Helen Sheridan B. Sc (UCD), PhD (UCD) is Associate Professor in Pharmacognosy and former Director of Research at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SoPPS) at Trinity College Dublin. She is an academic founder and director of the TCD centre for natural product research, NatPro. She is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Society of Chemistry; a recipient of the TCD Provost’s award for teaching excellence and a recipient of the TCD Innovation Award for 'Societal Impact'. Helen has 86 publications including 7 international patents. She has graduated 33 PhD/ MSc students, and mentored 24 postdoctoral researchers. She currently has sixteen researchers in her group. She was awarded €19 million in grant income from national and international sources. Helen's collaborative and interdisciplinary research is in Natural Product (NP) chemistry; Traditional Medicine (TM); ethnopharmacology; global health and bioeconomy. Her research focusses on finding new therapies for disease and addressing global issues that may be resolved using NP approaches. During her career she identified a lead molecule from TM which her team advanced from discovery to human clinical trials. Helen co-founded the TCD Campus company, Trino Therapeutics Ltd, where she was co-PI on funding of approximately €13 million. She was also co-applicant on seven patents in the US, EU and Asia. In later years Helen has become involved in global ethnopharmacology, investigating quality, safety and efficacy of TMs, and the link between the established use of TM and its role in international development. She has supervised 5 research projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Helen was recently awarded €6M to direct a project entitled “Unlocking Nature’s Pharmacy from Bogland Species” focused on the therapeutic and economic potential of the Irish bog land plants, from scientific and educational perspectives. She is a collaborator on a further successful €3.5m award to be announced Feb 2022. Helen is the Phytochemical expert to the Irish Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA). She is on the Board of the International Natural Product Sciences taskforce (INPST); was elected to the Board of the GP-TCM Research Association; and most recently was appointed by the Cross-Government Bioeconomy Implementation Group (BIG) to the Expert Advisory Group, as the expert in NP science, to support the National Bioeconomy Forum. Helen holds a TCD award for excellence in teaching. She has taught at all levels across the SoPPS curriculum and has contributed to courses across faculties. Her teaching is research led, maps frontier developments, is informed by government policy and international regulation, and is aligned with global development goals. Her course design and delivery involve synergy at the interfaces governing her discipline. She has recently been funded by the IRC ‘New Foundations’ scheme, to build educational and research collaborations between TCD, and Maseno University (Kenya). Helen has held senior administrative positions in College, including Director of Research SoPPS (2016-9); Academic Disability Liaison Officer (2006-To date); positions in safety at school, faculty and college level and is the faculty representative on the College Safety Committee. She was faculty representative on the Trinity International Development Initiative steering committee. Helen has acted as external examiner to the School of Pharmacy in UCL (2015-8); has examined at masters and PhD level nationally and globally; has acted as an international grant reviewer on several programmes. Helen is engaged in outreach with a range of stakeholders. Most recently she and her group have launched a national programme for Transition Year students looking at biodiversity, scientific and commercial potential of bogland ecosystems. Helen drives her research, teaching, and outreach toward mankind a difference to society. Helen was recently awarded the TCD Innovation Award for Societal Impact.

E-mail: hsheridn@tcd.ie
Web Page: http://www.pharmacy.tcd.ie/staff/sheridan-cv.php

Dr Rahman is an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge. He received his B.Pharm and M.Pharm degrees from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and then he obtained an additional MSc in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of Manchester under the Commonwealth Scholarship Programme. He later completed his PhD in ion channel biophysics from the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge. After spending one and half year as a post-doctoral fellow in the same lab, he then received a prestigious Drapers Junior Research Fellowship wtih Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 2011, he was awarded a Early Career Award from the Biochemical Society, UK in Signal Transduction category. He started his own independent research group at the Department of Pharmacology, Cambridge in 2012 with a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society, UK. In 2016, he joined the same department as a lecturer.

Rahman has two major research interests namely studying the fundamental structure and functional aspects of ion channels and to a fewer extent, GPCRs and rationally identifying novel chemical probes and/or lead molecules against these signalling proteins. He routinely uses various ligand and structure based in silico approaches as well as MD simulations to guide and complement his wet experiments. He has particular interest in ligand recognition and ligand-induced changes in target protein dynamics as well as drug repurposing.

His research has been funded by the Royal Society, BBSRC, MRC and Astra Zeneca.

E-mail: mtur2@cam.ac.uk
Web Page: https://www.phar.cam.ac.uk/research/rahman

Prof. Dr. Adnan Yüksel started his medical studies at Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine and then moved to Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine. Professor Yüksel graduated with honors and completed his residency in the Department of Pediatrics, Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine. He worked at Charing Cross Hospital in England, Sienna Pediatrics Hospital in Italy, and the pediatric neurology department of the University of Pittsburg in the USA. Meanwhile, he specialized in pediatric neurology and had a doctorate in medical genetics.

