Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief: Ricardo Correa

Affiliation: Senior Manager, Analytical Development at MilliporeSigma/Merck KGaA; Visiting Professor at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Biography: Ricardo G. Correa, PhD, is a pharmacist with over 20 years of scientific experience in biochemistry and molecular biology, and previous industrial experience in the development of analytical methods. Dr Correa has a broad international scientific experience, working at well-recognized institutions like The Salk Institute (USA), University College London (UK) and Universidade de Sao Paulo (Brazil). Dr Correa has 15 years of research experience in cellular signalling pathways involving inflammation, tumorigenesis and immune response. During his PhD, Dr Correa was nominated the first researcher to patent a novel human gene as potential tumour marker in Brazil. During his postdoctoral training, Dr Correa characterized the role of NF-kappaB in the zebrafish model and how this pathway impacts proliferative processes in vertebrates. After his post-doc, Dr Correa was Assistant Professor at the University of Sao Paulo (USP) and the Pontificia Universidade Catolica (PUC) in Brazil. Later, Dr Correa moved to La Jolla (California, USA) to work at the SBP Medical Discovery Institute (SBMRI), and currently serves as Senior Manager, Analytical Development, at MilliporeSigma/Merck KGaA as well as being a Visiting Professor at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. His work has mainly focused on gene therapy, innate immunity and cancer progression.

Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Christopher Cooper

Affiliation: CHARM Therapeutics & University of Huddersfield, UK

Biography: Chris obtained an MBiochem in Biochemistry and a PhD/DPhil in molecular microbiology from the University of Oxford (studying DNA replication enzymes from thermoacidophilic archaea), as well as an MRes in Bioinformatics from the University of York. He subsequently moved into eukaryotic molecular biology, working for 3 years at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences in Oxford, researching microRNA and cancer-testis antigens expression profiles in human lymphomas. He then undertook two postdoctoral positions at the Structural Genomics Consortium (Oxford), working on the high-throughput structural biology and biochemistry of human DNA polymerases and helicases involved in genome integrity. Chris continued to research genome integrity factors in cancer during a short postdoc at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology (Oxford), with concurrent appointments as an E.P. Abraham Cephalosporin Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College and as a Lecturer in Biochemistry at The Queen's College. He joined the University of Huddersfield as a Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences and continued to research DNA replication and repair across a number of eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems. Chris then moved to industry as Director of Protein Science at Peak Proteins, prior to taking his position at CHARM Therapeutics as Director and Head of Protein Sciences. Chris remains an Affiliate at the University of Huddersfield and an elected Associate at Clare Hall, Cambridge.

Associate Editors

Jane Allison

Affiliation: The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Biography: I obtained a BSc (Hons) from the University of Canterbury in 2003 and a PhD from Cambridge University in 2008, where I worked with Prof. Chris Dobson on integrating NMR data into molecular dynamics simulations of disordered proteins. I then spent four years as a postdoc with Prof. Wilfred van Gunsteren at ETH Zürich, again largely working on linking NMR data with MD simulations, but for better behaved proteins. I returned to New Zealand in 2012 to become a Lecturer in Natural Sciences at Massey University. I was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship in 2015, and in 2018, I moved to the University of Auckland, where I am an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences. My research group is interested in the structure and motion of biomolecules, and how these relate to their functional and evolutionary roles in biology, with a particular focus on proteins, peptides and membranes. We work on a wide range of projects, usually in collaboration with experimental researchers, and mostly using molecular dynamics simulations.

Edward Bolt
Affiliation: University of Nottingham, UK
Biography: Ed’s group is located in the University of Nottingham Medical School (Life Sciences), researching DNA repair by recombination and CRISPR-Cas immunity. Prior to his current position as Professor of Molecular Biology, Ed was a lecturer and Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellow, also at Nottingham, moving there from the University of London (QMUL and UCL). Ed’s group collaborates with labs studying CRISPR systems and recombination at universities and companies in the UK and overseas.  

Kakoli Bose
Affiliation: Tata Memorial Centre, India
Biography: Programmed cell death or apoptosis poses an important impediment against cancer.  It is evident that effective treatment of cancer needs innovative identification of novel targets from the apoptotic pathway and their therapeutic intervention with greater efficacy and lower toxicity. Dr. Bose’s laboratory is committed toward this objective with her research interest being identification and characterization of targets in the apoptotic pathway so as to design modulators/analogs with desired characteristics using multidisciplinary approach. The group works on the high temperature requirement family of serine proteases (HtrA), the interaction between anti apoptotic c-FLIP and calmodulin as well as caspase-8 and FADD of extrinsic cell death pathway, and the Bcl2 family proteins and their interacting partners. Moreover, the group is now entering into application-based translation research that includes enzymes involved in metabolic reprogramming and their role in altering cancer signaling pathways. 

