Dr. Hitoshi Kasai received Ph.D. from Tohoku University in 1996 and has been a full professor at the same institute since 2016. During his Ph.D., he was majored in the creation of organic crystals with the main focus was on their electronics and photonics applications. Not long after, he realized the extreme potential of the technique in the creation of nanocrystals composed of pure anticancer drug molecules. The obtained nano-prodrugs showed greatly enhanced delivery efficacy while reducing the side effects which were usually caused by drug carrier materials in the conventional methods. With the great dedication for the last decade, his laboratory has become one of the first pioneers in the field and gradually strengthen the possibility of the carrier-free DDS. Until date, he has co-authored more than 300 publications including original papers, reviewing articles, book chapters, and patents.Dr. Hiroshi Uji-I completed his Ph.D. at Tohoku University in 2002 and became a professor at the Research Institute for Electronic Science at Hokkaido University in 2015. He also serves as a research professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leuven in Belgium. He has spent 16 years in Europe devoting to innovation of scientific researches collaborating with other internationally acclaimed scientists. He travels between Japan and Belgium frequently as a head of the research groups in both countries. His research interests lie in establishment of a methodology for investigation and manipulation of molecules, with a focus on nanomaterials and nanoscopy. He was awarded with European Research Council in 2011 and JST PRESTO research fellowship in 2010. To date, he has co-authored over 150 publications including original papers, reviewing articles, book chapters, and patents.Dr. Johan Hofkens studied Chemistry at the KU Leuven (1984-1988), where he also obtained a Ph.D. degree in 1993, for his thesis on "Photoinducedintramolecular charge transfer in donor/acceptor substituted aromatics" (maxima cum laude). He is a professor at KU Leuven since 2002 and later promoted to the head of Subdivision Single Molecules in the same institute. He is a co-author of more than 700 articles in leading chemistry and multidisciplinary journals. His research interests are fast spectroscopy, single-molecule spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy, and the development of new microscopy modes as well as applications of these microscopy modalities in nanobiological and nanomaterials research. Current research topics include optical mapping of DNA, luminescent noble metal clusters, perovskites, and nanofluidics in optical trapping, among others.
