Mark W. Grinstaff is the Distinguished Professor of Translational Research and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, and Medicine as well as the Director of the NIH T32 Program in Biomaterials at Boston University. Mark’s awards include the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award, NSF Career Award, Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Edward M. Kennedy Award for Health Care Innovation, and a Founding Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Over the course of his tenure, Grinstaff’s groundbreaking research has yielded more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, more than 200 patents and patent applications, and more than 300 oral presentations. His students and postdoctoral fellows have given more than 400 poster and 150 oral presentations at national and international conferences. His H index is 60’s, and his work has been cited more than 16,500 times. He is a co-founder of five companies and his innovative ideas and his efforts have also led to one new FDA approved pharmaceutical (AbraxaneTM) and four medical device products (OcuSeal® and Adherus Surgical Sealants®) that improve clinical care for hundreds of thousands of people. His current research activities involve the synthesis of new macromolecules and biomaterials, self-assembly chemistry, imaging contrast agents, drug delivery, and wound repair.

Laurent Cognet is Research Director at CNRS and is a member of the Laboratoire Photonique Numérique et Nanosciences(LP2N), a joint research unit of Institut d’Optique Graduate School, CNRS & University of Bordeaux, France. After a PhD in atom optics at Institut d’Optique-Orsay supervised by A. Aspect (Paris Sud University) L. Cognet performed among the first experiments about the detection and tracking of single fluorescent molecules in living cells as a postdoc in Th. Schmidt’s group at Leiden University (NL). In 2000, he was tenured by CNRS as junior researcher at University of Bordeaux and he was promoted Research Director in 2009. In 2006, he spent a one-year sabbatical leave as a Fulbright scholar at Rice University (Houston, Texas) to work on carbon nanotube imaging. In 2011, he participated in the creation of LP2N where is deputy director and coordinates the Optics and Biology Research Initiative. His research interests include single molecule detection, super-resolution microscopy, single-wall carbon nanotube optics, and high-resolution bio-imaging applications with a particular focus in neuroscience.

Guy kantor Is professor of cancerology at the University of Bordeaux and radiation Oncologist at the Institut Bergonié , comprehensive cancer centre of Bordeaux . His research includes clinical research ( mainly in the field of sarcoma and brain tumors) and technological developpments (in the field of imaging and radiation therapy).
Radiation enhancement with high Z number metal nanoparticules is a promising hypothesis for radiation therapy of tumors. He participed as principal investigator, to the First in human (FIH) trial with intra tumoral use of hafnium radioparticules in sarcomas. He his also implicated for evaluation of use of gadolinium after irradiation of brain metatstases.
He coordinates an interface program POPRA, “ programme Optique Physique et Radiothérapie en Aquitaine » supported by the région Nouvelle-Aquitaine to facilitate collaborations between clinicians such as radiation oncologists and medical physicists and fundamental research actors in the field of physics, mathematics, informatics and biology. In this program, radiation enhancement,mechanisms of antitumoral actions of nanoparticles is perfomed in a close collaboration with CENBG ( iribio group , Dr Seznec, CNRS). He is also coordinator of the regional network “ Canceropôle grand sud ouest “ for the axis Health and technology.

Wim Hennink obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1985 at the Twente University of Technology on a thesis with a biomaterials research topic. From 1985 until 1992 he had different positions in the industry. In 1992 he was appointed as professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Utrecht. From 1996 on he is head of the Pharmaceutics division. At present he is the head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University. His main research interests are in the field of polymeric drug delivery systems. He published over 450 papers and book chapters and is the inventor of 20 patents.