Organising committee
Learn more about the organising committee
Event_
Nano Health Symposium 2024
Discuss groundbreaking applications of nanotechnology in health
The Nano Health Symposium is a one-day event featuring renowned speakers discussing the discovery and advancements of nanotechnology and its applications in health. We will showcase cutting-edge research, foster interdisciplinary collaborations, and highlight the potential of biomolecular nanosciences in translational health outcomes.
Key topics:
- Advances in Drug Delivery and Development: Explore the latest advancements in nanotechnology for drug discovery, chemical biology, and drug delivery systems, including vaccine development, cancer treatment, gene editing techniques, and antimicrobial applications.
- Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine: Discuss innovations in biomaterials for implants, stem cell interactions, tissue repair, and regeneration. Highlight cutting-edge developments in biotechnology and synthetic biochemistry focused on health-related applications.
- Disease Diagnosis and Health Monitoring: Examine the development of nanotechnology for imaging, sensors, and early disease detection.
Plenary speakers
Professor Robert Langer
Robert S. Langer is one of nine Institute Professors at MIT and co-founder of Moderna, which developed the first COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Langer has written more than 1,600 articles and holds over 1,495 issued and pending patents worldwide. His patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology, and medical device companies. He is the most cited engineer in history (h-index 324 with more than 427,700 citations according to Google Scholar). He served as a member of the United States Food and Drug Administration’s Science Board, the FDA’s highest advisory board, from 1995 to 2002, and as its Chairman from 1999 to 2002. Dr. Langer has received over 220 major awards, including the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the Kavli Prize in 2024. He is the co-founder of Moderna, which developed the first COVID-19 vaccine.
Talk title: From nanotechnology to mRNA vaccines: How overcoming skepticism and barriers led to new cancer treatments and ways to tackle a global health challenge.
Advanced drug delivery systems are having an enormous impact on human health. We start by discussing our early research on developing the first controlled release systems for macromolecules and the isolation of angiogenesis inhibitors and how these led to numerous new therapies. This early research then led to new drug delivery technologies including nanoparticles and nanotechnology that are now being studied for use treating cancer, other illnesses and in vaccine delivery (including the Covid-19 vaccine). Finally, by combining mammalian cells, including stem cells, with synthetic polymers, new approaches for engineering tissues are being developed that may someday help in various diseases. These can also serve as a basis for tissues on a chip which can potentially reduce animal and human testing. Examples in the areas of cartilage, skin, blood vessels, GI tract and heart tissue are discussed.
Please note: Professor Langer will be delivering his talk online.
Professor Frank Caruso
Frank Caruso FRS FAA is a Melbourne Laureate Professor and an NHMRC Leadership Fellow at The University of Melbourne. uring his appointment at The University of Melbourne, he held ARC Federation Fellowships (2002–2012) and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship (2012–2017). His research focuses on developing materials for biomedical applications. He has published over 550 peer-reviewed papers and is a highly cited researcher. He is an Executive Editor of the ACS journal Chemistry of Materials and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of 11 other scientific journals. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2009 and of the Royal Society of London in 2018. He is the co-inventor of 38 patents. He is co-founder of Messenger Bio Pty Ltd (2021), a company that focuses on mRNA technologies.
Professor Wei Tao
Professor Wei Tao is the Farokhzad Family Distinguished Chair for Innovation (Endowed Chair), Co-Director of Nano Immune-Imaging Core, Principal Investigator in the Center for Nanomedicine, and Faculty Member in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School (HMS). He is also the first distinguished chair professor and assistant professor in the history of his institution, as well as MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 (TR35). He has been continuously named a Clarivate’s Global Highly Cited Researcher since 2021, and has published over 160 peer-reviewed, high-impact papers in prestigious journals such as Nature Medicine, Nature Nanotechnology, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Reviews Materials, and many more.
He serves on the scientific committee as either an invited award nominator or an invited grant reviewer for European Research Council, NIH (US), DoD (US), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), Swiss National Science Foundation (Switzerland), Dutch Research Council (Netherlands), Israel Science Foundation (Israel), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Canada), The Xplorer Prize (科学探索奖, China), JDRF (Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge, UK), VinFuture Prize (VinFuture Foundation, Vietnam), MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 (TR35), etc.