Dr. Hershko received his M.D. in 1965 and his Ph.D in 1969 from the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. He is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion in Haifa. Along with Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. Through the research earning the Nobel Prize, the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway was demonstrated to have a critical role in maintaining the homeostasis of cells and to be involved in the development and progression of diseases such as cancer, muscular and neurological diseases, and immune and inflammatory responses. Importantly, Dr. Hershko also advised that the development of the proteasome inhibitor Velcade be turned towards cancer, where it was eventually approved as a treatment for Multiple Myeloma.

Dr. Huang is Founder, Chairman and CEO of BeyondSpring and SEED Therapeutics. Dr. Huang received scientific training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where her breakthrough research in solving the first E2-E3 ubiquitin ligase structure involving P53 degradation was published in Science. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, where she won the graduating PhD woman award from Soroptimist International. Her translational research in cancer signaling pathways involving Ras was published in two Nature papers. Dr. Huang has more than a decade of entrepreneurial experience in the Chinese and U.S. biotechnology industry and invented and holds patents for a number of biotech products for oncology and dermatology indications. Prior to founding BeyondSpring and its pipeline of preclinical to Phase 3 assets, Dr. Huang co-founded WuXi MTLH Biotechnology Co. Ltd., and designed cancer peptide drug whose China rights were acquired in 2010 by Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group, one of the top three pharmaceutical companies in China. She also co-founded Paramax International, a clinical CRO company in China, sold to RPS (a global CRO), then to Warburg Pincus in 2011. At BeyondSpring, Dr. Huang has taken the company public (NASDAQ:BYSI) and advanced the main small molecule asset, plinabulin, through NDA filing in the US and China.

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Dr. Zheng is a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Ning Zheng seeks to understand the intricate interactions and coordinated functions of proteins and signaling molecules found in plants and animals, including humans. Using a structural biology approach, Zheng and his team conduct studies that span several interwoven research areas, including ubiquitination, transcription, plant biology, ion channels, circadian clocks, and drug discovery. Their overarching goal is to apply the underlying biological principles they learn to the development of novel therapeutics as well as to the planet’s ecological balance. Dr. Zheng pioneered the concept of Molecular Glue with his determination of the mechanism of action of the plant hormones auxin and jasmonate. Moreover, utilizing over 20 years’ experience discovering the structural biology of ubiquitin ligases, Ning demonstrated the potential to utilize high throughput screening of small molecule libraries to discover molecules that can induce productive protein-protein interaction between a ubiquitin ligase and a protein being targeted for degradation.

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Dr. Pagano is the Chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Department and the May Ellen and Gerald Jay Ritter Professor of Oncology at the New York University School of Medicine. He is also an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Pagano studies the large family of human ubiquitin ligase enzymes, essential factors in the degradation of cellular regulatory proteins. His laboratory utilizes discovery-driven data analyses to explore new areas of research. As a result, he has expanded his work – initially focused on cell-cycle control – to encompass multiple aspects of cellular signaling involving ubiquitin ligase enzymes. Another major goal of his research team is to reveal key regulatory mechanisms underlying fundamental biological responses and behaviors for which dysregulation results in cancer. His long-term goal is to develop new anticancer therapies based on novel concepts of protein degradation. Dr. Pagano’s experience co-founding Mitotix Inc. and pioneering the concept of targeting CDK inhibitors for the treatment of cancer provide him with valuable insights into successful drug development out of basic research discoveries.