Dr. Colwell is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland College Park and at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a Global Science Officer and Chairman emeritus at Canon U.S. Life Sciences, Inc., and founder and chairman at CosmosID, Inc. Dr.Colwell is recognized for her significant, life-saving contributions in the areas of global infectious diseases, water, and health and served as the 11th Director of the National Science Foundation, 1998-2004. Dr.Colwell has held many advisory positions in the U.S. Government, non-profit science policy organizations, and private foundations, as well as in the international scientific research community.

Dr. Mayor is the Director and Head of Cellular Organization and Signalling Group at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore. At NCBS, Dr. Mayor has taken a multidisciplinary approach combining cell biology with physics and chemistry to study the organization and endocytic trafficking of membrane lipids, transmembrane and lipid-anchored proteins in membranes of living cells. Dr. Mayor serves on the editorial boards of several international journals and on the scientific board of a number of companies in the Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering fields. Dr. Mayor has received many awards and accolades including the distinguished Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Mérite (National Order of Merit) in recognition of his extensive efforts in supporting Indo-French scientific collaborations, Infosys Prize for Life Sciences (2012), TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences) and other honors of international and national repute. Dr. Mayor has been nominated to the Council of the American Society of Cell Biology.

Prof. B. Ananthanarayan (B. Tech. Chemical Engineering 1980-85, IIT Madras, MS Physics, University of Delaware, USA, 1988, Ph. D. Physics, University of Delaware, USA, 1991) is professor and former chairman of the Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, after having joined there in 1996 after post-doctoral terms at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and Universities of Lausanne, and University of Bern, Switzerland. He is an author of over 100 research publications in highly regarded international refereed journals, and is an acclaimed researcher and teacher, and also popularizer of science and member, past and present, of editorial boards of Springer publications as well as of Current Science. He has been an informal advisor and well-wisher of Avesthagen group of companies for many years.

Dr. Bowler is the CNRS Director of Research at the Institut de Biologie del’Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Using genomics approaches, he studies the biology of plants and a group of marine phytoplankton known as diatoms. He is the scientific coordinator of the Tara Oceans expedition, which is analysing plankton in the global ocean using high-throughput DNA sequencing and cellular imaging approaches. Dr. Bowler completed his PhD at the Ghent University, in Belgium, followed by postdoctoral studies at the Rockefeller University, in New York. In 1994, he established his own research group working on higher plants and marine diatoms at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, in Naples, Italy, and in 2002, he took up his current position in Paris. He has been an EMBO member since 1995 and was the recipient of a CNRS Silver Medal in 2010, an ERC Advanced Grant in 2011, and a Fondation Louis D. Grand Prix from the Institut de France in 2015.

Dr. Villoo Morawala-Patell is the Founder and CMD of Avesthagen Limited, AGENOME LLC and The Avestagenome Project®. Dr.Villoo Morawala Patell is an innovator and an expert in international biotechnology development, academic and corporate leadership with a longstanding interest in global development leading to establishment of global networks and alliances with academia and industry. Dr. Villoo Patell is the recipient of many awards of international and national acclaim as a scientist and as an entrepreneur including the French National Order “L’officier du Merite”, ‘Karmaveer Puraskar’ award, “Parsi Entrepreneur par Excellence Award”, “Outstanding women entrepreneur of the year” awards and grants from the J.N. TATA and The Rockefeller Foundation.