Takeshi Wada is a Professor of Organic Chemistry at Tokyo University of Science in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He is also a founder and scientific adviser of Wave Life Sciences. In 1991, he received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he worked as an Assistant Professor from 1991 to 1999. Following this, he moved to the University of Tokyo as an Associate Professor and worked in this role from 1999 to 2013. In 2013, he was promoted to a full Professor at Tokyo University of Science. His research interests have focused on the design and synthesis of artificial biomolecules, including nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and peptides. His outstanding contribution to the field of nucleic acid chemistry has been the invention of a practical method for synthesizing stereopure P-modified oligonucleotide analogs, which are useful as nucleic acid drugs. Based on this platform technology, he founded Chiralgen Ltd. in 2008. The company was integrated with Ontorii Inc. to establish Wave Life Sciences in 2012. In 2018, he received the Society Award of the Nucleic Acids Therapeutics Society of Japan (NatsJ). He served as the President of the Japan Society of Nucleic Acids Chemistry (JSNAC) from 2020 to 2024. In 2023, he co-founded ANRis Inc., a new venture developing RNAi therapeutics, and has served as a scientific advisor to the company. Since 2024, he has also been a Specially Appointed Professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo.

Yoanes Maria Vianney is a FWO postdoctoral fellow at Ghent University under Prof. José C. Martins. He pursued his Ph.D. in the Analytical Biochemistry group at Universität Greifswald, Germany, under the guidance of Prof. Klaus Weisz (2019-2023). His doctoral research focused on nucleic acid biophysics and biochemistry, particularly on the NMR-based structural characterization and thermodynamic studies of non-canonical structures, such as G-quadruplexes, and their interactions with small molecules. During his Ph.D., he also served as a guest lecturer in the Bachelor's program at his alma mater, the Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Surabaya. His current research focuses on the structural and thermodynamic characterization of DNA aptamers for small-molecule recognition. As part of his FWO postdoctoral fellowship, he is also undertaking a secondment with Prof. Karolien De Wael at the University of Antwerp, where he is receiving training in nucleic acid-based electrochemical biosensors.

Glenn A. Burley (GAB) is Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of Strathclyde. GAB was awarded a Bachelor of Medicinal Chemistry (Hon. I) and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Wollongong, Australia. GAB was a post-doctoral fellow in the Fullerene Science Centre at the University of Sussex (2001-2003) and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Munich (2004-2006). GAB began his independent career as an EPSRC Advanced Fellow in 2007 at the University of Leicester, before moving to Strathclyde in 2011.

2015- Present Professor, Nagoya University University, Japan 2013-2015 Associate Professor, Hokkaido University, Japan 2005-2013 Researcher, RIKEN, Japan 2002-2005 Prof. Eric Kool, Stanford University, USA 2001-2002 Prof. Joanne Stubbe, Massachusetts Institute Technology, USA 2001 PhD Prof. Akira Matsuda, Hokkaido University, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences 1998 MS Hokkaido University, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences 1996 BS Hokkaido University, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Interests: Chemical Biology of Nucleic Acids, RNA therapeutics Hiroshi Abe is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Japan. He is a leading researcher in the field of chemical biology of nucleic acids and RNA therapeutics. Professor Abe received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Hokkaido University under the supervision of Professor Akira Matsuda. He also holds an M.S. and B.S. from Hokkaido University's School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Before joining Nagoya University in 2015, he served as an Associate Professor at Hokkaido University (2013-2015) and as a Researcher at RIKEN (2005-2013). His postdoctoral research was conducted under the guidance of Professor Eric Kool at Stanford University (2002-2005) and Professor Joanne Stubbe at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2001-2002). Professor Abe's work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Incentive Award of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (2010), the Japanese Society of Nucleic Acid Medicine Award for Chemistry-Based Nucleic Acid Drug Research (2020), and the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry Corporate Endowed Award, Kaneka Life Science Award (2024). His research has led to significant advancements in RNA therapeutics and chemical biology. Some of his notable works include studies on cap analogs with hydrophobic photocleavable tags, complete chemical synthesis of minimal messenger RNA, and chemical modification of mRNA for more efficient protein synthesis. He has founded Crafton biotechnology. Professor Abe can be contacted at abe.hiroshi.p4@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp, and his office is located at the Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8602, Japan.

Dr. Dong Wang obtained his B.S. at Peking University and Ph.D. with Dr. Stephen Lippard at MIT. Dr. Wang then joined Dr. Roger Kornberg’s group at Stanford University as a postdoc fellow. Dr. Wang joined UC San Diego faculty in 2010 and was promoted to full professor in 2019. Dr. Wang's research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of transcription and DNA repair as well as transcription recognition of expanded genetic alphabets .

Dr. Meiling Li earned her PhD from the University of Oxford and completed her postdoctoral training in the RNA field at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. She joined Roche in 2017 as a nucleic acid chemist and currently works as a Project Leader. Her expertise spans diverse projects in areas such as CNS and Ophthalmology, involving various stages of drug development, including oligonucleotide design, project management, and ASO/siRNA delivery techniques.