Eric D. Brown, Ph.D, Canada Research Chair in Microbial Biochemistry, is an associate professor at McMaster University. Dr. Brown’s research interests include bacteriology and drug discovery. He is a Director and Founder of the McMaster High-Throughput Screening Laboratory of the Ontario Genomics Initiative, a contributing editor for Current Opinion in Microbiology, a member of numerous professional organizations including the American Society for Microbiology and the Canadian Bacterial Diseases Network, and has published 26 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Jack Gauldie, Ph.D., is Professor and Chairman of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University. His research interests include the molecular basis of chronic inflammation, gene therapy, drug discovery and the development of immune responses. Among his many distinctions, Dr. Gauldie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has been awarded the Medal of Honour by the Canadian Medical Association. Dr. Gauldie has published 276 peer-reviewed papers, and is a member of the Editorial Board of leading journals including Cytokine, Journal of Clinical Investigation and Journal of Immunology.

Peter N. Green, Ph.D., F.I. Biol., is Curator of the National Collection of Industrial Food and Marine Bacteria (NCIMB), the largest public service collection of environmental bacteria in the United Kingdom. He has 35 years experience in the management of culture collections and in the cultivation, preservation, identification and transportation of bacteria. His research and personal interests include taxonomy, microbial biofilms, and probiotics. He has 30 peer-reviewed publications and is currently a member of the Executive Board of the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC).

Thomas E. Ichim, PhD, is a scientist for the Russian Academy of Sciences Initiative, bioRASI.   Tom is an immunologist, an expert in clinical research, and has been extensively published in various journals in the fields of cell therapy and immunology. Tom is the founder and CEO of the non-for-profit organization, the Batu Center for Leukemia Research, and was chosen as one of the Top Ten Most Honorable Canadians by Maclean's Magazine in the year 2000 for scientific and humanitarian contributions.

Michael J. Lane, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the State University of New York-Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. He is the author or co-author of numerous peer-reviewed publications and the inventor or co-inventor of more than 33 published patents. Dr. Lane is the founder of two biotechnology companies: Genmap, Inc., of New Haven, CT, the first commercial human genome enterprise, and Tm Bioscience Corporation, Toronto, Canada, a biochip and genomics company.

Xiang-Dong Lei, Ph.D., is a molecular biologist. As the Director, Research & Development, at a biotechnology company, he oversaw therapeutic cancer vaccine development from antigen discovery through IND filing. Dr. Lei has published 15 peer-reviewed papers, is the co-inventor on two patent applications, and is a member of the American Association of Cancer Research and the Project Management Institute.

Liping Liu, Ph.D., is a bioorganic chemist. As the principal investigator at a biotechnology company, she led a team of researchers that discovered more than one thousand novel tumour associated antigens in three years. Dr. Liu has published 19 peer-reviewed papers, is the co-inventor on five patent applications, and is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Association for Mass Spectrometry, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the American Peptide Society.

Johannes van Netten, Ph.D., is adjunct associate professor, department of biology, University of Victoria; director of research, Special Developmental Laboratory, Royal Jubilee Hospital, Victoria; and a member of the consulting staff, Vancouver Island Cancer Centre, British Columbia Cancer Agency.