Andrew Zachary Fire received a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978 and a Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He became a staff member of the Carnegie Institute of Washington’s Department of Embryology in Baltimore in 1986, where he began work on double-stranded RNA as a gene silencer. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Craig C. Mello, for the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi), a mechanism in which genes are silenced by double-stranded RNA. Possible applications of RNAi include developing treatments for such diseases as AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis. Dr. Fire joined the faculty as a Professor of Pathology and Genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2003. His current research interests include the mechanisms by which cells and organisms respond to genetic change. These include mechanisms activated during normal development and systems for detecting and responding to foreign genetic activity. Much of the current effort in his lab at Stanford University is directed toward a molecular understanding of the RNAi machinery and its roles in the cell. Throughout his career, all of the major work in Dr. Fire’s labs has been supported by research grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on the Board of Scientific Counselors and the National Center for Biotechnology, National Institutes of Health.

     Douglas A. Lauffenburger is an Uncas & Helen Whitaker Professor of Bioengineering and Head of the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also hold appointments in the Departments of Biology and Chemical Engineering. He is a member of the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center, the Center for Biomedical Engineering, the Center for Cancer Research, and the Center for Environmental Health Sciences. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the Computational & Systems Biology Initiative.
     Dr. Lauffenburger has served as a consultant or scientific advisory board member for the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, the Whitaker Foundation, and many biomedical companies. A few of his awards include the Pierre Galletti Award, the W.H. Walker Award, and the Distinguished Lecture Award from BMES. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and has served as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society. Dr. Lauffenburger's major research interests are in cell engineering: the fusion of engineering with molecular cell biology. A central focus of his research program is in receptor-mediated cell communication and intracellular signal transduction, with emphasis on development of predictive computational models derived from quantitative experimental studies, for cell cue/signal/response relationships important in pathophysiology with application to drug discovery and development.

     In 1949, Earl Bakken co-founded Medtronic, one of the world's leading developers and manufacturers of therapeutic medical devices, as a partnership with the late Palmer J. Hermundslie. Bakken was Medtronic's chief executive officer and chairman of the board from the company's incorporation in 1957 until 1976. He was senior chairman of the board through 1989 and retired from the board in August 1994. Bakken remains actively involved in Medtronic company relationships. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1948, he studied electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics at the University of Minnesota Graduate School. Bakken developed the first wearable, external, battery-powered, transistorized pacemaker in 1957 for Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, a University of Minnesota heart surgeon. In 1975, Bakken founded The Bakken, a nonprofit library museum and educational center devoted to the history of electricity and magnetism and their use in medicine and life sciences. Earl Bakken has received a number of awards and honorary doctor's degrees, in recognition of his pioneering contribution to implantable cardiac pacemaker and therapeutic medical devices. Dr. Bakken received IEEE Eli Lilly Award in Medical and Biological Engineering in 1994 for pioneering development and commercialization of implantable cardiac pacemakers, and shared the National Academy of Engineering's 2001 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, with Wilson Greatbatch, for their independent development of the implantable cardiac pacemaker. Dr. Bakken is a member of National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of IEEE and Instrument Society of America, and an Honorary Fellow of AIMBE, ACC, BMES, International College of Surgeons, and Heart Rhythm Society.

     Gary H. Glover received his BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. He is a Professor of Radiology, Neurosciences and Biophysics, and, by courtesy, Electrical Engineering and Psychology, and is Director of the Radiological Sciences Lab at Stanford University. His research interests have been in medical imaging for nearly 35 years, and presently encompass the physics and mathematics of imaging with Magnetic Resonance. He has over 50 issued U.S. Patents and has published over 300 publications in the field of medical imaging. Dr. Glover has won the Gold Medal from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) and the Outstanding Researcher Award from the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
     Dr. Glover is a Fellow of ISMRM and AIMBE and has served as the President of ISMRM. He has served on numerous advisory committees and editorial boards. Currently he is a member of the Editorial Boards for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (JMRI) and Current Medical Imaging Reviews. He is a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the NIH.

