Dr. Shoenfeld has been working in his laboratory for years on deciphering the mechanisms of autoimmune diseases, and developing specific drugs for them, such as specific IVIG. He has educated a long list of students (N=43) being today heads of departments and institutes. His research includes experimental work on depression in autoimmune disorders such as in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and rheumatoid arthritis. One of Israel's top physicians and scientists, who has dedicated his life, as an investigative physician to deciphering the causality and mechanism of autoimmune diseases, to provide care for patients, and to develop innovative treatments, as well as to spread the scientific information through the professional and popular literature. In 2011, Dr. Shoenfeld described the new "ASIA" syndrome also recognized as "Shoenfeld's syndrome" (ASIA - Autoimmune Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants), and delineated the major and minor criteria (published in J. Autoimmunity 2015). His clinical and scientific works focus on autoimmune/rheumatic diseases, and he has published more than 1990 papers in journals such as New Eng J Med, Nature, Lancet, PNAS, J Clin Invest, J Immunol, Blood, FASEB, J Exp Med, Circulation, Cancer and others. His articles had over 65,000 citations. He has written more than 350 chapters in books, and has authored and edited 28 books, some of which became cornerstones in science and clinical practice, such as: "The Mosaic of Autoimmunity", "Infections and Autoimmunity", the textbooks "Autoantibodies" and "Diagnostic criteria of autoimmune diseases", "The environment geoepidemiology and autoimmune diseases", all of which were published by Elsevier and sold by the thousands. His book "Vaccines and Autoimmunity" was published by Wiley Blackwell Pub in 2015. He is on the editorial board of 32 journals in the field of autoimmunity and rheumatology, and is the founder and the editor of the IMAJ (Israel Medical Association Journal) the representative journal of science and medicine in the English language in Israel, and also is the founder and Editor of the "Autoimmunity Reviews" (Elsevier) (Impact factor 8.4) and Co-Editor of "Journal of Autoimmunity" (IF=7.9). For the last 20 years Dr. Shoenfeld is the Editor of "Harefuah" – The Israeli journal in medicine (Hebrew) and edited the Israel Medical Encyclopedia (10 volumes, 5000 items). He had organized over 20 international congresses in autoimmunity.

Director Emeritus at Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, and at Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany. Founding Director (1993), Director of Department of Immunology at Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin (1993 to 2019). Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Charité University Clinics Berlin, Germany. Faculty Fellow of Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas. Studied biology at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany, 1977 PhD (highest degree, summa cum laude). From 1987 to 1991 Professor for Medical Microbiology and Immunology, and from 1991 to 1998 Full Professor for Immunology at University of Ulm. Doctor Honoris Causa from Aix-Marseille University. Fellow of Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCP Edin). Honorary Professor of Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru; Guest Professor at Tongji University, School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Visiting Professor at Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China. Scientific interests: immunity to bacterial pathogens with emphasis on tuberculosis and rational design of vaccines and biosignatures. Developer of a tuberculosis vaccine in phase III clinical efficacy trial. Former President and honorary member of the German Society for Immunology; former President of European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS) and of International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). Initiator of the global Day of Immunology to raise public awareness in immunology, jointly organized by EFIS and IUIS annually. Chair of the Board of Schering Foundation. Member of the Scientific Advisory Board and member of the Board of Trustees of Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. Co-Chair of the Scientific Committee of World Health Summit. Board Member of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) from 2010 to 2013. Member of the Scientific Board of Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) from 2009 to 2014. Member of the Strategic Advisory Committee of European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) from 2014 to 2018. Member of the Executive Committee of Robert Koch Foundation from 2003 to 2019. Scientific advisor on “Health” for G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, in 2015 and for G20 summit in Hamburg in 2017. Numerous prestigious scientific awards, most recently Gagna A. & Ch. Van Heck Prize in 2018 from FNRS, Belgium. Coordinator of several international and interdisciplinary projects, e.g. Grand Challenge 6 of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from 2005 to 2016. > 900 publications mostly in high-ranking journals with > 72,000 citations, amongst the 0.01% most cited scientists of ca. 7 million scientists in 22 major scientific fields globally (PLoS Biol 17(8): e3000384, 2019), h-index of 141 (Google Scholar) / 111 (Thomson/ISI). Editor or member of editorial boards of numerous international scientific journals; member of numerous professional societies and academies including American Academy of Microbiology, Berlin–Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, World Innovation Foundation and European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).