After serving as the head of the medical genetics department, Prof. Yüksel was appointed as the founding rector of Bezm-i Alem Vakıf University in 2010. Following the end of his term, he became the founding rector of Biruni University in 2014. The same year his work related to “Human CLP1 Mutations” was selected as the cover of Cell magazine issue. Professor Yüksel has more than 100 internationally published articles and has received over three thousand citations. He was awarded Istanbul University Science Days award, the Istanbul University Research Fund Scientific Research Award three times, and the Young Turkey Summit-Turkey Scientist Award First Place.
He continues to work for the young individuals of our country to make a difference at the international level based on in his own words: "The motor power of education are energy and enthusiasm.”

E-mail: ayuksel@biruni.edu.tr

Dr. Fatma Sevin is Professor of Chemistry at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. She is head of organic chemistry division. Her research group is focusing on the application of computational methods to current chemical problems of a widerange of biomolecular structures with DFT, QSAR and docking studies and also experimentally on the chemistry of high energy reactive intermediates such as atomic carbon, carbenes.

E-mail: sevin@hacettepe.edu.tr
Web Page: https://avesis.hacettepe.edu.tr/sevin

Dr. Ece is an associate professor of Chemistry at Biruni University. He received a B.Sc. in chemistry at Hacettepe University, Ankara. He completed his master degree in organic chemistry and obtained his Ph.D. in the field of organic, computational medicinal chemistry in the same institution. He worked as Research Assistant between 2002 and 2011 at Hacettepe University.

Dr. Ece gave several talks as invited speaker in international/national scientific organizations including NATO-ASI Summer School, Training Courses etc. He organizes Hands-On Training Courses on Computer Aided Drug Design.

He received two successive awards from Trinity College Dublin in 2017 and 2018. He serves as associate editor for BMC Chemistry journal by Springer Nature.

His research group (ECE Research) is mainly focused on the computer aided drug design & discovery. In that aspect, he uses both quantum chemical and molecular mechanics calculations. Supported by the leading software companies in the field, Ece Research uses effective and specialized computational tools to address a particular problem or to enlight an experimental finding in medicinal, organic or pharmaceutical chemistry.

He believes that there is no boundaries in different fields of sciences. Scientists should set aside the differences and collaborate with each other. It is the reason that the motto of ECE Research is "Combining Multidisciplinary Research".

E-mail: aece@biruni.edu.tr
Web Page: http://www.ece.biruni.edu.tr/

Prof. Durdagi received his PhD degree in Freie Univ. Berlin in 2009 and his PhD studies is supported by EU FP6 Marie Curie Research Fellowship. He also received many prestigious research grants (i.e., Max Planck Inst., Canadian Institute of Health Research-CIHR, Alberta Innovates Health Solutions-AIHS). Prof. Durdagi worked as postdoctoral fellow (2009-2013) and senior researcher (2012-2013) in University of Calgary (Canada) and Max-Planck Institute (Germany), respectively.

Prof. Durdagi’s research group currently works at the Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Bahcesehir University (BAU). The group of Dr Durdagi works on several projects for better understanding the drug-receptor and protein-protein, protein-DNA interactions of different systems using several computational modeling approaches and designing novel therapeutic compounds. Prof Durdagi’s research group carried out many national and international projects so far (TUBITAK, H2020, FP6 and FP7). Prof. Durdagi received many prestigious national and international awards including The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey-TUBITAK's Incentive Award in Health Sciences (2016); Contribution to Science Awards (2016, 2021); Health Institutes of Turkey -TUSEB's Aziz Sancar Incentive Award (2017); Science Academy's Young Scientist Award (2014).

E-mail: serdar.durdagi@med.bau.edu.tr
Web Page: https://www.durdagilab.com

He is professor of Biostatistics and he is chief advisor to the Rector at Biruni University. Professor Çelik established Biostatistics department in school of medicine in Turkey, in 1995. He also established center of Automation and Information Systems in different hospitals.

His research areas are biostatistics, information technology, advanced statistical methods for basic and clinical sciences and hospital automation and information systems.

Professor Çelik spent much of his career in school of medicine at Hacettepe University and Dicle University (Department of Public Health, Medical Biology-Genetics, Biostatistics, Hospital Information Systems, School of Medicine), while he has also been at Giessen University (Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, School of Medicine), Ege University (Faculty of Engineering Department of Computer Sciencies and Ege University Hospital), Boğaziçi University (Department of Computer Engineering) and finally at University of Latvia (Department of Biostatistics, School of Medicine in Riga).

He is chief editor of International Journal Basic and Clinical Studies and Biruni journal of health sciences. Professor Çelik has over 100 publications with an h-index of 28. He authored 6 books and 1 book chapter.

E-mail: ycelik@biruni.edu.tr

Prof. Dr. İsmail Tuncer DEĞİM graduated from University of Ankara Faculty of Pharmacy and then he received an MSc degree at Gazi University Faculty of Pharmacy. He obtained his PhD in Cardiff at University of Wales, The School of Pharmacy, UK in 1996.

