Vladimir P. Torchilin is a University Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine, Northeastern University, Boston. He graduated from the Moscow University with MS in Chemistry, and obtained there his Ph.D. and D.Sc. in Polymer Chemistry and Chemistry of Physiologically Active Compounds in 1971 and 1980, respectively. In 1991, Dr. Torchilin joined MGH/Harvard Medical School as the Head of Chemistry Program, Center for Imaging and Pharmaceutical Research, and Associate Professor of Radiology. He was the Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1998-2008. His research interests include liposomes, lipid-core micelles, biomedical polymers, drug delivery and targeting, pharmaceutical nanocarriers, experimental cancer immunology. He has published more than 350 original papers (which received more than 30,000 citations), more than 150 reviews and book chapters, wrote and edited 10 books.

Research Interest including Immobilized Enzymes in Medicine, Targeted Delivery of Imaging Agents, Liposomes, Nanoparticulates as Pharmaceutical Carriers, Biomedical Aspects of Drug Targeting, and holds more than 40 patents. He is Editor-in-Chief of Current Drug Discovery Technologies and of Drug Delivery and on the Editorial Boards of many journals including Journal of Controlled Release (Review Editor), Bioconjugate Chemistry, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, Molecular Pharmaceutics.

Henry M. Sobell completed his studies at Brooklyn Technical High School (1948- 1952), Columbia College (1952-1956), and the University of Virginia School of Medicine (1956-1960). Instead of practicing clinical medicine, he then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to join Professor Alexander Rich in the Department of Biology (1960-1965), where, as a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow, he learned the technique of single crystal X-ray analysis. He then joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Rochester, having been subsequently jointly appointed to both the Chemistry and Molecular Biophysics departments (the latter at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry), becoming a full tenured Professor in both departments (1965-1993). He is now retired and living in the Adirondacks in New York, USA.

Professor Raid Alany has over 25 years of international experience in pharmacy education, pharmaceutics and drug delivery research. His academic journey spans three continents, namely, Asia, Oceania and Europe. He received his PhD in drug delivery from the University of Otago, Dunedin New Zealand in 2001; was appointed as a Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, in 2001 where he was responsible for establishing the first pharmaceutics curriculum at The University of Auckland. He was promoted to a Senior Lecturer in 2004, appointed as Head of Pharmaceutics in 2007, promoted to Senior Lecturer above the bar in February 2009; appointed as Honorary Associate Professor in 2011. He joined Kingston University London as Professor (Chair) of Pharmaceutics in January 2011 and was appointed as Research Director for the School of Pharmacy and Chemistry in December 2013. He has been appointed as the Inaugural Head of School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry on 1st of June 2015. Raid won several awards such as Microscopy New Zealand Young Scientists Award in 1999 The University of Auckland's Vice Chancellor's Early Career Research Excellence Award in 2003, the Controlled Release Society Veterinary Programme co-chair/ chair Distinguished Service Awards in 2008/2009 and the Spark Ideas Challenge, Uniservices Prize and Chiasma Prize in 2011. He consults for human and veterinary pharmaceutical companies in New Zealand and Singapore and is an inventor on several international patents.

Ophthalmic Drug Delivery, Lipid and Surfactant Based Drug Delivery Systems, Delivery of Antisense, Oligonucleotides and siRNA, In Situ Gelling Systems, Veterinary Pharmaceuticals

Radostina Alexandrova Graduated with honors in Biochemistry and Microbiology, Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski” (SU); MSc and PhD in Virology, lecturer in SU and PhD School of BAS; > 160 publications, > 550 abstracts, 3 Book chapters; Postdoctoral training in Slovakia, Hungary, Denmark; Leading researcher in 5 national and 10 bilateral projects; MC Member of five COST Actions; Member of Union of Scientists in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Society of Anatomy, Secretary-Treasurer of the Immunological Society; Member of the Organizing/Scientific Committees of 45 scientific forums; Editor/Member of editorial boards of 2 national and 4 international journals; Editor of the proceeding books of two Workshops.

Amots Dafni is a professor emeritus at the Department of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology at Haifa University, Israel. Besides his main research in pollination ecology he conducted, during the last 40 years, extensive ethnobotanical field studies. His publications and books in this discipline include: sacred trees, ritual plants, plants of the Bible, origin of plant's name as well as medicinal plants.

Medicinal Plants