Carl Nathan, MD is R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor and chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College and co-chair of the Program in Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis at Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University. After graduation from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, he trained in internal medicine and oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, the National Cancer Institute and Yale before joining the faculty of The Rockefeller University from 1977-1986. He has been at Weill Cornell Medical College since 1986, where he has served as founding director of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program, senior associate dean for research and acting dean. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Nathan serves as associate scientific director of the Cancer Research Institute a Trustee of the Hospital for Special Surgery and chair of the research committee on the scientific advisory boards of the American Asthma Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation and the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and since 1988, an editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. He received the Robert Koch Prize in 2009 for his work on host defense against infection.

In work spanning four decades Nathan established that lymphocyte products activate macrophages, that interferon-gamma is a major macrophage activating factor in mice and humans, and that mechanisms of macrophage antimicrobial activity include induction of the respiratory burst and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), which he and his colleagues purified, cloned, knocked out and characterized biochemically and functionally. Although iNOS helps the host control Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mtb resists sterilization by host immunity. The biochemical basis of Mtb?s persistence is the lab?s present focus. Genetic and chemical screens have identified enzymes that Mtb requires to survive during non-replicative persistence, including the proteasome, a serine protease that controls intrabacterial pH, and components of pyruvate dehydrogenase and nucleotide excision repair, along with inhibitors of each.

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Professor Fairlamb is Head of the Division of Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the University of Dundee. He obtained his degree in Medicine and PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh (1965-1975). Following postdoctoral studies on the biochemistry and chemotherapy of trypanosomes, leishmania and malaria at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Edinburgh, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Rockefeller University, he moved in 1996 to the University of Dundee as a Wellcome Principal Research Fellow to become Head of the Division of Biological Chemistry & Drug Discovery.

Alan has published over 200 research papers and review articles on the identification, validation and molecular characterization of novel biochemical drug targets against parasitic diseases. His major research achievement was the discovery of trypanothione, a unique metabolite that is implicated in the mode of action of several of the current, unsatisfactory treatments for African trypanosomiasis, Chagas’ disease and leishmaniasis.

Alan is a tireless advocate of the urgent need for new drugs for the most neglected tropical diseases and has served as a scientific advisor to the World Health Organization, the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative over the past 25 years. Together with colleagues at Dundee, he played a pivotal role in establishing the Drug Discovery Unit, whose primary focus is on tropical parasitic diseases. Among many prizes and honours, he was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours 2005, for services to medical science.

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Ken Duncan leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts in drug discovery across therapeutic areas currently including TB, malaria, antivirals and contraception. He recently coordinated the drug discovery response to COVID-19, then developed and is implementing a strategy for pandemic preparedness, working together with other funding agencies, to identify safe, effective agents that can be deployed in low-resource settings. He established the TB Drug Accelerator, a new model of public-private collaboration, which aims to discover drug candidates that will contribute to a short-acting TB therapy. He played a major role in launching the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute in Beijing, China. He serves on the Selection Committee of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund in Japan. Before joining the foundation in 2007, he spent 16 years in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as Director, Diseases of the Developing World at GlaxoSmithKline. During that time, he helped establish the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development and served for six years on its Scientific Advisory Committee.

Elizabeth Ann Winzeler is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine with experience in academic and industrial antimicrobial drug discovery.

She received her Ph.D. in 1996 from the Department of Developmental Biology at Stanford University, training under the microbiologist, Lucy Shapiro. She also performed postdoctoral studies at Stanford working with the geneticist, Ronald Davis, before moving to a joint position at the Scripps Research Institute and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in 1999. At the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation she led a malaria drug discovery program that has yielded several novel antimalarial chemotypes that are currently in clinical trials (KAE609, also known as cipargamin, and KAF179). In 2012 she moved to the University of California, San Diego where she leads a group that uses systematic, data intensive methods to solve problems at the interface of host pathogen biology typically involving large collections of chemical screening data and whole genome sequencing.

She has received prestigious awards from the Keck Foundation, the Ellison Medical Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was a semifinalist in the 2008 Howard Hughes Competition. In 2014 she was awarded the Bailey-Ashford Medal for distinguished achievements in tropical medicine. She has authored over 110 publications that have been collectively cited more than 18,000 times.

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Dr Bilbe has the overall responsibility for advancing the discovery and development of new treatments for neglected diseases and building DNDi’s project portfolio.

