Robert S. Marks is a professor at the Department of Biotechnology Engineering, at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. His PhD was at the Weizmann Institute, Israel and postdoctorate at the University of Cambridge, England. He has established in 1995 a biosensors laboratory at the Ben Gurion University, Israel, resulting in over 100 publications, 20 chapters, and 4 granted patents. His work consists in the development of fiber-optic probes, including both novel interfacial functionalization chemistries as well as transducer configuration, including, fiber-optic immunosensors (Ebola, Dengue, West Nile, Rift Valley fever viruses, Hepatitis C, Brucella and cholera toxin), and fiber-optic bioreporter biosensors (both for on-site testing or flow-through devices) for water monitoring (genotoxicity, cytotoxicity, heavy metals, endocrine disrupting compounds). Other projects consist in developing a chemiluminescent bioreporter nanotoxicity system, development of a reverse genetics cell reporter assay to influenza, and bioreporter panel fingerprints for the discovery of bioactive agents (antibiotics, quorum sensor inhibitors from marine microorganisms). Nanobiotechnology, including nanolithography, metal enhanced fluorescence or bioluminescence, nanoantennas, tailored nanomaterials including conductive or affinity hydrogels. He has chaired 16 international conferences, has given 64 invited and 45 contributed lectures at conferences, 160 posters presentation with colleagues and students, and 79 academic lectures around the world. He is affiliated to the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev and the Ilse Katz Center for Meso and Nano-scale Science and Technology, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland (UMBC) and at the Nanyang Technological University (MSE) where he heads the Water thrust of the NRF CREATE center Nanomaterials for Energy and Water Management, He was the editor-in-chief for the Wiley 2 Handbooks on Biosensors and Biochips and is presently the founding editor of the Pan Stanford series of the High Tech of Biotechnology.
Leslie Lobel earned his BA, summa cum laude, in chemistry from Columbia College of Columbia University and attended the Medical Scientist Training Program at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, earning his MD and PhD in 1988. He was awarded a Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship for postdoctoral training. After postdoctoral work in the laboratory of H. Robert Horvitz at MIT, he returned to the Department of Medicine at Columbia University before moving to the Department of Virology at Ben Gurion University, where he set up a laboratory of immunovirology and viral therapeutics in 2003. His work includes studies on the profile of the immune response to various viral diseases.
Amadou Alpha Sall is a virologist and has a PhD in public health. He received his scientific education in France at the universities Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, Paris-Sud, Orsay, and Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris. Currently he is the head of the Arboviruses and Viral Hemorrhagic Fever unit, director of the WHO collaborating center, and scientific director of Institut Pasteur de Dakar, which belongs to the Institut Pasteur International Network. His research focuses primarily on ecology and evolution of arboviruses and viral hemorrhagic fever. He has published more than 80 papers and book chapters and presented more than 100 scientific papers in international conferences. Dr. Sall is a recipient of the Senegal Presidential Award for Science and is a member of the Senegal National Academy of Science and Technology.
