Professor Dembinski and his students are pursuing at present the synthesis of analogs of natural products, particularly coordination complexes of nucleosides and nucleotides. The abundance of various metals with different coordination numbers, geometry and redox potentials makes their combination with natural products a powerful tool for the construction of modified biomolecules. Novel methodologies for the synthesis of pharmaceutically active classes of heterocycles are being pursued. It is expected that such modified molecules may exhibit interesting biological properties. The ultimate goal of these studies is to synthesize materials that exhibit antiviral, anticancer, antisense properties, serve as bio-probes, and to develop new synthetic methodologies.

Professor Y. George Zheng is the Donald Panoz Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences at University of Georgia. He received B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemistry from Peking University, Beijing, and Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry from University of Miami, Florida, and conducted his postdoctoral training in pharmacology in Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Zheng’s research group innovates cutting-edge chemical biology tools and medicinal chemistry compounds to address critical challenges in the rapidly evolving field of epigenetics that describes gene expression profile changes that are apart from genetic sequence. Particular emphasis is on the mechanistic elucidation and the design of inhibitors of histone modifying enzyme-regulated cellular processes in physiology and pathology. His lab research has been constantly supported by NIH, NSF, and AHA grants. Dr. Zheng has been supervising high school summer-intern students, undergraduate students, Masters and doctoral graduate students, and post-doctoral trainees.

The research interests of Axel Klein spread over various fields including photochemistry and photophysics of transition metal complexes, organometallic catalysis, bioinorganic chemistry, cytotoxic complexes, organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites, and modification of nanomaterials. Axel Klein is involved in worldwide international collaborations. He is the (co)author of more than 290 research papers, reviews, book chapters, and books. Axel Klein is currently the Section Editor of Inorganic Chemistry for the journal Molecules (MDPI) and editorial board member (EBM) for the journal Inorganics (MDPI). He has provided over 930 reviews for journals and is an active reviewer for funding agencies worldwide.

Giuseppe Cirillo is Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology at the Department of Pharmacy, Health and Nutritional Sciences, University of Calabria, Italy. His research focuses on the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of multifunctional polymeric and hybrid materials for drug delivery and biomedical applications. His work is particularly devoted to hybrid platforms combining organic polymers with carbon- and gold-based nanomaterials to obtain innovative materials with enhanced properties. The ultimate goal of his research is to develop multifunctional, stimuli-responsive systems capable of selectively delivering bioactive molecules to diseased tissues through active targeting strategies. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Materials Chemistry Section of the MDPI journal Molecules.

Dr. Gilles Mailhot completed his PhD in Photochemistry in 1991 and joined the CNRS as a researcher in October 1992. He is currently a Senior Research Director at both the Institute of Chemistry of Clermont-Ferrand (ICCF) and the Laboratory of Physical Meteorology (LaMP), where he also serves as director. Both laboratories are part of the University Clermont Auvergne in France. Professor Mailhot has held visiting professorships at the University of California, Berkeley (2000), Fudan University (2013–2014), and Wuhan University (2019). He recently established an International Associated Laboratory (IAL) with Wuhan University. Throughout his career, he has co-supervised 31 PhD students and co-authored 240 scientific publications (Google Scholar : H index = 61, more than 11200 citations) He has coordinated numerous national and international research projects, many in collaboration with Chinese universities. His scientific work focuses on chemistry and photochemistry in aquatic environments, with applications in water treatment and atmospheric chemistry. His current research centers on the protection and sustainable management of water resources.