Prior to joining DNDi in 2012, Dr. Bilbe was Global Head of Neuroscience Discovery at Novartis tasked with discovery and early development to proof of concept testing of novel treatments for brain diseases. During his scientific leadership of Novartis Neuroscience Discovery, he and scientific teams participated in development and registration of new therapies for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis. Under Dr. Bilbe’s leadership, the Neuroscience Discovery group built and developed a portfolio of novel therapies up to clinical efficacy testing for Parkinson’s disease, Fragile X Mental Retardation, cognitive disorders, gastroesophageal reflux disease, epilepsy and chronic pain states. Dr. Bilbe held executive leadership positions both within the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research as well as the Novartis Franchise Board for Neuroscience and was a visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool.

He currently is a member of several Scientific Advisory Boards for Biotech Companies, Public Institutions and TDR of the World Health Organization. Dr. Bilbe completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Zentrum for Molecular Biology in Heidelberg and Imperial College, University of London. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of London, Imperial College and his BSc. in Zoology and Biochemistry from the University of Nottingham.

Nick Cammack was most recently Head of Exploratory Discovery at GSK, and previously Head of the Medicines Development Campus for Diseases of the Developing World. In this role, Nick was responsible for the discovery and development of medicines to treat some of the most devastating neglected diseases including malaria, tuberculosis, Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis, and also including the recent registration and approval of Tafenoquine for vivax malaria.

Before joining GSK, Nick Cammack was Global Head of the Virology Disease Biology Area at Hoffmann La Roche, based in Palo Alto, California, USA, where he was instrumental in the initiation and implementation of many significant external partnerships – the three-way Roche-Pharmasset-InterMune partnership was the first to conduct and demonstrate antiviral activity of an interferon-free combination of two small molecules for the treatment of Hepatitis C.

Nick has also contributed to the discovery and development of three anti-HIV medicines and whilst at Roche in the UK where he was Head of the HIV Disease Area, he led the Roche-Trimeris Virology Team resulting in the successful launch of the novel anti-HIV medicine, Fuzeon.

Nick is a graduate of Leeds University and held a MRC PhD Fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He is a member of the Organising and Scientific Committees for several international conferences.

Valerie Mizrahi is professorial director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a Fellow of UCT. She also directs the SAMRC/NHLS/UCT Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit and co-directs the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, a tri-institutional TB research and training centre which she co-founded in 2004. She was an International Research Scholar of the HHMI from 2000-2010, and a Senior International Research Scholar of the HHMI from 2012-2017. Valerie obtained her PhD in Chemistry from UCT (1983) and undertook a postdoctoral research at Penn State University and at SmithKline & French in King of Prussia before returning to South Africa in 1989 where she established a research group at the University of the Witwatersrand and National Health Laboratory Service and remained until 2011.

Her research focuses on aspects of the physiology and metabolism of mycobacterial of relevance to TB drug resistance, drug discovery and mycobacteria persistence focusing on DNA and nucleotide metabolism, cofactor metabolism and energy metabolism. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the African Academy of Science and the Royal Society of South Africa, an Associate Fellow of The World Academy of Science, and member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Her major awards include the 2013 Christophe Mérieux Prize from the Mérieux Foundation and Institut de France, the Order of the Mapungubwe (Silver) in 2007 from the State President of South Africa, the 2017 Platinum Medal from the South African Medical Research Council, and the 2000 Unesco-L’Oréal For Women in Science Award (Africa & Middle East).

Valerie has held numerous Scientific Advisory Board appointments and currently serves of the Discovery Expert Group of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the SAB of Keystone Symposia and the Science Interview Panel of Wellcome. She is deeply committed to research capacity development in Africa, has mentored close to 70 early-career fellows, postdocs and graduate students during her career. Most of her trainees have remained involved in health research and some have moved into leadership positions locally and abroad.

Rab Prinjha leads the GSK Immunology Research Unit. He cofounded the GSK Biology Council and is an elected fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Senior Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and cochair of the GSK Fellows Council. He serves on GSK Research Review Board and the OpenTargets, Varsity, Altius, Broad and Laboratory for Genomic Research Governance Boards. He sits on the Academy of Medical Sciences Council and served as a member of the Padlock Board of Directors until its acquisition by BMS in 2016. He was appointed to the UK MRC PSMB Board and is on the SAB of the MRC UK Human Genetics Unit. He is a co-founder and Innovation Board member of the Milner Therapeutics Consortium. Previously, under his leadership the GSK Epigenetics DPU was responsible for many novel and industry leading discoveries in the area of exploring and exploiting epigenetic inhibitors in human disease treatment. He is co-author of more than 130 scientific publications including Cell, Science and Nature in the areas of immunology, oncology, epigenetics and neuroscience and named inventor in 14 patents.

