David L. Kaplan

Title: Functionalization of Protein-Based Biomaterials for Broadened Utility

David Kaplan is the Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering at Tufts University, a Distinguished University Professor, and Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.  His laboratory conducts research on biomaterials, tissue engineering and cellular agriculture.  His laboratory has published over 1,000 peer reviewed papers and has spun out over a dozen start up efforts.  He is editor-in-chief of the journal ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.

W. Mark Saltzman

Title: Fabrication of polymer nanoparticles for delivery of nucleic acidsy

Mark Saltzman is an engineer and educator. His research has impacted the fields of drug delivery, biomaterials, nanobiotechnology, and tissue engineering. This work is described in more than 350 research papers and dozens of patents. He is also the sole author of three textbooks: Biomedical Engineering, Tissue Engineering, and Drug Delivery.

Saltzman graduated from Iowa State University with a BS in chemical engineering and received graduate degrees in chemical engineering and medical engineering from MIT. He was appointed the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at Yale in 2002.  He was the founding chair of Yale’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and served in that role for 12 years. From 2016-2022, he was the Head of Jonathan Edwards College, one of Yale’s fourteen residential colleges.

Dr. Saltzman is an elected member of the US National Academy of Medicine and the US National Academy of Engineering.

Halima Alem

Title: Development of Bio-Printed Cancer Models for a Biomimetic Investigation of Nanoparticulate-Based Therapeutics

Prof. Alem Halima is Professor in the Chemical Engineering of the Lorraine University and an Honorary Member of the Institut Universitaire de France and. Her main research interests are nowadays the development of innovative approach based on personalized organ-on-a-chip devices for the evaluation and the enhancement of the therapeutic efficiency of smart nano-objects for cancer therapy application. She has been developing new technologies that combine three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting technologies with microfluidic for the development of tumor-on-a-chip devices and their further use for the screening in-situ of nanomedicine efficiency and toxicity to enable the enlightening of the mechanisms involved in the cancer cells fate with a special focus on the protein corona influence on the resulting therapeutic efficiency of the NPs. I have a strong background and more than a decade of experience in the designing and the elaboration of surfaces and nanomaterials for applications in healthcare and process engineering. She is an Associate Editor of the journal Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology and member of two other editorial boards. She co-authored about 60 peer review publications and participated in more than 70 national and international conferences (some as invited speakers).

Mostafa Analoui

Title: Biomedical Entrepreneurship: From Concept to Patients

Mostafa Analoui, Ph.D., is Carlton Highsmith Endowed Chair of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Director of M&T Bank Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Professor of Business at Quinnipiac University. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Brown University (Providence, RI).  Previously he was the Executive Director of UConn Ventures. Prior to that, he was Head of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Livingston Securities (New York, NY) with investment focus in private and public companies in biotech, MedTech and healthcare services. He was the Senior Director at Pfizer Global Research and Development. Dr. Analoui is actively involved in innovation, investment, management and scientific/business development.

While at Pfizer, he was the Site Head for Global Clinical Technology in Groton and New London, a division focusing on emerging technologies for development and validation of biomarkers and diagnostics for drug development. Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Analoui was the Director of Oral and Maxillofacial Imaging Research, Associate Professor of Radiology at Indiana University, and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Comp Engineering at Purdue University. He was also President and CEO of Therametric Technology Inc. He has received his Ph.D. from Purdue University, followed by Post-Doctoral Fellowship at IBM TJ Watson Research Center in NY.

In addition to industry leadership in innovation, biomedical, and technology fields, he consults and lectures in US, Europe and Asia. He has also served on various scientific, regulatory, and business advisory committees and boards, including NIH, NSF, PhRMA, NASA, and OECD. Dr. Analoui has authored over 130 publications, including journal articles, a book and book chapters and technical reports. He is also a senior member of National Academy of Inventors, IEEE, SPIE, and RSNA.

He is serving on the board of several non-profit organization and was Chairman of the Board of VirtualScopics (NASDAQ: VSCP), Cyclica and currently Chairman of the Board of Bastion Health.

