Dr. Naj Sharif is a graduate of Southampton University, England (UK) where he received his BSc (Joint Honors: Biochemistry and Physiology) and his PhD (Neuroscience). Dr. Sharif has been in the pharmaceutical industry for >30-years holding leadership positions of increasing scope and responsibility, spanning Discovery Research, Drug Development and Regulatory Affairs. He has worked at Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert (Pfizer), Syntex Research (Roche), Alcon-Novartis, and is currently at Santen Inc (Executive Director, R&D Division). Dr. Sharif’s 23-tenure at Alcon resulted in his contributions to the discovery/development and US FDA approvals of Travatan®, Patanol®, Emedine®, Simbrinza®, Izba® and Pazeo® to treat glaucoma/ocular hypertension and ocular allergies. He was recently co-responsible for acquiring Innfocus Inc for Santen, and has thus helped add a device for glaucoma treatment to the product pipeline of Santen. He was recently elected as a Fellow of ARVO (FARVO), and Fellow of British Pharmacology/Pharmaceutical Society (FBPhS) for his exemplary service on numerous committees, progress on drug discovery, and advancement of scientific reputation of both societies. He was honored as the first recipient of the inaugural Dr. Roger Vogel award for pharmaceutical research presented by the ARVO Foundation (2014), and he just received the “Sir James Black Award” for contributions to drug discovery from BPS (2017). He has been an organizer, chairman and invited Keynote speaker at numerous global conferences, symposia and workshops. Dr. Sharif serves on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals, is an adjunct Professor at several universities, and a thesis advisor for MS- and PhD-level students. He has published >190 scientific articles and edited 2 Neuroscience books. Dr. Sharif is also the holder of >22 issued US and EU patents on ocular cell-lines and small molecules to treat human diseases of the CNS and the eye. He has interests in discovering, developing and bringing to the market novel drugs (including neuroprotectants) / devices / diagnostic therapeutics to alleviate the symptoms and suffering associated with human ocular and CNS diseases. 

Mukharram M. Bikbov, Professor, Honored doctor of Russia, Associate member Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Bashkortostan; Director of Ufa Eye Research Institute; First Vice-president Russian Ophthalmology Society; President of the Regional Office of Interregional public organization in the Republic of Bashkortostan "Association of ophthalmologists"; Member of the Presidium of the "Association of ophthalmologists", Glaucoma Society and Expert Council of the Russian Glaucoma Society. He has supervised 16 theses Med.Sc.D. and 5 PhD. The author of 16 monographies, 710 papers, 123 patents and inventions. Scientific activities: corneal surgery, corneal cross-linking, cataract and refractive surgery, treatment of the disease of the cornea and retina.

Dr. Jui-Teng Lin served as a Visiting Professor at National Chao-tung University and Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, Founder & CEO of Nasdaq-listed companies, He holds over 40 patents and is the inventor (US patents, 1992, 2000) of flying-spot LASIK procedure currently used in eye hospitals worldwide. He has published over 55 book chapters and over 200 peer-review journal papers including about 80 SCI-indexed. His awards include WHO's WHO in Leading American Executives, Model of oversea Chinese Young Entrepreneur and Fellow of American Society of Laser Surgery & Medicine.

Dr. Sushil Kumar Dueby had received PhD from Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai and currently is a Postdoctoral Associate at East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, USA.

Christophe P. Ribelayga, Ph.D., received his degree in Neuroscience from the University Louis Pasteur (France) in 2000 and followed with postdoctoral training at The University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA). He was a faculty member in the Department of Neuroscience at The Ohio State University in Columbus (USA) from 2005 to 2009 and moved to his current position in the Ruiz Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at The University of Texas in Houston (USA) in 2009. He has also joined the faculty at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Houston in 2009. Dr. Ribelayga’s laboratory studies the function of circadian clocks in the retina, and in particular the role of circadian clocks as adaptive processes to the predictable changes in ambient light intensity. Dr. Ribelayga was an early proponent of studying circadian clocks in the retina, as retinal clocks represent an important physiological mechanism regulating day and night vision. His more recent work has focused on the circadian clock regulation of photoreceptor electrical coupling and its role in the activity of the rod and cone pathways. Dr. Ribelayga has co-authored several widely cited reviews of the biology and physiological impact of circadian clocks in the vertebrate retina.

B.Sc. in 2004 with Honors in Mechanical Engineering, M.Sc. in 2006 with Honors in Mechanical Engineering for the Energy and the Environment and Ph.D. in 2009 in Engineering of Mechanical Systems at the University of Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy. Since 2009, he has been working as Research Fellow, as Lecturer and then as Professor of Applied Thermodynamics and Thermal Science at the University of Napoli "Parthenope". He is Technical Manager of LaTEC (Laboratory of Thermo-fluid dynamics, Energy, and HVAC systems) within the Department of Engineering of the University of Napoli "Parthenope". He has been Visiting Scientist at MIT and Visiting Researcher at Swansea University. His scientific research activities are mainly focused on the study of heat and mass transport phenomena in porous media and free fluids, with particular attention to innovative energy conversion systems and to renewable energy sources applications, through both theoretical and experimental analysis. He has developed an efficient version of the FEM based Artificial Compressibility Characteristic Based Split algorithm for the solution of convective flows. Prof. Mauro has started and developed a scientific collaboration with a medical group and has applied his knowledge on thermo fluid dynamics in the bioengineering field. Prof. Mauro is author of more than 70 scientific publications including papers in international journals, proceedings of international conferences, books and chapters of international books. Prof. Mauro is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the association of Chartered Engineers in Napoli.

Xiaoyin Ma is an Associate Professor at Wenzhou Medical University, Eye hospital, China. Research interest include RPE biological functions and its functional roles in retinal structure and retinopathies; Transcriptional regulation and signaling pathways in retinal development and dysfunction; Molecular mechanisms of retinal diseases and its therapies.

Nurgül Örnek graduatedas medical doctor from the Medical School of Hacettepe University in Turkey in 1998. Shecompleted her trainingin ophthalmology at Ankara Universityand has been practicing ophthalmology since then. She joined K?r?kkale University as an assistant professor in 2012. She received her associate professor degree at Hacettepe University in 2015. She is working as an associate professor in K?r?kkale University since 2015. Dr. Örnek published over 50 original peer reviewed article sand she is a fellowship of European Board of Ophthalmology since 2015.

Haris Sideroudi has completed a very comprehensive Undergraduate Program in Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki/Greece. Beyond this, she has obtained a graduate program on biomaterial science and she has completed her PhD program on Chemical Engineering and Opthalmology school at the University of Patras. From 2007 she is working as a senior paramedical officer and scientific consultant in the Eye institute of Thrace at Democritus University. Also, from July 2012 she became a postdoctoral fellow in Democritus Universtity of Thrace in collaboration with Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences (FORTH/ICE-HT)

Dr. Burak Tanyildiz is a medical doctor at University of Health Sciences, Kartal Dr. Lutfi Kirdar Training and Research Hospital, Ophthalmology Clinic, Istanbul, Turkey. For more information please visit: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Burak_Tanyildiz

Dr. Jaime Tejedor is an Associate Professor at Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Spain. His research interest include Pathogenesis and treatment of refractive errors, refractive plasticity (mechanisms of form deprivation myopia, lens induced myopia/hyperopia) Amblyopia Essential infantile esotropia and dissociated strabismus complex Intermittent exotropia, eye muscle disorders