Primary Health Care and Essential Nutrition

Dr. Sandra Poirier has been employed at Middle Tennessee State University, USA, since 2005. She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Family and Consumer Sciences from Florida State University and University of Arizona respectively. Her doctorate was received in 1998 from Florida International University in Miami, Florida with her dissertation in the area of health-related quality of life. Prior to coming to MTSU, Dr. Poirier taught three years at Zayed University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Additionally, she has worked at the University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University, University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Service, and the Provincial Government of Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Poirier has more than 15 years of international teaching experience working in culturally diverse environments. Her strengths include creating innovative educational programs with a focus on food and culture, identifying appropriate outreach efforts to solve community problems, and empowering students for successful careers. She has been recognized for her ability to create and teach online courses, work as an advisor for student organizations, and creating positive educational environments for optimal learning. She has published over 25 journal articles and been invited to speak in Malaysia, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Austria, Puerto Rico, and the Andros Island in the Caribbean.

Chemist from University of Patras , Msc in Quality Assurance. Technical Director and co-founder of Food Allergens Lab (analytical laboratory dedicated in food analysis). Thirty years experience on olive oil analysis (QA mamager of Minerva Oleic the greatest Greek extra virgin olive oil Industry). Reviewer of Journal of American Oils Chemistry Society. Member of : Greek National Supreme Chemical Council, Scientific Committee of National Greek Olive Oil Festival, Horizontal Committee of Greek Accreditation Body (ESYD). President of Organizing Committee of Greek National Biotechnology & Food Technology Congress. Greek National Representative in European TWG/FDM (IPPC Directive), Euro Lipid Forum, World Science Poultry Association, Board of Hellenic Chemists Association. 55 Publications mainly on olive oil ( Scopus H index 4). Honored by the MedDiet 2005 award. Presentations in Congresses of Euro Lipid Forum, AOAC, AOCS, WSPA.

Food safety, Food assurance

Manfred Eggersdorfer is Senior Vice President for Nutrition Science & Advocacy at DSM Nutritional Products. He studied chemistry at the Technical University Munich and did his PhD in organic chemistry in the field of synthesis and characterization of unusual amino acid. He was post-doc at the Stanford-University,California working with Carl Djerassi on the isolation and characterization of sterols from marine origin. Manfred Eggersdorfer is active as professor for Healthy Ageing at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of Groningen. He is member of the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Curatorial for Innovation, and affiliate of various other organizations.

Manfred Eggersdorfer is Senior Vice President for Nutrition Science & Advocacy at DSM Nutritional Products. He studied chemistry at the Technical University Munich and did his PhD in organic chemistry in the field of synthesis and characterization of unusual amino acid. He was post-doc at the Stanford-University,California working with Carl Djerassi on the isolation and characterization of sterols from marine origin. Manfred Eggersdorfer is active as professor for Healthy Ageing at the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of Groningen. He is member of the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Curatorial for Innovation, and affiliate of various other organizations.

Vladimir P. Torchilin is a University Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine, Northeastern University, Boston. He graduated from the Moscow University with MS in Chemistry, and obtained there his Ph.D. and D.Sc. in Polymer Chemistry and Chemistry of Physiologically Active Compounds in 1971 and 1980, respectively. In 1991, Dr. Torchilin joined MGH/Harvard Medical School as the Head of Chemistry Program, Center for Imaging and Pharmaceutical Research, and Associate Professor of Radiology. He was the Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1998-2008. His research interests include liposomes, lipid-core micelles, biomedical polymers, drug delivery and targeting, pharmaceutical nanocarriers, experimental cancer immunology. He has published more than 350 original papers (which received more than 30,000 citations), more than 150 reviews and book chapters, wrote and edited 10 books.

Research Interest including Immobilized Enzymes in Medicine, Targeted Delivery of Imaging Agents, Liposomes, Nanoparticulates as Pharmaceutical Carriers, Biomedical Aspects of Drug Targeting, and holds more than 40 patents. He is Editor-in-Chief of Current Drug Discovery Technologies and of Drug Delivery and on the Editorial Boards of many journals including Journal of Controlled Release (Review Editor), Bioconjugate Chemistry, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, Molecular Pharmaceutics.

Amots Dafni is a professor emeritus at the Department of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology at Haifa University, Israel. Besides his main research in pollination ecology he conducted, during the last 40 years, extensive ethnobotanical field studies. His publications and books in this discipline include: sacred trees, ritual plants, plants of the Bible, origin of plant's name as well as medicinal plants.

Medicinal Plants

Henry M. Sobell completed his studies at Brooklyn Technical High School (1948- 1952), Columbia College (1952-1956), and the University of Virginia School of Medicine (1956-1960). Instead of practicing clinical medicine, he then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to join Professor Alexander Rich in the Department of Biology (1960-1965), where, as a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow, he learned the technique of single crystal X-ray analysis. He then joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Rochester, having been subsequently jointly appointed to both the Chemistry and Molecular Biophysics departments (the latter at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry), becoming a full tenured Professor in both departments (1965-1993). He is now retired and living in the Adirondacks in New York, USA.

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Professor Raid Alany has over 25 years of international experience in pharmacy education, pharmaceutics and drug delivery research. His academic journey spans three continents, namely, Asia, Oceania and Europe. He received his PhD in drug delivery from the University of Otago, Dunedin New Zealand in 2001; was appointed as a Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, in 2001 where he was responsible for establishing the first pharmaceutics curriculum at The University of Auckland. He was promoted to a Senior Lecturer in 2004, appointed as Head of Pharmaceutics in 2007, promoted to Senior Lecturer above the bar in February 2009; appointed as Honorary Associate Professor in 2011. He joined Kingston University London as Professor (Chair) of Pharmaceutics in January 2011 and was appointed as Research Director for the School of Pharmacy and Chemistry in December 2013. He has been appointed as the Inaugural Head of School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry on 1st of June 2015. Raid won several awards such as Microscopy New Zealand Young Scientists Award in 1999 The University of Auckland's Vice Chancellor's Early Career Research Excellence Award in 2003, the Controlled Release Society Veterinary Programme co-chair/ chair Distinguished Service Awards in 2008/2009 and the Spark Ideas Challenge, Uniservices Prize and Chiasma Prize in 2011. He consults for human and veterinary pharmaceutical companies in New Zealand and Singapore and is an inventor on several international patents.

Ophthalmic Drug Delivery, Lipid and Surfactant Based Drug Delivery Systems, Delivery of Antisense, Oligonucleotides and siRNA, In Situ Gelling Systems, Veterinary Pharmaceuticals