Eun Ji Chung 

Title: Harnessing extracellular vesicles as nanotherapeutics

Eunji Chung is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California and the Dr. Karl Jacob Jr. and Karl Jacob III Early Career Chair. She is the Founding Director of the USC Transformative Center for Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery. Dr. Chung has a courtesy appointment in Chemical Engineering, Medicine (Nephrology and Hypertension), and Surgery (Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy) at USC, and is an affiliated faculty of the Norris Cancer Center and the Stem Cells department. Her laboratory is interested in developing nano- to macroscale biomaterials that can be utilized in medicine. Dr. Chung received her B.A. with honors in Molecular Biology from Scripps College, her Ph.D. from the Department of Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, and her postdoctoral training from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. Dr. Chung is a Fellow of BMES and an Associate Editor for Bioactive Materials. She has garnered a variety of honors including the K99/R00 NIH Pathway to Independence Award, AIChE 35 Under 35, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2), inaugural USC NEMO Prize, and the AHA Transformational Project Award. Currently, her lab takes part of national centers and programs including the NIH U54 Kidney O’Brien Center, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) Exploratory Cell Networks, and AHA Collaborative Sciences Award. Dr. Chung is also co-founder of Silver Spur Therapeutics, Inc.

Kshitiz

Title: Evolution in connective tissue: how cows solved the problem of cancer malignancy

Kshitiz is an Associate Professor in BME at UConn Health. He received his B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, India, and PhD. in BME from Johns Hopkins Medicine under the supervision of Andre Levchenko and Gregg Semenza. He started a startup in University of Washington, Seattle for sometime before returning to academia at Yale University as an Associate  Research Scientist. There, he worked out an evolutionary understanding of control of cancer metastasis with Gunter Wagner. At UConn Health, his group has interests in hypoxia, cancer microenvironment, cardiovascular development, and female reproductive biology.

Hang Lin

Title: Generation of a miniature knee joint system for modeling osteoarthritis and associated pain

Dr. Hang Lin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery & Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the Grants & Programs Director of the Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center (BMRC). He received his BS in Biochemistry from Nanjing University and his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles (H-Index: 49). Dr. Lin’s research goal is to apply the latest biological knowledge and state-of-art technology in orthopaedic research and translate the research findings into effective treatments for joint diseases. There are three integrated projects ongoing in his lab: investigating the association between aging and osteoarthritis; establishing an in vitro microphysiological model for OA pathogenesis study and drug development; testing regenerative therapy for treating cartilage injury. He serves as the co-chair of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) Biomaterials Topic and is the Communication Committee chair of the International Chinese Musculoskeletal Research Society (ICMRS). He is also an associate editor in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology and an editorial board member of Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open and Bioengineering. He has received funding from the NIH, DoD, PA-CURE, and foundations to support his research.

Thanh Duc Nguyen

Title: Biodegradable Piezoelectric Tissue Engineering Scaffold

Dr. Nguyen is an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering, joined with the Biomedical Engineering department at the University of Connecticut (UConn). His research is highly interdisciplinary and at the interface of biomedicine, materials and nano/micro technology. Specifically, his research focuses on the science and technology to transform biodegradable and biocompatible materials (e.g surgical-suture polymers and amino acids) into special forms, shapes, or structures with “smart” functions at nano/micro-scales for diverse applications in vaccine/drug delivery, regenerative engineering and electrical implants. He developed a platform technology, so-called SEAL (StampEd Assembly of polymer Layer) to create 3-dimensional microstructures of biodegradable polymers and advanced the SEAL method to create a novel single-administration self-boosting skin microneedle patch for vaccines and other therapeutics. Besides, his research group at UConn has extensively studied biodegradable piezoelectric materials, derived from safe medical polymers and natural amino acids, to develop novel biodegradable implanted force-sensor and ultrasound transducer for monitoring vital intra-organ pressures and delivering medicines through the blood-brain barrier, respectively. The biodegradable piezoelectric materials were also used as a tissue scaffold which can be remotely activated to produce electrical cues for stimulating tissue regeneration. Dr. Nguyen’s works have been published in prestigious journals including Science, Science Translational medicine, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communication, Advanced Materials, PNAS etc. and highlighted in major media such as The New York Times, BBC News, the Guardian, NIH research matter etc. He was elected as the senior member of National Academy of Inventor – NAI (2024). He is the associate editor of the journal of Biomaterials and serving as a standing review member for National Institute of Health (NIH). He received several awards/honors including the MRS Early Career Distinguished Presenter (2025), the Young Investigator Award from the journal of Biomaterials (2022), ACell Young Investigator Award (2020), MIT top innovator under 35 for Asia Pacific (2019), NIH Trailblazer Award for Young and Early Investigators (2018), SPIE Rising Researcher Award (2019), Young Investigator Award in Biosciences and Bioengineering of Applied Sciences (2019), and the SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (2018) etc.