Jean-Bernard Denault

Affiliation: Université de Sherbrooke, Canada
Biography: Jean-Bernard Denault is a professor at the Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, with a Ph.D. degree in Pharmacology. His research interests cover the mechanisms of regulation, activation, and activity of proteolytic enzymes, more specifically that of caspases during apoptosis. Dr. Denault's laboratory is interested in caspase biology with emphasis on their roles in cancer. His projects take advantage of protein engineering, enzymological characterization, gene manipulation, cancer cell models, structural biology, and other approaches to understand how caspases work and how these results can potentially lead to the development of new strategies to modulate their activity.

Karla Feijs
Affiliation: RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Biography: Karla obtained a BSc from the University of Maastricht, followed by an MSc from the University of Amsterdam with a major in oncology. For her MSc she pursued a research project investigating the role of ubiquitination in the Notch pathway at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. Subsequently, she obtained her PhD from RWTH Aachen University in biochemistry for work on the ADP-ribosyltransferase PARP10. Supported by an EMBO Fellowship, she performed postdoctoral work to study the enzymes MacroD1, MacroD2 and TARG1 at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford. Following a maternity break, Karla then returned to RWTH Aachen University to start her own research group in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In contrast to the well-studied PARP1, several other enzymes of the PARP family are poorly characterised, as are the enzymes reversing ADP-ribosylation. We are interested in defining the function of these transferases and hydrolases in normal physiology as well as in pathologies such as cancer.

Lorna Fiedler
Affiliation: Cambrian Bio
Biography: Lorna is an R&D Director with over 20 years experience across biotech and academic sectors, leading preclinical research and development programs, primarily in the cardiovascular space. Lorna was previously Program Manager and Principal Scientist at e therapeutics, an AI network biology company. Prior to this, she was Associate Director at OxStem, a regenerative medicine spin-out company from Oxford University. Lorna previously held a Research Fellow and Project Manager position at the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School, studying metabolic disturbance in genetic cardiomyopathy, and led a team at Imperial College London that discovered a cardioprotective small molecule. She has previously held postdoctoral positions studying vascular biology at UCL, Oxford University and Cardiff Universities and in 2007, received her PhD in vascular and extracellular matrix cell biology from Cardiff University. Her focus is in translating innovative science into novel therapeutics to address unmet patient needs.

Michael Huang
Affiliation: Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Australia
Biography: Michael is a Senior Research Fellow at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Australia. He obtained a BSc (Bioinformatics) with 1st Class Honours from the University of Sydney, and received his PhD in the Department of Pathology, University of Sydney. Since 2013, Michael established a research group that focuses on the elucidation of molecular mechanisms in the pathogenesis of human iron and mitochondrial disorders, with a particular focus on the neurodegenerative and cardio-degenerative disorder, Friedreich’s ataxia, and the regulation of the systematic iron hormone, hepcidin. Michael’s research spans basic science to translational research that utilizes multidisciplinary approaches including bioinformatics, biostatistics, biochemistry, molecular biology, animal genetics and medical science. Michael’s work has been recognized by a collection of prestigious National and International Awards, including Society of Free Radical Research International Young Investigator Award, Rebecca L Cooper Medal and Prize, Sydney Medical School Dean’s Prize, Peter Bancroft Prize, etc. Finally, Michael has been invited to act as grant review panellist for National and International agencies, chaired International conference sessions and served on multiple Editorial Boards.

Miriam Jasiulionis
Affiliation: Universidade Federal de São Paulo
Biography: Miriam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, at Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Biomedical Sciences and a PhD in cellular and molecular biology of cancer. She did postdoctoral studies in tumor microenvironment and development of in vitro and in vivo models of tumor progression. She coordinates the Laboratory of Ontogeny and Epigenetics, focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in early and late stages of melanoma progression, phenotypic plasticity, tumor dormancy and therapy response.

Nicola K. Gray

Affiliation: University of Edinburgh, UK

Biography: To be provided

Wei Li

Affiliation: Beijing Children's Hospital, China

Biography: Dr. Wei Li obtained his Ph.D. degree in Medical Genetics in 1997 and received his postdoctoral training from 1999-2004 at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York, where he got his M.S. degree of Bioinformatics in 2004. Dr. Li's own laboratory was founded in 2004 at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2015, Dr. Li joined Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University. Dr. Li's lab is mainly focused on the field of Lysosomal Trafficking, to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms of lysosomal trafficking pathways involved in the biogenesis of lysosome-related organelles and related disorders. Dr. Li's other interest is to translate his research to clinical diagnosis and intervention of inherited diseases by using high-throughput multi-omics studies to identify the disease causative genes. Dr. Wei Li's lab has three core research groups: medical genetics and genomics, bioinformatics and omics (BigData), molecular and cellular biology.

