR, he held senior leadership roles at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Eli Lilly, Merck, Schering-Plough, and Organon, contributing extensively to drug discovery and development.

Rick Ewing is Vice President and Head of Chemistry at Rapafusyn, leading discovery efforts in non-degrading molecular glues. He previously served as VP, Head of Drug Discovery at the Barer Institute and Senior Director at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he helped deliver 15 development candidates including Milvexian. Rick is an ACS Fellow, co-inventor on 79 patents, and co-author of 77 publications.

Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD is Director of Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and Simon H. Stertzer, MD, Professor of Medicine and Radiology at Stanford University. Dr. Wu received his MD from Yale University and PhD (Molecular & Medical Pharmacology) at University of California, Los Angeles. He is board certified in cardiovascular medicine. His lab works on genomics, stem cells/organoids, AI/ML, and drug discovery. The main goals are to (i) understand basic disease mechanisms, (ii) implement precision medicine for patients, and (iii) accelerate drug discovery via “new alternative methodologies” (NAMs) and “clinical trial in a dish” (CTiD) concept.  Dr. Wu has published >650 manuscripts with H-index of 143 on Google scholar. He is listed as top 0.1% of highly cited researchers by Web of Science for past 7 years (2018-2024).

Dr. Wu has received several awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, NIH Roadmap Transformative Award, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) given out by President Obama at the White House, American Heart Association (AHA) Distinguished Scientist Award, AHA Merit Award, and Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Innovation in Regulatory Science Award. Dr. Wu serves on the FDA Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee. He is on the Board of the Keystone Symposia and American Heart Association. He is a past President of the American Heart Association (2023-2024).

Dr. Wu is an elected member or fellow of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), Association of University Cardiologists (AUC), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), American Association of Physicians (AAP), Academia Sinica (Taiwan), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Asian American Academy of Science and Engineering (AAASE), National Academy of Inventors (NAI), and National Academy of Medicine (NAM).  Dr. Wu is also co-founder of Greenstone Biosciences, a startup company that focuses on stem cells, organoids, and AI for accelerating drug discoveries

Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch is a leading scientist in the field of drug delivery focusing on mucoadhesive polymers such as in particular thiomers, non-invasive peptide delivery systems and nanoemulsions.

He is chairman at the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria and CSO of the drug delivery company ThioMatrix GmbH. He has published more than 500 research and review articles.

Prof Martin Knight is a bioengineer developing and using organ-on-a-chip technology to study human health and disease and to streamline the drug development pipeline. Much of his work examines role of mechanobiology and how this can be incorporated into in vitro models to more accurately predict in vivo behaviour. This includes work on osteoarthritis, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, cancer and kidney disease for which he has secured over £5M of recent research funding. Prof Knight is the co-Director of the Queen Mary Centre for Predictive in vitro Models, and co-directed the UK Organ-on-a-chip Technologies Network. He is active in helping to shape policy around the implementation of organ-chip technology and working with industry and other key stake holders.