Kristo Nuutila 

Title: Advancing Combat Burn Care with Functional Biomaterials

Kristo Nuutila, MSc, PhD, is a Principal Research Scientist at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research (USAISR) in Ft. Sam Houston, TX, and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. At USAISR, he leads a translational research team focused on advancing wound healing and burn care through regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

Hossein Ravanbakhsh

Title: Unconventional Strategies for the Biofabrication of Soft Tissue Constructs

Dr. Hossein Ravanbakhsh is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at The University of Akron. He earned his PhD from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in 2021 and completed two postdoctoral fellowships at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and Research Center of The University of Montreal (CR-CHUM) from 2021 to 2023. He served as a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School, where he developed cryobioprinting technology. Dr. Ravanbakhsh established the BioEngineering for Translational Application Laboratory (BETA Lab) at The University of Akron, where his research is focused on three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting of stimuli-responsive implants with tissue regeneration capabilities. Dr. Ravanbakhsh has published his research in scientific journals, such as Advanced Materials, Matter, PNAS, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Sciences, Advanced Healthcare Materials, etc. He is the proud recipient of the McGill Engineering Doctoral Award, FRQNT Postdoctoral fellowship, The University of Akron’s FRC grant, and the Firestone Research Initiation Award.

Houman Savoji

Title: Advanced Biofabrication of Functional Biomaterials for Cardiac Tissue Engineering and
Heart-On-Chip Applications

Dr. Houman Savoji is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Montreal (UdeM). He is also a Principal Investigator at the Research Center of the Sainte-Justine Hospital (CRCHUSJ) and Research Chair in 3D Bioprinting and Regenerative Medicine at the Montreal TransMedTech Institute (iTMT). He received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Polytechnique Montreal at the University of Montreal and postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto. He is a leading emerging researcher in the field of biomaterials, tissue engineering, organ-on-chip, and advanced biofabrication. His research group strives to combine functional biomaterials and advanced biofabrication techniques integrated with insights from developmental biology to build human micro-tissue models for predictive drug discovery and disease modeling and create functional macro-tissues for tissue regeneration. He has published >45 publications and 7 book chapters, presented at >50 conferences and congresses and given >40 invited talks at national and international conferences. His work has been highlighted by CTV News, CityNews Montreal, CBC, Advanced Science News, EurekAlert, and the Quebec Government, among others. He is the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including the CIHR and FRQNT Postdoctoral Fellowships, FRQNT Merit Scholarship, the Jane and Frank Warchol Award of the Society of Vacuum Coaters Foundation, FRQNT Star Researcher Award, and World Biomaterials Conference 2016 Legacy Award, among others. He has also co-founded 3 companies (Elevation Biosciences Inc., PercuTech 3D Inc., Triangle 3D Inc.) to commercialize the innovations from his labs by raising more than 2 million dollars in seed funding from private investors and government funding. His team received the Pediatrics Innovation Prize from McGill University for his entrepreneurship activities. His laboratory receives funding from a few funding agencies (NSERC, CIHR, NFRF, FRQNT, FRQS, TheCell Network, iTMT, Quebec Government) and is equipped with various equipment and facilities designated for advanced biofabrication strategies, 3D bioprinting, microfluidics, organ-on-a-chip technology, biomaterial development, and characterization.

