Professor Cunningham has been a faculty member in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the department Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 2004, following a 15-year career in Industry. Prof. Cunningham’s technical focus is the utilization of photonics for biosensing in applications that include life science research, diagnostics, environmental monitoring, and pharmaceutical screening. He has over 90 issued US patents and over 200 peer reviewed journal publications. He is a Fellow of NAI, IEEE, Optica, RSC, AAAS, and AIMBE. He serves as the Director of the Center for Genomic Diagnostics at the Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and as a Program Leader for the Cancer Center at Illinois on the topic of Cancer Measurement Technology and Data Science. In 2023, his technical contributions were recognized by Optica by the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award.

Dr. Colin Hisey earned B.Eng. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from The Ohio State University in 2018, where he developed microfluidic devices for cancer engineering applications. He then spent three years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where he helped establish and run the Hub for Extracellular Vesicle Investigations and is now an Honorary Senior Lecturer. He returned to Ohio State in 2021 and was awarded a MOSAIC K99/R00 from NIBIB (NIH). In late 2024, he became a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Northwestern University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and launched his independent research program. Dr. Hisey’s research combines micro-nanotechnology, extracellular vesicles, and more recently machine learning, primarily in the field of cancer engineering but also in infectious diseases, reproductive health, and neuroscience.

Our lab is interested in understanding the function of lipids, particularly the sphingolipid ceramide, in neural development and neurodegeneration. We have discovered that ceramide is enriched in membranes and compartments (ceramide-enriched compartments) that are critical for the function of primary and motile cilia in neural progenitor cells in brain development and exosomes in Alzheimer's disease. Current and future research is focused on understanding specific ceramide-protein interactions that regulate cell signaling in stem and neuroprogenitor cells, glial cells, and neurons.

1986: MS in Biochemistry, University of Cologne, Germany 1990: PhD in Biochemistry, University of Cologne, Germany 1990-1996: Post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Physiol. Chemistry, University of Bonn, Germany 1996-2000: Instructor and then Assistant Professor (1999) at the Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 2000-2017: Assistant, Associate (2004), and then full Professor (2011, tenured) at the Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, GA 2017: Full Professor at the Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, GA.

Dr. Erik Nelson is an Associate Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and a co-program leader at the Cancer Center at Illinois, University of Illinois. He is an Era of Hope Scholar (Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program) and an Endocrine Society Laureate Awardee. Dr. Nelson is an expert in endocrinology, nuclear receptor pharmacology, cholesterol homeostasis, and cancer biology. Dr. Nelson received his PhD in comparative endocrinology from the University of Calgary, Canada where he characterized the hormonal regulation and functional significance of nuclear receptors. Mentored by Dr. Donald P. McDonnell, he pursued his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University School of Medicine. Here, he studied how obesity and cholesterol impact various disease pathologies including osteoporosis and breast cancer. He was also part of the team that positioned the now FDA approved Elacestrant for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. His current research interests are in how endocrine and metabolic factors impact tumor immunology. The focus of the laboratory is on how cholesterol metabolism and homeostasis can reprogram myeloid immune cells, with the goal of developing better lifestyle and therapeutic strategies for the treatment of breast and ovarian cancers.

Johnny Zhuang, a Business Development & Product Application Scientist at EXODUS BIO since March 2023, plays an important role in the development and application of the EXODUS - automatic exosome isolation system. He obtained his Bachelor of Science from Hong Kong Baptist University and his Master of Science in Biotechnology from Georgetown University. Johnny's diverse experience includes significant roles in research and product application at Charles River Laboratories, as well as in research at NOVAVAX INC and Nantomics LLC.

Dr. Stephen Boppart is a Professor and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with appointments in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bioengineering, and the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. His Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory is focused on developing novel optical biomedical diagnostic and imaging technologies and translating these into clinical applications. Dr. Boppart received his Ph.D. in Medical and Electrical Engineering from MIT, his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and specialty training in Internal Medicine. He has published over 450 invited and contributed publications, delivered over 1000 invited and contributed presentations, and has over 55 patents related to optical biomedical imaging technology. He was recognized by MIT Technology Review magazine as one of the Top 100 young innovators who will create the future, and later received the international Hans Sigrist Prize in the field of Diagnostic Laser Medicine, the IEEE Technical Achievement Award, the SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award, and recently, the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award from Optica, among others. Dr. Boppart has co-founded four start-up companies to commercialize and disseminate his optical technologies and was recently elected a member of the National Academy of Inventors. He is a Fellow of AAAS, IEEE, OSA, SPIE, AIMBE, BMES, and IAMBE. Dr. Boppart has been a strong advocate for the integration of engineering, technology, and medicine to advance human health and our healthcare systems. He played an active role in the visioning, launch, and growth of the first engineering-based Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and is currently serving as the Director for the University’s Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute.

Prof. 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.

Sven Kreutel studied biology at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. After his graduation in biology, he received his PhD in microbiology and protein biochemistry at the University of Hohenheim under Prof. Dr. Andreas Kuhn and Dr. Dorothee Kiefer working on the light sensing and signal transduction in photosynthetic bacteria. Since then, he worked in different sales and sales manager positions within the life science industry from clinical research over biology to nanoparticle sciences.