Professor Shum is widely recognized in emulsion, biomicrofluidics, biomedical engineering and soft matter; he received the inaugural Hong Kong Engineering Science and Technology Award 2022, Croucher Senior Research Fellowship 2020, Rising Start Award by Ton Duc Thang University (Vietnam), NSFC Excellent Young Scientist Fund in 2019, Young Scientists Award in Microsystems and Nanoengineering Summit 2019, IEEE Nanomed New Innovator 2018, the Early Career Award by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong in 2012. He became a fellow of Hong Kong Institution of Engineers in 2023, a member in the Global Young Academy (first from Hong Kong) in 2021, a founding member (in 2018) and President (in 2021) in the Young Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in 2017. He serves as an associate editor for Biomicrofluidics (American Institute of Physics), editorial board member for Microsystems and Nanoengineering (Springer Nature) and Scientific Reports (Springer Nature) and an editorial advisory board member for Lab-on-a-Chip (RSC).

Daniel Citterio received his Doctoral degree in Natural Sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich (Switzerland) in 1998. From 1998-2002, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Keio University with Prof. Koji Suzuki. Upon return to Switzerland, he worked as a researcher at ETH, before joining Ciba Specialty Chemicals Inc.. In 2006, he moved back to Keio University, where he became a tenured Associate Professor in 2009 and Professor in 2014. In 2016, he has been admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). He serves as a co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, as well as on the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Sensors. In 2022, he has been awarded the Chemical Society of Japan Award for Creative Work. His research is focusing on the development of chemical sensors and biosensors. More recently, his research team is strongly engaged in the development of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (µPADs) for low-cost point-of-need applications.

Dino Di Carlo received his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and received a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco in 2006. From 2006-2008 he conducted postdoctoral studies in the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has been on the faculty in the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA since 2008 and now as Professor of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering serves as the Chair of the Department and as the director of the Cancer Nanotechnology Program in the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research pioneered the use of inertial fluid dynamic effects for the control, separation, and analysis of cells in microfluidic devices. His recent work extends into numerous other fields of biomedicine and biotechnology including directed evolution, cell analysis for rapid diagnostics, new amplified molecular assays, next generation biomaterials, and phenotypic drug screening. He has also been a leader in technology entrepreneurship: He co-founded and currently serves on the board of directors of five companies that are commercializing UCLA intellectual property developed in his lab (CytoVale, Vortex Biosciences, Tempo Therapeutics, Forcyte Biotechnologies and Ferrologix). Among other honors he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2016, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2014, was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development award and the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, the Packard Fellowship and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award, and received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award and Coulter Translational Research Award.

Dr. Hiroshi Kimura is a Professor at the Micro/Nano Technology Center, Tokai University (Full Professor since 2022; joined in 2012). He received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Tokyo in 2007. From 2007 to 2012, he worked at the Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), University of Tokyo, where he served as a Project Assistant Professor. During 2017–2018, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research focuses on microfluidic device and system technologies and their applications in biological sciences, particularly microphysiological systems.

Dr. Ivan Rusyn is a University Professor in the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology at Texas A&M University. He directs the Texas A&M Superfund Research Center and TEX-VAL Consortium. With over 370 peer-reviewed publications cited more than 41,000 times (h-index=91), his research focuses on the health effects of chemical agents. Dr. Rusyn has chaired and served on committees for the US National Academies and WHO/IARC working groups and advises the Texas Department of Public Health. He holds a medical degree from Ukrainian State Medical University (1994) and a Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of North Carolina (2000), with postdoctoral work at MIT and Heinrich-Heine University (Dusseldorf, Germany).

Dr Levent Yobas received his BSc degree in electrical engineering from Hacettepe University, Turkey, MSc and PhD degrees both in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, USA. From 2002-2010, he was with the Institute of Microelectronics (IME) under the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) of Singapore. He held adjunct faculty positions with Bioengineering Division at National University of Singapore (NUS) and the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He joined the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology as Assistant Professor in 2010 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015 and Professor in 2022. His research is mainly focused on silicon-based micro/nanofabrication technologies for life sciences, particularly lab-on-a-chip microfluidics for drug discovery and point-of-care diagnostic applications.