Dr. García-Sastre is Professor in the Departments of Microbiology and Medicine andin the Tisch Cancer Center at Icahn School of Medicine Mount Sinai (ISMMS) in New York. He is also Director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute at ISMMS, and Principal Investigator for the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis (CRIP), one of five NIAID Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS). For the past 30 years, his research interest has been focused on the molecular biology, virus-host interactions, innate immunity and pathogenesis of influenza viruses and several other RNA viruses, as well as on the development of new vaccines and antivirals.He has more than 600 peer-reviewed publications in these areas of research.He has been President of the International Society for Vaccines in 2014-2015. He is Editor for the scientific journals PLoS Pathogens, Journal of Virology and Virus Research. In 2017, he has been elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy in Spain. In 2019, he was recognized with a Honorary Doctor Degree from the University of Burgos, Spain. Also in 2019, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the National Academy of Inventors.

Peter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D. is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Texas Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics. He is also University Professor at Baylor University, Fellow in Disease and Poverty at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University, Faculty Fellow with the Hagler Institute for Advanced Studies at Texas A&M University, and Health Policy Scholar in the Baylor Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy. Dr. Hotez is an internationally-recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development. As head of the Texas Children’s CVD, he leads a team and product development partnership for developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS/SARS-2 coronavirus, diseases affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide, while championing access to vaccines globally and in the United States. In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative he co-founded the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people

Jan Holmgren, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and founding Director of the Gothenburg University Vaccine Research Institute. He has published > 600 papers in microbiology, immunology and vaccinology, mainly on the mechanisms of disease and immunity in cholera and other gastrointestinal infections, mucosal immunology, and the development and evaluation of oral cholera vaccine (OCV) and related mucosal vaccines.His many scientific awardsinclude e.g. Jahre (Norway), Jeantet (Switzerland), Soderberg(Sweden), Fernstrom(Sweden), Sabin (USA), and Mahidol (Thailand); he is an elected member of several scientific academies; and he has served on the boards of many international health and science organisations, e.g. Gavi, icddr,b and IVI.

Dr. Kari Nadeau is the Naddisy Foundation Endowed Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and, Director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University. She is Section Chief in Asthma and Allergy in the Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Division at Stanford. She is the Sr. Director of Clinical Research for the Division of Hospital Medicine. For more than 30 years, she has devoted herself to understanding how environmental and immune/genetic factors affect allergies, immune tolerance, and asthma. She and her team are focused in areas of global climate change and health by studying air pollution and wildfire exposures, particularly in underserved areas. As one of the globe’s foremost experts in adult and pediatric allergy, immunology, and asthma, her research is laying the groundwork for a variety of potential future therapies to prevent and cure allergies and asthma. Dr. Nadeau leads a team of specialists spanning allergy, asthma, and immunology across Stanford University. She has been a pioneer in the field of Translational Allergy and Immunology, both defining the mechanism of new therapies and then translating them clinically to make transformative changes for patients and their families. She has led research in oncology, transplant, infectious diseases, COVID, and autoimmune trials and is a member of the National Steering Committee for the intramural clinical research programs at the NIH Immune Tolerance Network. She and her team have been awarded many patents and have started 4 biotech companies in the Bay Area under Stanford patents and has worked in industry to shepherd two drugs through the FDA to approval. She also is an author of the Lancet Countdown in Global Climate Change 2020 and the book: The End of Food Allergy (published 2020). Dr. Nadeau received her MD and PhD from Harvard Medical School through the NIH MSTP program. She completed a residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and a clinical fellowship in allergy, asthma and immunology at Stanford and at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Nadeau has served as a FDA consultant and a reviewer for NIH Study Sections. Also, she served on the environmental health policy committee for the American Thoracic Society, and serves on the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and is a fellow in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI). She started the Gordon Research Conference for Food Allergy and Chaired the first inaugural conference (2018). She is Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the NIH Clinical Center (2018-2021). She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), Association of American Physicians (AAP), the medical board of the American Lung Association in California, the Scientific Advisory Board of the EPA, and is currently working with the US Congress, the WHO, International Wildfire Policy Group, CUGH, and CA Governor’s office on Global Climate Change emergency preparedness plans. In addition to her above involvements, Dr. Nadeau contributes on multiple editorial boards for high impact journals and to date published over 300 peer-reviewed publications, and is a reviewer for high impact journals in basic science and clinical medicine (Nature, Nature Medicine, Science, Science Translational Medicine, Lancet, NEJM, JAMA, Allergy, JACI). She is also passionate about breaking down health barriers and creating meaningful change for children and adults in underserved areas and has developed outreach and educational programs with partners in East Palo Alto, Inner City Chicago, Harlem, and San Francisco. Her work has been recognized with numerous grants and awards. She has collaborated with many organizations and institutions. Through FARE, CoFAR, WHO, the United Nations and other partnerships, she collaborates with colleagues from institutions around the globe.

