Dr. Emma van der Westhuizen is a Senior Research Officer at St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research. She received her BSc (Hons) degree from the University of Melbourne (Australia) and her PhD from Monash University (Australia). She has completed post-doctoral research at the University of Montreal (Canada) and at Monash University (Australia), as an independently funded post-doctoral scholar (NHMRC, Australia; CIHR, Canada; FRSQ, Canada). Emma designs novel therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative diseases, within a collaborative multidisciplinary team. Emma strives to bridge the gap between research capabilities and clinical possibilities, by translating lead compounds from the developmental and experimental phases through to pre-clinical and clinical use.

Professor Ross Bathgate is a group leader at the Florey Institute and is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is a molecular pharmacologist with broad expertise in bioactive peptides and their G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). He has authored over 300 publications, is an inventor on 15 patents and was listed in the 2019 and 2020 world's most highly cited researchers for Pharmacology and Toxicology (Web of Science). He works closely with a number of pharmaceutical companies interested in the clinical development of GPCR-targeted therapeutics.

Following completion of her PhD research at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Dr Natasha Dale joined the Cell Signalling Institute at the University of Nottingham as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. In this role, Dr Dale works alongside medicinal chemists to use structure-activity-relationship-informed drug design to develop novel molecular scaffolds to antagonise the purinergic P2Y2 receptor. Dr Dale was previously the ASCEPT Drug Discovery Special Interest Group student representative throughout her PhD as well as Chair of the Harry Perkins Institute Student Committee.

Dr Arisbel B. Gondin is a DECRA Fellow and NHMRC EL1 Investigator at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, with expertise in drug discovery and the structural biology of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Her research program focuses on the molecular pharmacology of opioid receptors, with a particular interest in developing safer therapeutic strategies for pain management through allosteric modulation. By integrating cryo-EM structural analysis, and pharmacological profiling, Dr Gondin aims to uncover the mechanistic basis of receptor modulation and guide rational drug design.

Since relocation from the UK's dedicated MRC Center for Drug Safety Science in 2019, Associate Professor Andrew Gibson leads the drug hypersensitivity focussed research group at the Personalised Medicine Center at Murdoch University, Western Australia. He was awarded an NHMRC ideas grant in 2023, an Ian Potter Infrastructure award in 2024, and published the first single-cell atlas of skin during Stevens Johnson Syndrome in 2024 to elucidate shared cell signatures towards the development of the first targeted treatments. His work continues to focus on the use of advanced genomic tools to define genetic, cellular, and structural risk factors predisposing patients to severe cutaneous adverse drug reactions.

A higher degree by research student at the University of Sydney under the supervision of A/Prof Sophie Stocker (School of Pharmacy). My work focuses on the implementation of pharmacogenomics into clinical practice.