Genetics & Genetic Engineering

Jan Lukas Robertus, received his MD at the University of Utrecht and completed his PhD and registrar program in Pathology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He was appointed as a Consultant Cardiothoracic Pathologist at The Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust in February 2015. He has previously worked as a Consultant Cardiothoracic Pathologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is the lead pathologist for computational pathology. He is also co-lead for the Royal Brompton Cardiac Morphology Unit and is member of the Brompton Cardiac Morphology Steering Committee. He is Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. His main research interests are computational pathology, specifically in the areas of thoracic oncology, cardiomyopathies, aortopathies, cardiac and pulmonary transplantation.

Computational Oncology,Pathology

Dr. Sukumar Saha has a total of thirty five years of professional research experience. He demonstrated outstanding stature and received significant recognition as an international authority in cotton genomics and cytogenetics for the development of genetic and cytogenetic resources that are being used by the scientists in the USA and around the world. He made a significant impact in three broad research areas: 1) molecular marker development and mapping, 2) interspecific chromosome substitution (CS) line development from G. barbadense, G. tomentosum and G. mustelinum and 3) a patent document submission to develop improved cotton lines using the emerging techniques of gene silencing. Dr. Saha in a collaborative project, developed, evaluated and released a unique set of backcrossed Gossypium barbadense (Pima 3-79) CS lines (CS-B) in a G. hirsutum background. These lines are near-isogenic with the exception of different substituted chromosomes from Pima 3-79. He also made a major contribution in developing SSR and SNP markers, a critical first step for the use of PCR-based marker technologies in the cotton breeding program. He was one of eight founding scientists of International Cotton Genome Initiative organization (ICGI), currently with over 600 members from the major cotton growing countries, to facilitate collaborative research work on cotton genomics and genetics at the global level. He was awarded the 2010 Cotton Geneticist award from the National Cotton Council of USA and ICAC Cotton Researcher of the year 2011 award by the International Cotton Advisory Committee. Dr. Saha’s research productivity is well documented in over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles, one germplasm release notice, a co-edited book, a patent document, additional multiple papers and abstracts in presentations at conferences. He is currently serving as the editor in chief of American Journal of Plant Sciences.

Genetics and Cytogenetics

The Foundation for Genetic Research in Houston was founded in 1992 by Dr. Krishna Dronamraju, who is the President and Director of the Foundation. Previous advisors to the Foundation include Sir Arthur C. Clarke, well known author of many books in science and science fiction; Dr. Victor McKusick, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Current advisors include Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, Advisor to the Prime Minister, and Chairman of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India; and Prof. N.A. Mitchison, at the University of London, U.K.. Dr. Dronamraju has been nominated for the Nobel Prize. He was a member of the U.S. Presidential delegation led by President Bill Clinton to India in 2000. Dr. Dronamraju received his Ph.D. in Genetics for research under the direction of the famous scientist J.B.S. Haldane, who is well known as a polymath, a founder of population genetics, and as a prolific author of numerous popular scientific essays. Dr. Dronamraju is the author of 20 books and 200 papers in genetics, biotechnology, and the History of Science. Many of his books were concerned with the life and scientific work of J.B.S. Haldane. Dr. Dronamraju was an Advisor to the U.S. Government as a member of the two National Advisory Committees in Health and Agriculture in Washington D.C. He is an Invited Professor of the University of Paris, France, Honorary Professor of the Albert Schweitzer International University, Geneva, and an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of London. He is also an Honorary Visiting Professor of Andhra University in India. He was awarded the Nayudamma Prize in Science and Technology in 1997. The Foundation for Genetic Research has been engaged in promoting Science Cooperation between USA and India. Over the last several years, the Foundation has served many functions, preparing and publishing books in genetics and scientific biography, advising US Government and Indian Government, and most of all arranging international conferences in science, technology, and intellectual property rights. Special attention is paid to recognize the intellectual property rights (IPR) of the tribal groups of India and the contributions of tribal men and women to the conservation of food crops and medicinal plants of India.

