Biography:

Poovarasi Balan is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering at Monash University Malaysia. She is undertaking research on environmental friendly anti-corrosive coatings for mild steel, biodegradable coatings for biomedical implants and sustainability engineering education research. She is currently developing biodegradable coatings for orthopedic applications that can eliminate the secondary surgery to remove the implant. This brings economic benefits and improvement in well-being of patients with temporary orthopedic injuries. Recently, her research team has expanded to look into coatings on cardiovascular stents using Magnesium alloys as well.

Biography:

Dr. Samia Aboushoushah is an Associate Professor of Medical Physics at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She received her PhD from the Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Imaging Centre, University of Nottingham, UK, in 2011. Her research spans magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nanomedicine, with significant contributions to the development of iron oxide nanoparticles as MRI contrast agents and the investigation of their biocompatibility and biodistribution. In parallel, she leads work on designing curcumin-based nanocarriers—including dextran-zein, mesoporous silica, and protein-polysaccharide systems—for enhanced cancer therapy and drug delivery. She is also the Arabic translator of “MRI: The Basics” and an active mentor in imaging and translational nanotechnology.

Biography

Behnam Sadeghi graduated as a medical doctor (MD) in 1995. Dr Sadeghi did his PhD in transplantation Immunology in 2009 at Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Since then, Dr Sadeghi’s research concentrated in the field of cell therapy and regenerative medicine both in clinical trial and experimental settings. Dr Sadeghi introduced and applied decidua stromal cells (DSC) for the treatment of steroid refractory GVHD, ARDS and other acute inflammatory disorders in man. Other cell therapy modalities including bone marrow, adipose derived mesenchymal stromal cells (BM, Ad-MSC) as well as somatic stem cell therapy are among his research interests. Currently, Dr. Sadeghi, as a senior scientist and assistant professor, is the head of the Translational cell therapy (TCR) research group in the department of CLINTEC, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

Biography
I am an accomplished Molecular Biologist currently working as a Scientist-B at the Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Rajkot, (India). I have over 9 years of experience in advanced plant biology research and university-level teaching. I obtained my PhD in Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology from Saurashtra University, where my doctoral research specialized in molecular and bioinformatics analyses of grass species’ organelle genomes. I became the first to deposit the complete chloroplast genome of grasses from south Asia, and all are deposited as reference genomes in the NCBI database. My dissertation project involved numerous complex laboratory techniques including DNA/RNA extraction, PCR amplification, DNA sequencing, computational genomics, molecular markers, time tree and phylogenomics and other Bioinformatics analyses. Leveraging my expertise in plant molecular biology and genetics, I have published 20 research papers from my research work in reputable peer-reviewed journals, demonstrating my research writing abilities. Currently, as Principal Investigator, I lead the extramural funded project: “Development of an RT-PCR Based Multiplex Diagnostic Kit for Detecting Respiratory Viruses in Clinical Samples.” Furthermore, I am acting as co-Principal Investigator on two additional research projects at AIIMS.

Mr. Mohammed Jemal is a lecturer of Biochemistry at Debre Markos University, Debre Markos, Ethiopia. He received his MSc degree in Biochemistry from the University of Gondar, School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Medical Biochemistry in 2022 GC. He earned his BSc from Debre Markos University in Public Health in 2019 GC. Currently, he is working as a lecturer of Biochemistry at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, Debre Markos University. He joined Debre Markos University as Graduating Assistant II in 2019. Since then, he taught both theoretical and practical courses in Biochemistry for Health Students till he left for the University of Gondar to follow his graduate studies in 2020.
He returned after completion of his Master’s degree in Biochemistry and continued teaching the theoretical and practical aspects of Biochemistry for Medical and Health Science students. He also teaches General Biochemistry for non-health science students such as Animal Science and Sport Science students.