Ankit Tanwar

Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Department of Cell Biology, New York, USA

Dr. Ankit Tanwar is currently working as a Scientist in the Department of Cell Biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM), New York, USA. He is working on the NIH project entitled "Role of Glycosylation in Notch Signaling". Dr. Tanwar completed his master’s degree in Toxicology from Jamia Hamdard and bachelors in Biochemistry(H) from Shivaji College, University of Delhi; he then pursued his PhD degree in Toxicology from the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), DRDO, Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India. Dr. Tanwar has received the Young Investigator Award for the development of a novel animal model in the field of Infectious Rheumatology from the International Conference on "Controversies in Rheumatology and Autoimmunity (CORA)” held in March 2017, Bologna, Italy. After the completion of his doctoral studies, he joined the Division of CBRN Defence, INMAS, DRDO as a project scientist. He has ~8 years of experience in the field of Toxicology and Drug discovery within the ambit of scientific guidelines (OECD, WHO, ICH). He is a key worker of a team who coined the word "Herbal Informatics" to derive drug molecules from natural products and actively working to provide the curative remedy for the disease of unknown etiology. Recently, his Model-Herbal Informatics has been used for the initial screening of emergency-approved drug by DCGI: 2-Deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) for combating the COVID-19 situation in India. He has also published research papers to demystify the COVID-19 situation and provide effective strategic management. Dr. Tanwar has published >20 research articles in peer-reviewed journals and participated as an author of 2-books titled Demystifying "ESCAPE pathogen" and "EBOLA Virus". Dr. Tanwar has also received various awards and also serving as an Editorial Board and Co-chair of reputed Journals/organizations/conference awards committees and is also a member of reputed international scientific organizations such as ASH, SOT, USA etc. He actively participates in delivering talks in various conferences, seminars, and webinars. He also serves as a peer mentor at AECOM, New York, USA. His research expertise lies in the areas of Toxicology, Cell Biology, Hematopoiesis, Immunology, Rheumatology, Glycobiology, and Herbal Medicine.

Paula Videira

Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

Dr. Paula Videira is motivated to understand the mechanisms that govern glycan expression and recognition and its impact in human biology and disease. She is an expert in Glycobiology and its interface with Immunology and Oncology. She is highly committed to translate research finding into innovative treatments, centered on patient needs. Her work currently focusses on three interconnected areas: i) mechanisms driving the expression of aberrant sialylated short O-glycans in cancers and its implications for tumour immunity and progression. ii) the role of sialylated glycans in the expression of immunomodulatory molecules and its role in curbing immune responses. iii) the impact of Congenital defects of glycosylation (CDG) in immune response and susceptibility to infection. She is an Assistant Professor at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia/ Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (FCT-NOVA) and principal investigator of the Glycoimmunology Group at UCIBIO research unit. In the past few years her efforts were fruitful in several ways: (A) She published 99 research papers and four patents (as PI) describing various roles of glycans, in several top ranked journals (e.g. BBA, Molecular Oncology); a featured immunology article (doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1890012); 11 invited reviews (one highly cited doi: 10.3390/ijms19051304), and clinical guidelines (doi: 10.1002/jimd.12024.) (B) Her students and herself (keynote speaker, invited speaker, moderator, chair) have presented unpublished data in several national and international conferences (e.g. SSIEM, AAI, PEGS). Her students' work was selected for several prestigious meetings for oral and poster presentations. (C) She was able to secure almost 4.5 million EUR for research plus 1.4 million EUR to spin-off our technology, including prestigious EU grants (Twinning, MSCA, EJPRD), prizes and research agreements with biopharmaceuticals. (D) She belonged to the Scientific council of COST and is currently part of the IAB of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and RD-Portugal, editorial board of Scientific Report, guest editor of Cancers and reviewer of several journals and international research applications. (E) She organizes international courses on Glycosciences as e-learning and Workshops and participated in the organization of several other meetings. (F) She co-founded the CDG&Allies-PPAIN, a unique patient-centric network, that gathers professionals and patient associations worldwide to foster research and awareness on rare diseases of glycosylation. (G) In 2019, she co-founded the spin-off CellmAbs, a biopharmaceutical developing immuno-oncology agents for tumour associated glycans. CellmAbs was elected to the top 30 by Biotecnika and featured by Labiotech and BIO-Europe 2020. Dr. Videira’s research is highly multidisciplinary and uses cutting edge methodologies as in vitro and in vivo assays, omics, bioinformatic tools, and patient-centric approaches with the ultimate goal of translating research findings into patient benefits.

Seema Chugh

University of Michigan, Department of Pathology, Ann Arbor, MI

Dr. Seema Chugh is currently working as a Senior Research Fellow in Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan’ s lab at  Department of Pathology, University of Michigan. Dr. Chugh has completed her bachelors in  Biochemistry from Panjab University (India). She further pursued a master's degree from All India  Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where she studied the role of Th17 cells in bladder cancer. Dr. Chugh earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Nebraska  Medical Center in Omaha, NE. Her PhD thesis was entitled “Aberrant Glycosylation in Pancreatic  Cancer Progression”. Dr. Chugh is very well versed in cancer glycobiology and has made  significant contributions in the field by developing the first ever model of pancreatic cancer with  aberrant O-glycosylation. She found that truncation of O-glycosylation in the context of an  oncogenic background induces early onset of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and metastasis.  She published this study as a first author in Gastroenterology that was highlighted on the cover  of their issue (Volume 155, Issue 5, November 2018). She received the Thomas Jefferson Ingenuity  Award during her doctoral dissertation. To further advance her research interests in basic and translational  cancer research, she joined Dr. Chinnaiyan’ s Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in January 2018. In  Chinnaiyan lab, she has been leading multiple projects that are focused on Ras biology, cancer  therapeutics, and prostate cancer glycobiology. She has presented her research work in multiple  conferences and has received several honors and awards. Along with actively leading several  research projects, Dr. Chugh has been passionate about teaching and has mentored several  undergraduate and PhD students and has helped them in achieving their career goals. Dr. Chugh  has 11 years of experience in cancer research that resulted in 6 first-author publications and 14  co-author publications in high impact journals. In addition to scientific writing, Dr. Chugh is actively engaged in scientific  reading and has also assisted in reviewing manuscripts for severa; high tier journals. Her research expertise lies in the areas of Cancer Biology, Glycobiology, Ras Biology, and Cancer Therapeutics.