     Lihong Wang studied for his Ph.D. degree at Rice University, Houston, Texas under the tutelage of Drs. Robert Curl, Richard Smalley and Frank Tittel. Dr. Wang has authored and co-authored two books, including one of the first textbooks in the field of biomedical optics, published close to 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, and delivered ~200 keynote, plenary, and invited talks. He is the editor for the first comprehensive book on biomedical photoacoustic tomography, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Biomedical Optics. Currently he serves as an equal co-chair for the International Biomedical Optics Society. He has served as a study section chair or grant reviewer for NIH, NSF, etc., and is currently a chartered member on an NIH study section. His research on non-ionizing biophotonic imaging has been funded by NIH with more than $20M (Dr. Wang as the principal investigator on 12 grants), NSF, and other funding agencies. He was a recipient of the NIH FIRST award and NSF CAREER award. His laboratory invented or discovered frequency-swept ultrasound-modulated optical tomography, dark-field confocal photoacoustic microscopy (PAM), optical-resolution PAM, photoacoustic Doppler sensing, photoacoustic reporter gene imaging, focused scanning microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography, exact reconstruction algorithms for photoacoustic or thermoacoustic tomography, sonoluminescence tomography, Mueller-matrix optical coherence tomography, optical coherence computed tomography, and oblique-incidence reflectometry. In particular, PAM has reached super-depth for biochemical, functional, and molecular imaging in living tissue at high resolution. His Monte Carlo model of photon transport in scattering media has been used worldwide. Dr. Wang is a Fellow of IEEE, AIMBE, OSA, and SPIE.

     Kamil Ugurbil is a Professor in the Departments of Radiology, Neurosciences, and Medicine, the McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair of Radiology, and the Director of the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Ugurbil was educated at Columbia University, New York, where he received A.B. and Ph.D. degrees in physics and chemical physics, respectively. He worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories after receiving his Ph.D. in 1977, and subsequently returned to Columbia University in 1979 as an Assistant Professor. In 1982, he moved to the University of Minnesota where he started the in vivo magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy research effort, which ultimately led to the creation of CMRR. His current research interests include the development of ultrahigh magnetic resonance methodology for MR imaging and spectroscopy, high specificity and high resolution mapping of brain function using MR methods and ultra high magnetic fields, mechanisms of coupling of MR detectable signals to brain activity, oxidative-metabolism in the brain and neurochemistry, and cardiac bioenergetics- regulation of oxidative phosphorylation and mechanical work. Dr. Ugurbil was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and elected into the National Academy of Sciences (USA) - Institute of Medicine in 2007.

     José C. Príncipe is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering and the BellSouth Professor at the University of Florida. He is also the Founder and Director of the Computational NeuroEngineering Laboratory (CNEL) at the University of Florida. He joined the University of Florida in 1987 after an eight-year appointment as Professor at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. Dr. Príncipe holds degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Porto (Bachelor), Portugal, and the University of Florida (M.Sc. and Ph.D.), USA, and a Laurea Honoris Causa degree from the Universita Mediterranea in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Dr. Príncipe’s interests lie in nonlinear non-Gaussian optimal signal processing and modeling and in biomedical engineering. He received the Career Achievements Award and Service Award from IEEE EMBS, and Gabor Award from the International Neural Network Society. Dr. Príncipe is a Fellow of the IEEE and AIMBE, past President of the International Neural Network Society, and past Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering, as well as a former member of the Advisory Science Board of the FDA. He is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Principe is author of more than 400 refereed publications.

     Abass Alavi is a Professor of Radiology and Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the Chief of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. He is also Medical Director of the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and an internationally recognized expert in modern imaging techniques and the clinical applications of PET imaging for the detection of cancer and other serious disorders including dementia, seizures, cardiovascular disease, and infection. Dr. Alavi’s contributions to the field of nuclear medicine, and in particular his work in PET, earned him the 2004 Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Medicine Pioneer Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine. He also received an honorary doctor of science degree from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Bologna. Dr. Alavi is associated with the Alavi-Mandell Awards, which recognize trainees and young scientists who publish articles as senior authors in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, and the Bradley-Alavi Student Fellowship Awards. He also serves on the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s Education and Research Foundation Board of Directors and is involved in numerous Society activities.

