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Professor Maria Paola Costi is a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Modena in Italy.

In the past 15 years she has been teaching 10 different subject within Analytical Chemistry, Medicinal chemistry and Drug Design in the Faculty of Pharmacy. She also taught at the School of Doctorate in Health Science, teaching topics related to System biology approaches to drug discovery, Chemical space sorting and Medicinal chemistry in parasitology.

Professor Costi is responsible for the Laboratory of Drug Discovery of Enzyme Inhibitors of the Department of Pharmaceutical Science at University of Modena. The most of her work is focused on drug development of compounds directed to the folate pathways in different organisms, in particular in the area of anticancers and antinfectives. Another fundamental field of research is on beta-lactamase inhibitors discovery.

Recently she become involved in translational research in drug discovery in ovarian cancer. She is the co-Founder and scientific board member of the European network for translational research in ovarian cance (EUTROC).

She is also active in the technological transfer field: she is the co-Founder of the research-based biotech Tyodck Pharma, a university spin-off company and and is scientific responsible of EU projects in the area.

Professor Costi has published over 180 scientific works including papers on international journals, congress presentations, books chapters and patents. She is an external reviewer for different National and International Agencies and Scientific Journals, grant award peer reviewer.

Professor Robert Zeillinger is an Associate Professor at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Gynecology and Gynecological Oncology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Vienna.

A graduate in biochemistry, Professor Zeillinger is also the founder and the head of the Molecular Oncology Group at The Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Medical University of Vienna. The main objectives of the group's research are understanding gynaecological cancers at molecular levels, improving diagnosis and prognosis and defining novel therapeutic targets.

The interdisciplinary group is engaged in various national and international organizations and networks (e.g. TOC – Tumor Bank Ovarian Cancer; EUTROC – European Network for Translational Research in Ovarian Cancer; OCTIPS – Ovarian Cancer Therapy Innovative Models; OVCAD – Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis; Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft – Cluster Translational Oncology).

Yike Guo is a Professor of Computing Science in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London. He leads the Discovery Science Group in the department, as well as being the founding Director of the Data Science Institute at Imperial College.

Professor Guo also holds the position of CTO of the tranSMART Foundation, a global open source community using and developing data sharing and analytics technology for translational medicine.

Professor Guo received a first-class honours degree in Computing Science from Tsinghua University, China, in 1985 and received his PhD in Computational Logic from Imperial College in 1993 under the supervision of Professor John Darlington.

He founded InforSense, a healthcare intelligence company, and served as CEO for several years before the company's merger with IDBS, a global advanced R&D software provider, in 2009. He has been working on technology and platforms for scientific data analysis since the mid-1990s, where his research focuses on knowledge discovery, data mining and large-scale data management.

He has contributed to numerous major research projects including: the UK EPSRC platform project, Discovery Net; the Wellcome Trust-funded Biological Atlas of Insulin Resistance (BAIR); and the European Commission U-BIOPRED project. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) eTRIKS project, a €23M project that is building a cloud-based informatics platform, in which tranSMART is a core component for clinico-genomic medical research, and co-Investigator of Digital City Exchange, a £5.9M research programme exploring ways to digitally link utilities and services within smart cities.

Professor Guo has published over 200 articles, papers and reports. Projects he has contributed to have been internationally recognised, including winning the “Most Innovative Data Intensive Application Award” at the Supercomputing 2002 conference for Discovery Net, and the Bio-IT World "Best Practices Award" for U-BIOPRED in 2014. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Dr. David Huntsman is a Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynaecology at The University of British Columbia (UBC) and is the Dr. Chew Wei Memorial Professor of Gynaelcologic Oncology. He is a a Staff Pathologist at the BC Cancer Agency (BCCA), and a Consulting Pathologist at the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH).

Dr. Huntsman is currently the Director of the BC multidisciplinary ovarian cancer research team (OvCaRe), Medical Director of the Centre for Translational and Applied Genomics (CTAG) at the BCCA, and co-Director of the Genetic Pathology Evaluation Centre (GPEC) at the Jack Bell Research Centre, VGH.

Dr. Huntsman research has led to development of predictive and prognostic tissue based cancer biomarkers for ovarian cancer and a wide variety of other tumour types. His team created a blueprint for subtype specific ovarian cancer control and have been leaders in the application of novel genomics technologies to ovarian cancer. As collaboration is critical in his field, Dr. Huntsman happily leads and engages in a wide number of multidisciplinary research groups. Most recently he has been working on the creation of broad based personalized medicine initiative for British Columbia.

He is the leader of the TFRI sponsored program grant to study the genomes of rare cancers and to translate discoveries made into biomarkers and treatment opportunities. This team hopes to both improve the management of a cluster of rare cancers and develop strategies and ideas that will have broader clinical impact.