Dr. James Gulley is an internationally recognized expert in immunotherapy for cancer. He graduated from Loma Linda University in California with a PhD in microbiology in 1994 and an MD in 1995. As part of this eight-year MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Program, he completed a dissertation on tumor immunology. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Emory University in 1998, followed by a Medical Oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Dr. Gulley serves within the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) of the National Cancer Institute as Chief of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch (GMB), the Director of the Medical Oncology Service (CCR), and also Head of the Immunotherapy Section within the GMB. He has been instrumental in the clinical development multiple immunotherapeutic agents and has led multiple first-in-human immunotherapy studies through phase 3 clinical trials. He was the coordinating PI of an international trial of avelumab that led to regulatory approval. He serves as the coordinating PI of the international bintrafusp alfa, a bifunctional agent targeting PDL1 and TGF-beta. He also leads a number of rationally designed, cutting edge combination immunotherapy studies.

Dr. Lijuan Yuan is a full Professor of Virology and Immunology at the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. Using gnotobiotic pigs as modelsystems, her laboratory studieshost-pathogen interactions in enteric viral diseases including infectivity, pathogenesis, immunity, and influences of probiotics/prebiotics and gut microbiota,and develops intervention strategies to reduce viral diarrhea including passive prophylactics, therapeutics, and vaccines.Her research achievements have established her as one of a few experts in the world in developingand utilizing gnotobiotic pig models to study human enteric viruses and vaccine-induced immune responses and for pre-clinical evaluation of rotavirus and norovirus vaccines. She has published 108 scientific publications, including 78 peer-reviewed journal articles, 16 review articles and 14 book chapters. Her laboratory’s research projects are funded by National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, and various pharmaceutical/vaccine companies.

Dr. Robin Kochel is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Section of Psychology at Baylor College of Medicine and the Director of Research at the Meyer Center for Developmental Pediatrics and Autism at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, Texas, USA. Dr. Kochel's area of expertise is in the design and execution of clinical research studies focused on autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including a program of research on parents' perceptions about causes of ASD and their influence on health-related decisions/behaviors. Through this work, she became interested in vaccine hesitancy among parents of children with ASD compared to other parent groups and identifying factors that predict vaccine hesitancy. Dr. Kochel has extended this line of work to perceptions about COVID-19 vaccines, as well as novel strategies for addressing vaccine hesitancy.