Dr. Penny M. Heaton is the Chief Executive Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute (Gates MRI), a non-profit biotechnology organization that applies translational science to combat diseases that disproportionately impact the poor in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr. Heaton leads the institute’s work to capitalize on new strategies and partnerships to optimize therapeutics, vaccines and monoclonal antibody candidates, accelerate progress from the lab to the clinic and develop them through proof of concept in target populations. The mission of the Gates MRI is to advance or develop products that will help eradicate malaria, accelerate the end of the tuberculosis epidemic, prevent diarrheal deaths from occurring in children and improve maternal and neonatal health outcomes.

Prior to this role, Dr. Heaton served as Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Vaccine Development and Surveillance team, which provided strategic and technical support to the foundation’s vaccine development programs against several diseases including HIV, TB, malaria, pneumonia, enteric diseases, and polio. She has more than 20 years of experience leading vaccine clinical research and development for companies including Novartis, Merck and Novavax.

Dr. Heaton began her career at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducting diarrheal disease surveillance and investigating outbreaks of foodborne and diarrheal diseases, influencing her life-long passion for vaccine development. Notably, Dr. Heaton co-developed RotaTeq® during her time at Merck & Co., Inc., a rotavirus vaccine which has been licensed in more than 100 countries and universally recommended by the World Health Organization for infants worldwide.

A graduate of the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky, Dr. Heaton is board-certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases. She is a member of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Prof Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is the Chair of the UK HMG Strategic Coherence of ODA funded Research Board. He is vice-chair of the Board of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund in Tokyo, and of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, London, Chair of the King Baudouin Foundation USA, and member of the Board of Vestergaard SA, Lausanne. Previously he was President of the International AIDS Society, Chair of the WHO Ebola Science Committee, and Chair of the European Forum for Forward Looking Activities.

He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008, and was an Associate Director of the Global Programme on AIDS of WHO. Under his leadership UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS, also spearheading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN system organizations.

He has a medical degree from the University of Ghent (1974), and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp (1980). In 1976 he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and led research on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and women's health, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. He was a professor of microbiology, and of public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, the Free University of Brussels, and the University of Nairobi, was a Senior Fellow at the University of Washington, a Scholar in Residence at the Ford Foundation, and a Senior Fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He held the chair 2009/2010 "Knowledge against poverty" at the College de France in Paris.

He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, and is also a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Académie Nationale de Médecine of France, and of the Royal Academy of Medicine of his native Belgium, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

He has received numerous scientific and civic awards including an honorary doctorate from eight universities, the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, Robert Koch Gold medal, Prix International INSERM, Paris (2015). He was a 2014 TIME Person of the Year (The Ebola Fighters), and received the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health. In 2013 he was the laureate of the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research. He received the Thomas Parran Award from ASTDA, the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 2001, the Frank A Calderone Prize in Public Health in 2003, and the RSTMH Manson Medal and Bloomberg Hopkins Award in 2016. He was knighted as a baron in 1995 in his native Belgium, and awarded an Honorary Knighthood KCMG in the UK in 2016.

He has published over 580 scientific articles and 17 books, including his memoir 'No Time to Lose' in 2012 (WW Norton) and 'AIDS between science and politics' in 2015.

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Jose-Maria Romero is responsible for the negotiation of worldwide deals with other pharmaceutical and biotech companies to access new products which complement and increase the value of GSK’s pharmaceutical portfolio. He manages a UK/US team who are responsible for leading the interactions with the external companies, including the negotiation of deal terms and contract writing, as well as for the internal assessment of the opportunities and presentation to GSK’s Senior Officers for endorsement of the agreements.

He has played a key role in making the licensing function at GSK one of the most successful and innovative in the industry: since the merger of GW and SB back in 2001, the Worldwide Business Development team has been responsible for over 35 late-stage deals and over 50 early-discovery deals, across a range of therapeutic areas and for compounds from pre-clinical to Phase III development and regulatory filing.

He has over 25 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical industry, thirteen of which have been in the GSK Business Development area. Prior to GSK, he worked for Merck & Co. as Director Scientific Resources in its Basic Research Centre. Along those years he has gained a sounded knowledge of the market trends and opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry in the different Regions, as well as a good understanding of the therapeutic drug development, and the complexities of negotiating and implementing successful collaborations.

