Prof. Sabine Szunerits obtained her PhD in 1998 from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, UK, then spent two years at the ENS Paris as a postdoctoral fellow financed by the Schrödinger-Auslandsstipendium (Austria). This was followed by several postdoctoral positions at Tufts University, Boston, USA, ENSCPB, Bordeaux, and CEA Grenoble. In 2004 she became a Full Professor at the INP Grenoble (Laboratoire d’Electrochimie et de Physico-Chimie des Matériaux et des Interfaces). After a CNRS delegation of 2 years at the Institut d’Electronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie, Lille, she was appointed Full Professor at the University of Lille (ULille) in 2009. In 2010 she was appointed a junior member at the “Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) for a period of 5 years.
She is a co-author of more than 360 research publications, 12 cover articles, has edited 4 books, and wrote 20 book chapters on subjects related to nanotechnology, materials chemistry, and biosensors. In 2018 the CNRS honoured her with the “médaille d’argent du CNRS” for her contribution to sensors and nanomedicine for fighting against bacterial and viral infections. She was involved in several European Projects including FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IRSES-Materials and Interfaces for Energy Storage and Conversion (MATCON)), and FLAG-ERA JTC 2015- Graphene‐based opto-electrochemical sensor for the simultaneous monitoring of the electrical and chemical activity of single cells (Graphtivity). She has been coordinating the Marie Curie action FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IRSES-Photorelease-fabrication of particles with photo-receptors, and is currently coordinating the Marie Curie action (H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015 - Pathogen and Graphene (PANG)), involving 7 different academic and industrial partners. She was ISE Regional Representative of France between 2017-2019, is currently one of the editors of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, and is on the Editorial Advisory Board Member of ACS Sensors and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Her current research interests are in the area of materials science for sensing and transdermal delivery, as well as the development of nanostructures against viral and bacterial infections.

Congcong Xu, Ph.D., serves as an Associate Professor at the International College of Pharmaceutical Innovation of Soochow University. He is a recipient of the Shanghai Pujiang Talent Program and Jiangsu Provincial Young Elite Talent Support Initiative. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Hunan University and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy. From 2020-2023, as the Head of mRNA Platform R&D at a leading mRNA therapeutics company, Prof. Xu co-developed the mRNA AI algorithm LinearDesign (Nature, 2023) in collaboration with Baidu Research USA, and pioneered the circular RNA AI algorithm circDesign (bioRxiv, 2023). He advanced mRNA-based personalized cancer vaccines into clinical trials in Australia and investigator-initiated trials at Shanghai East Hospital (Science Advances, 2024), and facilitated the overseas clinical development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines (EClinicalMedicine, 2024). Appointed as a Young Distinguished Professor at Soochow University in 2023, he currently leads or participates in multiple national and municipal research programs, including the National Key R&D Program, Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan, and Suzhou Medical Research Projects. He serves as the Young Executive Editor-in-Chief of BME Horizon. Prof. Xu has authored/co-authored numerous high-impact publications in journals such as Nature, Science Advances, Nano Today, and Nano Research as first/corresponding author. His intellectual contributions include 5 granted international patents and 5 pending domestic patent applications related to RNA therapeutics.