Prof. José Sánchez-Vizcaíno DVM, Ph.D, DhC. UNIVERSITY COMPLUTENSE OF MADRID SPAIN He was born in Murcia, Spain. He obtained his DVM and Ph.D. degree at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. Subsequently, he did his postgraduate studies in animal immunology and virology at Cornell University, New York. Upon returning to Spain, he joined the National Institute of Agricultural and Food Research (INIA) where was Chief of the Animal Virology Department (1985-1988), Chief of the Animal Health Department (1988-1993) and Founder Director of the Animal Health Research Center BSL3+ (CISA-INIA) (1993-2002).Since 2002, he is a full Professor of Animal Health at the ComplutenseUniversity of Madrid (UCM) (www.ucm.es), and Director of the World Organization for the Animal Health (OIE) Reference laboratory for African swine fever and African horse sickness. The scientific works of Prof. Sanchez-Vizcaino have studied immunological mechanisms, and new epidemiological strategies for the control of some of the main transboundary animal virus diseases (ASF, CSF, PRRS, SVD, FMD, AHS, BTv, etc.). His research has proven of much relevance to help control and eradicate different viral diseases, such as African and classical swine fever, African Horse Sickness, etc. He has more than 200 scientific publications in international high-impact journals. He is the author of various chapters in international prestigious books. He was the IP of more of 150 international and national competitiveresearch projects and director of 34Ph.D thesis. He was awarded with the Medal of Merit of the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) and has gained international recognition to his outstanding services to global veterinary science (Paris, 5/24/2009). In addition, he has been awarded Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Murcia (04/22/2010); furthermore he has been nominated “2013 George C. Poppensiek Visiting Professor in Global Animal Health” by the Cornell University (09/2013). His current scientific interest focuses on the study of epidemiology and preventive medicine for infectious animal diseases, as well as developing new diagnostic techniques, new generation vaccines and new strategies for their control. At present is the coordinator of the EU project VACDIVA for “a safe and effective ASV DIVA Vaccine” and the project of “the potential role of pets as reservoirs of COVID 19”. More information:https://www.sanidadanimal.info/es/

Silvio Tafuri was born in Brindisi (Italy) on 1980, 17 August. He graduated in Medicine and Surgery at Bari School of Medicine in 2005; In 2008, he achieved post-degree in Public Health and since 2013 he is Ph.D. in Hygiene, Public Health and Food Safety. He is a consultant of the Apulian Observatory for Epidemiology in the field of vaccination strategies, surveillance of infectious diseases and of adverse events following immunization. Since 2014, he is Assistant Professor and since 2020 Associate Professor of Public Health at the Bari School of Medicine. He works as consultant in the Public Health Unit of the Policlinico Bari General Hospital, in which he is charged of the management of vaccination activities. In 2017, he achieved the National Scientific Qualification for Full professor of Public Health. He is author of 222 articles published in international scientific journals (IF 430, h-index 2); the major part of scientific paper is in the field of vaccinology and of the prevention of infectious diseases.

Kathleen Hefferon received her PhD from the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto and currently teaches microbiology at Cornell University. Kathleen has published multiple research papers, chapters and reviews, and has written three books. Kathleen is the Fulbright Canada Research Chair of Global Food Security and has been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto over the past year. Her research interests include the use of biotechnology to promote global health. Kathleen lives in New York with her husband and two children.

John J.S. Cadwell received his degree in pharmacology from the University of Miami in 1981. He spent additional time at the University of Nottingham and the National Institute of Medical Research at Mill Hill, U.K.. In 2000 he founded FiberCell Systems Inc., a company specializing in the development and supply of laboratory scale 3-D capillary hollow fiber bioreactors. He is also founder of FiberCell Laboratories, the research and development arm for FiberCell Systems. He has over 10 publications in the field and three patents relating to hollow fiber systems and has presented talks on various related topics at meetings around the world.

Dr. Stapleton completed medical school at the University of Kansas, and Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases training at the University of North Carolina. Following fellowship, he joined the faculty at the University of Iowa where he is a Professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine, Microbiology and Immunoloy. He conducts basic virology research on several positive strand RNA viruses including HAV, HCV, HIV, SARS CoV-2, and currently is working on viral modulation of immune cell functions. He has also conducted numerous HIV- and vaccine-related clinical trials. In addition to his work at the University, Dr. Stapleton has served or is currently serving on NIH and VA grant review study sections, the U.S. FDA Vaccines and Related Biologicals Advisory Committee, the U.S. FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee, the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses, and the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Infectious Diseases.

