Dr. Urmila M. Aswar is Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacology at Poona College of Pharmacy, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune. With over 20 years of teaching and research experience, she has devoted her career to advancing pharmacological sciences, specializing in neuropharmacology, metabolic disorders, and herbal medicine. She holds an M.Pharm. and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology, with expertise in preclinical studies and drug evaluation, and has led numerous funded projects with multiple publications to her credit. Throughout her academic journey, Dr. Aswar has mentored numerous postgraduate and doctoral students, fostering research excellence and scientific inquiry. She has received multiple prestigious awards, including the Women Achiever Award from the Rotary Club of Pune in 2023, and has secured research grants from both national and international organisations. Her research focuses on integrating traditional medicinal knowledge with modern pharmacological approaches to discover novel treatments for neurological and metabolic disorders. Dr. Aswar actively contributes to the scientific community as a resource person, committee member, and reviewer for various journals and forums. Committed to education and innovation, she strives to bridge the gap between traditional medicine and contemporary drug discovery, mentoring the next generation of researchers and advancing healthcare through rigorous scientific exploration.

Prof. Chinenye Jane Ugwah-Oguejiofor is a Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS), Nigeria. She holds a B. Pharm and a PhD from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), and an M.Sc. in Pharmacology from UDUS. Her research focuses on natural products for the prevention and management of diseases, particularly those affecting women. She also leads research groups exploring natural product-based interventions for Alzheimer’s disease and polycystic ovarian syndrome. Prof. Ugwah-Oguejiofor has supervised numerous M.Sc. and PhD students and has presented over fifty scientific papers at national and international meetings. She has published more than seventy peer-reviewed articles, secured multiple institutional and national research grants, and maintains active international collaborations, including with the Norxin Medical Research Cooperation Centre, China. She has also received several competitive travel grants. She serves as an Editor with BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies and is a member of the UDUS Human and Animal Ethics Committee. She belongs to PSN, NISPET, ASPET, and WASP and is the Immediate Past Chairperson of the Association of Lady Pharmacists, Sokoto Chapter.

Monica Suehiro is a PhD candidate at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS). She completed her Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences and Honours degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Monash University. Her research integrates iPSC-derived neuronal models, structural biology, and mass spectrometry to investigate the mechanisms underlying TDP-43–induced mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases. Monica is driven by a strong interest in the biological mechanisms that govern disease progression and aims for her work to help bridge discovery research and translational medicine in a field urgently in need of new therapeutic strategies.

Šárka Lehtonen is Research Director and group leader of the Human Brain Disease Modelling group at the A.I. Virtanen Institute, University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio. She studied pharmacy at Charles University in Prague and earned her doctoral degree at the University of Kuopio, focusing on Parkinson’s disease. As a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University in Brno, she broadened her pharmacology expertise into stem cell biology, which she now applies to model complex neurological disorders using human neurons and glial cells in 2D and 3D culture systems, including organoids and microfluidic chips. She played a central role in establishing the university’s Stem Cell Core Facility in Kuopio and leads a multidisciplinary team investigating early pathological events in neurodegeneration, including alpha-synuclein aggregation and its propagation in the central and peripheral autonomic nervous systems.

Professor Adam Walker is Chair of Pharmacological Sciences and FightMND Bill Guest Research Fellow in the Sydney Pharmacy School, and leads the Neurodegeneration Pathobiology Laboratory in the Charles Perkins Centre at The University of Sydney, with an Honorary appointment at the Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland. His work focuses on understanding the molecular causes and identifying potential therapeutic avenues including pre-clinical studies for neurodegenerative diseases including motor neuron disease (MND)/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Kino Sakase is a bachelor student in the Section of Neuromedical Science, Institute of Natural Medicine, University of Toyama, Japan. Her research focuses on neural repair and motor functional recovery in degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM). She investigates the effects of Acteoside on motor function in DCM model mice.