Specializing in metabolomics, natural products chemistry, and plant biochemistry, Farag completed his PhD at Texas Tech University, USA, in 2003. In 2005, after spending time as a postdoctoral fellow at The Samuel Noble Foundation, USA, and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, USA, he became assistant professor in 2005 at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Egypt. Since 2009, Farag has been working as a part time visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, to participate in teaching plant metabolomics and chemomterics modelling for master students, and in 2009–2010 he held the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship in Germany. Farag now works full time as a professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC) where his research work focuses primarily around applying innovative biochemical technologies (metabolomics) to help answer complex biological questions in medicine, herbal drugs analysis and agriculture. For his highly cited publications of close to 5000 citations and an H index of 32, Farag was selected as a top researcher in the field of plant biology in Africa by the American society of plant biology, United States.

Garcia (Ph.D. 1990, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a Professor at the Department of Clinical and Toxicological Analysis at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. A member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and São Paulo State Academy of Sciences. She is a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and an editor at Current Opinion in Microbiology, Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology, Methods X, Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences and Associate Editor of Current Research of Microbial Sciences ( 2020- ). Integrated several committees in Brazilian funding agencies and is a consultant of several international agencies such as Welcome Trust, European Research Council, US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, Medical Research Council. Chair of the International Affairs Committee at The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and a collaborator of the Provost of Post-Graduation at the University of São Paulo.

Gray is President/CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, Research Professor in Paediatrics at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Member (Professor) in the Vaccine & Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, in Seattle. A Medical Doctor, specialising in Paediatrics, she started her research career in the field of preventing mother to child transmission of HIV-1 (PMTCT). She was awarded a Fogarty Fellowship to study clinical epidemiology at Cornell and Columbia Universities (1999), enabling her to broaden her investigative interests to include: clinical trial design; vaccine. She developed her research in post-natal transmission, focusing on breast-feeding, infant survival and post-exposure prophylaxis. Gray collaborated in multi-country efforts to find short-course and affordable antiretroviral interventions for PMTCT. She co-founded with James McIntyre the Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU) at Baragwanath Hospital, which is now a world-renowned research unit focused on HIV prevention and treatment with grants awarded through competitive international processes from the NIH, USAID, amongst others, amounting to over R120 million pa.

Holden earned his PhD in mathematics from the University of Oslo in 1985, and is Doctor honoris causa, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi. Since 1986 he has been working at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, where he became a full professor in 1991. He is Secretary General of the International Mathematical Union (2015–2022); Vice-president of the European Mathematical Society (2007–10) and Secretary (2003–06). Holden is an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (President 2014–16), the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Sciences. He is Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics too.

Jahiruddin (PhD, 1986, Aberdeen University) is a Professor of Soil Science, former Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and former Associate Director of Central Laboratory at Bangladesh Agricultural University. He obtained BAS Gold Medal Award 2009, Global Research Impact Award 2017, BAAG Gold Medal Award 2018 and Soil Care Award 2018. He is a Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS). Professor Jahiruddin has a very high record of research publications in relation to Micronutrient problems, arsenic contamination and conservation agriculture. He worked as a team leader for research priority setting in agriculture and development of vision document -2030 and beyond in Bangladesh: Land and Soil Resource Management.

Lu, Ph.D. from Columbia University, worked at AT&T Bell Labs; later joined the Electronics Research and Service Organisation (ERSO) of Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to lead Taiwan’s National Submicron Project. He is the Chairman and CEO of Ardentec Corp., and serves as the President and CTO of Macronix International. He has published more than 500 technical papers and has been granted 160 patents. Lu has been elected as an IEEE Fellow, American Physical Society Fellow, Fellow of National Academy of Inventors, and ITRI Laureate. He has been awarded the IEEE Third Millennium Medal; the IEEE Frederik Philips Award; and the 2013 Presidential Science Prize, the highest award in Taiwan. In 2018, Lu was elected as an Academician of Academia Sinica, the first CEO from industry to have been honored by Academia Sinica.

