Chakrabarti is senior professor, Department of Biochemistry, and Bioinformatics Centre, Bose Institute, Kolkata. He obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science (1981), did postdoc. research at ETH, Zürich, Purdue Univ., UCLA and Caltech, USA, then worked at the National Chemical Lab., Pune (1990-97). Finding patterns in sequence and structure and deriving the underlying factors stabilizing the native fold of proteins and macromolecular interactions have been the hallmark of Chakrabarti’s work, which spans biophysics and bioinformatics. He is also involved in structural studies on proteins from Vibrio cholera, and the understanding the biological activity of nanoparticles. He is a fellow of all 3 science academies of India, and recipient of the JC Bose Fellowship. He is the President (2013-16) of the Asian Crystallographic Association.

Muhammed is rector of the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. He received his DPhil in biochemistry. Oxford University, and completed postdoctoral research at the Oakridge National Laboratory, USAEC. He established the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology, Faisalabad, in 1969 and was its first director. He was also the vice-chancellor of Agriculture University, Faisalabad, and founder-chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council from which he retired in 1990. He was awarded an honorary DSc, the Prime Minister's Gold medal, and the Gold Medal for lifetime achievement by FAO. He is fellow and past-president of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. He was elected president of the Pakistan Association for Advancement of Science and the Scientific Society of Pakistan.

Jan, Distinguished National Professor (Emeritus), University of Peshawar, and past President Pakistan Academy of Sciences (PAS), obtained MS (Oregon) and PhD (London) degrees. He carried out extensive investigations of Creto-Tertiary island arc terrains in Kohistan Himalaya, Balochistan, and Neoproterozoic granitoids of Pakistan. His studies are related mostly to geodynamic and crust-building processes, especially in collisional mountain belts and intra-oceanic island arcs that became Andean-type margins, and chemical petrology of chromites in ophiolites and magmatic arcs. He is author/editor of hundreds of papers and books, fellow/member of several academies and professional bodies, including the PAS, Islamic World Academy of Sciences and Mineralogical Society London. He has held several important positions nationally and internationally, including Vice Chancellor of three universities. Honors include gold medals from PAS, Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award (National Book Foundation & PAS), Life-time Achievement Award (Assoc. Petrol. Geologists of PK ), Civil Awards (HI, SI, TI), ISESCO Science Prize, and Hon. DSc from King's College London and University of Leicester

Kumar has a B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, and a PhD from Cornell University, both in Electrical Engineering. He was with Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, N.J., USA, for over 6 years. Since 1988 he has been with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where he is a Professor, and also the Chair of the Electrical Sciences Division. From 1988 to 2003 he was the Coordinator at IISc of the Education and Research Network Project (ERNET), India's first wide-area packet switching network. He has been elected Fellow of the IEEE (the Insitution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), the Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc), and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He received the IISc Alumni Award for Excellence in Engineering Research for 2008.

Hussain is Ghulamali Hirji professor and former head of department of microbiology, Aga Khan University (AKU) in Karachi, Pakistan and is Professor Emeritus at AKU. She obtained her BSc (hons.) in 1966, MSc (microbiology) in 1967 at Karachi University, PhD (immunology) at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 1973, Fellow of The Royal College of Pathologist (1997). At NIH she did seminal work in identifying blocking antibodies to IgE responses in filariasis and received the best paper award by American Society of Nuclear Medicine. At AKU she did outstanding work on Immunology of Mycobacterial disease. Her work has led to the early diagnosis and pathogenesis of leprosy and tuberculosis for which she received TWAS prize in Basic Medical Sciences, Research Excellence award, AKU, National Honours, Tamghe-i-Imtiaz and Sitara-e-Imtiaz, HEC National Distinguished Professor. She fellow of The Pakistan Academy of Sciences,The World Academy of Sciences (Council memeber and Vice President South and Central Asia), Islamic World Academy of Sciences, Member the British Society of Immunology, the International Society of Infectious Diseases,Pakistan Society of Immunology (Life Patron)

