Session Chairs 

Ana Armiñán

Ana Armiñán obtained her biology degree at the University of Valencia (Spain) in 2004. She then worked in the Cardio-regeneration group led by Dr J.A. Montero and Dr P. Sepúlveda where she received her PhD cum laude at the University of Valencia in 2009. Her research focused on the isolation and characterization of mesenchymal and hematopoietic stem cells and their ability to treat myocardial infarction in a preclinical model. In 2009, she joined the Polymer Therapeutics lab and is now a postdoctoral fellow where her research is focused on the study and biological characterization of polymer therapeutics in vitro and in vivo for the treatment of breast and prostate cancer. She is also interested in the application of metabolomics for the study of polymer drug conjugate responses. She has been working for the last 4 years on conjugate uptake and cellular trafficking using qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Chun Li

Research activities in Dr. Chun Li's laboratory are primarily focused on two areas: 1) the development of targeted imaging probes for noninvasive characterization of molecular events associated with tumor progression and regression and 2) the development of novel drug-delivery systems for selective delivery of diagnostic and therapeutic agents. Molecular imaging probes used in nuclear, optical, and magnetic resonance imaging modalities are designed to enhance the sensitivity and selectivity of early tumor detection, tumor-marker profiling, and the monitoring of early treatment responses. Targeted drug delivery, on the other hand, uses nanometric drug carriers to selectively deliver anticancer agents to the tumor to maximize their therapeutic efficacy and minimize their toxic side effects to the normal tissues. Their long-term goal is to apply the "seek and treat" strategy in the development of targeted imaging/therapeutic agents that will eventually be translated to the clinic to improve the management of cancer through early tumor detection and individualized therapy.

Giuseppe Battaglia

Prof Giuseppe Battaglia, or Beppe as everyone calls him, is the Chair of Molecular Bionics in the department of chemistry and Honorary Professor of Chemical Engineering at University College London. Beppe holds both an Established Career EPSRC Fellowship and ERC CoG Award. He’s the director of the newly established Jeol/EPSRC Centre for Liquid Electron Microscopy and he lead a 25 strong research group working at the interface between life and physical science. Most of Beppe’s activity are focused on the design of novel carriers, or “somanauts" to navigate the body and deliver drugs and//or diagnostic probes within the desired part. Prior to joining UCL, Beppe was a Process Engineering at Imperial Chemical Industries, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Professor at the University of Sheffield where he also got his PhD in Physical Chemistry in 2006 under the supervision of Prof Tony Ryan.

Hamid Ghandehari

Hamid Ghandehari is a Professor at the Departments of Bioengineering and Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Director of Utah Center for Nanomedicine and Co‐Founder and Co‐Director of the Nano Institute of Utah at the University of Utah. His research focuses on the design of recombinant polymers for gene and drug delivery, targeted delivery of polymer therapeutics to solid tumors, oral delivery of chemotherapeutics, and assessing the biocompatibility of silica and dendritic nanoconstructs. Dr. Ghandehari is Editor in Chief of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the Controlled Release Society. He serves on the scientific advisory board of several national and international drug delivery organizations such as the Controlled Release Society. He has published over 170 articles, and given over 230 invited talks. He received his BS in Pharmacy and PhD in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Utah.

Inma Conejos Sanchez

Inma obtained her degree in chemistry at the University of Valencia (Spain) in July 2007, after her Erasmus year in the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry at the University Johnannes Gutenberg in Mainz (Germany). She then joined the Polymer Therapeutics lab to undertake a project entitled “Polymer-drug conjugates for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders”. During this period, she was involved in the development and validation of new versatile and controlled polyglutamates-based carriers, studies into strategies to overcome biological barriers such as the blood-brain barrier by means of active targeting with these polymeric platforms, and also the design, synthesis, and validation of novel polymer conjugates for the treatment of the treatment of rare neurological diseases. The latest project involved a short stay in the Dr. Saraiva’s group in Porto (Portugal). After obtaining her cum laude PhD, she joined the Biomaterials Group of Dr. Iraida Loinaz in IK4-CIDETEC (San Sebastián, Spain), a re-known scientific technology center in the field of nanomedicine and drug delivery, where she participated in the European project SaveMe, based on the construction of a modular active nano-platform for diagnoses and cancer treatment. Her work dealt with the development of single chain nanoparticles synthesis and characterization, the improvement of their targeting/labeling methodologies and the escalation procedures. In March 2014, she moved to the group of Prof. María José Alonso, a widely known scientist for her contributions to vaccine/drug delivery nanocarriers, pioneering this area in Spain. Her research in the European project Trans-Int pursued the design and development of nanoformulations for peptide oral delivery. In July 2015, she was awarded with a postdoctoral grant between her PhD lab and the Department of Clinical Neuroscience in the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Her project is focused in the design, develop and biologically evaluation of novel non-viral gene delivery vectors for treatment of progressive forms of multiple sclerosis using siRNA as the bioactive molecule.

Luigi Calzolai

Dr. Calzolai obtained his M.Sc. in chemistry and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Florence and the University of Siena, respectively.  After a Postgraduate Research at the University of California, Davis, he joined, in 1998, the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich, in the laboratory of the Nobel laureate Kurth Wuthrich, where he determined the 3D structure of prion proteins responsible of neurological disorders, such as Mad Cow Disease and Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.  In 2007 he moved to the School of Pharmacy of the University of Kent (UK) as Senior Lecturer in biochemistry. In 2009 he joined the Joint Research Center of the European Commission where his research focuses on the development of methods for the detection and characterization of nanoparticles in complex matrices and nanomedicines. He is a member of the Core Expert Team of the European Union Nanomedicine Characterization Laboratory.

Publication list available at: Google Scholar (Calzolai Luigi): https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jgiELM8AAAAJ&hl=en

Javier Garcia Cogorro