Dronamraju's research focused on the history of genetics and human/medical genetics, resulting in the publication of several books, especially with reference to the contributions of his mentor J.B.S. Haldane. Dronamraju�s contribution to the mechanisms of Speciation in plants and plant-pollinator interaction, and also the pollinating behavior of butterflies is considered quite significant. His research papers on the visits of several species of Lepidoptera to different colored flowers of Lantana camara reported the discovery of a species-specific pattern of color preference behavior by pollinating insects. This indicated the possibility that reproductive isolating mechanisms in plants could result from the behavior of pollinators, leading to sympatric speciation which was considered unlikely by some leading experts such as Ernst Mayr until then. These papers created a sensation among biologists.

I graduated in Chemistry (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) in 1982 from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where I also obtained my PhD (in 1990). My training was completed in several places, but mainly at the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, USA) and at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (Madrid, Spain). Before my ICREA appointment I was Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bergen (Norway). Currently I am an ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat de Barcelona, Departament de Genètica, a position that I hold since the year 2003. The area of my research is the Evolution of Developmental Mechanisms.

Population genetics and Evolutionary genetics

Dr Khalid A. Fakhro is a Principal Investigator in Translational Medicine at Sidra Medical and Research Center in Qatar and Assistant Professor of Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics from the University of Chicago and subsequently a Ph.D. in Human Genetics at Yale University, where he was part of a highly selective Howard Hughes Medical Scholars program focused on studying the molecular underpinnings of human disease. Dr. Fakhro has been pioneering research in human genomics and personalized medicine in Qatar, bringing along a decade of first-hand experience in high-throughput data generating platforms including a range of high-density genotyping microarrays and next-generation sequencing platforms, as well the use of multiple model organisms to study human disease. Currently, his work focuses on employing new genomics technologies to discover genes responsible for Mendelian disease and previously un-described congenital syndromes in the Qatari population. Dr Fakhro’s lab has also been awarded several large national grants for their work on human disease and population genomics in Qatar, where they focus on using new bioinformatics tools to analyze large-scale genomics data to describe variation, population structure and predisposition to disease from thousands of Qatari genomes and exomes. His work positions him at the intersection of basic science and clinical investigation, collaborating with many local stakeholders in Qatar to achieve the national health goals in personalized medicine.

Genomics technologies to discover genes responsible for Mendelian disease and previously un-described congenital syndromes,human disease and population genomics. Bioinformatics tools to analyze large-scale genomics data to describe variation, population structure and predisposition to disease.

Professor Abd El-Latif Hesham has received his PhD in Chinese Academy of Sciences during the period of 2004-2007. Currently, he is working as Associate Professor in Assiut University.

He is interested in Environmental Meta-genome biotechnology, Microbial ecology, Microbial genetics (microbial Isolation, identification. and sequencing). Biofuel, Fermentation, Biodegradation, and Wastewater Treatment. He has experience in Molecular Genetics and biotechnological techniques (Clone library, RFLP, RAPD, sequencing, phylogenetic, florescent in situ hybridization (FISH), PCR-DGGE, MPN-PCR, reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR), and real time PCR (RT-PCR).

Dr. Sandeep Kumar Kar is presently working as Assistant Professor, Super specialty department of Cardiac Anesthesiology, Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research, and Kolkata, India. He has represented India in several world congress in Anesthesiology and Critical Care. He has published more than sixty research articles and reviews in high impact international journals including Anesthesiology (Journal of American Society of Anesthesiology). He is in the Editorial board of several journals and Editor of Translational Biomedicine,Journal of drug designing, Journal of Bioequivalance and Bioavailability,Clinical, Journal of Bioanalysis and Medicine, World journal of pharmaceutical Sciences,EJPMR journal and Experimental Cardiology Insight of Blood Pressure, Journal of Neurosurgery, and Interventional Cardiology. He has won several international and National awards like Janak Mehta National Award for best paper in Cardiac Anesthesiology, B Braun Scholar of the year (2012), ESOP Scholarship (NWAC 2013) and presented papers and lectures in several National and International conferences. He is also a Poet and Writer of international repute with poetry published in several international Journals.

ANAESTHESIA & CRITICALCARE