Joseph M. DeSimone is the Sanjiv Sam Gambhir Professor of Translational Medicine and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. He is also Co-founder, Board Chair, and former CEO of the additive manufacturing company, Carbon. DeSimone has published over 350 scientific articles and holds over 200 patents. He has mentored 80 students through Ph.D. completion, half of whom are women and members of underrepresented groups in STEM.

In 2016 DeSimone was recognized by President Obama with the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He is also a member of all three branches of the U.S. National Academies (Sciences, Medicine, Engineering). DeSimone received his B.S. in Chemistry from Ursinus College and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Virginia Tech.

Nikoletta Fotaki’s research and activities are focused on the prediction of drug absorption through the oral and non oral (i.e.inhalation, subcutaneous) route. She is working on the development of in vitro screening tools and associated software for predicting absorption and in vivo performance (in normal populations and in special populations; i.e. paediatrics), on in vitro dissolution/ biorelevant dissolution methods, on dissolution imaging, on formulation development, design and interpretation of bioavailability and bioequivalency studies, on safety of drugs (pharmacokinetics and toxicokinetics), on the appropriate use of animal models for the prediction of absorption, on the reduction/ refinement/ replacement of animal experimentation and on the development of in vitro-in vivo correlations and relations and on Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) Modeling.

Dr Fang Liu is the Founder & Director of Fluid Pharma Ltd, a UK bio-tech company specialised in age-appropriate medicines for children and older patients.  She is also an Associate Professor at University of Hertfordshire. Fang is a co-chair of the Age-Related Medicines Focus Group in Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Great Britain (APSGB) and is involved in the work of European Paediatric Formulation Initiative (EuPFI) and the Patient Centric Medicine (PaCeMe) initiative.

She is the inventor of three patents and author of over 30 peer-reviewed scientific publications and book chapters in oral drug delivery, patient-centric medicines and biopharmaceutical analysis.   

Maxim Puchkov became the CEO of the Center for Innovation in Computer-Aided Pharmaceutics (CINCAP GmbH) in 2007 and in 2010 he joined the group of Prof. Dr. Jörg Huwyler as scientific collaborator.

His scientific interests are focused on massively-parallel computational models for a design of pharmaceutical formulations; discrete element models for design, understanding, and optimization of pharmaceutical processes and unit operations; interactive and process-oriented computer tools and simulators for advanced teaching and training of industrial unit operations.

Christian Lübbert studied chemical engineering at TU Dortmund University and finished his PhD in 2018. During his PhD, he successfully predicted the long-term stability of hundreds of pharmaceutical formulations via thermodynamic modeling. He developed methods to measure and to predict unwanted changes in ASDs during long-term storage, e.g. amorphous phase separation and crystallization. 

His work was awarded as the best German PhD thesis in thermodynamics in 2018. Moreover, he received the TU Dortmund PhD award.

Christine Madla is a final year PhD Researcher supervised by Professor Abdul Basit at the UCL School of Pharmacy, University College London, and Nicola Clear and Dr Mark McAllister from Pfizer under the Centre of Doctoral Training Programme, funded by the EPSRC UK. Her work focuses on why males and females respond differently to excipients which can alter drug behaviour. Christine obtained her MSc in Pharmaceutical Formulation and Entrepreneurship from the same institution and actively supports students at the UCL School of Pharmacy and UCL School of Management.

Christine has spearheaded a portfolio of research publications and book chapters spanning personalised medicines, modern pharmaceutical manufacturing and gastrointestinal drug delivery. Christine founded Sex in Science, a campaign to address the sex and gender research gap in science, healthcare and wellbeing.

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