He earned a BSc in Organic Chemistry at Universidad Autónoma of Madrid, and an Executive MBA at IESE.

Dr. Mel Spigelman is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance). Prior to being appointed President and CEO in 2009, Dr. Spigelman served for five and a half years as the Director of Research and Development at the TB Alliance. A highly regarded expert in domestic and international drug research and development, Dr. Spigelman previously spent a decade managing drug RD at Knoll Pharmaceuticals (a division of BASF Pharma). As Vice President of RD at Knoll for eight years, Dr. Spigelman directed clinical development and supervised all RD activities from basic discovery to regulatory approval and Medical Affairs. He established global RD processes as part of Knolls senior RD management team, oversaw a marked increase in US regulatory filings and approvals, and supervised joint RD programs with multiple other pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Spigelman received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and his medical degree from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine where he specialized in Internal medicine, Neoplastic Diseases and Preventive Medicine. Dr. Spigelman holds board certifications from the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Boards Subspecialty Board of Medical Oncology, and the American Board of Preventive Medicine and was the recipient of the American Cancer Society Clinical Oncology Career Development Award (1985-1988).

Dr. Spigelman is Co-chair of the Working Group on New Drugs of the WHO Stop TB Partnership and also serves on the Coordinating Board of the Partnership.

Patrick Vallance was head of RD for GSK. He led several initiatives in open innovation during his tenure including the formation of the Tres Cantos Open Lab and establishment of the Foundation. He also proposed the publication of the chemical structures for the antimalarial screening set and fought several battles to ensure that this happened. Before joining GSK Patrick was Professor of Medicine at UCL and his personal research was in cardiovascular biology and medicine but also encompassed work on inflammation and infections. During his time at GSK many new medicines were discovered and in one year alone 6 major first or best in class NCEs from GSK were approved by the FDA. He ensured that RD work on anti-infectives was supported. After nearly 12 years at GSK he left GSK to take up his current position as Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government. In this role he directly advises the PM and Cabinet on all aspects of science and he Chairs the Science Advice for Government Emergencies (SAGE) committee. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, The Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society. He was knighted by the Queen in the 2019 New Year?s Honours List for services to open clinical science.

Sir Leszek was appointed as a Trustee to Cancer Research UK in July 2016 and as Chairman in November 2016.

Following a distinguished academic and clinical research career and prior to his appointment as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cambridge in 2010, Sir Leszek’s roles included Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council and Deputy Rector of Imperial College London. He was also a founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. His work in vaccines included Europe’s first trial of a vaccine for human papillomavirus to treat cervical cancer, research conducted at the University of Cardiff and funded by Cancer Research UK.

He was knighted in 2001 for his pioneering work in vaccines.

Gagandeep Kang FNA, FASc, FRS is a clinician scientist, Professor in the Department of Gastrointestinal Sciences at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, India and currently the executive director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad, an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. She is a leading researcher with a major research focus on viral infections in children, and the testing of rotaviral vaccines. She also works on other enteric infections and their consequences when children are infected in early life, sanitation and water safety. She was awarded the prestigious Infosys Prize in Life Sciences in 2016 for her contributions to understanding the natural history of rotavirus and other infectious diseases. In 2019, she became the first Indian woman to be elected as a Royal Society Fellow.

Dave Allen is the head of Medicine Design which includes departments accountable for the design and delivery of small molecule and biopharmaceutical candidate medicines in partnership with the research pipeline owners. The function provides expertise and has accountability for screening, protein and cell sciences, structural and medicinal chemistry, biopharm discovery and engineering, encoded libraries and chemical biology.

Prior to this appointment in 2018, Dave was head of the Respiratory Therapy Area at GSK where he led a group of over 200 scientists and clinicians who exploited scientific innovations with the potential to address the major unmet needs in diseases such as COPD, severe asthma, acute lung injury and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Under Dave’s leadership, the team discovered, developed and launched a respiratory portfolio that included 8 first cycle approvals with successful products such as Relvar/Breo, Trelegy and Nucala.

Previously, Dave was head of Respiratory Drug Discovery and prior to that he led the Respiratory chemistry department where he managed the lead optimisation portfolio. He retains a keen interest in chemistry issues and was appointed GSK’s Chief Chemist in 2012. In addition, Dave is a member of a number of GSK’s senior decision-making boards. In November 2014, Dave was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Strathclyde in recognition of his pioneering work in drug discovery.