Su Ryon Shin

Title: Engineering Nano-biomaterials for Tissue Fabrication and Regenerative Medicine

Su Ryon Shin, PhD, obtained her doctoral degree from Hanyang University in South Korea and joined Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (HMS) as a postdoctoral fellow in 2010. Promoted to instructor in 2014, she is now an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and HMS. Dr. Shin is recognized internationally for her interdisciplinary work in nanomaterials science, regenerative medicine, and biomedical engineering. Her research focuses on developing micro- and nano-technologies to control cellular behavior, particularly through micro-scale biomaterials and organ-on-chip systems with built-in biosensors. She has received multiple grants from organizations like the NIH, AHA, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Shin has published over 178 papers in peer-reviewed journals, boasting an H-index of 73 and over 23,000 citations. Her work has also garnered funding through the BWH Stepping Strong Innovator Awards and the Innovation Evergreen Award.

Indranil Sinha

Title: Progress In Composite Tissue Bioengineering and Future Applications

Indranil Sinha, MD, is a Plastic Surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Sinha earned a Molecular and Cellular Biology at Berkeley, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He then completed medical school training at the University of Michigan, where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Dr. Sinha completed his Plastic Surgery training in the Harvard Plastic Surgery Residency Program.  His clinical interests include cancer reconstruction and aesthetic surgery.  Dr. Sinha’s research interests include muscle stem cells and exercise treatment for aging associated sarcopenia, volumetric muscle loss, and wound healing.

Y. Shrike Zhang

Title: 3D Bioprinting for High-Content Tissue Fabrication

Dr. Zhang is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Bioengineer in the Division of Engineering in Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Zhang is directing the Laboratory of Engineered Living Systems (www.shrikezhang.com), where the research is focused on innovating medical engineering technologies, including 3D bioprinting, organs-on-chips, microfluidics, and bioanalysis, to recreate functional tissues and their biomimetic models, for applications in regenerative medicine and personalized medicine.

Ali Ahmadi

Title: Peptide Foam Bioprinting: Engineering Porosity for Tissue Regeneration

Ali Ahmadi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) and serves as the co-director of the Biomaterials and Biofabrication Laboratory at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center in Montreal, Canada. Prior to joining ÉTS in May 2022, he held the position of Associate Professor and Lévesque Research Chair in Nutritional Sciences and Health within the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering at the University of Prince Edward Island. With post-doctoral training and a PhD from the University of British Columbia, Ahmadi’s research primarily centers on biofabrication and microfabrication techniques. Additionally, he currently holds the role of President of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineers and has been recognized with various awards, notably the Levesque Distinguished Research Chair and the Engineers PEI Young Engineer of the Year award.

Elmira Arab-Tehrany

Title: New Generation of Targeted Nanoliposome for Brain and Cancer Prevention

Elmira Arab-Tehrany, Full Professor at Lorraine University/LIBio and adjunct professor at Connecticut University (USA) and West Virginia University (USA). full Professor at Lorraine University/LIBio and adjunct professor at Connecticut University (USA) and West Virginia University (USA). She is the director of the doctoral school of SIReNa. She has worked on elaboration and characterization of nanoliposomes as active nanovectors to encapsulate different active molecules used in food, pharmaceutics, and biomedical applications. Her team has expertise in green extraction of polar lipids from by-products of fish, microfluidic, identification of different molecules by using analytical methods, and molecular transfer. Since her recruitment (Sept 2007), she has coordinated or participated in more than 20 international, national, and industrial projects. She has been an ANSES regulatory agency expert since 2010 and various European projects (HORIZON-EIC). She has co-authored more than 100 scientific publications in international journals (>9000 citations, h-index:46), 10 book chapters, 20 invited speakers, and >50 oral presentations. She has supervised several thesis students (20); 6 post-doctorates and 34 Master’s students.

Cyril Kahn

Title: From Microfluidic to Biological Model Barrier for Particle Vector Cross-membrane:
Application to Intestinal Membrane and Blood Brain Barrier

Assistant Professor at Lorraine University in the LIBio laboratory (since Sept. 2017). Cyril Kahn has worked on elaboration and characterization of nanoliposomes to encapsulate different active molecules used in food, cosmetics, pharmaceutics, and biomedical applications. He works currently in the Pr. Elmira Arab-Tehrany team for his expertise in extraction of polar lipids from by-products of fish and plants, microfluidic for modelling the behavior of particles formulated in the lab to evaluate, in vitro, their ability to cross biological barrier and to formulate and characterize food matrices containing oleogels or/and hydrogels for academic and industrial applications.