     Peter Hunter completed an engineering degree in 1971 in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (now Engineering Science) at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, a Master of Engineering degree in 1972 (Auckland) on solving the equations of arterial blood flow and a DPhil (PhD) in Physiology at the University of Oxford in 1975 on finite element modeling of ventricular mechanics. His major research interests since then have been modelling many aspects of the human body using specially developed computational algorithms and an anatomically and biophysically based approach which incorporates detailed anatomical and microstructural measurements and material properties into the continuum models. The interrelated electrical, mechanical and biochemical functions of the heart, for example, have been modelled in the first ‘physiome’ model of an organ. He is currently a Professor of Engineering Science, Director of the Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland, and a Director of Computational Physiology at Oxford University. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

     Prof. Tranquillo received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1986 from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Mathematical Biology at Oxford for one year before beginning his appointment in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at the University of Minnesota in 1987. He has served as the head of the new Department of Biomedical Engineering since its inception in 2000. Prof. Tranquillo has used a combined modeling and experimental approach to understand cell behavior, in particular, directed cell migration and cell-matrix mechanical interactions. More recently, his research program has focused on the role of cell behavior in cardiovascular and neural tissue engineering applications. His research has resulted in over 70 peer-reviewed publications. Prof. Tranquillo is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering Society, and a Distinguished McKnight University Professor.

     Dr. Richard Ehman is Professor of Radiology at the Mayo Clinic and serves as vice-chair of the Mayo Clinic Rochester Executive Board and is a member of the Mayo Clinic Board of Governors and the Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees.
     He divides his time between clinical practice, education, and research. His main clinical activity is Magnetic Resonance Imaging. His research program is focused on developing new imaging technologies.  He received his M.D. from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada in 1979, completed residency training in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Calgary in 1983 and then undertook a research fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He joined the Mayo Clinic staff in 1985.
     Dr. Ehman has been Principal Investigator of several NIH grants and holds more than 30 US and foreign patents for his inventions. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in 1995 for his research contributions, an honorary Doctor of Science Degree by the University of Saskatchewan in 2000, and the Outstanding Researcher Award of the Radiological Society of North America in 2006.
     He has served as Chair of the Radiology and Nuclear Medicine Study Section of the NIH, and is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the NIH. He is an Associate Editor of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, and a member of the editorial boards of several other journals. He served as President of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in 2002-2003.

     Dr. James G. Fujimoto is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests include the development and application of femtosecond laser technology and studies of ultrafast phenomena. He is also active in biomedical optics, including the development of optical coherence tomography imaging. Dr. Fujimoto was awarded the Baker Award of the National Academy of Sciences in 1990, the Discover Magazine Award for Technological Innovation in medical diagnostics in 1999, and was co-recipient of the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics in 2002. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2001, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002, and the National Academy of Sciences of 2006. Dr. Fujimoto is a Fellow of the OSA, APS, and IEEE. He was program co-chair for the Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics CLEO in 2002 and general co-chair for CLEO in 2004. Dr. Fujimoto has been general co-chair of the SPIE BIOS symposium since 2003 and is co-chair of the conference Coherence Domain Optical Methods in Biomedical Science and Clinical Applications since 2000. He was also co-chair of the European Conferences on Biomedical Optics in 2005. Dr. Fujimoto was a member of the board of directors of the Optical Society of America from 2000 to 2003. Dr. Fujimoto was co-founder of Advanced Ophthalmic Devices, the company that transferred OCT to Carl Zeiss for ophthalmic imaging and co-founder of LightLabs Imaging, a joint venture with Carl Zeiss in the area of endoscopic and cardiovascular OCT imaging that was acquired by Goodman, Ltd. in 2002.

     Dr. Schwartz received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1984. He then went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he worked with Dr. Apostolos Georgopoulos, who was developing the concept of directional tuning and population-based movement representation in the motor cortex. In 1988, Dr. Schwartz began his independent research career at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. There, he developed a paradigm to explore the continuous cortical signals generated throughout volitional arm movements. This was done using monkeys trained to draw shapes while recording single-cell activity from their motor cortices. After developing the ability to capture a high fidelity representation of movement intention from the motor cortex, Dr. Schwartz teamed up with engineering colleagues at Arizona State University to develop cortical neural prosthetics. The work has progressed to the point that monkeys can now use these recorded signals to control motorized arm prostheses to reach out grasp a piece of food and return it to the mouth. Dr. Schwartz moved from the Barrow Neurological Institute to the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego in 1995 and then to the University of Pittsburgh in 2002, where he is a Professor of Neurobiology. In addition to the prosthetics work, he continues to use systems approaches to study basic mechanisms of volitional performance.