Dave joined the company as a research chemist after completing his MA and BA at Oriel College, Oxford. During his career he has also worked on discovering antibiotics and cardiovascular medicines, as both a medicinal chemist and project leader.

Audra is Vice President and Finance Controller of Pharmaceuticals Research & Development in GSK and is responsible for managing the overall R&D budget across the Pipeline, Platforms and Business Development. She manages a team that are spread across the UK, US and Poland and sits on the R&D Finance Leadership Team. Key responsibilities of her team are to meet the operational and cash expenditure targets set out by the organisation, to provide quality financial support for R&D governance boards, to partner with the business to accelerate and strengthen the pipeline and to protect GSK’s reputation with disciplined and efficient financial compliance.

Audra has 21 years of experience working in Global Finance in GSK, the last 6 of which have been supporting R&D. In her previous role she was the Finance Partner supporting the Exploratory Discovery, Global Health and Neuroscience Therapy Areas and prior to that she has held a number of finance roles in the Corporate Finance, Supply Chain and Finance Services sectors.

Dr. Chang served as the Research and Development Director of The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), from 2007 to 2012, leading DNDi‘s project portfolio and advancing the discovery and development of new treatments for neglected diseases. Prior to DNDi, Dr. Chang held various executive positions in the pharmaceutical sector. He served as Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery, and Chief Scientific Officer, at ICOS Corporation; held various management positions in drug and diagnostics research at Abbott Laboratories, including 7 years as Divisional Vice President of Infectious Disease Research in the global pharmaceutical R&D Division; and was Vice President of Preclinical Development at Cetus, after joining initially as one of its first molecular biologists. Dr. Chang completed postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin, and received his PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and BS in Biology from Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taiwan.

Dr Timothy Wells joined Medicines for Malaria Venture in October 2007 as the Chief Scientific Officer. He has responsibility for the Research and Development Portfolio, which covers over 50 projects from screening, through to one launched product and two products currently preparing for registration.

Prior to joining MMV, he was Senior Executive Vice President Research at Serono. Prior to this he worked at the Glaxo Institute for Molecular Biology. He has over 180 scientific publications, and several patent applications.

He has a PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College, London for Protein Engineering studies on enzyme catalysis, with Sir Alan Fersht. He was awarded a ScD in Biology from the University of Cambridge for his later work on Cytokine Biology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dr R. Kip Guy is currently the Dean of Pharmacy and a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, USA.

Dr Guy obtained his BA in chemistry from Reed College in Portland, OR in 1990. After college, he worked as a process development chemist in the Process Translation Unit at IBM-Almaden in San Jose, CA. In 1996, he received his PhD in Organic Chemistry based on the total synthesis of taxol from the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) La Jolla, CA. While at Scripps he held an Office of Naval Research Graduate Research Fellowship, George Hewitt Medical Research Fellowship, and ACS Organic Division Fellowship. He also carried out additional training in Physiology at the Woods Hole Research Institute in Woods Hole, MA in 1995. From 1996 to 1998, he was a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow in Cellular Biology focusing on the relationship between hedgehog signaling and sterol homeostasis with Drs. Brown and Goldstein at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX. From 1998 to 2005 he held a joint appointment in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (Assistant to Full Professor, currently Adjunct Professor). From 2005 to 2016 he was the founding Chair of the Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital where he also held Adjunct appointments at the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University. He has been at UK since 2016.

His research is focused on the discovery and development of novel small molecules that target the pathophysiology of orphan paediatric diseases, particularly paediatric oncology and protozoal infectious diseases. Most of his group’s work falls into the areas of chemical validation of novel targets, lead discovery and optimization of novel chemical matter for validated disease targets, and use of non-targeted whole-cell strategies for lead discovery and optimization. He is the author of 160 papers and book chapters, and the inventor on 14 issued patents.

Dr Timothy Wells joined Medicines for Malaria Venture in October 2007 as the Chief Scientific Officer. He has responsibility for the Research and Development Portfolio, which covers over 50 projects from screening, through to one launched product and two products currently preparing for registration.

Prior to joining MMV, he was Senior Executive Vice President Research at Serono. Prior to this he worked at the Glaxo Institute for Molecular Biology. He has over 180 scientific publications, and several patent applications.

He has a PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College, London for Protein Engineering studies on enzyme catalysis, with Sir Alan Fersht. He was awarded a ScD in Biology from the University of Cambridge for his later work on Cytokine Biology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dr R. Kip Guy is currently the Dean of Pharmacy and a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, USA.