Luiz Claudio Miletti
Affiliation: Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Brazil
Biography: Luiz Claudio Miletti holds a degree in Biochemical Pharmacy-Clinical Analysis from the University of São Paulo (1993), a Master's degree in Biological Sciences (Biochemistry) - Department of Biochemistries (1997) and a Ph.D. in Biologic Sciences from the Universidad de São Paulo. (2001). He was a postdoctoral fellow (2003-2005) in the Department of Biochemistry at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. He is currently Full Professor at the State University of Santa Catarina where he began his work in 2006. He has been Head of the Department of Animal Production  and Coordinator of the Multicenter Graduate Programs in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Animal Science. He has experience in the area of Biochemistry, with an emphasis on Biochemistry of Tripanosomatides of veterinary interest (Trypanosoma evansi and Trypanosome vivax) and their vectors. His research interests are: Host parasite interaction and discoveries of new biomarkers for chemotherapy and diagnosis. It is associated with the Brazilian Society of Protozoology (SBPZ), Brazilian Sociedade Brasileira de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular (SBBq) and Brazil Society for the Progress of Science ( SBPC) and is a member of the OIE NTTAT (OIE Non Tsetse Transmitted Animal Trypanosomoses) Network. He was Deputy Regional Secretary (2017-2020) and Regional (2020-2023) of SBPC in Santa Catarina. 

Sumit Sahni
Affiliation: University of Sydney, Australia
Biography: Dr Sahni has received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2011. Currently, Dr. Sahni is appointed as a Research Fellow at the Northern Clinical School, University of Sydney, where he plays a pivotal leadership role in the Pancreatic Cancer Research Group. His team consists of 2 PhD and 1 Masters students. His research is focused on understanding the role of the autophagic pathway in pancreatic cancer progression and development of anti-cancer therapeutic strategies targeting autophagy. He is also involved in several research projects aimed at identifying biomarkers for pancreatic cancer diagnosis and progression. Throughout his career, he has published 53 journal articles in high quality international journals and has received >7600 citations. He has secured a number of research grants from prestigious granting bodies, such as Cancer Australia, National Breast Cancer Foundation and AMP Foundation.

Deborah Schechtman
Affiliation: Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
Biography:  Deborah Schechtman is an Associate Professor at the University of São Paulo, Department of Biochemistry. She obtained her Undergraduate degree in biomedicine from the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, a PhD from The Weizmann Institute Of Science and performed her Pos-doctoral studies at Stanford University  with Professor Daria Mochly-Rosen. The main goal of her laboratory is to develop peptide modulators and conformation-specific antibodies to study signal transduction pathways involved in inflammatory pain, identifying and validating new non-opioid drug targets for the treatment of pain.

Nathan Subramaniam

Affiliation: Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Biography: Professor Nathan Subramaniam received his PhD from Purdue University, W. Lafayette, Indiana, USA. He did his postgraduate research at the Department of Biochemistry, University of California at Davis, USA. He then joined the group of Prof Wanjin Hong at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore, where he completed his postdoctoral training in cell biology and protein trafficking. He is currently Professor in Biomedical Sciences (Molecular Medicine) at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, and leads the Liver Disease and Iron Disorders Research Group at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and School of Biomedical Sciences. Professor Subramaniam’s interests lie in the study of liver disease and how the liver regulates iron homeostasis. His research interests include understanding the genetics of iron disorders, cell biology of iron transporters, functional consequences of disease-causing mutations, mechanisms involved in regulating iron homeostasis and the development of liver injury.

Georg C. Terstappen

Affiliation: GCT Bio/Pharma Consulting, Germany

Biography: Georg C. Terstappen - a biologist by training with a PhD in natural sciences - has more than 30 years of experience in pharma R&D. In this regard he worked in leading positions in major international pharmaceutical companies including Bayer, GlaxoWellcome, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott and AbbVie, and in the biotech industry where he was co-founder of a ‘start-up’ drug discovery company (Siena Biotech), CSO of OxStem (a spin-out company of the University of Oxford) and EVP Drug Discovery at Cambrian BioPharma. In the European R&D framework Georg has held leading positions as well and was Vice-Chair of the Innovative Medicines Strategy group (InnoMedS) in the context of EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations) and IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative). In addition, he was a founding member and Co-Chair of the Strategic Governing Group Neurodegeneration. Georg was also adjunct professor and visiting scientist at several European universities (including the University of Oxford) and leader of European-wide research programs funded by the EC and public-private partnerships funded by IMI. Based on his deep, extensive and diverse experience he has broad knowledge and know-how of the health/life science/pharma sector, the associated mechanisms and dynamics and the various stakeholders involved.

