Kathleen Hefferon received her PhD from the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto and currently teaches microbiology at Cornell University. Kathleen has published multiple research papers, chapters and reviews, and has written three books. Kathleen is the Fulbright Canada Research Chair of Global Food Security and has been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto over the past year. Her research interests include the use of biotechnology to promote global health. Kathleen lives in New York with her husband and two children.

Dr. Bryan earned his undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and his doctoral degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. He pursued his post-doctoral training as a Kirschstein Fellow at Boston University School of Medicine in the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. After a two year post-doctoral fellowship, in 2006 Dr. Bryan was recruited to join faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston by Ferid Murad, M.D., Ph.D., 1998 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology. During his tenure as faculty and independent investigator at UT, his research focused on drug discovery through screening natural product libraries for active compounds. His nine years at UT led to several discoveries which have resulted in over a dozen issued US and international patents and many more pending worldwide. Specifically, Dr. Bryan was the first to describe nitrite and nitrate as indispensable nutrients required for optimal cardiovascular health. He was the first to demonstrate and discover an endocrine function of nitric oxide via the formation of S-nitrosoglutathione and inorganic nitrite. Through the drug discovery program in natural product chemistry, Dr. Bryan discovered unique compositions of matter than can be used to safely and effectively generate and restore nitric oxide in humans. This technology is now validated in six published clinical trials. He is also a successful entrepreneur who has commercialized his nitric oxide technology through the formation of Human, to the Power of N, Inc (formerly Neogenis Labs) where he is a Founder and inventor. Dr. Bryan has been involved in nitric oxide research for the past 18 years and has made many seminal discoveries in the field. These discoveries and findings have transformed the development of safe and effective functional bioactive natural products in the treatment and prevention of human disease and may provide the basis for new preventive or therapeutic strategies in many chronic diseases. Dr. Bryan has published a number of highly cited papers and authored or edited 5 books. He is an international leader in molecular medicine and nitric oxide biochemistry.

Dr. Anis Rahman is an acclaimed scientist in the field of semiconductors, nanotechnology, and nanobiotechnology. He is a winner of many scientific awards including NASA Nanotech Brief’s “Nano-50” award twice; CLEO/Laser Focus World’s “Innovation award;” and “2015 MP Corrosion Innovation of the Year,” by the NACE. Anis is the founder of Applied Research & Photonics (ARP) a leading terahertz company located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (http://arphotonics.net). Among others, he invented the “Dendrimer Dipole Excitation,” a new mechanism for high power, continuous wave terahertz generation. With this T-ray, ARP has created a camera-less lattice resolution 3D imaging technology with sub-surface analysis of semiconductors and nanomaterials. Anis is a recognized scientific leader and member of scientific organizations including the American Chemical Society (ACS) and The Optical Society of America (senior member). He is the chair of the optical metrology technical group of the OSA and the past chair of the Small Chemical Businesses Division of the ACS. Anis also received awards from the OMICS International keynote recognition; Center for Dermal Research, Rutgers University; the Entrepreneurial Leadership award by the Juniata College of Pennsylvania; and the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

Dirk Tischler (1982) studied applied natural science at TU Bergakademie Freiberg (Germany) and completed his doctoral studies on styrene monooxygenases in 2012. He continued as group leader in the field of white biotechnology with emphasis on the prediction of novel biocatalysts and pathways from (meta)genome of soil bacteria. In January 2018 he became Asst. Professor and turned in 2019 to Prof. for Microbial Biotechnology at the Ruhr University Bochum. He focuses on the identification and application of novel biocatalysts related to redox biochemistry. He has published more than 80 articles in reputed journals and is part of many scientific boards.

Dr. Bryan earned his undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and his doctoral degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. He pursued his post-doctoral training as a Kirschstein Fellow at Boston University School of Medicine in the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. After a two year post-doctoral fellowship, in 2006 Dr. Bryan was recruited to join faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston by Ferid Murad, M.D., Ph.D., 1998 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology. During his tenure as faculty and independent investigator at UT, his research focused on drug discovery through screening natural product libraries for active compounds. His nine years at UT led to several discoveries which have resulted in over a dozen issued US and international patents and many more pending worldwide. Specifically, Dr. Bryan was the first to describe nitrite and nitrate as indispensable nutrients required for optimal cardiovascular health. He was the first to demonstrate and discover an endocrine function of nitric oxide via the formation of S-nitrosoglutathione and inorganic nitrite. Through the drug discovery program in natural product chemistry, Dr. Bryan discovered unique compositions of matter than can be used to safely and effectively generate and restore nitric oxide in humans. This technology is now validated in six published clinical trials. He is also a successful entrepreneur who has commercialized his nitric oxide technology through the formation of Human, to the Power of N, Inc (formerly Neogenis Labs) where he is a Founder and inventor. Dr. Bryan has been involved in nitric oxide research for the past 18 years and has made many seminal discoveries in the field. These discoveries and findings have transformed the development of safe and effective functional bioactive natural products in the treatment and prevention of human disease and may provide the basis for new preventive or therapeutic strategies in many chronic diseases. Dr. Bryan has published a number of highly cited papers and authored or edited 5 books. He is an international leader in molecular medicine and nitric oxide biochemistry.

Dr. Pereira holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology with specialization in Microbiology from the Catholic University of Portugal advised by Dr. James O. Westgard, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin. He has been recruited as a medical laboratory and Quality Assurance/Quality Control expert for seminars and professional laboratory meetings throughout Europe, South America, and Africa. He is a recognized researcher on the computation of measurement uncertainty in medical laboratory tests proved in several articles and book chapters. Dr. Pereira published the early paper to compute measurement uncertainty in screening immunoassays. He has experience as a National Quality Manager for more than 15 years in the Portuguese Institute of Blood and Transplantation (2000 to 2018), along with the role of Senior Postdoc Researcher. He is also the Head of the Research & Development department of the same Institute since 2018. He is an experienced trainer in Quality Assurance/Quality Control. He collaborates as Contributing Editor with Westgard QC. He is a book Editor and reviewer of scientific articles and a member of Editorial Boards in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Pereira is the author of several peer-review scientific and technical articles (25+), indexed book chapters (4), indexed books editor (2), indexed book author (1), and several essays on the Westgard QC Web site. In early 2020 he published his first book, “Quality Control of Qualitative Tests for Medical Laboratories” featuring several reviewed and novel methodologies. He is a Technical Expert on CLSI Document Development Committee on EP12. He is a Technical Expert on Eurachem Qualitative Analysis Working Group. Dr. Pereira is an Expert on In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices panel, European Commission.