Dr Guy obtained his BA in chemistry from Reed College in Portland, OR in 1990. After college, he worked as a process development chemist in the Process Translation Unit at IBM-Almaden in San Jose, CA. In 1996, he received his PhD in Organic Chemistry based on the total synthesis of taxol from the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) La Jolla, CA. While at Scripps he held an Office of Naval Research Graduate Research Fellowship, George Hewitt Medical Research Fellowship, and ACS Organic Division Fellowship. He also carried out additional training in Physiology at the Woods Hole Research Institute in Woods Hole, MA in 1995. From 1996 to 1998, he was a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow in Cellular Biology focusing on the relationship between hedgehog signaling and sterol homeostasis with Drs. Brown and Goldstein at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX. From 1998 to 2005 he held a joint appointment in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (Assistant to Full Professor, currently Adjunct Professor). From 2005 to 2016 he was the founding Chair of the Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital where he also held Adjunct appointments at the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University. He has been at UK since 2016.

His research is focused on the discovery and development of novel small molecules that target the pathophysiology of orphan paediatric diseases, particularly paediatric oncology and protozoal infectious diseases. Most of his group’s work falls into the areas of chemical validation of novel targets, lead discovery and optimization of novel chemical matter for validated disease targets, and use of non-targeted whole-cell strategies for lead discovery and optimization. He is the author of 160 papers and book chapters, and the inventor on 14 issued patents.

Dr. Mel Spigelman is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance). Prior to being appointed President and CEO in 2009, Dr. Spigelman served for five and a half years as the Director of Research and Development at the TB Alliance. A highly regarded expert in domestic and international drug research and development, Dr. Spigelman previously spent a decade managing drug RD at Knoll Pharmaceuticals (a division of BASF Pharma). As Vice President of RD at Knoll for eight years, Dr. Spigelman directed clinical development and supervised all RD activities from basic discovery to regulatory approval and Medical Affairs. He established global RD processes as part of Knolls senior RD management team, oversaw a marked increase in US regulatory filings and approvals, and supervised joint RD programs with multiple other pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Spigelman received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and his medical degree from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine where he specialized in Internal medicine, Neoplastic Diseases and Preventive Medicine. Dr. Spigelman holds board certifications from the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Boards Subspecialty Board of Medical Oncology, and the American Board of Preventive Medicine and was the recipient of the American Cancer Society Clinical Oncology Career Development Award (1985-1988).

Dr. Spigelman is Co-chair of the Working Group on New Drugs of the WHO Stop TB Partnership and also serves on the Coordinating Board of the Partnership.

Prof Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is the Chair of the UK HMG Strategic Coherence of ODA funded Research Board. He is vice-chair of the Board of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund in Tokyo, and of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, London, Chair of the King Baudouin Foundation USA, and member of the Board of Vestergaard SA, Lausanne. Previously he was President of the International AIDS Society, Chair of the WHO Ebola Science Committee, and Chair of the European Forum for Forward Looking Activities.

He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008, and was an Associate Director of the Global Programme on AIDS of WHO. Under his leadership UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS, also spearheading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN system organizations.

He has a medical degree from the University of Ghent (1974), and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp (1980). In 1976 he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and led research on HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and women's health, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. He was a professor of microbiology, and of public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, the Free University of Brussels, and the University of Nairobi, was a Senior Fellow at the University of Washington, a Scholar in Residence at the Ford Foundation, and a Senior Fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He held the chair 2009/2010 "Knowledge against poverty" at the College de France in Paris.

He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, and is also a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Académie Nationale de Médecine of France, and of the Royal Academy of Medicine of his native Belgium, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

He has received numerous scientific and civic awards including an honorary doctorate from eight universities, the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, Robert Koch Gold medal, Prix International INSERM, Paris (2015). He was a 2014 TIME Person of the Year (The Ebola Fighters), and received the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health. In 2013 he was the laureate of the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research. He received the Thomas Parran Award from ASTDA, the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 2001, the Frank A Calderone Prize in Public Health in 2003, and the RSTMH Manson Medal and Bloomberg Hopkins Award in 2016. He was knighted as a baron in 1995 in his native Belgium, and awarded an Honorary Knighthood KCMG in the UK in 2016.

He has published over 580 scientific articles and 17 books, including his memoir 'No Time to Lose' in 2012 (WW Norton) and 'AIDS between science and politics' in 2015.

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