Mayor is an Indian cell biologist. After studying chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, he was awarded his PhD in life sciences from The Rockefeller University, New York, and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. In 1995, he joined the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, a centre of TIFR where he has been studying the fine structure and the function of the membrane of living cells using methods derived from biology, chemistry, and physics. He has been elected as a Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian Science Academy, a Foreign Fellow of National Academy of Sciences (USA), and European Molecular Biology Organization. He has been awarded the TWAS Prize in Biology and the Infosys Prize in Life Sciences. He serves as Director of NCBS, and was Director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) at Bangalore, and is founding director of Centre for Cell and Molecular Platforms (CCAMP), a technology enabler and biotech start-up incubator; together these make up the Bangalore Life Science Cluster, a multi-institutional organization that he has driven since 2015.

Lynn Morris was appointed as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Wits University from 1 April 2021. Her previous positions include Interim Executive Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and Principal Medical Scientist and head of the HIV Virology Section at the NICD, Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a joint appointment as Research Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and an Honorary appointment as a Senior Scientist at CAPRISA. She completed her undergraduate studies at Wits University and obtained a DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1988. Lynn is an NRF A-rated researcher (leading international scholar) who has made significant contributions to our understanding of how the antibody response to HIV develops and her laboratory conducts validated end-point assays for HIV vaccine clinical trials. She has been recognised through several national and international awards including the Wits Vice Chancellor’s Research Award and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Prize in Medical Sciences. She has supervised 30 PhD and MSc students, has published over 270 papers holding a current author H-Index of 63

Ngila (PhD,1996, University of New South Wales) holds MSc in Chemistry (1992), Bachelor of Education in Science (1986), Kenyatta University (KU). Her research is in water quality monitoring and nanotechnology for water treatment. She taught at KU (1989-1997); University of Botswana (1998-2006); University of KwaZulu Natal (2006-2011); and University of Johannesburg (2011-2017) as a Full Professor of Analytical/Environmental Chemistry. She was Head of Applied Chemistry Department (2013- 2016) and Ag. Director of the Water Node of the Nanotechnology Innovation Centre (2015) at the University of Johannesburg; Deputy Director at Morendat Institute of Oil and Gas, (April 2017- Feb 2020) and Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Riara University, Kenya (Feb 2020-current). She has over 200 journal articles. She trained over 30 Doctoral Students, 33 Masters and 22 Honours Students and 18 Postdoctoral Research Fellows. Awards include 2017 African Union Kwame Nkrumah and 2016 South Africa Distinguished Women in Science. Member of Academy of Science of South Africa; African Academy of Science. Currently Co-Chair of the 2021 Commonwealth Science Conference hosted by Royal Soc. and AAS.

Savino was graduated in Biological Sciences at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (1974), got his MSc degree in Histology and Embryology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1979), PhD degree in Cell and Tissue Biology at the University of São Paulo (1982), and had a post-doc training in Cellular Immunology at Necker Hospital, Paris (1983-1985). Presently, he is full researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences; Editor-in-Chief of the journal NeuroImmunoModulation and Associated Editor of Frontiers in Immunology. He received international awards, namely the title of Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques (France), Doctor Honoris causa by Sorbonne Université (France), the Luis Federico Leloir Medal (Argentinian government), Guest of Honor (National University of Rosário, Argentina) and Eduardo Charreau Award (Argentinian Government). His research is focused in cellular immunology, with emphasis in cell migration in the hemopoietic system; neuroimmune interactions; cell therapy and immunotherapy in neuromuscular diseases.

Serwadda is a leading scientific expert in Africa's HIV response since early 1980's. Current research focuses on evaluation of population based HIV intervention and strengthening provision of comprehensive HIV services in Uganda. Previous roles included head of Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health, dean of School of Public Health and executive director of Rakai Health Science Program. He is a Fellow of the Uganda National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Medicine, US. He received a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from Makerere Medical School, Masters in Public Health and an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. Currently he is a professor in Department of Disease Control, Makerere University School of Public Health. He chairs and serves in a number of boards, and is also on a number of editorial boards.