After a PhD in Tissue Engineering and Biomechanics for tendons and ligaments regeneration, he has been recruited in Sept 2011 in Marseille as a researcher in biomechanics for trauma modeling and move to LIBio laboratory in 2017 to take an Assistant Professor position making a thematic shift in physico-chemistry for lipids valorization and colloids formulation for drug delivery subjects. He participated in more than 15 international, national, and industrial projects and is an expert of the French government (MESRI) for evaluating industrial research since 2012 in biomechanics, biomedical, and food areas.

Mohamadmahdi Samandari

Title: Tailoring Scaffold Porosity for Controlling Cellular Behavior in Regenerative Medicine

Mohamadmahdi Samandari is a Research Faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC). He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran, in collaboration with Harvard Medical School and Imperial College London, in 2017. He did his postdoctoral training at UCHC, focusing on biomaterials, biofabrication, and drug delivery strategies for soft tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. During his graduate and postdoctoral studies, he received several awards and scholarships, including the Wound Healing Foundation Young Researcher Award and multiple National Elite Foundation Scholarships, to research in the interface of biomechanics, microfluidics, and tissue engineering. He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers in highly reputed journals with more than 1900 citations and an H-index of 25. In addition, he is an inventor in nine U.S. and international biomedical engineering patents. Committed to translating research into clinical applications, he co-founded InPrint Bio, a startup focused on porosity optimization in regenerative implants.

Amir Sheikhi

Title: Granular Hydrogel Scaffolds with Hierarchical Porosity Improve Cell Recruitment and Tissue Integration

Dr. Amir Sheikhi has mentored 120+ trainees (undergraduates, graduates, and postdocs) since his arrival at Penn State in 2019. He is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering/Chemistry/Neurosurgery (by courtesy). In August 2019, he founded the Bio-Soft Materials Laboratory (B-SMaL) to tackle some of the challenges of the 21^st century in biomedicine and the environment by designing novel bio-based colloidal systems via micro- and nanoengineering techniques. Amir’s lab consists of 8 graduate students, 2 postdocs, and more than 30 undergraduate researchers, funded by NIH, ACS, The REMADE Institute (DOE), Meghan Rose Bradley Foundation, Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation (CLSF), Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE), Benkovic Research Initiative, etc. Amir’s research has been featured in more than 80 publications, 70 seminars, and 23 patent applications with recognition by over 50 news media outlets. He is the recipient of several major awards, including the AIChE’s 35 Under 35, ACS PMSE Early Investigator, ACS Unilever Award for Outstanding Young Investigator in Colloid & Surfactant Science, The John C. Chen Young Professional Leadership Scholarship, and The UNIFOR Global Research Fellowship. Recently, Amir was named as one of the 9 emerging leaders in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering worldwide, featured on the cover of the Inaugural “Futures” Issue of Bioengineering & Translational Medicine journal. Amir earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at McGill University and continued to complete two years of post-doctoral research on colloids and macromolecules at McGill Chemistry. Before joining Penn State, he was a postdoctoral fellow in Bioengineering at Harvard Medical School and UCLA. Amir is an Associate Editor of Bioengineering & Translational Medicine journal and Chemical Engineering Journal and serves as an editorial board member of Biomaterials and Bioactive Materials.

Ali Tamayol

Title: Biomaterials and (Bio)fabrication for Engineering Tools for Treatment of Soft Tissue Injuries

Ali Tamayol is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut Health Center. He received his BSc from Shiraz University followed by MSc from Sharif University of Technology in Mechanical Engineering. He received his PhD from Simon Fraser University in 2011.  He did his postdoctoral training in Biomedical Engineering at McGill University, Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  His research involves advanced engineering technologies for generating biomaterial-based regenerative medicine and drug delivery tools.  He has authored more than 180 journal papers, 5 book chapters, and 18 issued patents or applications. In addition, he has given over 90 seminars at various conferences and academic institutions. His publications have been cited more than 22,000 times and he has been the recipient of several awards including NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, BCIC Scholar Award, and the Alinasab Prize of ISME. He is a fellow of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.