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Dr. Marie Egan is a Professor of Pediatrics (Respiratory) and Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University. She also serves as a Director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center, Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pediatrics, and Interim Chief of Pediatric Pulmonary Allergy Immunology and Sleep Medicine at Yale University. Her primary research interest is Cystic Fibrosis with a focus on developing strategies to correct the basic CFTR defect via small molecules and gene editing to correct the mutation. She received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and completed her pediatric internship, residency, and pulmonary fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

Dr. Akiko Iwasaki is a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of immune defense against viruses at mucosal surfaces, and the development of mucosal vaccine strategies. She is the co-Lead Investigator of the Yale COVID-19 Recovery Study, which aims to determine the changes in the immune response of people with long COVID after vaccination. Akiko also leads multiple other studies to interrogate the pathobiology of long COVID, both in patients, and through developing animal models of long COVID. Additionally, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019, to the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2021, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. Akiko received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in Canada and conducted her postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Alexandra (Alex) Piotrowski-Daspit is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Internal Medicine – Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Division at the University of Michigan. Alex received her bachelor’s degree in Chemical-Biological Engineering and Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her Ph.D. in Chemical & Biological Engineering from Princeton University. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University under Dr. Saltzman developing the PACE polymer delivery platform. Her independent research group at the University of Michigan harnesses expertise in chemical/biomedical engineering, biomaterials, genetics, and drug delivery to develop therapeutic strategies for hereditary disorders such as cystic fibrosis.

Dr. W. Mark Saltzman is the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at Yale University. His research interests include materials for controlled drug delivery, drug delivery to the brain, and tissue engineering. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University and Cornell University and, after joining the Yale faculty in 2002, was named the first Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Mark has published more than 150 research papers, authored 3 books, edited 3 books, and he is an inventor on 10 patents. He received a B.S. at Iowa State University and a Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Matt Simon is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Admissions, Biochemistry, Quantitative Biology, and Biophysics and Structural Biology (BQBS) at Yale University. His group’s research focuses on developing new chemical and biochemical means of investigating regulated gene expression at the level of chromatin and RNA biology. Matt received a B.S. in Biochemistry from Tufts University and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California Berkeley.