Ben Zhong Tang is Distinguished Presidential Chair Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-SZ). He is interested in materials science, macromolecular chemistry and biomedical theranostics. Tang received BS and PhD degrees from South China University of Technology and Kyoto University, respectively, and carried out postdoctoral research at University of Toronto. He joined the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in 1994 and moved to CUHK-SZ as Dean of School of Science and Engineering in 2021. He was elected to Chinese Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Chemistry, and World Academy of Sciences for the Advancement of Science in Developing Countries. Tang has published >1,600 papers, with >125,000 citations and an h-index of 158 (Google Scholar, 08/08/2021). He has been listed by Clarivate Analytics as a Highly Cited Researcher in both areas of Chemistry and Materials Science since 2014. He received National Natural Science Award (1st Class) from the Chinese Government in 2017. He is serving as Editor-in-Chief of Aggregate published by Wiley.

Ticianelli obtained his BSc degree in 1976 and his PhD in 1985 in Physical Chemistry at University of São Paulo. He developed his full academic carrier at the Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos (IQSC) and in November 2003 reached the category of Full Professor. Ticianelli was head of the Department of Physical Chemistry of Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos for four years and the Director of this Institute from 2006 to 2010. He is member of the São Paulo Academy of Science and of the Brazilian Academy of Science. He collaborated in the writing of two textbooks in the Electrochemistry area. Publication of scientific research includes 220 scientific papers in journals listed in several indexing platforms. He has given several plenary conferences and has presented tenths of invited lectures and keynotes in national/international scientific meetings. He has acted as advisor for over 50 MSc and PhD theses in the Post-Graduation programmes at the Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos. He is an expert in fuel cells, particularly the proton exchange membrane alkaline and solid oxide systems.

Villa is an Associate Professor at the Department of Radiology and Oncology of the Faculdade de Medicina of the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and Head of the Innovation in Cancer Research of the Center for Translational Research in Oncology of the Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo (ICESP), São Paulo, Brazil. She graduated in Biological Sciences, USP and has a PhD in Sciences from the Institute of Chemistry of USP (1978). She was a researcher at the São Paulo branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research from 1983 to 2011, and was its director from 2006 to 2010. She is a full member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. In 2018 she received the Biology Prize from The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy. Her research involves studies about human papillomavirus (HPV), cervical cancer, anogenital cancer, head and neck cancer, HPV infections in women and men, prophylactic HPV vaccines. As of end-2019, she had published 334 scientific articles (h-index: WOS 60). She made more than 500 presentations as invited speaker in meetings throughout the world. She has mentored 13 MSc, 20 PhD students and 8 Pos-Doctoral fellows.

Wu (PhD, 1993, Zhejiang University) is president and professor, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou; fellow, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, IEEE, China Computer Federation, Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, Chinese Association of Automation. He was: joint PhD student, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI); visiting professor, the University of Arizona. His prizes include: IEEE/Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Best Paper Awards; Distinguished Young Scholars of National Science Foundation of China (2005); Second Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award (2010); the HLHL Science and Technology Innovation Award of the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation (2011); Second Prize of National Technology Invention Award (2014); First Prize of Innovation Award of Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (2016); Top-10 Achievements in Science and Technology in Chinese Universities (2016).

Yang (PhD) is a professor, Institute of Psychology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has been working on psycholinguistics and comparative studies between language and music processing, with over 200 papers published on journals in the fields of psychology, linguistic sciences and cognitive neurosciences. She is a member of Standing Committee, and Fellow, Chinese Psychological Society; member of Division of Phonetics, Chinese Society of Linguistics; President, Society of Neurolinguistics, Society for Chinese Language Modernization (2020-2022). She was Director, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1997-2006; President of Chinese Psychological Society, 2009-2013; Chief-editor for Acta Psycologica Sinica, 2006-2009, and Advances in Psychological Sciences, 1997-2006. She received awards: National Excellent Scientist from China Association of Science and Technology, 2014; Life span achievements, 2015, and Achievements in academic development, 2016, from Chinese Psychological Society.