Tom Van Agtmael

Affiliation: University of Glasgow

Biography: Following his undergraduate training in Biochemistry at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), Dr. Van Agtmael obtained his PhD in molecular genetics at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne (Australia). He then moved to the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh for his post-doctoral training as an EU Marie Curie Fellow during which he identified the first vertebrate Col4a1 mutations and implicated type IV collagen in eye and kidney disease. Following a CVRI Wellcome Trust Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, he was awarded a MRC New Investigator Research Grant to investigate the role of collagen IV in vascular biology. He then joined the University of Glasgow as a RCUK Fellow in Human Molecular Genetics where he established his research group within the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences.

Rietie Venter

Affiliation: University of South Australia, Australia

Biography: Rietie is currently the Head of Microbiology in the School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences at the University of South Australia. Her research focuses on antimicrobial resistance in pathogenic microbes which is one of the most serious threats in healthcare today. Her group works on projects aimed at detecting antimicrobial resistance in clinical and environmental settings as well as understanding the factors that drive the rapid dissemination of antibiotic resistant organisms. She is also heading an antimicrobial drug discovery program aimed at finding new therapeutics against drug resistant pathogens.  Rietie obtained her BSc(Hons) and Master’s degrees with distinction from the University of the Free State in South Africa before securing a scholarship to do a PhD in the UK. After completing her PhD at the University of Leeds in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, she moved to Cambridge, where she spent twelve years doing research on multidrug transporters, first as a post-doc and later running her own research group as a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology. Not content with moving continents once in a lifetime, she left the ancient buildings and immaculate college lawns of Cambridge for sun and sea in Australia after sixteen years in the UK. 

Qiong Annabel Wang

Affiliation: City of Hope National Medical Center

Biography: Qiong Annabel Wang, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Arthur Riggs Diabetes and Metabolism Research Institute, City of Hope National Medical Center. Dr. Wang’s laboratory focuses on the physiological characterization of adipose tissue remodeling, plasticity, and heterogeneity. They hypothesize that adipose tissue remodeling, both at the cellular and molecular level, is not only essential for normal adipose tissue development & function, but also critical for the pathogenesis of adult & age-related obesity and their related metabolic disorders, as well as postpartum breast cancer formation. Moreover, Dr. Wang’s team aims to determine if manipulating adipose tissue remodeling would prevent or treat metabolic disorders and cancer.

Caroline Wee

Affiliation: Agency for Science, Technology and Research, A*STAR, Singapore

Biography: Caroline Wee received her Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and Psychology from Cornell University, and her PhD in Neurobiology from Harvard University (2016), under the supervision of Professor Florian Engert. After a brief post-doctoral stint in her PhD lab, she returned to Singapore to conduct independent research in 2018 and was promoted to Principal Investigator in 2021. Her current research focuses on leveraging the larval zebrafish model, along with other preclinical and cohort studies, to develop a holistic understanding of organ-brain signaling and nutrient-microbiome interactions affecting brain and behavior.

Min Wu

Affiliation: Yale University

Biography: Dr. Min Wu is an associate professor at the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University. Prior to joining Yale, she was an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, and a principal investigator of the Mechanobiology Institute. She received her undergraduate degree from Peking University, Ph.D at Cornell University, and post-doctoral training at Yale University. The Wu lab studies single cell oscillations and travelling waves, membrane curvature, and cell size homeostasis. 

Ming Yang

Affiliation: Oklahoma State University, USA

Biography: Dr. Ming Yang is a plant cell and molecular biologist. His major contributions are in the areas of stomatal development, meiotic cell cycle progression, and cell morphogenesis in plants. He has investigated a number of Arabidopsis mutants that exhibit interesting phenotypes in the mentioned areas. His research emphasis is on detecting the effects of individual and combined mutations on cell morphology to gain insights into the molecular mechanisms. Stemming from his experimental work, Dr. Yang has also conducted theoretical investigations into the physical basis of biological rhythms; he proposed that slow diffusion of biomolecules could lead to short pauses in biochemical reactions, which in turn, produce long biological oscillations in a negative feedback loop. Dr. Yang’s group is currently investigating the functions of novel leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinases in epidermal cell formation and proteins in meiotic checkpoint network in Arabidopsis. Dr. Yang also continues his theoretical work on various biological processes.

Chen Zhang

Affiliation: Capital Medical University, China

Biography: Chen Zhang obtained his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Science and Technology of China and his Ph.D. from the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He conducted his postdoctoral work in Prof. Thomas C. Südhof’s laboratory from 2004 to 2010. Dr. Zhang joined Peking University as a principal investigator in neuroscience in 2010, and joined the PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research in 2013. In 2018, He became the Dean of the School of Basic Medical Sciences at Capital Medical University. His research interest is in the molecular basis of neural connection (synapse) formation, primarily focusing on the synaptic cleft's protein composition.