Dr. Jin Zhang received her Bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University and her PhD in Chemistry from University of Chicago in 2000. After completing her postdoctoral work in the laboratory of the late Roger Tsien at UC San Diego, she joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2003. She was promoted to Professor of Pharmacology in 2013. In 2015 she moved back to UC San Diego and is currently Professor and vice Chair in Department of Pharmacology. Research in her lab focuses on developing enabling technologies to probe the active molecules in their native environment and characterizing how these active molecules change in diseases including cancer. Dr Zhang is a recipient of the Biophysical Society Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award (2009), NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (2009), John J. Abel Award in Pharmacology (2012), Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry (2012), NCI Outstanding Investigator Award (2015 and 2022), Robert R. Ruffolo Career Achievement Award in Pharmacology (2022), Protein Society Christian B. Anfinsen Award (2022) and Biophysical Society Carolyn Cohen Innovation Award from (2023). She was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2019 and a Fellow of American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics in 2021. Dr. Zhang also received UC San Diego Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Scholar Mentoring in 2019 and UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Outstanding Graduate Student Mentoring Award in 2022. She currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, on the External Advisory Board for Biophysics of the Johns Hopkins University and on the Basic Sciences External Advisory Council (BSEAC) of Vanderbilt University.

Roshanak Irannejad holds a B.S. in Microbiology and an M.S. in Immunology from Shahid Beheshti university of Tehran, Iran. In 2010, she received her Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology, under the supervision of Dr. Phil Wedegaertner, at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the laboratory of Dr. Mark von Zastrow. She is currently an associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Cardiovascular Research Institute at UCSF. She pioneered the development of novel nanobody-based biosensors that allowed visualization of G protein and G protein-coupled receptor (GPCRs) signaling in living cells. Using these tools, her lab discovered that signaling cues to cells not only act on GPCRs that reside on the cell surface but also on those on subcellular compartments such as endosomes and the Golgi apparatus. These ideas have resulted in both changes in the conceptual framework of the field and have opened new avenues for development of more effective and selective therapeutic strategies. The overall goal of her lab is to understand the roles of organelle-based signaling and membrane trafficking events as two key steps in cellular responses to external cues. In addition, her lab seeks to understand the molecular and physiological consequences of subcellular signaling at each location, particularly in the context of regulating cardiac function. She has been the recipient of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) early career award in 2023.