Professor Robert Brown is Chair in Translational Oncology and Head of Division of Cancer within the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College, where he heads the Epigenetics Unit. His post is a joint appointment between Imperial College London and Institute of Cancer Research where he is the Epigenetics Team Leader in the Section of Molecular Pathology. Bob is Principal Investigator of a Cancer Research UK research programme, Drug Resistance and Epigenetic Mechanisms, and is a joint Principle Investigator of the Imperial Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre. He moved to London in 2007 after working for nearly 20 years at the CRUK Beatson Laboratories in Glasgow where he was Director of Laboratory Research in the Centre for Oncology and Applied Pharmacology. He obtained his BSc in Biological Sciences (Genetics) at Edinburgh University, his PhD at MRC Radiobiology Unit, Harwell, and his Post-doc at the German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg.

He has provided key insight into epigenetic mechanisms involved in tumorigenesis and resistance to chemotherapy, particularly in ovarian cancer. Recent areas of his research include; identifying novel epigenetic targets in ovarian and breast cancer, characterising histone marks and DNA methylation in breast and ovarian tumours as risk, prognostic and/or predictive biomarkers, and development of novel histone methyltransferase inhibitors.

He is Chair of the NCRI Biomarker and Imaging Clinical Studies Group whose remit is to facilitate and support biomarker and imaging studies in UK clinical trials. He is Deputy-Chair of CR-UK New Agents Committee and member of MRC Molecular and Cellular Medicine Board.

James D. Brenton is a senior group leader at the Cancer Research UK (CR-UK) Cambridge Institute and leads the Functional Genomics of Ovarian Cancer laboratory. He qualified in medicine from University College London in 1988 and trained in medical oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto and the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge. He has been an honorary consultant in medical oncology at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust since 2001. His PhD work was carried out at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology and he held a Cancer Research UK Senior Clinical Research Fellow from 2001–2006 at the Hutchison/MRC Research Centre.

His research focuses on the identification of prognostic and predictive markers for therapy in ovarian cancer and identifying mechanisms of drug resistance, with particular emphasis on the genomic profiling of clinical samples and bioinformatic analysis.

He is the chair of the Informatics Advisory Group for the national CR-UK Stratified Medicine Programme and was previously Vice-Chair of the CR-UK Biomarkers and Imaging Discovery and Development Committee. He is a member of the international Ovarian Tumor Tissue Analysis (OTTA) Consortium project approval committee, the SGCTG Protocol Review Committee, NCRI ovarian cancer subgroup and the CR-UK Clinical Fellows Mentor Panel.

Professor Ignace Vergote is Chairman of the Leuven Cancer Institute and Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Gynaecologic Oncology at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He initially trained in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, before specialising in Gynaecologic Oncology in the Department of Gynaecologic Oncology at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, where he later became staff member and in 1991 deputy chairman.

Professor Vergote is currently Chairman of the Belgian & Luxemburg Gynaecological Oncology Group (BGOG), and Chairman of the Protocol committee of European Organization for Research, and Treatment of Cancer -Gynecologic Cancer Group (EORTC-GCG), and President of the Society of Robotic European Gynaecological Surgery (SERGS). Professor Vergote was the founder and first chairman of ENGOT from 2007 until 2012. In 2013 he was Chairman of the Board of Medical Chairmen of the University Hospital Leuven. Since 2014 he is member of the Board of Directors of the University Hospital Leuven.

He has been Chairman of the EORTC-GCG from 1997 to 2003, and served as President of the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO) for the period 2003-2005. For the period 2006-2008 he was the President of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society (IGCS). He has been Chairman of the Flemish Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology from 2008 to 2013. He was founder and first chairman of the European Network of Gynaecological Oncological Trial groups (ENGOT) from 2007 tot 2012.

He received in 2004 the Wertheim price in Austria and the COBRA price for surgical expertise in the Netherlands. In 2008 he became Honorary Member of the Finnish Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics. In 2012 he became Honorary Member of the American College of Surgeons. 

Professor Vergote’s main areas of clinical and translational research focus on ovarian and uterine cancer. He has authored more than 635 original full papers in peer-reviewed journals, together with 50 book chapters, and edited several books on Gynaecological Oncology. He is Editor of the European Journal of Cancer , and past-Associate Editor of Gynecologic Oncology and the International Journal of Gynaecological Cancer.

Franca Esposito is Professor of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, University of Naples Federico II, Italy.

After graduating in medicine at the University of Naples Federico II, Professor Esposito did her residency in Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the same University. Formerly, a visiting scientist, Department of Biochemistry, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA and a post-doctoral assistant at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Cincinnati, USA.

At the School of Medicine, University of Naples Federico II, Professor Esposito is the Coordinator for Biochemistry courses and President of the BS degree course for Medical Laboratory Technicians.

Her research activity has focused on the study of the redox regulation of gene expression and effects of reactive oxygen species on the: i) activity of some transcription factors; ii) expression of cell cycle regulatory proteins and iii) regulation of mitogenic signal transduction.

Professor Esposito's present research activity includes the study of TRAP1, a novel antiapoptotic gene involved in the resistance to anticancer therapy. She is working on the validation of TRAP1 as a new biomarker and drug target candidate in multiple human cancers and chemoresistance.