Gupta (PhD 1969, Agra U.), after serving as Director for over 10 years and DBT Distinguished Research Professor for 7 years at Central Drug Res. Inst., Lucknow, is now working as Dist. Prof., Inst. Bioinform. and Applied Biotech., Bangalore. He was previously: Postdoctoral fellow, Syntex Res. Centre; Res.Ass. and Vis. Scientist, MIT; Scientist, CDRI; and Director, Inst. of Microbial Tech., Chandigarh. His awards include: INSA Young Scientist Medal in Chem.; SS Bhatnagar Prize; Ranbaxy Rese. Foundation Award; Dr. Nitya Anand Endowment Lecture Award, INSA; FICCI Award in Life Sciences; Goyal Prize in Applied Sciences; and Om Prakash Bhasin Award in Biotech. and Biological Sciences. His membership includes: INSA; Indian Acad. of Sciences; NAS, India; and National Acad. of Medical Sciences, India. He has published 145 research papers in peer reviewed journals and filed 6 patents.

Narinder Mehra is Vice President (international affairs) of the Indian National Science Academy, Hon Emeritus Scientist of the Indian Council of Medical Research, Former Dean and Founder Head Dept. of Transplant Immunology and Immunogenetics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Vastly experienced in Science policy, he is founder Secretary General of Federation of Immunological Societies of Asia Oceania; councillor, International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS) and of International Histocompatibility association. Major honors include India’s highest S.S. Bhatnagar award, Ranbaxy Science foundation award, Chevalier of the National Order of Merit (France), Iran's highest Khwarizmi international award, B.R. Ambedkar award for excellence in Research (ICMR), Member Honoris Causa of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hon Foreign Associate, Academy of Science in South Africa (ASSAf), Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (FTWAS), Fellow International Science Council (FISC), Indian Academy of Sciences (FNASc), Indian National Science Academy (FNA) and National Academy of Medical Sciences (FAMS). He holds Hon Fellowship of Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) of UK.

Tuteja (PhD 1982, DSc 2008, U. of Lucknow, India) is Prof. and dir., Amity Inst. of Microbial Tech., Amity U. (India). He has made significant contributions in crop improvement under adverse conditions using genetical and microbial approach, developing marker-free transgenic crops with stress tolerance. He was group leader and sen. scientist, Intl. Centre for Genetic Engg. and Biotech. (ICGEB), New Delhi, India; postdoc fellow, UCLA and NIH, USA. He is a fellow of FNASc., FNA, FASc., FNESA and FNAAS. His honours include: Genomic Pioneer Award; Best Scientist Award, Natl. Envl. Science Acad.; Vigyan Gaurav Samman Award, Council of Science and Tech. UP; and the Goyal Prize Award, Kurukshetra U.. He is editorial board member of Arch. Biochem. Biophys, Plant Physiol. Biochem., Plant Signaling and Behavior and The Open Plant Science J.. He has published +300 papers and edited 9 books.

Sharma was educated at the Universities of Rajputana (Jodhpur), Mumbai, and Cambridge. He obtained his BSc in chemical engineering (1958), MSc (tech.) by research (1960) and PhD (Cantab) in 1964. He is honorary Kothary research professor, JNCAR, and professor of eminence, Inst, of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. He was previously: professor (1964-97) and director (1989-97), Dept. of Chemical Technology, Univ. of Mumbai. His awards include: Om Prakash Bhasin; Padma Vibushan; FICCI Award in Science and Technology; JC Bose Memorial Lecture, Royal Society, London; Shatabdi Puraskar, Indian Science Congress. He is a fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences; INSA; Maharashtra Academy of Science; Royal Society, London; and hon. fellow, Natl. Academy of Sciences; foreign assoc., US Natl. Academy of Engineering; intl. fellow, Royal Academy of Engineering.