David Anderson is Deputy Director (Partnerships) and head of the Global Health Diagnostics Laboratory at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia, where he has spent his entire professional career since starting as a student in 1982. His work has led to diagnostic innovations including the Visitect® CD4 point of care tests for monitoring of CD4+ T-cells in HIV. His current research includes novel POC tests for COVID-19, liver disease, cirrhosis, sepsis, and active syphilis infection (TP-IgA. Building on the COVID-19 work, he has a major focus on novel applications of dimeric IgA in diagnostics, and monitoring of immune responses after infection or vaccination. In 2013 he led the establishment of Burnet spinoff company, Nanjing BioPoint Diagnostic Technology Ltd, to progress the development and commercialisation of a novel liver disease test and other diagnostics R&D from the Burnet

Dr. Babita Agrawal is a professor in the Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She completed M.Sc. in Biochemistry (1987) from Allahabad University, India, and Ph.D. in Immunology (1993) from the University of Alberta, Canada. After completing post-doctoral training, she joined a major Canadian biotech company in 1996 where she received outstanding R & D achievement awards and rose to the position of Manager and Head of Immunology Research. Her work focused on basic to translational research on novel immunotherapy and vaccine technologies, leading to clinical trials. In 2001, she joined the University of Alberta as an assistant professor and received a Medical Scholar Award in 2002 from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR). In 2007, she was promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure. In the same year, she obtained a Senior Scholar Award from the Alberta Innovates Health Solutions (AIHS). In 2013, she was promoted to full professor. She is an established investigator with proven leadership in immunotherapy and vaccine research. She has served as a scientific expert in grant panels of National Institutes of Health (NIH/NCI), U.S.A., Canadian Institutes of Health Research and provincial funding agencies, and international grant agencies from Hong Kong, China, UK, and South Africa. Her research focuses on studying immune regulation and innate and adaptive immune responses, in order to design and study novel vaccine and immunotherapeutic strategies. She has published several landmark papers in the field and has a number of issued patents.

Li Yu, Professor and Principle Investigator of Division of Livestock Infectious Diseases, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He focuses on the novel vaccines of FMDV, BRSV and BRV for research and development.

Viviane Maimoni Goncalves was graduated in Industrial Pharmacy (1991) and has Master’s Degree in Biotechnology (1997). She has completed her PhD in Biochemical Pharmaceutical Technology at University of São Paulo in 2001 and Postdoctoral studies at Pasteur Institute, Paris, France, in 2005. Since 1993, she has been working as a Scientific Researcher at Center of Biotechnology (now Laboratory of Vaccine Development) of Instituto Butantan, a public organization that is one of the main vaccine producers in Brazil. She has published 47 papers in international journals and supervised 14 graduate and PhD students. She is currently supervising 04 Ph.D. students and 03 Master’s Degree student. In 2020, she became the director of the Laboratory of Vaccine Development at Instituto Butantan. She has expertise in process development of vaccines and biopharmaceutical products, working on projects for development of the production process of capsular polysaccharides of Streptococcus pneumoniae, inactivated whole cell vaccine against S. pneumoniae, recombinant proteins of pneumococcus and Zika virus in high cell density cultures of Escherichia coli. Recently, she is involved on process development for production of recombinant bacillus Calmette- Guérin as a live attenuated vaccine and participates of a scale-down project for the optimization of hepatitis B vaccine production in recombinant yeast Pichia angusta.

Doctorate in genetics and molecular biology in the area of applied immunology by the biology institute of the unicamp. He currently belongs to the Proteomics, Pain and Inflammation Laboratory of the Universidad Católica de Santa Maria in Arequipa, Peru. the research line where I work is immunoinformatics with an emphasis on molecular mimicry.

Chinmayee Mishra is a UGC Junior Research Fellow doing PhD in Sociology at Utkal University, Odisha, India. She is also a guest faculty in the Department of Women's Studies at Utkal University, Odisha, India. She is pursuing her research on vulnerability and resilience of women in natural disaster. Her research interest include Disaster research, Sociology of Vulnerability and Environmental Sociology. Miss. Mishra is the General Secretary of Odisha Society for Sociological Imagination. As a volunteer she teaches Differently Abled Students who aspire for civil services examination.