Martyn Boutelle is Professor of Biomedical Sensors Engineering in the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, and Associate Provost for Estates Planning for Imperial College. His research group is multidisciplinary comprising bioengineers, scientists, and clinicians. He develops novel analytical science methods using microfluidics, electrochemical sensors / biosensors, and wireless electronics to make portable (sometimes wearable) monitoring devices for use as point of care devices – typically giving continuous real -time displays. He then uses these in a program of clinical science research focusing on the neonatal monitoring, acute traumatic brain injury, pesticide exposure monitoring. Martyn is past president of the International Society for Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience, and a founder of the COSBID organization for studying acute human brain injury. He published > 200 papers, chapters and patents. He obtained a BSc and PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College and worked as an EP Abraham Research Fellow in the University of Oxford.

Professor Soper (since 2016) is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kansas. At KUMC, Prof. Soper holds an adjunct appointment in the Cancer Biology Department and is a member of the KU Cancer Center. He also holds an appointment at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Ulsan, South Korea, where he is a World Class University Professor.

As a result of his efforts, Prof. Soper has secured extramural funding totaling >$125M, has published over 245 peer-reviewed manuscripts (h index = 70; >17,000 citations); 31 book chapters and 71 peer-reviewed conference proceeding papers, and is the author of 12 patents. He is also the founder of a startup company, BioFluidica, which is marketing devices for the isolation and enumeration of liquid biopsy markers. Soper recently founded a second company, Sunflower Genomics, which is seeking to market a new DNA/RNA single-molecule sequencing platform. His list of awards includes Ralph Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, Chemical Instrumentation by the American Chemical Society, the Benedetti-Pichler Award for Microchemistry, Fellow of the AAAS, Fellow of Applied Spectroscopy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, R&D 100 Award, Distinguished Masters Award at LSU and Outstanding Scientist/Engineer in the state of Louisiana in 2001. Finally, Prof. Soper has granted 50 PhDs and 7 MS degrees to students under his mentorship. He currently heads a group of 15 researchers.

His major discoveries include: (1) Technology for the detection of liquid biopsy markers that can manage a variety of diseases using a simple blood test (test has been demonstrated in multiple myeloma, pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, pancreatic, breast, colorectal, prostate, and ovarian cancers); (2) new hardware and assay for the point-of-care diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke; (3) single-molecule DNA and RNA sequencing nanotechnology; and (4) currently working on a home-test for COVID-19 infections (handheld instrument and the associated assay.

Dr. Yung-Te Hou received his B.S. (2004) and M.S. (2006) degrees in Bio-Industrial Mechatronics Engineering from National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan, and his Ph.D. (2011) in Chemical Engineering from Kyushu University, Japan. He subsequently conducted industry-oriented R&D at the Placenta-Aloe Research Institute, JAPAN BIO PRODUCTS CO., LTD. (2011–2013). Dr. Hou joined NTU in 2013 and has since advanced through the academic ranks as Assistant Professor (2013–2020), Associate Professor (2020–2024), and Professor (2024–present) in the Department of Biomechatronics Engineering. He also serves as Deputy Director of the Animal Resource Center at NTU. His research focuses on liver tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, with particular emphasis on decellularized liver matrix (DLM)–based biomaterials and microphysiological systems. His group develops liver-specific platforms across multiple length scales, including hepatic patches for localized repair; nanomedicine, nanogel, and nanospray systems for systemic or topical delivery; and injectable, self-healing hydrogels for minimally invasive treatment of chronic liver injury. In parallel, his laboratory engineers DLM-enabled liver-on-a-chip systems that recapitulate key in vivo features—such as organ-specific microenvironmental cues and dynamic perfusion—to support disease modeling and therapeutic screening with enhanced physiological relevance. More recently, his work has expanded to integrate AI-assisted analytics to enable more standardized, quantitative assessment of disease phenotypes and treatment responses in clinically relevant biomaterial systems and predictive in vitro platforms.