Zaritzky has received the degree of Chemical Engineer, Faculty of Engineering, University of La Plata, (UNLP) Argentina in 1971 and PhD degree in Chemical Sciences from the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), in 1984. She has carried out an extensive original work of scientific research and technological development in Food and Environmental Engineering, and is internationally considered among the core of recognized specialists, reaching the highest research category in Argentina (Superior Researcher of the Scientific and Technological National Research Council, CONICET). Full Professor of Transport Phenomena- Chemical Engineering Department - UNLP, she also specialized in Food Preservation. Professor Emeritus since 2016, Zaritzky has focused her research interests in the application of Chemical Engineering principles to the design and optimization of food processing and preservation, and waste-water treatments. Author of 247 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and 50 book chapters, she has also 6 approved patents. She participated in more than 70 technical works contributing to technology transfer.

Professor Olanike Adeyemo pioneered scholarship and leadership in “One Health”, an innovative transdisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and paradigms to create novel conceptual, methodological, and translational innovation at the environment-livestock-wildlife-human interface. Her findings from studies on environmental pollution, food safety /anti-microbial resistance, and emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases provides credible transdisciplinary research-backed evidence on the complex linkage between Environmental, Animal and Human Health with significant policy implication for Nigeria, the African Continent and indeed the rest of the world. Among other preferments, she is a Fellow of International Science Council (2022), Fellow, the Nigerian Academy of Science (2016), Fellow, African Academy of Sciences (2012). She was featured in “Women in Science - Inspiring Stories from Africa”, “Black Achievers in Science and Technology” and recently recognized as “Scientist of the Year 2020” in the “Natural Sciences category” of the Open International Competition by the International Achievements Research Center, Chicago, IL, USA.

Ahmedov (PhD, 1993, Inst of Nucl Phys, Tashkent; DSc, 2001, Natl Univ Uzb (NUUz), Tashkent; Member of Uzbekistan Acad Sci (2023); Fellow of Islamic Acad Sci, 2020. Head, Theoretical Astrophysics Dept. in Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute and Professor at NUUz. The Researcher of the Year 2018 in Uzbekistan, by Scopus; Science Leader Web of Science award (2017) as highly cited author in Uzbekistan; Uzbekistan State Order Glory of Labor, 2012; Award of TWAS for Young Scientists in Physics in Uzbekistan, 2001; NATO Reintegration Grant, 2004-2007; Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Regular Associate, Italy, 2005-2010; Volkswagen Stiftung Grant, Germany, 2013-2016; King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia Grant 2020-2021, Erasmus+ Gant 2017-2019, DAAD (Germany) Grants 2017, 2012, 2009, 2006; UNESCO-TWAS Regular Associate at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai, India), 2012-2014, at Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Pune, India), 2010-2012, 2002-2004; Fudan Fellowship, China, 2017, 2019; Coordinator ICTP Affiliated Center, Network/Project, Chief Editor Uzbek J Phys, Editor Arabian J Math (Springer).

Dalkara is a Professor of Neurology and a member of the Faculty of Medicine and the Director of the Neuroscience PhD programme and Institute of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. He received his MD, Neurology and PhD (Pharmacology) training at Hacettepe University, and did his Postdoctoral fellowship at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University. He held a joint appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston between 1992-2020. Dalkara’s research focuses on the basic mechanisms of ischemic brain injury and migraine and on targeted brain drug delivery. He received 2013 TWAS Prize in Medical Sciences and has been awarded with several scientific honors in Turkey. He is a principal member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and Turkish Academy of Sciences.

Guharay (Ph.D.,1982, University of Nottingham), is currently Advisor Projects and Services with a Mesoamerican Information Services for Sustainable Agriculture, SIMAS. Earlier he served as Program manager Climate Smart Cocoa World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), Scientist Research for Development, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); Programme Leader for Integrated Pest Management and Agroforestry, Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), Professor of Plant Protection, National Agricultural University, Nicaragua (UNA) and Research Assistant Professor Biophysics, State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a member of the Latin American Society of Agroecology. He elucidated the biophysical basis of mechanoreception by discovering stretch-activated ion channels. His research helped to scale the biological control of vectors of Malaria in Nicaragua and laid the foundation of ecological management of agroforestry systems in Mesoamerica. He was awarded National Scholarship for Ph.D. studies by Govt. of India in 1978, the Research Scientist of the year by CATIE 2003, and the Coffee personality of Nicaragua by RAMACAFE 2006.