Prof. Dr. İsmail Tuncer DEĞİM worked at University of Connecticut, Faculty of Pharmacy between 2007 and 2008. He served as a Dean at Gazi University Faculty of Pharmacy between 2012 and 2016. Prof. DEĞİM has been serving as a Dean at Biruni University Faculty of Pharmacy since 2016.

Prof. DEĞİM has over 60 national and international papers, several book chapters and he is currently at the editorial board of Asian Chemistry Letters, Austin Chromatography, ACTA Pharmaceutica Sciencia and Turkish Clinics, Pharmaceutical Sciences journal.

Research interests are Nanotechnology; Drug delivery using carbon nanotubes, quantum dots or boron nitride nanotubes; Controlled drug delivery, Transdermal formulations; Iontophoresis; Cancer drug formulations.

Prof.Dr. İsmail Tuncer DEĞİM is inventor of three patents.

E-mail: tdegim@biruni.edu.tr

Dr. Atilla Akdemir obtained his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He later joined a small drug discovery company as a computational chemist. In 2011, he accepted a position as assistant professor in pharmacology in the faculty of pharmacy of Bezmialem Vakif University. In 2015, he was appointed as associate professor and in 2021 he was appointed full professor in pharmacology at the same group.

He is the founder and department head of the multidisciplinary Drug Discovery and Development MSc and PhD programmes as well as the Computer-Aided Drug Discovery Laboratory. He is in the board of the Drug Research Centre (ILMER). In addition, he was appointed as the vice-dean of the faculty of pharmacy between 2014 and 2020.

Dr. Akdemir’s research interests are in the rational development and optimization of lead compounds by combining molecular modelling as well as molecular pharmacology techniques.

E-mail: aakdemir@bezmialem.edu.tr
Web Page: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8416-0471

Dr. Mirzaei is an Assistant Professor at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences affiliated with the Research Institute for Primordial Prevention of Non-communicable Disease. He received a BSc in Chemistry at Guilan University and he completed MSc and PhD in the field of Computational Physical Chemistry at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran.

His research activity has been mainly focused on the Computer Aided Drug Design & Discovery related issues using the In Silico concepts and tools. He has already participated in several scientific events besides collaborating with other colleagues. He thinks about the importance of converging all fields of science and engineering to approach better achievements for improving the human life system.

E-mail: mirzaei.ma22@res.mui.ac.ir

Dr. Adriano Mollica is Full Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University “G. d’ Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Italy and PhD in “Pharmaceutical Sciences”. From 2019, he is the Director of the PhD program “Biomolecular and Pharmaceutical Sciences”. He is Fellow of the Royal society of Chemistry. His research interests are focused on opioid peptides, neurodegeneration, treatment of chronic and neuropathic pain, multi-target compounds and nutraceuticals' development. He is a co-author of 224 papers published in international journals, H=35, he is inventor of two European Patents and one Italian Patent. He is currently Editor in Chief of “Current Bioactive Compounds” and "Current Functional Foods" and Associate Editor of Industrial Crops and Products.

E-mail: a.mollica@unich.it
Web Page: https://en.unich.it/ugov/person/2310

Dr. Cüneyt Türkeş is associate professor of biochemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Turkey. He did his B.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of Atatürk, Turkey. He obtained M.Sc. and PhD in the field of biochemistry under the supervision of Prof. Şükrü Beydemir at the same university. He worked for 16 years at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Turkey, as a chemist/director from March 2001.

His main research interest is the biochemistry/medicinal chemistry of some metabolic enzymes, such as carbonic anhydrases, cholinesterases, paraoxonases, aldose reductases, and cyclooxygenases field in which he has made contributions to the computer-aided design & discovery of many novel enzyme inhibitors and activators by deciphering their mechanism of action at the molecular level as well as purification of enzymes from different tissues and their kinetic, chemical-physical, and structural characterizatio. He also has experience with molecular biology techniques, such as nucleic acid isolation, cloning, and expression of recombinant proteins and enzymes in Escherichia coli as well as food chemistry, and laboratory accreditation according to ISO/IEC 17025 standard.
Dr. Cüneyt was listed among World's Top 2% Scientists in terms of the citation of their scientific papers by other authors.

Dr. Dave Ojika is currently the founder and CEO of Flapmax, a US-based technology company, where he leads research and product development in the fields of AI and cloud computing. He also founded and directs Flapmax AI Institute, an industry/academic collaboration between Flapmax and academic and industry partners, with the goal of advancing applied AI research in domains like healthcare & inclusivity, drug discovery and high-performance computing.

Dave received his PhD, then served as a post-doc and later a Research Scientist at the University of Florida. He worked at Dell EMC in Austin, Texas where he led the design of AI software platforms for hardware-accelerated computing. Prior to that, he worked at Intel and Microsoft Research and was a visiting scholar at the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland where he conducted research in high-energy physics as part of his PhD dissertation.