Huang (M.S, 1986, Zhejiang University, China) is Academician, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Fellow Honoris Causa, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologist.She is working in Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University; she was the president, International Peace Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Shanghai; Director, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Embryo Original Diseases; Director, Institute of Embryo-Fetal Original Adult Disease Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine; Chair Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Distinguished Professor, Zhejiang University; Honorary Professor, Hong Kong University; Visiting Professor, the University of Adelaide. She was awarded the National Science and technology progress award, China. She is the Chief scientist of National 973 Program, National 12th Five-Year Plan for Science and Technology Support Project, National 863 Program, National Key Research and Development Program of China, International Cooperation Project of China and Canada (National Natural Science Foundation of China).

Jain earned his PhD in 1973 from The Ohio State University, USA. He is Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. His area of research includes pattern recognition, machine learning, computer vision and biometrics. He was a member of Defense Science Board and of the Forensics Science Standards Board, both US institutions. He was a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Humboldt Research Award, the Fulbright Fellowship and the King-Sun Fu Prize. He was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering. Jain holds eight patents, US and Korean, and was named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Jain and his students' work is focused on unconstrained face recognition and the development of fingerprint matching solutions, which have applications.

Kohayakawa (PhD, Cambridge, 1991) is a Full Professor at the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of São Paulo. He works mainly in the areas of discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science. He was one of the first researchers to promote the use of Szemerédi's regularity method in the sparse setting, focusing on analogues of classical extremal problems in sparse random environments. More recently, he investigated limits of permutation sequences and successfully obtained strong estimates on the number of B_h-sets. His papers on chromatic thresholds of graphs, co-authored with P. Allen, J. Böttcher, S. Griffiths, and R. Morris, received the 2018 Delbert Ray Fulkerson Prize of the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Optimization Society. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo and of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.

Litter is Doctor in Chemistry from the Buenos Aires University, Argentina (1974) with Postdoctoral stage at the University of Arizona, USA (1983). She is Senior Researcher of the National Research Council (CONICET) and Full Professor at the University of General San Martín, Argentina. She was Principal Researcher and Head of the Environmental Chemistry Remediation Division at the National Atomic Commission. Main research interests: treatment of organic and inorganic contaminants in water and air by innovative advanced technologies, especially heterogeneous photocatalysis and use of iron nanomaterials. She authored more than 250 scientific publications in international journals, books and chapters of books. She received the Mercosur Prize twice in 2006 and 2011. She was President of the Organizing Committee of the 5th International Congress on Arsenic in the Environment in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2014. She was designated pioneer on photocatalysis in Argentina (2016). She received the Eduardo Charreau Prize 2021 Edition

Yansui Liu is the TWAS Fellow, GSC Fellow, specialist of human-economic geography and land science,Top 1% Scientist, TWAS Prize award(2018), IGU Distinguished Practice Award（2022）, the Global Highly Cited Researchers since 2018, Associate Editor of Land Use Policy; Professor of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the University of CAS; Chair, International Geographical Union’s Commission on Agricultural Geography and Land Engineering(IGU-AGLE); Chair, ANSO-Alliance of Poverty Reduction and Development (ANSO-APRD); Director, Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, CAS, and China Urban-Rural Development Think Tank Alliance; the Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor. Honorary advisory board member of the Universal Scientific Education and Research Network. He is also the Head of Specialist Group for Third-party Assessment on the Effectiveness of Targeted Poverty Alleviation in China. His prizes include China’s National Excellent Scientist Award, the second award of the Scientific and Technological Progress of the State，and National Innovation Award for Overcoming Poverty, among many other.